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The fast food thing is just a distraction. Don’t fall for it.
Various red-tops (I won’t link to them) are going with variations of “fast food industry must share the blame over coronavirus”.
Poor hygenie practise? Lack of distancing in restaurants pre-lockdown? Nope. Becasue they make people fat.
Whatever happened to personal responsibilty?
what like this red top
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9041657/takeaways-greasy-spoons-spared-nanny-state-calories/
It’s telling / damming that this clip of Rory Stewart (a leadership contender at one stage) has surfaced…
I remember it from the time. And there were plenty of other voices saying exactly the same thing, including on this thread. It's not hindsight now, the outlier status of the UK was pretty obvious in the run-up to lockdown. We were slower and weaker into lockdown, and despite being warned since January about the potential of this specific virus, and for decades about the dangers of a pandemic virus, we prepared nothing and left our most vulnerable citizens unprotected, and in many cases put them directly into harms way by filling their care homes with untested patients discharged directly from acute hospital beds.
The government is still dithering, fudging the guidance, confusing the population in the hope that the blame for this catastrophe can somehow be shifted onto the people or the scientists.
The fast food thing is just a distraction. Don’t fall for it.
The cake is a lie, eh?
If one good thing has come out of this, I hope a lot of us are going to be angry enough to hold this shower of shit to account, I had turned my back on politics after the last election, but this is making my piss boil and I intend to work out how to constructively channel this anger to affect change.
In many respects they don't give a shit, in fact this is proving to be a very useful distraction as the clock ticks down to Brexit Extension deadline, we trip over that date with no progress made and that sets in motion a No-Deal. Meanwhile, America moves in for the kill.
and in many cases put them directly into harms way by filling their care homes with untested patients discharged directly from acute hospital beds.
The ambulance-chasing end of the legal world are already circling this particular set of wagons...This govt hasn't granted immunity from prosecution any any doctor from discharging without a risk assessment (and where risk assessments were carried out, they were pretty sub standard from what I've seen) In the very near future, see those ads started to appear on day time TV...
Did your family member die all alone in a Care Home when they were discharged from Hospital? We can help, call our freephone number...
At the very least it will prompt holding a public enquiry (it'll be needed to set quantum) otherwise all the Trusts will be bankrupted.
Edit: Oh, and see all those care homes being prosecuted at the same time....Why did you accept these patients into your care home? what measures did you have in place to satisfy yourself they were free from covid19? What measures did you put in place to ensure no one else in your car home became infected? What measures did you put in place to ensure your staff and visitors were protected?
At least there will be one growth area in the economy
The cake is a lie, eh?
Ha!
'The coronavirus was introduced and spread throughout the UK by 1356 people who travelled here mostly from European countries, according to a preliminary study by researchers in the Covid-19 Genomics UK Consortium. The study has not yet been peer-reviewed. The researchers analysed genetic sequences from 20,000 coronavirus cases in the UK and used this to build a family tree. This revealed the lineage of the different infections and allowed the team to trace their origins. They estimate that 34 per cent of these original coronavirus cases were people who arrived in the UK from Spain, 29 per cent from France and 14 per cent from Italy. The researchers estimate that most introductions of the virus to the UK happened in March'
When did we start testing at the borders?
When did we lockdown?
The researchers analysed genetic sequences from 20,000 coronavirus cases in the UK and used this to build a family tree
They will have used some sophisticated maths to try and build their most confident guess at a tree. Other trees are available with differing confidence. I'd be interested in how robust the conclusions are. Genotyping the virus is now the easy part. Reconstructing the history of the subtle changes is less so. Particularly in a virus with which we have had limited interaction. Did they also type viruses from outside the UK, or just UK samples and compare with reference? The null hypothesis could be that the virus also changed in Italy and Spain, so the changes acquired are independent, but the same in non-mixing countries. Maybe.
reports of him needing big naps etc and him basically not doing much….
Johnson had previous for not turning up to do his job long before he got ill. It's well documented that he missed five of the initial Cobra meetings and went off on holiday for a couple of weeks during the early part of the pandemic crisis.
GlennQuagmire
MemberAll of this assumes, of course, that all countries are recording deaths in exactly the same way.
Otherwise, it’s like comparing apples and a blue Ford Sierra.
