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Good to hear JK, best of luck mate. 🙏🏻
As the father of a son that’s shielding I’ve thought for along time we’ll be left to rot.
^^ Different family member for me but I've come to think that "this is it" till a vaccine is hopefully found.
Particularly hard on my partner as she doesn't live with me so we have just recently started to meet in a quiet scenic area, socially distanced so at least we can chat face to face.
She is struggling with it to be honest but totally understands why it has to be this way for.... I simply don't know how long to be honest.
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?
You have to get the virus under control first. That is the point. Allowing us to tick along with too high an infection rate without track/trace/isolate in place prevents the health service being able to act closer to normal, resulting in poor health outcomes for people not even touched by the virus directly. It also keeps whole industries closed for longer, the arts and music for example, and offers little hope to those shielding that they can have increased contact anytime soon.
So, this is, indeed, the gift that keeps on giving:
If you don’t have a sub:
Post mortem showing changes in brain tissue in some cases (however we only have a very few autopsies because of the danger of virus transmission).
Emergence of Guillaim-Barré syndrome in a small number of cases (although statistically about a thousand times more prevalent than in general population).
It’s not yet clear how much brain and nervous systems damage is due to the virus affecting the central nervous system directly and how much is oxygen starvation.
Obviously still early days but good to know people are looking at the longer term impacts.
Other Coronavirus cause CNS complications too.
Witty and Valance are still on the missing list for tonight's press conference
Apologies if done, but I don't think this had been mentioned:
While Hancock shouts about 100k+ tests per day ( which actually add up to about 1/3 that number of people tested)
2000 daily cases still. Have we flattened the curve or are we entering the washboard section?
2000 daily cases still. Have we flattened the curve or are we entering the washboard section?
Until they start to publish the number of total results again it’s hard to say. Before it was around 4% of the tests, now it’s anyone’s guess if it’s good news or not...
Was out for a ride in the hills today and came back along the sea front.
Prom was mobbed and beach packed. Cafes and Ice cream shops all open even someone eating chips in this heat. Some attempts at distancing mostly by people walking in the road.
I am hopeless at predictions so if I say prepare for a second wave at least it wont happen.
If we can stagger along at the current infection rate I’ll be pretty happy, as my local borough Rother had 3 new cases last week. Population @100k.
inkster
Member
2000 daily cases still. Have we flattened the curve or are we entering the washboard section?
Our trust had approx 10% increase over the weekend. I don't know if that or anything similar has been the case at other trusts
Run rate...2000 infections 250 dead per day... washboard if you like?
Real question is whats the "acceptable" run rate? 90,000 per annum deaths?
Whats a tragedy and whats a statistic?
Big questions...
Another load of bullshit or a convenient distraction from Hancock
https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1265719286200438786?s=19
That’s not steady-state due to the lag of deaths. I’d say 1000 cases per day and perhaps 10-30 deaths would be an equilibrium. Proportionately more cases will be found by contact tracing compared to hospital presentations, so the fatality rate will fall compared with now.
Anyone else been 'scared straight' by covid to lose a few pounds?
I was probably about 5 kg above my fighting weight so have been dieting the last 3 and a bit weeks. Plan to do another 3 weeks. On about 1500 to 1800 kcals a day plus ride for 1 hr medium pace 6 days a week. Really feeling it now, get that lightheaded feeling and hard to concentrate, but can literally see the fat leaving me.
Well, if it doesn’t go to plan, she will go down with the ship.
Anyone else been ‘scared straight’ by covid to lose a few pounds?
Lost a pound a week through lock down, so over half a stone down. Another stone to go. Need another 14 weeks of lockdown then....
I think we'll be lucky to get under 100 daily deaths (consistently) in the next month.
Indeed. I was stating what I thing endemic looks like. It won’t be soon.
Anyone else been ‘scared straight’ by covid to lose a few pounds?
