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Hypocrisy is saying one thing and doing another. I’m saying one thing and intend to do it.
No, you've spent several posts saying you're not anti-vaccination, then announced that you're not having this one unless you're forced to.
They’re rightly pissed off that their jobs, businesses, careers and leisure have been **** up to save the rich old codgers on fat pensions who don’t have to go outside if they don’t want to.
Wait, weren't we discussing vaccinations?
then announced that you’re not having this one unless you’re forced to.
False, at no point have I said that or anything close. I have never mentioned obligation or force. Check out laws for where I live and you'll find that isn't even an issue.
You've been misquoting me, making false accusations about hyupocrisy and now you're putting words in my mouth. The thing is, Flaperon, that you're not fooling anyone because people can reead back and see what I've really written.
Pin the R tail on the donkey is somewhere between 0.7 and 1, schools are supposedly opening up a bit more next Monday...
Yeah, makes perfect sense to open up all retail in England two weeks later!
Definitely not distraction news to get Cummings out of the limelight.
I hope non puppet leaders of Scotland and Wales denounce this shops plan timetable.
To be fair, reading back I think I've got the wrong end of the stick. But I still don't understand why you brought the elderly into the argument.
from the bbc, how much more not serious could people take it?
After Prime Minister Boris Johnson defended his chief aide, Dominic Cummings', decision to travel to County Durham during lockdown, there were fears members of the public would take the government's coronavirus message less seriously
bournemouth today, from the same news story as that quote above
The old telephoto trick, I’d like to see that same beach on an overhead shot.
The A30 through Cornwall today was deserted at 9am on a hot bank holiday Monday. In normal times it would have been nose to tail.
^ not a disaster fapper then?
Toby Young has graciously added my comment to his lockdown sceptics blog. Whilst I disagree with his politics, I believe scientists should be sceptical. And that they should be called to explain with clarity their position.
I’ve always tried to show from the data, the gravity of the situation, and that intervention was a necessity. Sometimes this is lost with the headline deaths, awful coding, past poor performance (despite 90 years of vaccination success) and so on. The problems we have now are due to inaction earlier. Those are the rules. There is ample evidence that lockdown has had a measurable effect on cases and indeed deaths.
Anyway, my comment is here. Will see if it draws comment
But I still don’t understand why you brought the elderly into the argument.
Because I was making a prediction about uptake of vaccination if ever a vaccine becomes available. The basis for that prediction is that young people won't get vaccinated for an illness they don't feel personally threatened by just to protect the oldies and obese. If only 40% get vaccinated against Hepatitis B, why would they get vaccinated against Covid 19 which is objectively less of a threat to them - even at current new case rates?
Current new infections are running at about 300 a day in France and Germany, and given the testing/tracing sytems in place I suspect most cases are bing picked up. That's not much over 100 000 cases a year. In junior's age group you might expect .2% deaths, I'm not going to attempt to do the sums on how many of the 100 000 would be in his age group and the number of deaths but plug any numbers you want into a calculator and the result won't even get into three figures.
The young generation is being royally shat upon in this crisis. Junior's two sources of income dried up instantly (DJ and ski instructor) and as he doesn't have years of accounts for either he's entitled to zero government help. That's not an issue because I'll give him enough to live on but many young people have parents who can't or won't help. They're rightly feeling hard done by as they see their futures being sacrificed on the alter of saving the old and obese*. Watch this space, either things go back to normal soon or a generation based social conflict kicks off like in 68.
The lockdown has done its job and got things back to manageable proportions. IMO responsibility should now be given back to people to look after themselves. You think you're vulnerable then wear a mask, insist on impecable hygiene in your home, avoid busy confined spaces, get a doctor's note for work, lose weight... . But it's time to let 20 year olds make a living, do whatever people do in discos these days or sit around on a beach chatting.
* 47% of people entering ICU with Covid 19 at Lille hospital are clinically obese:
Parmi les dernières qui soient disponibles, une étude menée par les équipes du CHRU de Lille montre que plus de 47 % des patients infectés entrant en réanimation sont en situation d’obésité et que la forme sévère (à savoir un IMC supérieur à 35) augmente significativement le risque d’être placé sous respiration mécanique invasive, indépendamment de l’âge, de l’hypertension artérielle et du diabète.
bleak story from Italy's medics
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52784120
If when all this is done ours feel the same then we'll have another national disgrace on our hands that no amount of pan banging will fix.