Sorry but this is straight up bullshit. The numbers are not perfectly comparable, but that doesn't mean that they're meaningless. And the margins for error here are so spectacular, you could have powers of magnitude differences and Britain would still be a high outlier.
Back to apples- you have a sack of apples. It says "contains approximately 50 apples". You count it once, you get 50. Someone else counts it, gets 49. You weigh it and use the average weight of an apple to get 48. You count 100 other bags and get an average of 51.
"All the answers are different and were gathered in different ways! This means we have absolutely no idea how many apples are in a bag, and that guy over there with one apple may have just as many as we do!"
Have we done this?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53006938
So thats what 1.2 people contacted per tracer per week by our 25 000 tracers from 5300ish people infected who could be arsed to pass on any details whilst 2700ish further people were infected but couldnt be arsed to give any contact information.....is that world class Boris?
Why couldn’t they contact the rest? Why aren’t we hunting out the remaining 80% of untested cases we know are out there? How is it world beating?
Dido Harding describes it as '....not gold standard yet'.
If it wasn't so serious that would be laughable; a charitable discussion would be to describe performance to date as pathetic.
The system has been unable to reach 15% of close contacts identified - 4,809 people - either because they were unavailable, their contact details were wrong or they did not respond to texts, emails or calls from contact tracers.
Tracers are told to try calling 10 times in a 24-hour period.
Just for my personal perspective.
I've not met many people. A few for bike rides, and a few for work. (Hopefully remaining socially distant in both cases.) About half of those riding companions will not have my phone number (organise via FB), none of the work ones will have access to my personal mobile and my company will not give it out if they rang the office number.
As a millenial I have never owned a landline, and generally wont answer a call from an unknown number, especially a persistent one, as I've been the victim of far to many not at fault car crashes.
I could plausibly see that some people could be uncontactable, especially as the "pay £500 for a test" thing is going round the hystericals on social media.
So thats what 1.2 people contacted per tracer per week by our 25 000 tracers from 5300ish people infected who could be arsed to pass on any details whilst 2700ish further people were infected but couldnt be arsed to give any contact information
Every positive test fed into the system which actually had contact details gave 6 contacts. For every original positive test person, 1 out of those 6 couldn't be followed up. Probably not a bad success rate.
I'm more concerned with the fact it takes appears to be a workload for one tracer of one phone call per week. Maybe I'm in the wrong business - that certainly sounds like an easy gig.
Meanwhile, IDS in economy-more-important-than-peoples-lives shocker:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53003046
I could plausibly see that some people could be uncontactable
That’s the beauty of the Apple/Google system… there is no need to accept a call from someone who claims to be acting in your interest… no need to know the phone number of anyone else… the app can tell you all you need to know, and tells those you have been in contact with (not your “contacts” in your address book). Secure and private. That’s what many people (rightly) expect.
Let's face it, the much-lauded app is never happening. The manual track-and-trace system isn't up to the job as it relies on the full cooperation of the infected person and their contacts.
It's one giant farce. If it was handed to you as a script for a sitcom you'd laugh at it for being implausible. Sadly it's out reality.
When they said world class they didn't state by what metric.
Let’s face it, the much-lauded app is never happening. The manual track-and-trace system isn’t up to the job as it relies on the full cooperation of the infected person and their contacts.
I’m really not getting the app situation.
I put an app in for Apple approval yesterday morning and it was approved for sale by the evening.
The iOS api Trackandtrace bits are in place they could have rolled something out quick without looking like muppets, I really don’t get it.
I really don’t get it.
Ask Cummings and the Warner bros.
I really don’t get it.
Perfect data is the enemy of the good (and anonymous). See testing...
I do not believe in exceptionalism, I believe in the law of large numbers. See apple counting above, which really made me laugh.
I've said before, the more numerate the person, the less store one places on absolute numbers (unless you are calculating the fine structure constant).
TiRed - thanks for linking to the fine structure constant.
Can you provide a link to a translation into simple english?
It is a dimensionless constant (1/137 ish) that captures the fundamental physical constants. Measurement of the constants (like speed of light and electron charge) is fundamental and done by multiple methods and then the calculation made. The number is known to about one part in a billion!
