The UK response to Covid-19 [MOD WARNING 1ST POST]

tritriagain

S.M.B. wrote: »

Could you find somewhere to quarantine for two weeks on returning? Sounds like it is worth considering but a lot would depend on what exactly you'd be doing when over here.

The class consists of 7 others plus 2 tutors. I would be going by ferry and staying in hotel. I would keep to myself as much as possible i.e have my dinner and up to room. I really want to do it but am being put under pressure by family... Some want me to go others don't. Quarantine would consist of coming home and staying home but family would be present

S.M.B.

I wouldn't see any major issue in going based on that info. Everything right now is a risk/reward decision and doing a course that is going to get you back in the workplace sounds like a pretty positive step to take. Trying to identify the risk is a trickier task but your plans sound pretty low risk to me. Not sure if you could come up with a means of trying to distance yourself as much as possible for two weeks when you are back in the family home.

S.M.B.

On a slightly different note:

Inside Westminster’s coronavirus blame game

Interestingly it says Cummings was the man to give everyone a good kick up the arse when nobody wanted to consider the lockdown.

moritz1234

Any one know the R rate in the UK ?

theological

moritz1234 wrote: »

Any one know the R rate in the UK ?

KCL are suggesting it is 1.2. They have their extra data on the app for contributors.

Joe_ Public

S.M.B. wrote: »

On a slightly different note:

Inside Westminster’s coronavirus blame game

Interestingly it says Cummings was the man to give everyone a good kick up the arse when nobody wanted to consider the lockdown.

Dont think it's news that cummings was pushing for lockdown before johnson and other senior government figures. Shipman reported that in the ST back in April. I suppose the population should give thanks for that small mercy. I think the view that economy was critical and that the people would not support lockdown had become entrenched and there was a reluctance among the scientists to go against that grain. That was a problem. Cummings may have been right in pressing for the lockdown but that doesn't mean it was right for him to have had such a prominent role at sage meetings, throwing his weight around. It wasnt.

tritriagain

tritriagain wrote: »

The class consists of 7 others plus 2 tutors. I would be going by ferry and staying in hotel. I would keep to myself as much as possible i.e have my dinner and up to room. I really want to do it but am being put under pressure by family... Some want me to go others don't. Quarantine would consist of coming home and staying home but family would be present

You said before that this is going to help you get back into the workforce having been made redundant. That seems pretty persuasive to me, and I would definitely be going, especially given the way that you are going to behave when you are there. You need to have a talk about the risk, by the sounds of it, with certain members of your family, but if I were you I would certainly be going

Because of how Boris handled it, people have the impression that the UK is on fire. It is not. There is some divergence by town. Perhaps worth looking at that to support your conversation with your more risk averse family members. Breakdowns are all available online. The travelling is as close to zero risk as you can realistically get.....the ferries are empty

robinph

tritriagain wrote: »

The class consists of 7 others plus 2 tutors. I would be going by ferry and staying in hotel. I would keep to myself as much as possible i.e have my dinner and up to room. I really want to do it but am being put under pressure by family... Some want me to go others don't. Quarantine would consist of coming home and staying home but family would be present

Once you are not going to the pub or any orgies whilst in the UK there really isn't that much additional risk if you just behave sensibly. Don't spend long duration in small badly ventilated areas with a large group of strangers, if chatting with people on the course then do so outside, wash your hands and don't cough on people or be coughed on by people.

If the family is being particularly nervous then stick a tent up in the back garden and kip in there for a week on return, or just wear a mask about the house and eat alone.

robinph

robinph wrote: »

Once you are not going to the pub or any orgies whilst in the UK

:eek:

S.M.B.

Joe_ Public wrote: »

Dont think it's news that cummings was pushing for lockdown before johnson and other senior government figures. Shipman reported that in the ST back in April. I suppose the population should give thanks for that small mercy. I think the view that economy was critical and that the people would not support lockdown had become entrenched and there was a reluctance among the scientists to go against that grain. That was a problem. Cummings may have been right in pressing for the lockdown but that doesn't mean it was right for him to have had such a prominent role at sage meetings, throwing his weight around. It wasnt.

I must have missed it and only seen the Cummings said he wanted Herd Immunity story which he denies.

Joe_ Public

S.M.B. wrote: »

I must have missed it and only seen the Cummings said he wanted Herd Immunity story which he denies.

