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

A Dub in Glasgo

https://twitter.com/RP131/status/1274700200276381702

Joe_ Public

Hancock had a few pearlers on ridge and marr this morning.

*Blamed apple for their app not working and even had a dig at them regarding terrorism. Picking a fight there i doubt he will be able to win.

*Then actually seemed to claim that the app had been a success after all, on basis it had been trialled on isle of wight. "The pm said it would be up and running by June 1. We did that....early."

So not just a success, but AHEAD of target. Wow.

*Deflected the usual question about blame but quickly added a rider, suggesting that the uk needed to look at "how open a country we are and how much engagement we have around the world."

Sounded like he was both blaming immigrants for their dismal performance as well as questioning "Global Britain." I wonder if that's standard party policy?

RobMc59

A Dub in Glasgo wrote: »

My post did not criticise the UK govt or called it reckless. It is abundantly clear that a service based economy cannot operate with 2m social distance which makes the debacle around contact tracing unforgiveable

However, without proper contact tracing in place, it may be regarded as reckless

That's a fair point and I'd agree that the UK response to date regarding contact tracing has been very disappointing.
However,as we have seen elsewhere you can't cover every eventuality,even Germany is experiencing a rise in infection rates.

declanflynn

RobMc59 wrote: »

The UK has consistently been criticised on this thread for not following WHO advice but when it appears they are going to follow guidelines in regards to social distancing they are regarded as reckless.

Rob a lot of posters on here are just messing with your head, the uk have done a fantastic job dealing with covid19 and are an example to the whole world, britain is always best.

theological

Interestingly England is the only part of the UK that hasn't stated plans to allow for weddings. Wales are permitting this on Monday, and Scotland will be permitting this on June 29th. Northern Ireland permitted this a few weeks ago.

Apparently the UK will be entering phase 3 of the easing on the 4th of July. Matt Hancock has said the UK is ready for this as a result of the reduction in the alert level. This would mean that pubs and restaurants will re-open cautiously. Registration on entry will be required.

All moving in the right direction. Fewer than 1 in 1700 have the virus according to the ONS survey. The COVID Zoe tracker shows that 139,623 people have active coronavirus. This is a continued reduction.

declanflynn

theological wrote: »

Interestingly England is the only part of the UK that hasn't stated plans to allow for weddings. Wales are permitting this on Monday, and Scotland will be permitting this on June 29th. Northern Ireland permitted this a few weeks ago.

Apparently the UK will be entering phase 3 of the easing on the 4th of July. Matt Hancock has said the UK is ready for this as a result of the reduction in the alert level. This would mean that pubs and restaurants will re-open cautiously. Registration on entry will be required.

All moving in the right direction. Fewer than 1 in 1700 have the virus. The COVID Zoe tracker shows that 139,623 people have active coronavirus. This is a continued reduction.

I hope you dont believe everything he says.
He said its Apple's fault the uk doesn't have its 'world beating contract tracing app and running !

S.M.B.

Hope the pub registration involves a bit more than just writing down some fake name and number when you walk in the door.

Peregrinus

S.M.B. wrote: »

Hope the pub registration involves a bit more than just writing down some fake name and number when you walk in the door.

Why would you give a fake name and number? Serious question.

Muahahaha

Peregrinus wrote: »

Why would you give a fake name and number? Serious question.

At a guess people who dont want to be traced to a location for various reasons ranging from criminality to having an affair and meeting their mistress, it goes on.

S.M.B.

S.M.B. wrote: »

Hope the pub registration involves a bit more than just writing down some fake name and number when you walk in the door.

What do you propose? A background check?

S.M.B.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Why would you give a fake name and number? Serious question.

I won't be giving a fake name but I also rigidly followed lockdown rules for the past few months. I know there's a large cohort of people, who have not followed rules as rigidly as me and I believe there to be a sizeable overlap between this group and those who would be chomping at the bit to get back to socialising with friends and a pub.

I simply hope that the other tools being introduced to aid with the reduction of the 2m rule are not half assed and easy to bypass. Maybe I'm being too pessimistic.

I'm hearing anecdotal stories of strict measures changing within hours within the retail industry.

S.M.B.