It is also a free parameter on the theory of quantum electrodynamics (relativistic electricity and magnetism), so to make calculations using the theory, you need an accurate value. The more accurate, the better the model will predict stuff.
The theory of how electricity and magnetism interact at relativistic speeds is the most precisely validated model in existence.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_tests_of_QED
George Box was wrong. Some models are right. This is one 🙂
Not sure if this goes in the coronavirus thread or the Boris Johnson thread but it's applicable to either!
Grim reading:
So, do I take it one over one hundred and thirty seven supplants forty two?
Easing of restrictions doesn't seem to be causing any spike in new cases:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53021671
I raised this on another thread too...
The Track and Trace system running in England is notifying an average of 6 contacts per positive test. That seems very high to me given the criteria (in Scotland the average is 1.5 contacts). In my case, it would be 2 (wife and daughter). In my wife's case it would be around 10 or 12 (she is doing community care). So, I can see there are some exceptions, but 6 as an average?
Bear in mind that the people catching it are pretty much by definition those who have most contact, whether through choice or as an unavoidable consequence of their situations.
Also, are the contacts really limited to the 2m 15 min thing or is it broader than that?
The key in determining the value of the system is in how many of next week's cases were already self-isolating when they came down with the disease (or rather, self-isolating a day or two before they noticed symptoms, when they were most likely to be passing it on). If that isn't happening to a significant degree, it's a complete waste of time.
Easing of restrictions doesn’t seem to be causing any spike in new cases:
In this analysis, 19,933 people from 9,179 households carried out their own swab tests of their throat and nose, which look for the presence of the virus.
Just 11 individuals from eight households tested positive for coronavirus, allowing statisticians to come up with estimates for the whole population.
Encouraging, but my only follow-up question is about the reliability of data from nasal swabs carried out by untrained individuals. It's supposedly a pretty uncomfortable thing to reach the right spot.
So, I can see there are some exceptions, but 6 as an average?
Well, it is pretty much exactly the average figure in the example you gave of you and your wife so is it suprising? TBH I think the Scottish figure seems low. Surely to have caught it you must have met a few people. To get an average of 1.5 there must be a lot of 1s and quite a few 0s which seems way too low.
ONS survey data also includes throat swab data, you don't have to swab the back of your nasal passage. I think the procedure was supervised by a health visitor, as it was a pilot to study whether people can take reliable swabs tests. There is also an antibody test component to the study.
BTW the data in totality is
Out of the 19,933 participants' swab tests included in this analysis, 11 individuals in 8 households tested positive for COVID-19. As this is a household survey,
instantaneous prevalence surveys need a big net.
In this analysis, 19,933 people from 9,179 households carried out their own swab tests of their throat and nose, which look for the presence of the virus.
Just 11 individuals from eight households tested positive for coronavirus, allowing statisticians to come up with estimates for the whole population.
My wife has had to swab people in the hospital she works at and she says that quite a few people who swab themselves don't do it properly because they don't go deep enough in the throat.
Cheers Tired...how does the figure tally with your forecasting?
Well, it is pretty much exactly the average figure in the example you gave of you and your wife so is it suprising?
🙂 Well, I guess there are very few folk doing any role that exposes them quite so much to community infection as my wife is, so I put her at the "extreme" end. I was tempted to start a thread with some sort of poll but didn't want to start yet another Coronavirus thread.
A bit encouraging:
https://theconversation.com/why-coronavirus-death-rates-wont-fall-as-quickly-as-they-rose-139947
ONS survey data also includes throat swab data, you don’t have to swab the back of your nasal passage. I think the procedure was supervised by a health visitor, as it was a pilot to study whether people can take reliable swabs tests.
I am one of the households involved in the study. In our case (family of 5) we have not been supervised. I think this was in part due to a lack of PPE; when we were initially contacted the nurse could not make the appointment for another week or so as they had not received any.
When they eventually did make it, the tests were dropped on the doorstep and they waited while we took them. The only guidance we were given was to watch the video on the government website, but certainly with regard to the nasal part, it was unclear how far in to go to take the swabs. We have now had 5 tests each over the past few weeks and the health visitor has dropped them on the doorstep each time.
I discussed with the visitor and I think we did it correctly, but we have no real way of knowing for sure unless we end up with a positive result (and my wife and I think we both had it back in April anyway).