Oh yeah he denies that alright and wouldn't be surprised if there's a line in one of his tortuous blog posts outlining how he was apparently against herd immunity all along!

ThatsNotMyCat

Irish living in UK... would also agree you should do your course and just take the same precautions you would take at home. Especially given it will help you with job prospects etc. Obviously the virus is more prevalent here but if you socially distance and take the right precautions I really think you would be extremely unlucky to catch it.

Enzokk

S.M.B. wrote: »

On a slightly different note:

Inside Westminster’s coronavirus blame game

Interestingly it says Cummings was the man to give everyone a good kick up the arse when nobody wanted to consider the lockdown.

Still took them a week to lockdown before Cummings seemed to have seen the light. That week, as one of the advisers said, cost about 20 000 lives. They were all messing about and believing in their own exceptionalism before they woke up.

robinph

... And Cummings then seemingly forgot all about the whole lockdown thing, traipsing across London between infected workplace and infected home, then drove the length of the country with an infected family ... Well we know the rest.

robinph

Have they released todays figures yet?

They have been hovering around low numbers on some days for the last week, including I think zero hospital deaths yesterday. Think they could try to announce a zero deaths day tomorrow as an additional dead cat in addition to todays dead cat of Shamima Begum. Really hope the Russia Report tomorrow has something good in it to have made it worth delaying for so long.

theological

robinph wrote: »

Have they released todays figures yet?

They have been hovering around low numbers on some days for the last week, including I think zero hospital deaths yesterday. Think they could try to announce a zero deaths day tomorrow as an additional dead cat in addition to todays dead cat of Shamima Begum. Really hope the Russia Report tomorrow has something good in it to have made it worth delaying for so long.

642 cases, 66 deaths. KCL have updated the daily count to 2,103. It's not a good picture in terms of new cases. The R is pretty certainly above 1.

ThatsNotMyCat

Where do you find the KCL data?

theological

ThatsNotMyCat wrote: »

Where do you find the KCL data?

I keep rabbiting on about it because it is pretty good. Their link is here.

Data on the R rate in different regions is available when you contribute on the app. I'd recommend anyone in the UK to do so.

theological

theological wrote: »

642 cases, 66 deaths. KCL have updated the daily count to 2,103. It's not a good picture in terms of new cases. The R is pretty certainly above 1.

The thing is that the cases have been at that level or higher for weeks, and hospital admissions have continued to decline. Surely we are now past the lag which would see the cases translate into hospital admission, if not yet deaths. I don’t know what the explanation is other than there has been more testing of younger lightly symptomatic or asymptomatic people

theological

Deleted User wrote: »

The thing is that the cases have been at that level or higher for weeks, and hospital admissions have continued to decline. Surely we are now past the lag which would see the cases translate into hospital admission, if not yet deaths. I don’t know what the explanation is other than there has been more testing of younger lightly symptomatic or asymptomatic people

Numbers of deaths are definitely going to continue coming down, but deaths are really a picture of a number of weeks ago, as are hospital admissions.

Cases are at the start of the funnel. The number of active cases of the virus at any one time will also give a picture as to what admissions and deaths may look like later on.

If we continue with 10 people infecting 12 more that means that things could pick up again if it isn't controlled carefully. Hopefully the localised measures will work because we don't want to start the autumn and winter with much more cases again.

Dave0301

Patrick Vallance being questioned by the science & technology committee today.

He appears to be answering fairly honestly so far on lockdown and care home measures.

https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1283769617001979905

theological

theological wrote: »

Numbers of deaths are definitely going to continue coming down, but deaths are really a picture of a number of weeks ago, as are hospital admissions.

Cases are at the start of the funnel. The number of active cases of the virus at any one time will also give a picture as to what admissions and deaths may look like later on.

If we continue with 10 people infecting 12 more that means that things could pick up again if it isn't controlled carefully. Hopefully the localised measures will work because we don't want to start the autumn and winter with much more cases again.

I understand how it works re infections to hospital to deaths. But it has been a number of weeks with infections at this level or higher and admissions are still declining. I would have thought that that would be enough time to see the infections feed through to hospital admissions. The lag is not an indefinite time period

S.M.B.

theological wrote: »

I keep rabbiting on about it because it is pretty good. Their link is here.

Data on the R rate in different regions is available when you contribute on the app. I'd recommend anyone in the UK to do so.

