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Cases are up in England, France and Spain this week. There is a definite upward trend.
Bluster bluster bluster, pish pish pish, wave union flag.
His being here is another massive boost for indy.
Keep spouting shite bawjaws. 👌🏻
They can answer you now… assuming both they and you are working this evening ready for tomorrow…
Yep @kelvin, got the notification confidentially last night so spent most of last night and then today sorting things out. Just logged off and issued staff comms at 9pm for it to come in to effect from midnight. Ho hum.
Next challenge is that all the funding for bus and tram services in England expires on 3 August and no confirmation yet what will replace it. Fun times indeed.
Tough day. I’m sure you’ll find most people fine tomorrow… hope it’s as hassle free as possible for you and the other staff. Good luck.
Cases are up in England, France and Spain this week. There is a definite upward trend.
Bit early to say there's a definite upward trend in the UK. Worldofmeters is showing a relatively flat 600-650 average (7 days).
Spain and France on the other hand do show an upward trend, Spain is screwed and I'd be surprised if the holiday goers aren't asked to quarantine soon when they come back and Spain is put on the naughty list.
Northwind, it's written very clearly in the pandemic plan which is on the web, you could try reading it. In pointing this out I'm neither defending it nor criticising it, just saying what it is.
What's the odds of France being put on the naughty list soon?
Our french correspondent will be along shortly with some insight.
Bit early to say there’s a definite upward trend in the UK. Worldofmeters is showing a relatively flat 600-650 average (7 days).
So, England really, not the UK.
Thecaptain, I don't think anyone's disagreeing that it was in the UK plan, but it can't be described as 'excepted wisdom' is the point.
So, England really, not the UK.
Unsurprisingly in the country with by far the largest population and densely populated, also has by far the most infections in relation to the rest of the countries in the UK.
Golf clap for the attempted but failed dig.
Not a dig, just a fact. We can argue all day about density of population versus dithering by those that you elected, but we've done that already, let's just stick to facts.
Unsurprisingly in the country with by far the largest population and densely populated, also has by far the most infections in relation to the rest of the countries in the UK.
True, but the devolved governments had pretty varied routes out of lockdown. Surely the data we see over the next few months does offer a bit of insight into the success or otherwise of those approaches. How can we not be happy to see only 1 death in 2 weeks for Scotland?
Yeah, and please don't assume anyone is revelling in England's pain, every death is a tragedy.
We're veering into politics again, sorry.
While we're dividing the country up so we can apportion pats on the back can I just say well done the South West. Despite the 'lead' we've had. 🙄
Anyway, Calderdale folk…
Should I stay in Spain? Have computer and house to stay in. The idea of working from here for the rest of the summer is quite appealing. Car and bike hire might get a little expensive though.
PS. Here on the Costa del Sol it's a bit of a mixed bag. Indoors it's 100% mask wearing, outdoors about 80%. In bars/restaurants, pools and beaches zero, which sort of negates the otherwise good habits. I went to a water-slide park the other day and apart from the fact it was half empty due to most of the brits being absent, you'd never have known there was a pandemic on.
Should I stay in Spain?
Well, Barbados has just launched a 12 month visitors visa and my in-laws house - in a complex with a pool near Bridgetown - has just become available...
thecaptain
MemberNorthwind, it’s written very clearly in the pandemic plan which is on the web, you could try reading it.
Which means it's written in the pandemic plan; it doesn't make it the "perceived wisdom". What are we struggling with here?
For transport hubs in England, the requirements mean face coverings must be worn in indoor train stations and terminals, airports, maritime ports, and indoor bus and coach stations or terminals.
Seems you're exempt if you're a minicab driver picking up inside the terminal. A group protest, although not sure what their objection is?
Nothing like being coughed on in Boots by a guy who looks really ill and is buying paracetamol and a giant bottle of water, and isn't bothering to wear a mask.
Wearing masks in shops in England now compulsory, wearing them and using them properly is optional, that's what i've noticed today.
Northwind, that's twice you have used quotation marks without actually managing to quote me correctly. I find cut and paste handy in these situations, it saves embarrassment.