Cheers Tired…how does the figure tally with your forecasting?
Half-life is 10-14 days, decline by July. Nothing has really changed in terms of prediction. Now looking at local outlier region identification, as this may be more informative as we see the back of the epidemic. Unlocking may extend this tail, but We will see about a rise in new cases and admissions.
My other half’s parents were part of the survey. The test packs never arrived. She is being into future sampling herself now. We’ll see what happens…
it was unclear how far in to go to take the swabs.
Just out of morbid curiosity - how far in are you supposed to stick the thing. I watched the NHS vidoe and the bloke didn't seem to stick it in very far at all, but others say you have to be practically poking your brains out.
Just out of morbid curiosity – how far in are you supposed to stick the thing. I watched the NHS vidoe and the bloke didn’t seem to stick it in very far at all, but others say you have to be practically poking your brains out.
Tbh we never got a definite answer. With our swabs we did both throat and nose, throat first obvs! We were told that the throat one was important, its not very pleasant and makes you gag a bit. We then poked it up noses, but tbh trying to do that to a 7, 8 and 10 year old meant we didn't push too hard. On my own ones, I went up an inch or so, no idea if that was suitable or not.
Down the throat till you gag and then some. Back of the nose till it won't go any further and you sneeze. It's a long way in! The study is looking at whether throat swabs are as reliable - and self-swabbing - for obvious reasons. Only children poke things that far into their nose.
You don't go up, you go "in"!
Thanks TiRed, I suspect ours were not as reliable as they could be then...
TiRed
Did they also type viruses from outside the UK, or just UK samples and compare with reference? The null hypothesis could be that the virus also changed in Italy and Spain, so the changes acquired are independent, but the same in non-mixing countries. Maybe.
I didn't read the paper but that was my first thought and I thought it was "just me".
I did a test yesterday afternoon after waking up with a mild fever (38C) which has since gone. Having interacted with plenty of people in an enclosed environment over the last few days it seemed sensible to get tested.
Went online and booked in, slots were available within 30 minutes. No other cars at the test site. I went through the "key workers" link although no ID required.
The tonsil swabbing was the hardest but only to the extent of not accidentally touching my tongue or cheek.
Instructions say to only insert the swab 2.5cm into your nose. Even that was pretty uncomfortable so wouldn't want the full brain-tickler. Better results obviously from the brain violation but apparently it makes you sneeze, spreading the virus.
Kit could be better designed and ship in a cardboard box instead of about six plastic bags. Would provide a work area in the car and keep everything together, and the instructions could be printed on the inside of the lid.
Just awaiting the results now. Personal suspicion is that the chance of a positive test is near zero.
Result came back in 36 hours - negative.
👌🏻 good news flaperon
Result came back in 36 hours – negative.
but what does that mean ??
(not a critcism btw...)
Im probably missing the obvious but where is the daily count for covid deaths on the BBC website?, cant find it mentioned anywhere?
Im probably missing the obvious but where is the daily count for covid deaths on the BBC website?, cant find it mentioned anywhere?
This is part of what I was alluding to last week, its almost as if its a non issue now.
I fear so kryton, Lead story on the BBC UK page is Sunak says it is safe for the public to shop again, stinks of propaganda to me
Was mentioned on BBC news last night, think it was 180 yesterday, but the actual daily death toll has been hidden away online for a month now.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/
Only Belgium out in front.
C'mon Britain, you can do this!
Why should the BBC have a daily count? All it is doing is reporting what the UK Government site Track Coronavirus is saying.
Im probably missing the obvious but where is the daily count for covid deaths on the BBC website?, cant find it mentioned anywhere?
BBC Scotland are still carrying a daily update on the Scottish figures but it's obviously become less important in England now, even though the deaths per head of population figure is running at around 3 times the Scottish numbers. It's almost like they don't want anyone making comparisons.
Well, in tin foil hat mode I've just been browsing worldometer and it was appear our daily cases/and deaths are rising slightly, which although unfortunate is of no surprise.
May thats why its not on the news...
BBC Scotland are still carrying a daily update on the Scottish figures but it’s obviously become less important in England now, even though the deaths per head of population figure is running at around 3 times the Scottish numbers.