47% of people entering ICU with Covid 19 at Lille hospital are clinically obese
Not surprising, it's a bit taboo, the risk that no one wants to talk about, the extra risk to the obese.
Possibly cos it's not something that can be tackled in the very short term, but if I was a big un, this would be the motivation I need to lose weight.
I do fear that most of the population here will go back to their usual drunken, abusive selves towards medical staff - anyone who's been to A&E on a weekend will know what I mean.
The government will definitely forget everything when the next pay discussions come up, that's pretty much guaranteed!
I wonder how long it will be for the surge of new riders, runners and walkers to return to their habit of driving everywhere while drinking their high sugar coffee and stopping at their favourite fast food drive-thru? Oh, hang on. There's already massive queues at Burger King, KFC and Starbucks near me of cars on 'essential journeys'.
I despair at the stupidity of some. We're not even out of the lockdown here in Wales yet and people are reverting to their old ways.
You think you’re vulnerable then wear a mask
That makes no sense. You can’t just take “individual responsibility” to protect yourself, as it is down to the behaviour of others whether the virus spreads. You can wear a mask as part of helping stop the spread… you need others to wear a mask to help stop you being infected.
An FFP2 mask stops about 92% of airborne virus (I posted the source weeks ago). Wear one and you'll reduce your chances of gtting more than the minimum infective dose by that amount. Even a surgical mask improves matters for the wearer but I can't remember the percentage for those.
The idea that masks don't protect teh wearer was propaganda bollocks at a time when there were no masks to be had and the few there were the government needed to protect key workers - because they do protect.
You can’t just use “individual responsibility” to avoid contact with a virus… you just sound like a right wing troll with your “responsibility should now be given back to people to look after themselves” line. It needs to be controlled at a community level… be that mask use, social distancing measures, or uptake of vaccine… none of these work at the level of the individual, they are all about a community response.
How many people are going to get vaccinated even if there’s a vaccine?
I think in the case of COVID, many more folk than normal will probably want the vaccine. No real evidence other than the responses I hear when I speak with GPs who're getting these sorts of calls from patients, which TBF is pretty unusual.
The current uptake on the annual flu vaccine is pretty low despite a significant risk each year.
In the UK, GPs get part of their funding through activities such as vaccinations, and they're targeted groups (vulnerable groups such as the disabled, sick, elderly, v young) so most folk who "need" a dose, get it.
So you make masks obligatory on public transport, in shops, in confined working environments, schools, anywhere people are obliged to go. I'm not suggezsting a free for all, you seem to have forgotten what I've been posting from about page 70 of this thread. What I am saying is that in places that people choose to go for leisure then let 'em within say 100km. If 20 roadies want to ride together I don't have a problem with that, they're adults, they know the risks and the potentail cost to society, they know there are a limited number of health workers.
It's time to limit strict obligations to places people are obliged to go. There hasn't been a new case here for weeks (Béarn), no new case in the department 64 for at least a week, regionally (Grande Aquitaine) there were 4 new cases over the weekend. I think that at this stage it's time to give responsibility back to individuals and see how it goes.
You are suggesting that the young and strong should be allowed to party all night, even if that means it’s less safe for the elderly to even pop out for bread. I would suggest that the careful prioritising of opening up essentials and keeping the numbers meeting up at once low is proving to be the right approach where that is what has been going on... including where you are. Here, I’d like other people to be able to start to see their GP again, rather than being able to go to a gig in a packed pub myself.
Today's projection based on excess deaths. A slight bump from the VE day bank holiday (most likely due to registrations, but the trend is well-captured by hospital deaths. Back to baseline by Week 24 (mid-June) with 70k excess deaths is the prediction. We shall see how the unlocking proceeds.
That graph looks like good progress, we should unlock now so we can get on with our lives!
Thanks BillMC for that Slavoj Zizek link. I think he nailed it when he said:
'Stay alert means it's your fault if you get it'
It’s great progress. I assume the second part of your statement was a joke, or you misunderstand how the progress has been gained.
When would you start lifting restrictions? Looks like we never overwhelmed the NHS, Mission accomplished?