I'm struggling to find the information you say this website/app provides after investigating further.

Where exactly can you get the different region information when you contribute?

theological

S.M.B. wrote: »

I'm struggling to find the information you say this website/app provides after investigating further.

Where exactly can you get the different region information when you contribute?

After you contribute on the app, it brings you to a page with a link:

"New: for app users only. Location of positive test results reported over last 2 weeks".

Then on this page it has charts with the latest results and charts. On each chart you can see the R number.

On the bottom of this page you can see "View full report sent to the government" also.

Edit: Scratch that, the link is generally available.

S.M.B.

I didn't spot it as its under a cta labeled Cases in my area?

So that page was publicly available, just not explicitly linked to via their site.

bob mcbob

Another day, another dodgy contract allocated to one of the Brexit boys goes tits up. This ones not important, just covid tests at a cost of £133M.

Randox employs the Conservative politician Owen Paterson as a £100,000-a-year consultant. The former cabinet minister and leading Brexit supporter has been a consultant since 2015.

Previously Randox has not responded to questions about whether Paterson was involved in securing the contract. The Guardian did not receive a response when it asked Paterson for a response.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/16/uk-government-orders-halt-randox-covid-19-tests-over-safety-issues

Harry Palmr

They seem to be making hard work of the local lockdown in Leicester. Using a bureaucratic/administrative
approach to it rather than looking where the hot spots are and isolating those areas.

Joe_ Public

bob mcbob wrote: »

Another day, another dodgy contract allocated to one of the Brexit boys goes tits up. This ones not important, just covid tests at a cost of £133M.

Randox employs the Conservative politician Owen Paterson as a £100,000-a-year consultant. The former cabinet minister and leading Brexit supporter has been a consultant since 2015.

Previously Randox has not responded to questions about whether Paterson was involved in securing the contract. The Guardian did not receive a response when it asked Paterson for a response.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/16/uk-government-orders-halt-randox-covid-19-tests-over-safety-issues

Not forgetting the 67,000 randox sourced tests which had to be shipped to the States, of which almost half were subsequently binned. Or the fact that Paterson's wife is on the board of Aintree racecourse, home of the Grand National sponsored by none other than....Randox Ltd. A grim catalogue of mind boggling incompetence and small minded cronyism with lives of vulnerable people at stake.

RobMc59

According to this Canadian link Russia is doing its utmost to snoop on the nations leading the charge for a vaccine.
http://globalnews.ca/news/7183585/russian-hackers-target-canada-u-s-and-u-k-covid-19-vaccine-research-intelligence-agency-says/

A Dub in Glasgo

https://twitter.com/BBCDouglasF/status/1283751998270115840

The Scottish Governments Kate Forbes called this correctly last week and was derided, dismissed and summarily ignored just because she is a young member of the Scottish Government. A lot of egg on those unionist faces now but they will not care, they got their 'headline' last week

BonnieSituation

theological wrote: »

I keep rabbiting on about it because it is pretty good. Their link is here.

Data on the R rate in different regions is available when you contribute on the app. I'd recommend anyone in the UK to do so.

Speaking of apps. I know we had our run ins about it when the UKGov were acting the maggot with their "world leading spyware" they were launching originally.

I have been using the HSE app and find it great, simple and encourages engagement everyday. The Readme(s) got a thorough going over from this end before I downloaded it and encouraged others to do the same.

I was wondering if you've had a look or compared it etc given your obvious interest (and Irishness).

And if so, how does it compare with what Britain have now?

BonnieSituation

A Dub in Glasgo wrote: »

https://twitter.com/BBCDouglasF/status/1283751998270115840

The Scottish Governments Kate Forbes called this correctly last week and was derided, dismissed and summarily ignored just because she is a young member of the Scottish Government. A lot of egg on those unionist faces now but they will not care, they got their 'headline' last week

That's always the way with unionist attitudes to Scotland and indeed Ireland.

It's always about the "headline today". The news is moving so fast that any correction or retraction won't matter in the end. It's infuriating but that's the world under the thumb of England.

Quite simply, appearing to doing something is more important to the Tories at ALL times. Whether it works or not or is even in the end more detrimental, it doesn't matter.

Did we ever get a handle on those deliveries from Turkey?


Exactly.