Is it?
With 4,000 deaths from a population of 5.454 million people, the rate of coronavirus deaths in Scotland has reached 733 for every million, behind England on 767 and Belgium on 842.
www.scotsman.com/news/politics/scotland-coronavirus-death-rate-third-worst-world-2880962%3famp
Or are you referring to a different metric?
Why should the BBC have a daily count? All it is doing is reporting what the UK Government site Track Coronavirus is saying
BBC is the primary news source in this country.
The death rate and positive tests are at best plateauing, if not slightly rising...
Sounds a perfectly reasonable time to rush a 2m social distancing review by 4th July to keep our Brexit friend, Wetherspoons Tim, happy. :rolleyes:
Is it?
Is running at
7 day total for UK - 1,197.
7 day total for Scotland - 32
edit : my bad, wrong thread.
So this is what I've just read in the media in the last 20 mins or so:
Sunak is now saying the decision over the 2m rule is one for minister, not scientists according to the Guardian.
Boris has apparently not chaired a Cobra meeting for a month.
The Lancet says the "UK response is greatest policy failure for a generation."
They're still pushing for schools to reopen despite knowing of the issues.
The figures for deaths and infections is being hidden away so that people don't get the full picture.
The whole test-and-trace scheme is still woefully under prepared to do it's job.
China had had to lock down Wuhan again after a second spike in infections.
We're one of the worst countries for controlling the virus spread, our tracking system isn't fit for purpose yet and still they're trying to push forward like we've beaten it? I know this is all so they can wind up the Furlough scheme as soon as possible but the way they're playing about we're going to have mass unemployment when the scheme ends followed possibly by a second wave and then the chaos of Brexit on top. Someone give me some positive news.
Someone give me some positive news.
I'll try, It has taken the deaths of 50,000+ citizens of this country to expose the utter ineptness of this government.
Not really good news in any way possible so i guess i've failed the "good news" test
But look on the brightside, we can all go shopping to buy shit we dont need to fill the void in our souls
Kudos for trying but we're not allowed out to non-essential shops here in Wales. I can't even turn to retail therapy!
Thankfully i live in Galloway/Scotland where it appears our politicians (apart from the few rabid tories toeing the party line) have a bit of sense, still a bloody disgrace about the deaths in care homes though.
I’ll try, It has taken the deaths of 50,000+ citizens of this country to expose the utter ineptness of this government.
If only that were true!
reluctantjumper
SubscriberWe’re one of the worst countries for controlling the virus spread, our tracking system isn’t fit for purpose yet and still they’re trying to push forward like we’ve beaten it?
It is, imo, now all about spin and nothing else. Since their actual record is absolutely indefensible, they're hoping that by just acting like they've defeated it, and that 200 deaths a day is just normal, that they can convince people that it's true. After all, that nice Mr Johnson certainly wouldn't be opening shops if coronavirus wasn't beaten, would he?
Be interesting to see how it goes with the 2m to 1m regulation.
There’s a fair few weeks to go before Independence Day but it does look like The pressures rising on this.
Anyone got any ideas On timescales of the science Vs Boris’s Big bash The Reunion.
On the Goldilocks scale 🙂
Boris's achievements are seriously staggering (!) if looked at from a global perspective:
What tyres for USA, Brazil or Russia?
There's not a single column in that chart where we come out looking good. Surely anyone with half a brain can see we're rushing into reopening far too quickly compared to everyone else?
It is, imo, now all about spin and nothing else.
100% agree, although I think everyone's suffering from fatigue from all the crap they're putting out. Some of us are looking for the truth behind it and realising it's bollocks while others are just ignoring it all and doing what they feel is right.
Be interesting to see how it goes with the 2m to 1m regulation.
The issue I've got with it is that with the 2m rule some people are taking liberties so in effect we have a 1m rule being obeyed. Same as the motorway speed limit is 70 but a lot of people barrel along at 80-90 as you rarely get told off. Reduce the rule to 1m and those people who push things will be down to being 10-20cm away in shops, on the street and you effectively have no personal space anymore. But then Boris and co won't really understand this as they all live in a Westminster bubble never really mixing with the great unwashed.