I've always said gone by July - Week 26. That's been the consistent prediction for over two months. Of course for schools, how much education is possible in the last two weeks of term? - my predictions about opening schools in September was really a pragmatic one. The current proposal is aimed more at child care and economics. One might expect a slight extension of the tail as we open up - possibly a second wave, but more likely just a tail.
I've also looked at per capita mortality this week, and that shows that if you are 45+, then your odds of dying were doubled at peak (OK they are normally fairly low). If you are over 85, they were trebled. And despite the media noise, if you are aged 15-45, there was a 50% increased chance of dying at peak. Children under 15 have no excess mortality.
When would you start lifting restrictions?
July.
They’d already have been lifted by now, if we had been into “lockdown” earlier.
So, on track and trace, because you know, we will have a world beating operation in a few days time...
S Korea I think are probably the benchmark here. They have a population of 50 mil (ish). Their peak daily cases was about 1000. That's 20 cases per million head per day. Perhaps also important they have only 11k cases reported total. Their actual functioning track and trace (which will possibly also turn out to be genuinely world beating) managed to stay on top of that. The latest distancing regs news I can find is early may, so I don't know what their current state of play is on that front.
Here we have currently got a daily new case numbers that are still around 2500 per day, with the knowingly under-reported case total of 250k. We're at 40 cases per million head per day. Our track and trace isn't currently a thing (is it?) and has no prior experience, unlike S Korea.
Hmm.
So far the progress has been gained in several ways depending on the country and region.
The biggest gain in lives saved in this region have come from very high hygiene standards in ephads (old peoples homes) because those alone account for about 40% of severe cases. There is no reason to ease those measures, there is little or no economic or social loss as they are operating as before but to new standards. A reduction in physical contact is a small price for a large gain.
Another big gain has come people limiting contact, both by enforced confinement and new habits where people still meet in work places, schools. Those places have with a few notable exceptions operated remarkably well without becoming clusters - the exceptions are abatoirs where close working, low temperatures and communal living have been favourable conditons for the virus. Those gains can be extended to other contexts.
As for kids and young people, they've been back to mixing for a couple of weeks now (many were meeting before that), there hasn't been a second wave so far or even a hint of one. They have to sit a couple of metres from each other in class wearing a mask and then out of the school gates off come the masks and they're pretty much back to normal - but not quite. There's just a bit more distance, no more handshakes or bises, not sharing bottles or joints. They're playing the game, I think they'll do it just as well on a café terrace as in the park (better because they're being served and spaces are better defined). Time to let the café owner make some money selling them stuff before the debt burden becomes insurmountable and pay the staff their full wage.
You're accusing me of being a right-wing something or other, Kelvin. How do you qualify your own somewhat extreme authoritarian views?
Be pragmatic and trust people, the vast majority have shown themselves to be trustworthy.
I've gone back to life as before with a few changes that should make all the difference based on all the stuff I've read over the past five months and keep R below 1. I wear a mask in indoor places with people I don't know. I've given up shaking hands and bises, and keep about a metre from people I do know. I keep my hands in my pockets and touch as little as possible (I'll be getting one of those plastic do-it-all things for opening doors and pressing buttons). The people around me do the same, I reckon we'll be fine.
Edukator
* 47% of people entering ICU with Covid 19 at Lille hospital are clinically obese:
What percentage of the population of Lille over 18 are obese?
Apparently a figure from MA US say's 98.5% of those in ICU have underlying pre-conditions. Sounds hopeful until you ask "what is an underlying symptom" ... "anything medical"... "so obesity?" "yes" .. but 50% of MA over 18's are obese. Add in what my medical insurer say's "Have you taken an antibiotic in the last 2 yrs"... do you suffer from any of the next 3 pages of diseases...
I asked my friend who re-posted this what percentage of MA population have no underlying symptoms that would be classed as "pre-existing conditions" .. he is married to a rather eminent medical doctor and is currently living in Boston so I'd think if anyone would know he would.
July.
They’d already have been lifted by now, if we had been into “lockdown” earlier.
THIS times a lot! Sadly people seem unable to grasp that the choices we made early on have disproportional effects on choices available at the end. I've had some reasonable debate on this on lockdownsceptics, where people had not grasped that the lockdown influences the rate of decline, not just the rate of increase. Even Toby Young has grasped this fact and that we needed to do something. But it was our delay then, that has led to our (prolonged) delay now.