Yep. Was working the first 6 weeks of lockdown but the drop-off in workload meant I was doing a lot less and eating a bit more so my weight went up slightly over that time. I needed to lose 4-5kg before, that then went up to 7-8kg now. Have been furloughed for 2 weeks now and have done a lot of miles on the bike plus cut down on treats, easy to do when the fast-food places are shut and any urge to just pop into the shops for some snacks is suppressed by the 'Only if Essential' rule. Managed to stop any further gains the last week so June is going to be all about getting lots of quality miles in and cutting out the snacks. One last blow-out tomorrow as it's shopping day then straight into it.
A haircut would be an easy 200g lost for a start!!
Between the Cummings farce & the inevitable untrustworthiness if those running the app
Ill be amazed if it's downloaded in umbers high enough to be useful , unless they force you to or make it a condition of using public transport/ company rules etc
Tha app is toast, it's just a question of getting numbers down so that the traditional, local, feet on the ground testing that they're trying to build can begin to be effective, ergo we have got to get through the washboard section first before we can begin to go forward with any strategy.
Then we can begin to deal with the breaking bumps as they occur locally.
Dido hardly went down with the Talk Talk ship.... she actually charges to tell people what a crap job she did.
Draining the swamp.... yawn
We are finding it increasingly difficult, and we have tried to take this as seriously as we could, but the cracks are starting to appear.
My OH shielded herself and the boy about a week before lockdown officially started, so it's been about 11 weeks now. I've been WFH and now back in the office with restrictions in place, but not everyone takes it seriously or is fully able to. Masks and goggles and lots of sanitiser available.
2 year old is desperately bored and desperate to see other people and have contact with grandparents, family and other children. Getting hard to keep him away apart from avoiding socialising all together - which isn't great mentally.
Judging by those I have spoken to, many seem to be in the same position. People are becoming more nonchalant about it, especially seeing the government mess up and confuse everything they do - there is no trust.
Without a real plan to come out of lockdown, without fixes in place for public transport, without a working tracing system, without a logical bubbling of households, without any firm instruction on masks - without these things the GP are losing faith and the lockdown will become impossible to continue. Add into this the sentiment over Cummings and I don't think this will last much longer, irrespective of R0...which is obviously worrying...
I'd agree the app is dead, I also suspect manual contact tracing is dead in the water too. I'm generally calm but I was Outraged from County Durham yesterday as Matt Hancock spelt out the policy expectations for what it is our 'civic duty' to do, which happen to be directly at odds with driving to said Durham before a jolly to Barny.
If I'm incensed by their behaviour, I imagine a good many people will tell anyone who calls them up to contact trace to shove it.
Lost a pound a week through lock down, so over half a stone down. Another stone to go. Need another 14 weeks of lockdown then….
Interesting. I lost a Stone. Why, do you think, you lost weight?
I originally thought losing the commute would be an issue. But what’s actually happened is I’ve fallen properly in love with cycling again. As none of it is utility cycling, it’s all for “fun”! It’ll be interesting to see how that pans out if we get to some further lockdown easing. The Ochils are not far away but currently just out of reach, I’m quite looking forward to that and I’m rebuilding the Broken Road to suit the riding with some new shiny bits, might even use suspension forks.
I think the other part is I’m not rushing out the door not taking any lunch with me. So no Cafe lunches or whatever other crap I’d buy along the way including Lattes etc. I’m quite often, having fresh salad or cooked lunches now.
So you know, apart from being ill for 2 months it’s proving to be quite healthy!
If I’m incensed by their behaviour, I imagine a good many people will tell anyone who calls them up to contact trace to shove it.
That's the scary part.
I certainly wont sit around on my backside for 14 days with no symptoms (as their process flow indicated), if told to isolate I'll be booking a test after a few days to let the virus start to shed rather than sitting around not knowing.
It's not the best way to get peoples buy-in they should suggest doing a test after X days for all of the identified people, "We know you're self employed and we've stopped paying you furlough now as you went back to work, but we need you to drop everything for 2 weeks" .. "But I have no symptoms and I need the money" ... "Yeah dont care, sit inside and wait"
so the fatality rate will fall compared with now.