Deleted User wrote: »

What do you propose? A background check?

Show your ID and show a confirmation SMS on your phone to gain entry to the premises?

If my safety relies heavily on monitoring small outbreaks as a result of easing of restrictions and measures I'd prefer something a little more thorough that someone with a pen and paper at the front door a rammed pub late on a Saturday night.

Peregrinus

The purpose of getting names and addresses isn't to identify the person who brought the virus into the pub/cafe/restaurant. It's to identify the people who came in without it but may have left with it.

Joe Bloggs gets sick, has a CV19 test, tests positive. Conventional contact-tracing practice involves asking him where he lives, and with whom; where he works, and with whom; where he has visited or socialised; and with whom.

He reports that the day before he became symptomatic he had lunch in Danny's Greasy Spoon between 12:30 and 1:00, but of course he has no idea who of the identity of most or all of the people who were lunching there at the same time. The register is consulted, and everybody who clocked in between those hours gets a call or a text message to say "You have spent some time in close proximity with a probably infectious person; get yourself tested, and isolate yourself until you get the results. And think about who you, in turn, might need to tell about this, or who you might want to avoid until your own test results come back."

The only reason for not giving your name and phone number is, basically, that if you are exposed to infection you don't wish to know about it, and you don't really care about people who might in turn get the disease from you.

S.M.B.

S.M.B. wrote: »

Hope the pub registration involves a bit more than just writing down some fake name and number when you walk in the door.

What do you propose? A background check?

S.M.B.

Peregrinus wrote: »

The only reason for not giving your name and phone number is, basically, that if you are exposed to infection you don't wish to know about it, and you don't really care about people who might in turn get the disease from you.

Yeah, I get all this and unfortunately I feel there is a sizeable group of people who feel like this based on my observation over the past few months and there is a large over lap between this group of people and those who would want to frequent bars and nightclubs.

(not saying everyone who goes to a pub will behave this way but I do have my concerns that those who act selfishly will have a larger effect on the spread of the virus compared to now)

In saying this out loud, I realise if someone has little concern about their actions, then them handing over a valid phone number and name will make little difference as at the end of the day, if they get alerted about being in the proximity of an infected punter, it's up to them to take action to reduce the consequences.

robinph

Plenty of apps that could easily remarket themselves for that kind of tracing. All the social networking apps where people would checkin to various places when out and about could be repurposed for it.

Scan a QR code on entering or leaving the pub, your app keeps that information on your own phone, nobody else ever needs to know about your movements. Someone gets tested and says they went to X pub, the NHS get the app to mark a time that person was there and next time the app on your phone gets online you get an alert that you should probably isolate and maybe get a test.

It's basically what the contact tracing apps would be doing anyway, but requires a bit more interaction from the individual to log where they have been and on which busses... So would obviously never work.

theological

robinph wrote: »

Plenty of apps that could easily remarket themselves for that kind of tracing. All the social networking apps where people would checkin to various places when out and about could be repurposed for it.

Scan a QR code on entering or leaving the pub, your app keeps that information on your own phone, nobody else ever needs to know about your movements. Someone gets tested and says they went to X pub, the NHS get the app to mark a time that person was there and next time the app on your phone gets online you get an alert that you should probably isolate and maybe get a test.

It's basically what the contact tracing apps would be doing anyway, but requires a bit more interaction from the individual to log where they have been and on which busses... So would obviously never work.

Tim Martin is going to be happy that he already developed an app for Wetherspoons for table service. I suspect some of the other big chains have this also. I know that a few restaurants have this in place also.

It could be genuinely a possibility for those that already have this stuff in place to simply say please come and order with the app and then pay with the app and we'll serve you that way. Then you'll have a record of whoever ordered something during the day.

Still, having said that I'm not particularly bothered to go to a pub or a restaurant while this thing is still circulating. I reckon I'm not alone in this either, it'll take the government a while to get the economy back to where it was before this all started.

Peregrinus

Peregrinus wrote: »

............. The register is consulted, and everybody who clocked in between those hours gets a call or a text message to say "You have spent some time in close proximity with a probably infectious person; get yourself tested, and isolate yourself until you get the results. ...........