The epidemic trajectory is one of these
NOT a ball.
air vent
That graph looks like good progress, we should unlock now so we can get on with our lives!
And killing off the surviving grannies?
Isnt that a sharp up tick in all cause deaths, reasons?
17% of French are obese, stevextc. That's somewhat less than 47%.
Perhaps Crikey could give us his assessment of the profile of cases. He hasn't posted for a while. My local doc was blunt, "if you weighed 100kg you'd have something to worry about, you don't". Much has been made of the BAME factor by Britain's characteristically racist media with lots of photos in the Birmingham Evening mail - ignoring the skin colour the striking thing was that none of the victims was even close to their ideal BMI.
Rather than pointing at BAME they'd perform more of a public service if they highlighted the link with excess fat. Even the comorbities that are often quoted are illnesses linked with being overweight/ poor diet - heart disease and type 2 diabetes.
And killing off the surviving grannies?
The grannies can continue to look after themselves and confine as long as they feel the need. The ones close to me will with the help of neighbours and friends.
AA - it was VE day delay in registrations due to the Bank Holiday. The model goes through the midpoint. See if you can spot August Bank Holiday further along.
That is a very positive graph.
In wales it seems, according to their graphs, that number of new cases per day has somewhat stablised rather than maintaining a downward trend; but then that is also matched by more testing. Is there a standard way of disentangling the two beyond just a percentage of tests positive?
Hospital deaths are the one that will track the epidemic and adjust for testing acquisition bias. Cases may be flat because one finds more with increased testing. But people dying in hospital from confirmed infection is likely to be the truth - patients don't go to hospital with a positive test, they go with symptoms. Excess deaths in Wales are trending the same as everywhere else and the same as that plot for England and Wales.
TiRed
excess deaths -
I guess... we are far enough along the wave for the data to now be the more useful indicator?
and, I'd assume the slower rate of fall means the three week lag of excess death figures is less of an issue?
A further assumption, when we unlock bit by bit, we still have to watch the admissions and positive tests to spot when things get a bit spiky?
Worldometer has us on >4000 new cases reported in the last 24 hours. Had to go back to 8th May for last time that happened.
See if you can spot August Bank Holiday further along.
I was going to ask that in tge same post but when I put a pic in it seems to stop me writing. Big drop in deaths over xmas too. Followed by massive rise in Jan.
spot when things get a bit spiky
Excess deaths are very sensitive to covid deaths (it's not a linear model), so I hope this may be useful. But the necessary delay in the registration and reporting process means data is a week old. Calls to 111, hospital admission spikes, these may be more useful. But I believe that looking at weekly rather than daily timescales is now valid (daily was needed in March when things were faster).
Simon Clarke MP has put a statement out on his Facebook.
Broadly he regrets that the fuss wasn't cleared up before the weekend but Dom has behaved responsibly and the media are all nasty.
Absolutely brass neck the lot of them. Feel sorry for the police, basically we can all do whatever we like as long as we follow our paternal instincts.
Worldometer has us on >4000 new cases reported in the last 24 hours.
Cases and deaths have some decoupling now, most likely due to increased testing. Yesterday's data - I model cases and deaths simultaneously, note the separation for UK.
TiRed - have you backdated all your data to include care home deaths, as they weren't included in announced data until well past the peak.
Worldometer has us on >4000 new cases reported in the last 24 hours. Had to go back to 8th May for last time that happened.
The small print explains that a little.
TiRed do you think it's increased testing or lag between case and outcome?
have you backdated all your data to include care home deaths
No, ECDC data is hospital deaths only ( https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-daily-deaths/). I predict excess deaths from this number and historic mean from 2010-2019 for each NHS region, then sum up for England and Wales.
Increased testing will decouple cases from deaths (including the lag) slightly, the data from ECDC shows that. One could standardize by number of daily tests. If it were my day job, I'd do that, but one ends up hunting down lots of datasets and writing the code to post-process them to create analysis datasets. I do that already for cases, deaths, ONS deaths and previously the UK population (for deaths/100k) and of course I analyzed the previous 10 years if weekly deaths to get a control dataset (ONS only include 5 years, so prediction intervals aren't as precise).
Yeah can see how increased testing will decouple it. Wonder how we will know of actual case increases in real terms if indeed that does occur?