I did some simple sums (I don't do models anymore 😉 ) and was surprised at how little efficient difference tracing programmes made to the ratio of reported deaths and cases on the worldometers list. I thought Germany and South Korea which have been much more active on tracing would have a much lower ratio, not much lower in fact. In theory a country with perfect tracing would have a ratio between 50 and 200:1 if the death rate for the virus is between .5 and 2%.
France is up to 46 detected clusters since the end of confinement, with the majority connected to collective accomodation such as young workers accomodation centres, according to Figaro. The harder you look the more you find apparently, without tracing it's quite possible to have a cluster in a place filled with young people and never know about it because no-one ever feels ill enough to ring le 15.
I suspect contact tracing is worthwhile only in the early days. After that it's stable door stuff...
Ft article is free to read & fascinating
https://twitter.com/ChrisGiles_/status/1265885480144470023?s=19
I suspect contact tracing is worthwhile only in the early days. After that it’s stable door stuff…
Also late days.
Cheers for posting that @kimbers
Should go in the Short Cummings thread too really. The truth twisters will struggle to spin that, and it’s not going away.
I certainly wont sit around on my backside for 14 days with no symptoms (as their process flow indicated), if told to isolate I’ll be booking a test after a few days to let the virus start to shed rather than sitting around not knowing
The only problem with this is you don't know if you're the originator of the infection for the person who triggered your isolation, in which case if you're going to be symptomatic it's going to come through pretty quickly, or if you were infected by that person, in which case it could take 10 or so days to come through. Of course, you may not have it at all, in which case it sucks to be you (or not, depending how you look at it)
an antibody test, which is the one widely available, isn't going to help you very much.
I won't be downloading the app - we're due to move house in 3 weeks and I'll be buggered if I'm going to jeopardise that - I'll just maintain my social distancing. I'm also moving to somewhere with no mobile signal - how's it going to work there?
piemonster, what are you talking about? Everyone else is looking at our successes. Time to put it behind us and move on. Big Ben has to Bong for Brexit before Boris Bus blah blah blah. Oh look, a squirrel.
The app functions using short range bluetooth transmissions/receptions so should work without a mobile phone signal
As far as I can tell there are no plans to use it anywhere!
Serco running the track & trace?
The same serco that were fined £23m for fraud last time they had a government contract to track people
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jul/03/serco-fined-229m-over-electronic-tagging-scandal
I don't see this going well on any level
Interesting. I lost a Stone. Why, do you think, you lost weight?
Lack of café stops, lack of impulse food buys. My mileage is about the same.
But mainly boredom at work. Before I had a laptop to WFH I wasn't snacking much. Now I'm back doing the job I hate for an organisation I hate, the snacks are increasing again, although I'm more aware and can stop it or snack on fruit.
17% of French are obese, stevextc. That’s somewhat less than 47%.
In comparing like for like:
1/ France isn't Lille... so we should really be looking at % obese in Lille not France overall which I suspect is a little higher.
2/ Is 17% the over 18's? Over 40's etc.
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.
Lots of bollox because that's the media and special interest groups.
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.
There is no such haplotype as "BAME".... I'd also point out that other arguments such as economic reasons don't explain why "BAME" doctors are also dying faster. We can argue if doctors, nurses etc. are actually paid well for what they do but we can't argue a practicing doctor is on the breadline and I don't recall those doctors who died who's photo's I saw being obese. Anbd to ask the next Q what did they die of? Was it pneumonia or was it an autoimmune response or ???
We also might want to look at diet... again not useful classifying as BAME ... what about vegans? (just speculating?)
they’d perform more of a public service if they highlighted the link with excess fat
Amongst other things.... for example what percentage are on what medication?
Many obese people might be on statins (for example).... but so might many non obese. Is the increased risk due to the actual weight, the high triglycerides or the medication or some combination???