I'm currently working as a supermarket home delivery driver and all day I see people who have made massive sacrifices by staying indoors for months to not only protect themselves but their friends and family. I can genuinely be the only person some of them see and talk to all week. Plenty of us have forgone seeing friends and family for what feels like forever to get this under some sort of control and the muppets in Westminster are gambling all of that so that they look good to their donors. All the way through this they have failed to act decisively, the only time they did was in announcing the furlough support scheme, the rest has been following public opinion and pressure from big business. If a second wave happens it will destroy the country.
The issue I’ve got with it is that with the 2m rule some people are taking liberties so in effect we have a 1m rule being obeyed. Same as the motorway speed limit is 70 but a lot of people barrel along at 80-90 as you rarely get told off.
Much as I agree I think it's well beyond that. I think it's becoming increasingly binary and for a large number its simply on or off and 10%+1 (to extend the analogy) means regardless of black ice, fog/white-out and if visibility is down to 20' then they can't get snapped by a camera.
Yay its shopping time!!!
When we drop to 1m, it will effectively mean that distancing is over. The decision about when that happens should be made with the acceptance of that. We should be aiming to have a virus free population (as other countries have achieved) or numbers so low that every case can be isolated effectively, before taking that step. I predict that won’t be the case, and magic masks will be offered up as a replacement for social distancing (and any rise in cases then blamed on the population, not the advice/rules).
Yay its shopping time!!!
It's all camera angles and zoom lenses mate 🙄
Over on lockdownskeptics everyone takes comfort in the deaths/M figure being so much lower than Belgium, but in truth there are really four groups:
<100/M (exceptional, e.g. Norway)
100-300/M (good, e.g. Germany),
300-600/M (fair, e.g. Netherlands, Sweden, probably Belgium when counted the same)
>600/M (poor, e.g. U.K., Spain)
Absolute ranking is not really helpful here (unless you are a politician), but class is obvious. We've failed miserably. The real question is why.
Three months on we know that this is a serious pathogenic disease in the elderly and those with additional risk factors, but not children (who have the same infection levels as adults) or healthy adults under 65. Outside of London and the Midlands, community transmission is relatively low (about 3% have had the infection compared to 16% in London). Within the healthcare and Nursing Home community things are much more serious. Healthcare workers are about 8x more likely to have the infection than the general population and are probably the key to moving infections from these facilities back out into the communities and maintaining endemic spread. Those are the people I would be tracking and testing. Testing daily at the end of every shift with fast turnaround to infer whether isolation is needed the following day.
I am actually less concerned about the shops opening, or indeed the schools. The non-opening of schools is largely pragmatic - they won't be learning much anyway in the final weeks, the decision is economic not educational. The real issue is how to control the spread back from high prevalence to low (and yes that includes UK to other countries).
Sweden has shown what an endemic state looks like. More by accident than design.
Yay its shopping time!!!
What I don't understand is if you think it's important enough to wear a mask (as some in that pic are doing) you must have some basic understanding of the risks of the virus to both you and those around you.
So then with that knowledge, why would you think the urgent need for some new chav trainers and a tracksuit trump the need to protect your own and everybody else's health
And even if there wasn't a virus circulating, what kind of loser gets up early to travel to central london to queue for the reopening of a nike store....
Magic masks build false confidence.
Shopping is a way of life for many in the UK (and RoW), and the early queue part of the ‘experience’ for some. Riding a bike off road to the top of a hill looks like a weird pursuit to many…
What I don’t understand is if you think it’s important enough to wear a mask (as some in that pic are doing) you must have some basic understanding of the risks of the virus to both you and those around you.
So then with that knowledge, why would you think the urgent need for some new chav trainers and a tracksuit trump the need to protect your own and everybody else’s health
And even if there wasn’t a virus circulating, what kind of loser gets up early to travel to central london to queue for the reopening of a nike store….
You should never underestimate the predictability of stupidity
What I don’t understand is if you think it’s important enough to wear a mask (as some in that pic are doing) you must have some basic understanding of the risks of the virus to both you and those around you.
So then with that knowledge, why would you think the urgent need for some new chav trainers
I think you are looking at this from the wrong end... 😉
someone said "you need these new trainers" .. they buy trainers... someone say's "you need to wear a mask to be safe" ..