I believe the point of the lockdown was to slow the spread and "save the NHS" now this has happened theres not much point keeping us on house arrest (legally questionable anyway but we have complied out of a sense of civic duty).
This was never about eliminating the virus, quite the opposite in fact as the tactic from the beginning was correctly herd immunity. So long as we can keep the reproductive rate at 1 or less, we are good. People are dying from cancer and other cancelled surgeries and we have to understand that cannot continue indefinitely.
Speedster,
Maybe with a bit of difficulty as the tracking app idea looks toast and do we really trust the gov't to be on top of any spikes should they occur given their performance so far. That's the worry for many I think
The move out of lockdown is going to be a faltering one. Like the consensus here I feel the current infection rates will peter out by July though a nagging doubt regarding our ability to cope with any recurrence will hinder the opening up of the economy as we still don't have any commonly understood protocols in place like those described by Edukator in France (or pretty much any other country to be fair)
Anyway, I predict this thread will turn into the coronomics thread by the end of the month if not earlier. Perhaps TiRed can apply his modelling skills to economics for us?
Perhaps TiRed can apply his modelling skills to economics for us?
Back of an envelope - assume lockdown has prevented approximately 2x as many deaths as one predicts, which is a pretty conservative guess, that's about 150,000 lives, and a life expectancy of, say 3 years (average nursing home residency is 4 years, I read somewhere), and QALY value of £30k/year equals... about £13.5bn. Cost will be perhaps 10x this value. So society has valued the intervention ten times higher than typical treatment interventions. Given the severity of the situation for a population, this does not seem unreasonable. I could be out by a factor of 3, in any of those numbers, but 10x is a conservative estimate.
So long as we can keep the reproductive rate at 1 or less, we are good
I do not disagree, provided daily INCIDENCE is also low enough to be managed effectively by testing, tracing, and eventually treatment. That is a capacity issue.
Yeah can see how increased testing will decouple it. Wonder how we will know of actual case increases in real terms if indeed that does occur?
Cases/100k deaths will tell the true story now.
TiRed, what leads you to think that this won’t just spike again as lockdown eases? Societal change in terms of social distancing?
Societal change in terms of social distancing?
Sweden tells us what the future looks like in terms of social distancing. With a lot more screening of people in healthcare and nursing homes.
For me, the big question is what happens when London goes back to work on public transport. Nowhere else in the country has that dynamic. A slow steady rise in contacts, with an absolute understanding that not going to work if you are feeling off is a good thing. Hence I'll be working from home for a long time.
The epidemic in London climbed and declined faster than the other regions. Public transport must have played a part.
with an absolute understanding that not going to work if you are feeling off is a good thing. Hence I’ll be working from home for a long time.
Did they ever follow up using your plasma, TiRed? And have you ever had a test?
Because if you are sure you contracted Covid months ago why do you feel the need to continue working from home: the risk to yourself or the risk to others? Is there any evidence you could still be infectious? They're all questions that anyone who thinks they may have had it needs to ask themselves and your pharma background means you're better placed than most to answer.
Curious because Madame thinks she's in a similar situation to you with just a bit residual fatigue but is going to work (with a mask).
why do you feel the need to continue working from home
Because our office will be closed 😉 . Labs are open and of course manufacturing has never closed. I am a non-essential worker so won't be back for a long time. Even then, the open plan nature makes any distancing troublesome. Son2 won't be back to LHR for some time either.
Not heard back yet on the plasma front. Middle-aged men who had serious disease are their target source, I'll go back again if positive and asked.
French news (FR3) has just answered one of the questions: people who've had even a mild case of Covid have antibody protection for at least 40 days. 98% of 160 health workers who had even mild Covid had anitbodies present at 39 days. Study by Institut Pasteur and Strasbourg hospital.
So to protect Cummings, Hancock has just announced that fines will be reviewed ?
Doesn't that make lockdown completely unenforceable ?
Between that and no one wanting to download the app , I'm not sure what the way out of this mess is.
I believe the point of the lockdown was to slow the spread and “save the NHS” now this has happened theres not much point keeping us on house arrest (legally questionable anyway but we have complied out of a sense of civic duty).