Both Kay Burley and Adam Boulton have asked about Witty and Valance this morning, both times the question was deflected (Hancock and Caroline Johnson), something's definitely afoot
Edit Look at the state of Hancock, he's laughing because he knows he's truly ****ed
https://twitter.com/errongordon/status/1265930143815684098?s=19
it is almost safe to say that he's only just a fuse for the real power in the government. Things get too hot, get rid of the fuse and put in another person.
Judging by those I have spoken to, many seem to be in the same position. People are becoming more nonchalant about it, especially seeing the government mess up and confuse everything they do – there is no trust.
It's certainly starting to fall apart here in Spain, at least round where I live. There's noticeably more traffic, groups of people out on bikes, people pushing (or basically ignoring) the 10am cut off for exercise, etc. I'm not particularly surprised, we've been in lockdown for 75 days now, and the fear is starting to fade.
it is almost safe to say that he’s only just a fuse for the real power in the government. Things get too hot, get rid of the fuse and put in another person.
If you mean Hancock, then you are probably right, he’s a sponge for the criticism, he may well be expendable, lose his job, sit on the back benches for a year, and then come back in a lower profile role. If you mean Cummings… no, he’s not going anywhere ‘till after he’s had his play after the transition period is over.
I think we’ll be lucky to get under 100 daily deaths (consistently) in the next month.
It is at this point we are diverging from the Italy/Spain curve, and not in a good way.
Case numbers were not good enough to remove lockdown, let alone spectacularly torpedo it the way this government has done.
Still, 25 degrees and sunny this weekend, anyone off for a jolly?
As this thread progresses i'm curious as to what the nay sayers now say the answer should be ?
I'm guessing removing the current government is next to impossible ? So, what's the actual answer that you want now in place ?
I'm still not sure what disecting how rubbish the UK are and how they're doing everything wrong, without actually having something constructive putting in place instead. What would you like to see happen now and how would it positively affect the current situation in the UK?
I suppose, just as organisations, companies and individuals began social distancing and shut down moves before the government themselves acted, we need to adopt a similar approach as we open up. It means more deaths and a much longer period of economic disturbance than if the government acted at the right times, but it’ll still be better than leaving this up to them. The first key step is for us to wait ‘till track/trace/isolate is ACTUALLY in place before acting as is if it already is, as the government want us to do. The second step is to wait for active cases to be lower than they currently are… look to countries getting a grip on this to determine what that traceable/containable level of infections is, rather than blindly following instruction from our government… we’re only weeks away from it ourselves, if we don’t throw away the progress made recently by dropping restriction this weekend and next week that is.
The problem I see is how people are going to be able to cope if the government decides things are safe enough to pull back from lockdown (and removes the financial support for businesses and people).
If you are at risk, going back to work might make you ill or kill you, but you may have to make that choice if there is nothing to support you or fall back to. As much as a company might want to do the right thing, they may not have a choice if there is no other support coming in, it's either back to normal or cease to exist. How can anyone take a principled tand in that situation, you would be screwed either way.
If you’ve been furloughed, or received the support for the self employed, I hope you’ve been spending as little as possible, to spread that help out enough to get you through some of the summer. Also, remember, if most of us drop social distancing measures too soon, people working in hospitality etc will have to stay away from work even longer, perhaps without enough financial help. Rushing back will hit some industries very hard, if it means that new cases can’t be isolated, and many public spaces need to stay closed for longer.
As a rule of thumb… add 2 to 4 weeks to all the dates currently coming from the government, and hope they have track/trace/isolate running properly before the end of June, and we’ll be “fine”.
I’m still not sure what disecting how rubbish the UK are and how they’re doing everything wrong, without actually having something constructive putting in place instead.
Most of the criticism relates to past actions/inactions. Going forward it will be a shitshow regardless of who is running it. As a country, we failed to use the months leading up to lockdown to prepare, and then entered lockdown too late and too weakly, fuelling significant excess deaths. Now they have managed to fatally undermine public health messaging both for track and trace, and any further lockdowns, national or local. We abandoned contact tracing and community surveillance early, and are now reintroducing it late in a haphazard way, apparently having squandered more months.