When I talk of "accepted wisdom", I meant in the eyes of the scientific experts advising the government at the time. It's not yet clear to me that they were wrong in principle, though they were certainly wrong in their assessment of the urgency of the problem. Even in the case of allowing a mitigated epidemic, strong mitigation was required from a much earlier stage in the process, and this is something they should have been able to work out sooner.
However, if an effective vaccine doesn't turn up quickly enough, they may well be proved broadly correct in the long run in a very difficult, unpleasant and costly manner. Though the incredible speed of medical developments was definitely something they overlooked in their strategy.
S Korea has double the UK's population density.
Should I stay in Spain? Have computer and house to stay in. The idea of working from here for the rest of the summer is quite appealing. Car and bike hire might get a little expensive though.
The advantage is there’s a lot more outdoor settings for eating and drinking and generally more space and the weather and the winters that are like our summers.
I’m not seeing the UK as a fun place to be in this Winter.
Probably deals to be done if your hiring a car for months and tbh may be worth getting one of your bikes sent over.
Looking at the Independent Sage graph from yesterday (24th July) the UK has managed to pull off a completely different profile - be rude not to call it a Cummings Curve. If we had learned from other countries and followed a more conventional pandemic response - we would have had a lower peak and a faster fall?
The bulk of the lockdown worked well - better than expected, probably. The mistake was not acting soon enough at the start. Shape in the early part depends heavily on availability of tests, and policy on who got tested.
The flat top in the U.K. graph is more due to lack of testing than actual shape. It’s effectively missing its peak due to lack of case visibility.
The mistake was not acting soon enough at the start.
We were definitely about three weeks too late to go in to lockdown. Looking at what was going on in Europe surely should have been the reason to act sooner but instead still allowed events like Cheltenham to go ahead.
This Newscientist article has an interesting discussion of the possibility of elimination of covid.
Still very unclear whether the UK govt has a long-term strategy at all. Seems to be a case of kicking the can down the road and seeing what turns up. Come back Teresa May all is forgiven!
toboflard, with the doubling time being what it was, even a week earlier would have been enough to massively cut the death toll, and it was clear to anyone paying attention that action was required at that time.
If they haven't prolonged the peak into a plateau and it's missing data our peak would be 12,000 plus per day? Assuming the UK profile was the same as everyone else's and it's just the testing that's still caused the radically different trace. They stopped showing the comparison graphs before this became apparent - back to lies, damn lies and Boris Johnson. I'm guessing there are more global case profiles that don't look like the UK's than do.
Yes that's right oldaged. The long flat top is an artefact of the testing. The actual number of infections was far higher than your number too, anything up to about 250,000 per day is possible, albeit briefly. We only catch a small proportion of all infections even now (maybe around 20% ish each day, but no-one knows for sure). It was way worse back in March, with many more cases and many fewer tests.
Come back Teresa May all is forgiven!
No.
Like standing in labrador shite and wishing it was collie shite instead.
In that case I'm happy with the term Cumming's Curve - a deviation away from an expected path presented as discovery, exceptionalism or innovation which actually results from flaws in the method.
@thecaptain indeed, anything would have been better in terms of days or weeks earlier. It was my local Director of Public Health which put the three week estimate on it so who am I to disagree.
The Coronavirus Discussion Thread.
thecaptain
MemberWhen I talk of “accepted wisdom”, I meant in the eyes of the scientific experts advising the government at the time.
Then you should have made that clear, since it would have made it easy to tell that you were just misusing the term, rather than that you misunderstood the facts. Something that a small group thinks is not accepted wisdom- something that most people think is accepted wisdom. The supporters of herd immunity were the opposite.
Just caught something breaking on Twitter that tourists returning from Spain now have to quarantine for two weeks? This correct?
Times and Guardian reporting it will be announced, have to wait and see. No surprise TBH.
French PM Castex today “we might have to close the border with Spain due to the rising number of local outbreaks”
Sturgeon today “Aye, just awa’ on yer holidays to Spain, dinnae worry aboot quarantine when ye get back hame”.