We have shut down many NHS services to cope with high levels of the virus in our communities. It was not about saving the NHS, it was about avoiding a peak that the reorganised NHS could not deal with, there by giving those falling seriously ill the best chance of being saved. We now have a choice of accepting a high level of infection, and the associated deaths and damaged lives, and keeping much of the NHS in a state of reduced operational status… or we drive the infection rate still lower, to a point where we can track/trace/isolate new fare ups, and get the NHS back to a more normal operational status.
This was never about eliminating the virus, quite the opposite in fact as the tactic from the beginning was correctly herd immunity.
You can’t get natural herd immunity without killing (up to) half a million people. We’ve already sacrificed more people than necessary on the alter of mistimed intervention, let’s learn from that mistake and do better as we move to more lax social distancing measures.
We need to get and keep the virus under control via our short term modified behaviours, until better treatment and/or prophylactics are available to us.
So long as we can keep the reproductive rate at 1 or less, we are good. People are dying from cancer and other cancelled surgeries and we have to understand that cannot continue indefinitely.
No, to get NHS services back to normal, so that people are getting the care and operations they need, we need this virus under control, not spreading through the population across the whole country.
What does "under control" mean? Currently many diseases are not being treated beacause the sick have been made afraid to seek treatment- why are the inevitable consequential deaths more important than Covid deaths?
we need this virus under control, not spreading through the population across the whole country
I think the main way to do that is through education. Inform people in which situations people are getting infected and they can avoid them. The Germans are very good at this. Use Google translate on this article and you won't be keen to sing in church without a mask on but you won't worry about swimming in the sea, walking in the park, MTBing with you mates, going shopping.
https://www.zeit.de/wissen/gesundheit/2020-05/coronavirus-infektionsrisiko-gastronomie-parks-baden
Inform and educate should be the mission of the press in crisis, compare Zeit with the sensationalist but useless dross in the Guardian let alone the red tops which seem keener on publishing stuff on Dom than useful advice.
why are the inevitable consequential deaths more important than Covid deaths?
Do you mean less important? They are not. But a low rate of infection will enable NHS services to return towards normal and give people the confidence that they can use them. We can’t see a GP here, so often the starting point for most NHS patient journeys. Getting the virus under control so that people can see their GP face to face should be a prerequisite for moving towards more lax measures in less essential areas.
Yes I did mean less important. I'm still not clear what "under control" means, Covid 19 is not especially infectious, is there any reason why GP's should not resume normal service with any suitable PPE that they deem necessary?
It would seem a bit strange if we all had to self-certify as disease-free and fit-as-a-fiddle before being allowed to visit the doctor.
so that people can see their GP face to face
Whatsapp video in these parts for anyone with a smart phone. If the doc needs to examine you then you make an appointment and the doc kits up thereby using up another of his quota of PPE so best avoided.
Under control means manageable contact tracing. Suppose 15000 tracers in teams of five. Perhaps they can handle two to three cases per day. That would imply cases down to 1000/day across the country. Testing is not limiting in that situation. About another four weeks, given the current half-life. Should have the teams up in place by then. Forget the app(s), it will be manual with phone contact.
the media have been at it for ages and it has negated much of what they say in my view
What Tired said.
As for the GP stuff, it’s simple… the priority should be to get this virus under control enough for as many people as possible to be able to see their GP face to face, and feel that doing so is not a risk for them or the staff at the GP. We are only a few weeks away from the numbers being low enough for that. The rush to open up elsewhere before that is driven by politics not science, and will result in the reduced use of NHS services carrying on much longer than is necessary. It is those that are rushing to open up fast and early that will be stopping people without Covid19 seeking and getting the care they need, not those calling for a steady return paired with low infection numbers and in place track/trace/isolate measures.
Thinking that an app could get us out of the mire was always a silver bullet solution, like hoping for a digital vaccine. Contact tracing has worked since biblical times and has been employed consistently by the countries that have dealt best with this pandemic.
As you imply TiRed, it's a question of capacity and given our current and projected numbers of trained testers well be waiting for a month untill contact tracing can be deployed effectively. For the next month, we've got to pray there isn't a spike, else it'll be harder to deploy the contact tracing.
Sorry to be the masked crusader again but surely enforcing mask wearing on public transport should be the absolute priority as this is the place where there is the greatest potential for further spreading, and as such, it presents the clearest hazard in getting to a point where contact tracing is possible and effective?