I don't know if anyone else could do any better from this point, especially as many of the contracts seem to be handed out to their mates.
I suppose I could do my civic duty and not harp on about it though.
More evidence to support obesity being a majoor factor, Stevextc:
"Dr. Gulick’s review of data from the first 393 Covid-19 patients admitted to NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center and NewYork-Presbyterian Lower Manhattan Hospital identified obesity as a risk factor for admission. He also found that among adults under the age of 54, half live with obesity, though the New York City obesity rate is only 22 percent."
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/health/coronavirus-obesity-higher-risk.html
Similar numbers to the French study. The BAME factor they cite is weight and it also affects poor white Americans:
"The new findings about obesity risks are bad news for all Americans, but particularly for African-Americans and other people of color, who have higher rates of obesity and are already bearing a disproportionate burden of Covid-19 deaths. High rates of obesity are also prevalent among low-income white Americans, who may also be adversely affected, experts say."
I have no complaints about the plan of action. Staged reopening of schools, shops and eventually restaurants, pubs, cinemas etc. I would anticipate these running at half capacity to maintain distancing. Little public gatherings for the summer. I think people will mostly behave and take it seriously - Cummings notwithstanding, actually.
Testing and tracing are the only real options available in the absence of prophylaxis and vaccination, together with some sensitive real-time measures to detect when action is necessary. These need to be at the local level (NHS trust/LTLA). I'm thinking of some metrics as I type. How it will work for the outliers like Son2, people working at checkouts etc., that is a huge issue.
The FT analysis hints at lockdown efficacy being a function of date of onset. Who hasn't put off an important decision in life, only to find their hand forced by later events? The UK appears no different.
I’m still not sure what disecting how rubbish the UK are and how they’re doing everything wrong, without actually having something constructive putting in place instead.
It may have escaped your notice but the government are the ones in charge, what I want isnt really important, being constructive wont help, ensuring these useless shysters are held to account ober the cluster **** they have over seen and are continuing to oversee is all we can do. You sound like Boris junior saying "move on". Debate should not be shut down by such an utterly ridiculous comment such as yours.
If you know things are bad when you find yourself agreeing with Piers Morgan, you know they're really, really bad when you find yourself agreeing with Kay Birley.
Well, having been in lockdown since a week before the official date and pretty rigidly stuck to the rules, after the last week or so's woeful failure of our Government I will be telling them to ram the tracing app as well as any other advice they give or help they ask of me.
Looking round where I live it seems since the weekend people have decided life is back to normal with busy roads, plenty of non-family groups walking about and a general less careful attitude seeming to be taken by the public.
What I'll be doing is watching the numbers, reading the facts and protecting my family using 'common sense'. I'm absolutely furious with the utter inept performance by the mob in charge (although not suprised) with the Cummings cluster**** being the final straw.
Without wanting to derail the thread, any benefit of the doubt I gave to this regime has gone. They are both malicious and incompetent and that's a bad combination. It's also disappointing to see Jenny Harries totally compromised and nothing but a Downing Street puppet and that goes for Chris Whitty too. Surely they should be giving scientific advice not obeying political instruction, but do you reach that sort of office by having integrity?
Looking round where I live it seems since the weekend people have decided life is back to normal with busy roads, plenty of non-family groups walking about and a general less careful attitude seeming to be taken by the public.
Most definitely not the case here in west of Scotland, there's a noticeable upturn in traffic since the first few weeks of lockdown, but it's still dead to be honest. Stopped for an ice cream on Troon beach on the way home from work yesterday lunchtime, was a cracking day, maybe 40 or 50 folk along the whole 2 mile promenade.
One of our procurement team drove to Preston last week to take a valve for overhaul, was quicker than using a courier, so the plant (pharma) was offline for less time, and he reckoned the traffic around Preston was 3 times as busy as it is here.