Posted 4 days ago
Hmmm
Yep, 14 day quarantine when back from Spain now...
Jaysus, gonna have to read a lot of dazh posting on here then if he’s stuck at home for another two weeks...😀
Which countries will be next?
My money is on any/all of France, Italy & Greece.
England?
Jaysus, gonna have to read a lot of dazh posting on here then if he’s stuck at home for another two weeks…
Still in Spain! Back next weekend assuming the flights don't get cancelled. What a joke. The Spanish are way more vigilant about covid than we are. You certainly don't see them whining like spoilt kids about masks being uncomfortable, or claustrophobic or whatever other pathetic excuse people in the UK can come up with.
scotroutes - ha, yes; I should have looked closer to home.
Cases are confounded by testing. Deaths are confounded (a bit) by reporting practices. The long-term strategy is to open the economy enough that we can still survive the winter. For planning purposes Spring 2021 is long-term. I hope that doesn’t sound alarmist.
Other endemic pathogens have come to the party. This one’s not very nice for the elderly and it is very much a management of its emergence because it’s not going away.
Locking down earlier would have bought time to understand the awful situation in nursing homes. It may have helped with community transmission, but there simply was not the testing capacity to manage the situation.
But I believe prophylaxis and better treatments will be along by 2021. That will bring more options. One I read yesterday, is that the US demand for an anti-Covid antibody would use half of the global supply of biotechnology plants. So buying up old vaccine factories is a sound strategy.
Still in Spain! Back next weekend assuming the flights don’t get cancelled. What a joke.
All else aside, I hope it doesn’t mess family, work life etc up if/when you get back.
scotroutes
Subscriber
England?
very good. if it helps, if you lot ever do get independence, i'm moving up, and bringing my diseases with me. 😉
The Spanish are way more vigilant about covid than we are.
Can't be that vigilant can they.
These masks seem to be doing wonders as well in Europe.
Can’t be that vigilant can they.
Well you might want to drop the smug tone because if it can return here with all the controls in place and mass mask wearing then it'll be on it's way back in the UK too before too long. If I were spanish I might be wondering at the wisdom of allowing god knows how many tourists from countries with worse outbreaks to fly over for the summer.
Well you might want to drop the smug tone because if it can return here with all the controls in place and mass mask wearing then it’ll be on it’s way back in the UK too before too long.
No smugness about it, get off your high horse.
Yes it'll resurge in the UK of course it will. Its not going away.
As highlighted in this thread earlier the only way to eradicate is to lockdown till we all commit suicide.
Here we go.
Masks don’t necessarily protect you. However they are proven to reduce infection transmission. Which, one would think, was a good thing and be universally accepted. Apparently not. Because it’s an infringement of your human rights, like abuse and everything, innit, blud...
The most comprehensive analysis of non Pharmaceutical interventions I’ve read across multiple countries showed that in the presence of multiple other actions, mask had limited effect. Of course removing all those other interventions (schools returning, larger gatherings, indoor mixing) means they are much more likely to have an effect.
This is a respiratory pathogen spread by aerosols. Covering the virus entry point will have some limit on emission and inhalation of such aerosols. Whether that is sufficient to offset the crowding on the 7:52 to London Waterloo is an experiment to be run (current occupancy of that train is less than 20% of normal).
I know everyone wants binary certainty, but that isn’t how the scientific method works. Denmark is conducting a randomised study of mask wearing. That will be interesting given the low (but not zero) incidence there.
This is a respiratory pathogen spread by aerosols. Covering the virus entry point will have some limit on emission and inhalation of such aerosols. Whether that is sufficient to offset the crowding on the 7:52 to London Waterloo is an experiment to be run (current occupancy of that train is less than 20% of normal).
Ditto return to offices (when will we go 1m+? It’s already being mooted at my work). Is ventilation adequate for such densities? Fine until somebody turns up with the actual jandies!
Masks would cut down the flu cold / transmission? It may only have a small containment effect on Covid but if it's reducing transmission of the other viruses we get in winter it's taking the pressure off the system.