Joe_ Public

BonnieSituation wrote: »

Speaking of apps. I know we had our run ins about it when the UKGov were acting the maggot with their "world leading spyware" they were launching originally.

I have been using the HSE app and find it great, simple and encourages engagement everyday. The Readme(s) got a thorough going over from this end before I downloaded it and encouraged others to do the same.

I was wondering if you've had a look or compared it etc given your obvious interest (and Irishness).

And if so, how does it compare with what Britain have now?

I'm a complete technophobe so out of my depth but i do know they are being helped out on their app by the Germans and there is a version of the Germany corona warn app available for download across the uk. As to how effective it is in a uk context, i cant say. Not seen much advertising for it or people talking about downloading it so seems rather doubtful to say the least.

theological

BonnieSituation wrote: »

Speaking of apps. I know we had our run ins about it when the UKGov were acting the maggot with their "world leading spyware" they were launching originally.

I have been using the HSE app and find it great, simple and encourages engagement everyday. The Readme(s) got a thorough going over from this end before I downloaded it and encouraged others to do the same.

I was wondering if you've had a look or compared it etc given your obvious interest (and Irishness).

And if so, how does it compare with what Britain have now?

I've not got a lot to add on this. It's disappointing that the UK doesn't have a contact tracing app. I've been pretty clear that that is disappointing. The primary reason it is disappointing is that a manual track and trace service is only so effective. It requires people to have a good mental memory of who they were in contact with. A digital source of truth in combination with mental memory would be much more effective.

The KCL app isn't a contact tracing app. It is an app where people can contribute towards building a model to estimate the number of live cases of coronavirus in the community. It's pretty helpful.

So the KCL app can't be compared with a contact tracing app because they don't do the same thing.

I haven't used the Irish app because I'm not likely to be in Ireland for the rest of this calendar year at least I suspect. If I was in Ireland I would definitely use it.

RobMc59

An interesting article in the independent suggesting that herd immunity may actually work for the UK in a second wave.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-herd-immunity-second-wave-oxford-study-boris-johnson-a9623791.html

A Dub in Glasgo

RobMc59 wrote: »

An interesting article in the independent suggesting that herd immunity may actually work for the UK in a second wave.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-herd-immunity-second-wave-oxford-study-boris-johnson-a9623791.html

Stopped reading when the article stated 'in a paper yet to be peer-reviewed'

Joe_ Public

In relation to the app, they went from it being absolutely integral to the battle against the virus to being not much of a big deal when it was clear they'd botched it, a mere "cherry on Dido's cake".

So which is it? More likely the former, if research conducted on the Isle of Wight trials is any guide:

"The analysis shows that the app reached a far higher number of potential cases and contacts than manual contact tracing. Between the 6 May and 26 May, 160 cases on the Isle of Wight were reported to manual contact tracing, resulting in 163 individuals receiving a notification and request to self-isolate. During the same period 1,524 people reported symptoms to the app resulting in 1,188 receiving an exposure notification.

“You can see straight away that you have the potential for a digital platform to work much faster and at scale,” said Kendall. “What you’d like to know is how many actually developed symptoms or were infections that were taken out of the epidemic.”

Dave0301

I see Hancock has ordered an urgent review into how PHE have been recording deaths, and that people that tested for Covid-19 but died later of natural causes had it recorded as a cause of death.

It is unlikely to impact on the figures much for the April/May but may explain why deaths have not come down as quickly as other countries in the last few weeks. I view anything they do with such cynicism these days though that I can't help but think it is another deflection from them. Also, give the excess deaths for countries all over the world, it gives a much better view of the impact of the virus.

bob mcbob

theological wrote: »

After you contribute on the app, it brings you to a page with a link:

"New: for app users only. Location of positive test results reported over last 2 weeks".

Then on this page it has charts with the latest results and charts. On each chart you can see the R number.

On the bottom of this page you can see "View full report sent to the government" also.

Edit: Scratch that, the link is generally available.

Sorry this must be wrong - in this all regions except the Midlands are reporting the R rate at 1 or above. But in Boris's press conference, he has just stated -

Johnson says the R rate is between 0.7 and 0.9.

I’m pleased to report that we’ve continued to make steady progress in our collective effort to beat the coronavirus. For three weeks now the number of new cases identified through testing, each day has been below 1,000.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/jul/17/uk-coronavirus-live-boris-johnson-3bn-plan-nhs-battle-ready-for-winter-second-wave

As always he is always guided by the science.