Testing and tracing are the only real options available in the absence of prophylaxis and vaccination, together with some sensitive real-time measures to detect when action is necessary. These need to be at the local level (NHS trust/LTLA).
That’s exactly what I posted in this thread recently, but with the (obvious to most) caveat that we should wait for the track/trace/isolate measures to be real and in place, rather than just government PR, before pushing on with increased opening for schools, shops, group gatherings etc.
Update:
https://twitter.com/spittingcat/status/1265995343260520448?s=21
In addition… the testing turn around time is still too slow to support track/trace/isolate.
Have I missed something here? I thought an app was to be developed in return for £250m given to 'Faculty', the Brexit Delivery Company. Now if you're sick some call centre rings up and asks who you've been in contact with on the train, in the shop, down the street. Is this a post-app app or would it be better if they went and got a job they could do?
Forget about the app for now… it’s an extra tool… the manual track/trace function is the main thing. Neither mobile app nor manual teams (local or all England level) are ready yet though, for many often discussed reasons, including the dubious and opaque way that private providers and overly centralised approaches were chosen.
What I’ll be doing is watching the numbers, reading the facts and protecting my family using ‘common sense’.
Is that the same as 'good old British common sense', or your own variety?
I'll be doing the same, for what it's worth. I certainly won't be rushing to get my kids back into school before term end. My lad's school is making noises about holding A Level mocks in July, though, so we'll have to see what case numbers are doing in the catchment (which covers a significant chunk of West and North Yorkshire, and even a bit of Lancashire).
My level of trust in the government to follow independent scientific advice is now non-existent. Let's face it, half their blather in the past week has been mainly to distract us from Cummings.
Debate should not be shut down by such an utterly ridiculous comment such as yours
Can't help but think that works both ways.
Can’t help but think that works both ways.
Care to explain, or have you taken a no debate vow?
In addition… the testing turn around time is still too slow to support track/trace/isolate.
How many tests do they need to turnaround in an adequate timeframe to claim success?
I’m guessing between 1 and 5...
Lockdown is over… garden parties are go… more new deaths announced today than most European countries have had in total.
At least we won't be having a second wave like those pesky foreigners. We'll never get out of the first one.
We went into this a couple of weeks behind Spain, now we're roughly four weeks behind, if this trend continues.
Lots of emphasis on increased School opening June 1st… with no mention that this isn’t happening in many areas… parents v teachers fake tension being stirred up again. Should be making it clear this is on a regional basis.
I'm wondering how this sits with data protection regulations?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/28/nhs-will-keep-personal-data-of-people-with-coronavirus-for-20-years--uk-test-and-trace-programme
Can you opt-out? Doesn't seem so - is there an update to GPDR to add a specific exclusion?
For example: "Those who have been identified as contacts of people with coronavirus will have all but their date of birth collected and stored for five years."
Also, I keep seeing Public Health England mentioned in the news... Does the Scottish public health body just do the same as they do - like a sub-body/branch, or are they totally separate?
Lockdown is over… garden parties are go… more new deaths announced today than most European countries have had in total.
Partly because of the ridiculous "pre-announcement" stuff, telling people what will happen from a certain date. We had it at the start where we were told not to go pubs and then told that pubs would close on [date] which prompted one last massive countrywide piss-up before the pubs closed.
And then the notice about being allowed to drive to places, that was announced / leaked a few days in advance which lead to hordes of people flocking to beaches and beauty spots and now we're being told that "from Monday" we can meet family which means this weekend will be wall-to-wall family gatherings.
Honestly, the entire "control" behind this has been batshit mental from the start. I use the word control in its loosest possible sense.
So watching the brief today how does Boris get to decide when other people do or don't answer question he is basically censoring people.
So am I allowed to drive 100miles to see my mum?
You can already do that, if you are prepared to meet outdoors and maintain social distancing, which shouldn't be too hard in this weather.