We should still be in a race to get daily infections down as soon as possibly possible.
A days delay, a week you'll pay. As true then as it is now.
Numbers questions...
In the 10 households I know on ours and the neighbouring street, four are shielding - of which one is older so basically three working households are staying at home to ensure the safety of one member. At least one of them can’t work from home at all (electrician).
Is this a normal percentage? Has anyone looked at the economic impact of those people having to stay home? I guess the quicker the rest of us unlock, the longer it’ll take for it to be safe enough for them to emerge.
The other numbers question is about severity - everyone looks at death rates because that’s cut and dried, but is anyone looking at how many people take more than two weeks to recover and how many people have longer term issues emerging?
What do you object to opening up, Kelvin? Swimming pools are now open in Italy with limited numbers, 24 in the pool they showed on TV. We're off to the beach tomorrow. Gyms opening in Italy with distances increased between the kit. Adapt to reduce risk from what's been learned and open what's proven to be possible without contaminating people. It's not a question of rushing it's being objective about risks.
Imposing quarantine on people arriving from les contaminated countries was daft and just spite for Barnier refusing to back down on a level playing field. You need measures for the current situation, after the horse has bolted stuff is daft and letting people onto busses without masks equally daft. Fining people for having a few neighbours around for an outdoor bar-b-que won't stop the virus spread. Not enforcing masks on public transport is ****ing stupid given its a proven vector of transmission with several driver victims among the dead.
This from from the beeb:
"Governments in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland have also recommended people wear face coverings on public transport.
The Welsh government has said people can choose to wear them, but adds the evidence is "not strong enough" to make them mandatory."
demostrates what a shambles the current inconsistent and non-fact based measures are. How much evidence from around the world does the Welsh government need? Idiots.
Potentially a misquote out of context but seems the WHO might be thinking a second wave is looking less likely. I'd love to know how that work it out without knowing how each country is going to behave in future.
I guess the quicker the rest of us unlock, the longer it’ll take for it to be safe enough for them to emerge.
I’d guess the same.
What do you object to opening up, Kelvin?
Nothing at all. I’m talking about timing. And priorities in the order of when things open up.
Yesterday the WHO were warning of a second wave 🤷🏼♂️
Ed - don’t disagree with you on that lost post. Sadly we are led by donkeys fighting the virus by sound bite.
Is it time to admit lockdown is over?
Police break up illegal #lockdown birthday party at Tory MP's house
(tbf MP wasnt there at the time)
It depends what you unlock. And there are still things that desperately need locking down that aren't, such as the ability to breath and cough on people in confined public places without wearing a face mask. Workers need to use public transport to get to work, they shouldn't have to share confined space with selfish anti-social types who chose not to wear a mask because they're stil given the choice. You have to put clothes on in most situations, in some you now have to wear a mask - or that's how it should be.
Only 10% of transmission from surfaces according to that Zeit article I linked. The rest is airborne and reduced by distance, masks and ventilation.
And I'll rephrase my question to Kelvin. What do you object to unlocking right now (which was what I meant in the first place and I'm sure you understood). I wouldn't unlock theatres, cinemas and places where people sit in close proximity to the same people indoors for long periods for example.
Neira is quoted as saying "it is doing the geographical route expected of a virus that wants to survive" - ascribing agency to a virus is not consistent with science. Perhaps something has been lost in translation.
As for the GP stuff, it’s simple… the priority should be to get this virus under control enough for as many people as possible to be able to see their GP face to face, and feel that doing so is not a risk for them or the staff at the GP.
What?!?
Whilst I agree that being able to see a GP face to face is a good thing for everyone’s health, sending sick people to a single place of contact is the last thing you’d want to do to control things?
Who are the people who generally visit their GP?
The elderly or those with underlying health conditions....
...those who are at the most risk
Interesting debate on GP access so thought I'd give my take on real world decisions having to be made. I have my routine catch up with my haematology consultant next week due to my lymphoma diagnosis in early 2017. This had been changed to a telephone consultation and I have decided not to attend my GP for pre-appointment blood test. I am in complete remission and feel fit and well so rather than expose myself to the potential risk of Covid have decided to skip this blood test.
Good article about the Swedish approach here & some relevance to UK for ending lockdown too
https://thecritic.co.uk/live-free-and-die-swedens-coronavirus-experience/