Test should be mandatory in these cases.

I don't think I'll frequent restaurants etc unless the number of new cases per day remains in the <50 range tbh.

plodder

Joe_ Public wrote: »

Hancock had a few pearlers on ridge and marr this morning.

*Blamed apple for their app not working and even had a dig at them regarding terrorism. Picking a fight there i doubt he will be able to win.

*Then actually seemed to claim that the app had been a success after all, on basis it had been trialled on isle of wight. "The pm said it would be up and running by June 1. We did that....early."

They've been pushing the line that they will work together with Apple and use the best bits of both, and improve the Apple technology. But, it seems Apple don't know what they are on about.

I've seen that kind of thing happen before where someone runs into a dead-end design wise with a technology and they back out of it by saying they will combine what they have with whatever the right solution was.

Compare with the German govt. (and indeed our own) who just expressed (differing degrees of) frustration with Apple and Google several weeks ago, but saw the writing on the wall, and just got on with it.

The level of spin from the UK govt. is so transparent.

So not just a success, but AHEAD of target. Wow.

*Deflected the usual question about blame but quickly added a rider, suggesting that the uk needed to look at "how open a country we are and how much engagement we have around the world."

Sounded like he was both blaming immigrants for their dismal performance as well as questioning "Global Britain." I wonder if that's standard party policy?

robinph

Augeo wrote: »

Test should be mandatory in these cases.

I don't think I'll frequent restaurants etc unless the number of new cases per day remains in the <50 range tbh.

Less than 50 out of how many?

The Kings College data claims that there is around 30 new cases per million in my region. If these people don't yet know they have it, or never do know they have it, but they are only contagious for 7 or even 14 days then that is still only meaning that there are a couple of hundred people per million that you could possibly meet and catch anything from. If some proportion of those develop symptoms then assume that they remove themselves from circulation and so are no longer possibly going to be infecting anyone.

Bit of sensible social distancing and not being an idiot then what is the real problem?

S.M.B.

theological wrote: »

Still, having said that I'm not particularly bothered to go to a pub or a restaurant while this thing is still circulating. I reckon I'm not alone in this either, it'll take the government a while to get the economy back to where it was before this all started.

I feel the same. I don't necessarily have issues with the hospitality industry opening up again but I'd want to have a lot more faith in the underlying track and trace system in order to be 100% comfortable in mingling with others indoors for pleasure purposes.

Some more advanced regional real time reporting of numbers would help too.

Sheep_shear

Enzokk wrote: »

And just another on the quarantine, it always seemed fanciful to me that the UK was trying to portray themselves as somehow better and trying to keep the virus out of their superior country, when in fact they are the outlier that the rest of Europe wants to keep out.

https://twitter.com/BenPBradshaw/status/1270962895262711809?s=20

And inevitably, a week or so later - "UK tourists will be able to visit Spain without having to quarantine on arrival from Sunday, Spanish officials say." - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53122825

A Dub in Glasgo

https://twitter.com/RP131/status/1275062792114958338

quokula

Peregrinus wrote: »

The purpose of getting names and addresses isn't to identify the person who brought the virus into the pub/cafe/restaurant. It's to identify the people who came in without it but may have left with it.

Joe Bloggs gets sick, has a CV19 test, tests positive. Conventional contact-tracing practice involves asking him where he lives, and with whom; where he works, and with whom; where he has visited or socialised; and with whom.

He reports that the day before he became symptomatic he had lunch in Danny's Greasy Spoon between 12:30 and 1:00, but of course he has no idea who of the identity of most or all of the people who were lunching there at the same time. The register is consulted, and everybody who clocked in between those hours gets a call or a text message to say "You have spent some time in close proximity with a probably infectious person; get yourself tested, and isolate yourself until you get the results. And think about who you, in turn, might need to tell about this, or who you might want to avoid until your own test results come back."

The only reason for not giving your name and phone number is, basically, that if you are exposed to infection you don't wish to know about it, and you don't really care about people who might in turn get the disease from you.

I agree with all of this in theory.

In practice, with the record of the government to date, I expect all the data on what premises you've been to and when to end up in the hands of companies connected to the Tories or Dominic Cummings, for use to profile you and monetise you.