The outlook is grim, isn’t it? What’s the point or hanging around. Life is fairly shit these days (relatively speaking) and with mass redundancies and more economic damage, there’s absolutely nothing to look forward too. I have enough money to just about live for 2 months if I lost my job. After that, I’d be screwed.
The outlook is grim, isn’t it?
No i don't believe it is actually. I do think we have a serious socio-economic shock that will take perhaps 18mo to two years to get over. But i am a firm believer in science and what it can deliver. Life expectancy for HIV patients is now back to normal. It was a death sentence. Pandemics have always been the most feared shock to societies. This one is not great economically, but it honestly could be much much worse.
Much much worse, as in figures similar to 1918? The world is such a different place to what it was then. I just fear the worse for everything at the minute. I’m glad you feel positive and that science has the answers. I’m certainly not one of them. The economic impact is yet to be felt at its worst. I suffer immensely in winter, is one is going to be grim.
@TiRed just to say thank you for your contributions. I won’t pretend to understand all of them, but very grateful for your perspective and data based realism.
We were due an economic shock. A lot of retail was already struggling. The oil industry is on its way out. The automotive industry on wafer thin margins. I was already wondering how the adjustments were going to play out. Coronavirus has been a godsend for dodgy businesses that needed to restructure / streamline / stop. Rather than letting things gradually slip they’ve had to take stock and rethink.
Much much worse, as in figures similar to 1918?
SARS-COV1 which broke out in 2003 had a mortality of 10% of All cases. MERS which came along 10 years later killed about a third of people infected. Both viruses were not easily transmitted, so absolute numbers were fortunately very low. SARS-COV-2 is about as transmissible As influenza, and about as pathogenic too (mercifully not like SARS-COV1). The principal difference to influenza is we have little or no past immunity and no effective treatments. Yet. We will. That is why i am optimistic. In 1918 it was a broadly similar stuation, although the elderly had some protection from their past infections, but the young did not.
I know the figures from back then vary, from 20-50mil dead. We’re a long way off that with a population 3 times the size. Frightening, what might be.
Anything any of us can do to help Dazh? Either as regards getting back, or your situation when you return? Ask on here, people will help if they can.
but there simply was not the testing capacity to manage the situation.
Kinda true, but the.molton Keynes testing centre has hundreds? of QPCR machines they took from universities & institutes around the country
Apart from the primers which can be synthesized very cheaply & quickly within the UK we had the capacity to run 1000s of tests a week
Instead the machines moved to MK & sat idle for a month.
Could've made a huge difference in care homes & hospitals
With the benefit of hindsight a decentralised approach to testing could have given us a better chance
Ahh I wonder if the Quarantine hokey kokeys just started 🙂
Dictated by choice of ministers holiday destination.
The news seems to have a few people complaining about the arrival of restrictions for people coming in from Spain. Makes a change from concerns we didn't lock down quick enough. Honestly I'm struggling to grasp how people didn't factor in the potential risk of restrictions coming in rapidly. Slightly more baffling is how the government doesn't seem to have a plan for disruption to employment / loss of income it's not like there hasn't been enough time for this one.
Anything any of us can do to help Dazh?
Thanks but it’s all fine. Main risk is the return flights being cancelled but that’s no big deal as we have a house we can stay in indefinitely If it comes to it.
Apart from the primers which can be synthesized very cheaply & quickly
Actually, I think it was polymerase that was in shorter supply. We supplied a lot of the machines and staff to that centre. Think they are still at it.
The German approach to healthcare appears to have had a better outcome. It’s not really for want of spending (although they do spend more). Sadly, I think the NHS and PHE have been found wanting this isn’t surprising given a system running at 90+% capacity and then expected to expand immediately to accommodate an outbreak.
I think the NHS and PHE
…the pausing and centralising of testing and contact tracing were government decisions, not arm length ones. Yes, the NHS and PHE will be copping a fair share of the blame… but the overarching strategy they had to work to came from Cummings ultimately.
… as we have a house we can stay in indefinitely If it comes to it.
That’s good… that avoids any real drama for you all. Hope you can make the most of however long you end up over there.