Joe_ Public

Dave0301 wrote: »

I see Hancock has ordered an urgent review into how PHE have been recording deaths, and that people that tested for Covid-19 but died later of natural causes had it recorded as a cause of death.

It is unlikely to impact on the figures much for the April/May but may explain why deaths have not come down as quickly as other countries in the last few weeks. I view anything they do with such cynicism these days though that I can't help but think it is another deflection from them. Also, give the excess deaths for countries all over the world, it gives a much better view of the impact of the virus.

While he's at it perhaps Matt could have a stab at estimating how many thousand care home deaths due to corona went unreported because they weren't being tested.

A Dub in Glasgo

https://twitter.com/RogueCoder250/status/1284086825036939267

RobMc59

A Dub in Glasgo wrote: »

Stopped reading when the article stated 'in a paper yet to be peer-reviewed'

Hmmm...dismissive attitude to this link yet continuously posting Twitter links...ok...

A Dub in Glasgo

RobMc59 wrote: »

Hmmm...dismissive attitude to this link yet continuously posting Twitter links...ok...

Dismissive about an article hailing a science paper that has yet to be peer reviewed - absolutely

Posting twitter links to a question put to the UK Prime Minister and his answer - absolutely

A Dub in Glasgo

https://twitter.com/RP131/status/1284146189429022721

UK govt starting to look at non-hospital deaths - looks like they do no even understand the criteria for counting a death outside of hospital, surely they are not that incompetent?

robinph

Seems that they have just realised that PHE are counting anyone who has tested positive at any point and then dies of anything at all as a Covid19 death. So someone tested and recovered from back in March but gets run over by a bus today would get added to the covid19 fatalities stats?!?

devnull

robinph wrote: »

Seems that they have just realised that PHE are counting anyone who has tested positive at any point and then dies of anything at all as a Covid19 death. So someone tested and recovered from back in March but gets run over by a bus today would get added to the covid19 fatalities stats?!?

So there's a very easy way around that to ensure you get more accurate figures.

People should only be recorded as a coronavirus related death if COVID-19 is mentioned on their death certificate, that way people where COVID-19 wasn't a factor such as those you describe wouldn't be included.

It's been widely reported by the ONS in the past that the number of people who have had COVID-19 mentioned on their death certificates is higher than the official Department of Health and Social Care totals though.

That's why they probably went for the method they did rather than the death certificate method, since whilst it will lead to people be counted than shouldn't, the overall figures will still be lower than simply going by death certs.

theological

Week on week deaths are still declining. That's good news. Admittedly much slower than any of us would like, but it is good that we're getting to this stage.

Hospital admissions are also steadily declining.

I'm still confused as to why SAGE are concluding the R is 0.7 - 0.9, when KCL are of the mind that it is 1.2. It will be interesting to see if those numbers diverge further as the weeks go on.

CelticRambler

theological wrote: »

Week on week deaths are still declining. That's good news.

Maybe, maybe not. If the UK's experience is following that in the US, the average age of infected patients will be dropping like crazy, so you'll get fewer deaths but a real risk of longer-term health problems (respiratory, neurological and cardio-vascular). The US can ignore those because it's up to the individual to fund their own healthcare, but the UK/NHS could be facing a long future of chronic Covid-19 sequelae in younger people.

And by "younger" I mean in their thirties - that's the average age of hospitalised cases in some parts of the States. I don't think the UK/PHE bothers collecting that kind of data (but perhaps your KCL app does?)

S.M.B.

The KCL app had to change their algorithm recently to not include those showing Covid symptoms for more than two weeks as the assumption is that these are now just long term health issues as opposed to symptoms of being infectious. There must be a large number of people falling into this category as the estimated cases took a big drop after the change.

robinph

S.M.B. wrote: »

The KCL app had to change their algorithm recently to not include those showing Covid symptoms for more than two weeks as the assumption is that these are now just long term health issues as opposed to symptoms of being infectious. There must be a large number of people falling into this category as the estimated cases took a big drop after the change.

Lot more people hanging out in their back gardens rather than air conditioned offices and not realising that they actually had hay-fever. There was some ads I saw doing the rounds online a while ago, possibly Gov ones rather than hay-fever medication ones but can't remember, but telling people that sneezing at a flower wasn't coronavirus basically.