The UK response - Part II - read OP

Do you order it the same way you order a PCR test if you are symptomatic or is it a different service? I can only tell you my experience about the latter which I've had to do numerous times over the past year, mostly on behalf of my nursery aged son. Also worth noting I'm London based as it may differ elsewhere.

Day 0 - Place order

Day 1 - Receive test normally between 12.00 and 14.00. Scramble to get test done before the 15.00 collection at the priority post box across the road.

Day 2 - I once got a result back the evening of day 2.

Day 3 - I mostly received my results back on day 3 but there's the odd time it's arrived in the early hours of the morning of Day 4.

Overall I've been very impressed with the speed of the service.

We don't have to worry about being pinged, as there is no control over Ireland to UK travel and never has been during COVID. At least we don't have to worry about that nonsense.

After some of the loons tried to misread the UK data report last night (while at the same time claiming they stopped running the reports), I came across the bit of information that 98% of adults in the UK have SARS-COV2 antibodies.

This should explain a lot why the UK has been able to open up everything and drop the mandates, effectively SARS-COV2 is no longer novel for them, so the way to live with it is antibody boosters for the vulnerable and treatment, the case counts matter less and less as everyone has been exposed at some point already (via infection or via vaccine).

It also means that any vax/unvax data from the UK doesn't really work anymore as the majority of unvax will likely have antibodies through infection anyway (even the vax/unvax data from young people will start getting skewed more and more by this effect).

The cost was obviously quite high with increased number of deaths, but it has allowed them to open more fully and live unrestricted:

COVID-19 vaccine surveillance report - week 43 (publishing.service.gov.uk)

Would be interesting to see what the % is for Ireland.

Current antibody levels didn't allow the UK open everything up, that decision was made months ago when levels were much lower. I'd imagine antibody rates among adults in Ireland are similar given the vaccine uptake and may even be higher among young adults/teens Ireland given the earlier start in vaccinating 12+.

You could say attribute current antibody levels in the UK to having dropped measures but similarly you have to attribute the deaths to it too which I don't think would reflect well on that policy. The big question is how many deaths will other European countries have to endure to get to the same antibody levels.

I don't get the point about unvaccinated to vaccinated hospitalisation rate (which I'll take your word is accurate). Presumably those figures are just for a very recent point in time and don't tell us much about what went before.

If that rate for the UK a couple of months ago was the same (or higher) than Ireland's currently, when the pool of unvaccinated was much higher, they likely had more people in hospital (causing unnecessary strain) and more deaths. Ireland's higher rate now likely has less negative impact given the level of vaccinations plus boosters given out.

An inquiry in the UK as to why they kept or sent people to care homes is pointless, as you say, and easy to brush under the carpet. Plenty of other issues there more worthy of an inquiry.

A third case of the Omicron coronavirus variant has been detected in the UK, the Health Security Agency has said.

The person is no longer in the UK but had visited Westminster in London.

It comes after the government set out measures in response to the variant, including mandatory face masks in shops and on public transport in England.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-59453744

Amazing eh ?

Thats what happens when you double your daily testing capacity in December vs January

The Tories refusing requests from Wales, Scotland and NI for support packages for businesses affected by Omicron

It has the advantage of objectivity. You died + you tested positive for Covid therefore "Covid death". It doesn't involve the opinion of a doctor deciding that you died because of Covid rather than merely with Covid. Comparisons can be made easily with other countries too as they count deaths in a similar way.

The problem is that the nature of the disease is changing. With vaccinations and the virus itself mutating into less deadly forms, it is far more likely that a covid death will be a death with Covid rather than of Covid. If it was a very common but completely harmeless virus, then you would still get large numbers of "Covid deaths" simply because people die and a certain proportion will have the virus when it happens. This would clearly be a distortion of the truth if we treated it the same way as before.

The graph I'd like to see is cumulative deaths per million since around late May 2021 for various broadly vaccinated European countries (i.e. zeroed at that point in time).

This eliminates poor performance prior to initial vaccination rollout to the vulnerable and should show to some extent the effect of various policy approaches.

They're zeroed from April 2020. As I wrote, I'd like to see them zeroed from May/June 2021, so that we can see relative performance after vaccination rollout to vulnerable.

Overall, I think the UK handled the vaccine situation better than the EU generally. Crucially, they completed the bulk of their initial vaccinations as the summer was beginning. This allowed a much greater opening of society during the warmer weather when the virus could spread immunity without overwhelming the NHS. In the EU, we got to roughly the same stage as summer was ending. This meant that we could not our exit wave without serious consequences and therefore restrictions have had to remain in place for another winter.

Sorry to hear pal. Get a test though, you might not have caught it, fingers crossed.

If even you are negative?

Ah Jesus, well I hope it all works out for you in the end. Sorry it’s happened.

You need to be careful comparing testing figures. Most countries only report PCR test results for obvious reasons, the UK report (or more accurately posters on here) only report the combined antigen & PCR figure.

Hows Denmark compare? Leave the countries out that do better obliviously.

With German cases falling, it makes sense that testing would reduce also. That's why positivity rate is taken into account.

It just annoys me when a certain user starts comparing UK positivity (antigen & PCR) rate to another countries rate (PCR only) and thinking it's an equal comparison. If you remember there was a time the UK counted the nasal and mouth swabs as 2 different tests and each antigen test posted out was counted also (negative posted out and positive only if it was reported)