In the meantime the contact tracers will probably be under resourced and poorly managed and not get around to contacting people using any of this data until enough time has passed so it's too late anyway.

Peregrinus

quokula wrote: »

I agree with all of this in theory.

In practice, with the record of the government to date, I expect all the data on what premises you've been to and when to end up in the hands of companies connected to the Tories or Dominic Cummings, for use to profile you and monetise you.

In the meantime the contact tracers will probably be under resourced and poorly managed and not get around to contacting people using any of this data until enough time has passed so it's too late anyway.

The data is not initially in the nands of government; it's in the hands of individual bar/cafe operators. It only gets passed to contact tracers if an infected person reports having visited the premises while presumptively infectious.

Even then, it's handrwritten information - just names and phone numbers. It can be laboriously manually entered into a digital system, but there seems little benefit, since the names do not have to be full names, or even real names. Even Cummings' friends would find it hard to monetise the knowledge that someone who goes by the nickname of Quokula was in Joe's Greasy Spoon on Tuesday at lunchtime.

Conventional contact tracing yields far richer data - your proper name, who you live with, where you work, who you work with, how you get to work, who your friends are. And it doesn't have to be laboriously transcribed from an illegible scrawl in a grease-spotted notebook. I think you may be right to worry about how a government might use this data, but completely wrong to focus on the cafe sign-in as the problem.

kalych

Peregrinus wrote: »

Conventional contact tracing yields far richer data - your proper name, who you live with, where you work, who you work with, how you get to work, who your friends are. And it doesn't have to be laboriously transcribed from an illegible scrawl in a grease-spotted notebook. I think you may be right to worry about how a government might use this data, but completely wrong to focus on the cafe sign-in as the problem.

The data can either be useful for identifying (tracing) individuals, in which case it can be monetized (abused) or it is not. In first instance it is not fit for purpose, in the second it is open for abuse and not only by the government by by each individual shop owner should they wish to sell it. Is there any merit in this system at all in your view?

Peregrinus

kalych wrote: »

The data can either be useful for identifying (tracing) individuals, in which case it can be monetized (abused) or it is not. In first instance it is not fit for purpose, in the second it is open for abuse and not only by the government by by each individual shop owner should they wish to sell it. Is there any merit in this system at all in your view?

There's an obvious merit; it's a method of contact-tracing that can capture the kind of potentially infectious interactions between strangers that are common in an urban environment.

And you're wrong to say that tracing individuals necessarily involves identifying them; it need not. In the example I already gave, a contact-tracer could telephone Quokula to tell him that he had been exposed to CV19 and should be tested; he can do this without knowing whether Quokula is his real name or even knowing that it is not. The system requires Quokula to give a real telephone number, but not a real name.

(FWIW, the same is true of the contact-tracing app in use here in Australia. For the app to be functional you have to register it, but you can register with a name invented for the purpose if you wish.)

kalych

Peregrinus wrote: »

There's an obvious merit; it's a method of contact-tracing that can capture the kind of potentially infectious interactions between strangers that are common in an urban environment.

And you're wrong to say that tracing individuals necessarily involves identifying them; it need not. In the example I already gave, a contact-tracer could telephone Quokula to tell him that he had been exposed to CV19 and should be tested; he can do this without knowing whether Quokula is his real name or even knowing that it is not. The system requires Quokula to give a real telephone number, but not a real name.

(FWIW, the same is true of the contact-tracing app in use here in Australia. For the app to be functional you have to register it, but you can register with a name invented for the purpose if you wish.)

How do they ensure the number is right though?
Similarly, in the case you mention above it's not a very effective form of contract tracing since it could yield a large percentage of false-positives (people giving a random phone number resulting in calls made to wrong people - worst case scenario) and simply numbers that don't exist, resulting in loose ends.

That's before we mention how to regulate this in relation to minors and vulnerable people leaving contact information behind. It sounds like a thousand accidents waiting to happen to me.

Peregrinus

What do you mean by "right"?

kalych

Peregrinus wrote: »

What do you mean by "right"?

The right number to call to be able to relay to Quokula the news of his potential untimely demise should he not get tested and begin treatment soon. 🙂