The news seems to have a few people complaining about the arrival of restrictions for people coming in from Spain. Makes a change from concerns we didn’t lock down quick enough. Honestly I’m struggling to grasp how people didn’t factor in the potential risk of restrictions coming in rapidly. Slightly more baffling is how the government doesn’t seem to have a plan for disruption to employment / loss of income it’s not like there hasn’t been enough time for this one.
they probably really want to bring in a "pay for a test pass" on this. though I think most people will just ignore it, no ones going to check up on you. As with going to the pub/restaurant they failed to hilite the small print "doing so runs the risk of 2 weeks self isolation".
though I think most people will just ignore it, no ones going to check up on you.
Of course people will ignore it, because people will use their own common sense to come to the conclusion that they are no more likely to be exposed to covid in Spain than in the UK. If they expect people to adhere to the restrictions they need to demonstrate a clear and present danger and in this case they simply haven't done that. The also need to ensure people don't suffer financially by sticking to the rules, and they haven't done that either.
Of course people will ignore it, because people will use their own common sense to come to the conclusion that they are no more likely to be exposed to covid in Spain than in the UK.
I think anyone cramming on a plane shoulder to shoulder with 200+ people for 3hrs then spending 2 weeks drinking/eating in bars and then finishing off with another 3hrs up in the sky in a Covid bioreactor is probably more likely to be infected than someone who thinks it’s probably best to stay at home during a global pandemic.
Yeah, but it's not what you think that matters. The ones deciding whether to obey the law are the ones who thought it was a good idea to go cramming on a plane shoulder to shoulder with 200+ people for 3hrs then spending 2 weeks drinking/eating in bars and then finishing off with another 3hrs up in the sky in a Covid bioreactor!
The German approach is highly variable. We spent a week in Berlin where down Sonnenallee you wouldn't have known there was a Pandemic whislt in the centre masks were the norm. Guess where the clusters are? One campsite was frighteningly overcrowded and pretty much mask free, we went to a hotel instead. Expect cases to rise.
Same in France, more masks equal less clusters. Expect cases to rise thanks to alcohol fueled tourists spreading their germs. Guess where the pissed up idiots puking up everywhere last night were from?
Of course people will ignore it, because people will use their own common sense to come to the conclusion that they are no more likely to be exposed to covid in Spain than in the UK. If they expect people to adhere to the restrictions they need to demonstrate a clear and present danger and in this case they simply haven’t done that. The also need to ensure people don’t suffer financially by sticking to the rules, and they haven’t done that either.
Weren't you one of the people earlier in the thread who was so vocal against those taking the piss during initial lock down? Yet now you say the public can use common sense to make their own decisions?
Whilst I have sympathy for your situation, it was made abundently clear that travel restrictions could be changed at any time, so you must have kniw it was a risk to go out tjere.
Yet now you say the public can use common sense to make their own decisions?
He’s gone full Cummings. Never go full Cummings.
The also need to ensure people don’t suffer financially by sticking to the rules, and they haven’t done that either.
You have to agree with this though, no? Just like local lock downs… if we expect people to adhere to them without an income, many can’t or won’t be able to.
I think we've come a long way since February in terms of knowing how the virus is transmitted and how to avoid getting it. In February we were told masks were pointless and to wash our hands. Then there were the first reports that aerosols and not just droplets could spread the virus and masks were effective at reducing the load to below minimum infective dose if everybody wore them and stayed a reasonable distance apart indoors.
I'm back from a four-country road trip I wouldn't have done in March - but I decided not to fly. I did use trams and busses though, they weren't crowded, I didn't stand next to any one person for long. I avoided crowds even if it meant staying in a more expensive hotel.
So I'm in the "common sense" party. It's just that some people have no common sense and common sense needs to be legislated. I was pleased to see some municipalites insisting on masks even outdoors in market and on crowded sea fronts.
My slow recovery from feeling unusally bad with my asthma in March and Madame's symptoms mean I'm 50/50 on having had it. That doesn't mean I'm going to ease up on caution, if only because every person who doesn't play the game encourages others to ignore the "common sense" advice.