Trying not to sound provocative, but are there many cases of teachers being infected
Who knows?
No testing of school staff.
Like everything else, we can’t act “based on the science”, as the government claims to be doing, as we haven’t been collecting the data.
I have an awful lot of respect for her.
You lot are lucky to have her.
Not a fan of her politics, but she comes across well as a leader at the moment. Clear, direct, honest (for a politician)
“Social distancing and limiting of contacts with others will be a fact of life for a long time to come, certainly until treatments and ultimately a vaccine offer different solutions.
“So that means possibly for the rest of this year, and maybe even beyond.”
That's been my assumption from the offset, it's events like this that have a profound effect on what normal is for the vast majority. We won't know the full effects it has had on us for a good 4-5 years and even then it'll depend on whether we have a vaccine, reliable mass testing and how those measures are managed.
Now if only we had been given that information earlier by the people in Westminster then we'd be in a better position with regards the attitude of most people. The amount of idiots I see while out doing my deliveries who are determined to carry on with the old normal is seriously annoying. Having the local B&Q open again for the public has had the exact consequences I thought it would: all the bored retired people have swamped it to get a few bedding plants and that oh-so-important decking furniture. The poor staff spent all day yesterday basically herding sheep. The trade collection point on the other side of the store was the complete opposite with everyone giving each other space presumably as they know how much it would effect each other if they were to get ill.
Maybe it's because I like my personal space that I can easily adhere to the 2m rule, I've actually been enjoying it. It's like having your own personal force field!
A speculation about masks - if they are mainly useful to collect our own spit and snot and not protect us from the spit of others, is there a reason why a "disposable" mask can't be worn more than once? It's our own snot we'd be breathing in, after all ?
scotroutes - sturgeon, yet again, communicating clearly and concisely; oh for some of that from Westminster.
Trying not to sound provocative, but are there many cases of teachers being infected during lockdown?
Who knows, we havent a clue. Not testing as much as possible on the way in is also going to affect us on the way out as we can do little more than guess. I find it hard to believe children dont spread it as much as adults though.
Oh and yes Sturgeon, whilst I dont follow Scottish politics so dont know her views she does seem at least capable of communicating and being a bit honest in sharp contrast to the lot in charge at Westminster!
just seen sturgeons comments
wow, treating the citizens like adults
its not anything amazing but just contrasts with the way our own ministers seem incapable of doing so
We could really use a cabinet of sturgeons right now.
I was stood down at work yesterday and invited to be swabbed as I had very mild symptoms. My wife had also developed a sore throat, sore head and a mild fever and she was also invited /offered to be swabbed. I collected my wife from home en route to the testing station and when she got into the car she turned to me and said she didn't want to die. I never seen her so scared and helpless. I hadn't fully realised, despite working in that environment, just how terrifying this is for an awful lot of people and it shook me.
Got phoned this morning and thankfully we are both negative and just have colds. But its also a sobering thought that we were advised that the test is similar to an MoT in that its only really valid for that day!
Stay safe everyone....and stay at home!
And while not wanting to add more worry, it seems that around 30% of tests are throwing up false negatives.
mrmonkfinger
MemberWe could really use a cabinet of sturgeons right now
That is a great name for a twee indie band
wow, treating the citizens like adults
Unfortunately, as we have seen again and again, not all adults act like adults.
it seems that around 30% of tests are throwing up false negatives.
Some of them are not that bad. Rushed out of Chinese biotechs to get in early sales. Elisa assays are more sensitive and have better performance, but I've looked at the Oxford assay and it's OK, but some of the LFIA (flow stick) assays look good too. they are good enough for population studies. Perhaps not so good for individuals.
Roche will be along shortly with a high throughput commercial ELISA. We use these all the time to look for anti-drug antibodies in all our clinical trials of biological drugs.
For vaccine (not test) development, swap Chinese biotech for UK university and Roche for GSK/Sanofi/Pfizer/J&J... 😉
Genedrive & Cytiva are fairly confident that their collaboration in providinga diagnostic test will be validated by the end of this month.
it seems that around 30% of tests are throwing up false negatives.
Some of them are not that bad. Rushed out of Chinese biotechs to get in early sales. Elisa assays are more sensitive and have better performance, but I’ve looked at the Oxford assay and it’s OK, but some of the LFIA (flow stick) assays look good too. they are good enough for population studies. Perhaps not so good for individuals.
Roche will be along shortly with a high throughput commercial ELISA. We use these all the time to look for anti-drug antibodies in all our clinical trials of biological drugs.
For vaccine (not test) development, swap Chinese biotech for UK university and Roche for GSK/Sanofi/Pfizer/J&J… 😉
@tired you know much about the reliability of the Cepheid test? We've just gone online with that today to do some testing in house. 4 an hour with scope to double that soon hopefully. However we're currently limited to 35 kits a day.
I see they mentioned "two NHS labs using a new method without extraction" in the briefing today. I wonder if we're included in that because the Cepheid method whilst being PCR is all in a self contained cartridge so we don't require the master mix everyone is short of.
If they are saying these two NHS labs are leading the way in getting to 100,000 tests then that's a laugh as like i say, we've got a cap of 35 a day.
I'll post this for some thought... Target for the COVID19 epidemic was to keep deaths (in hospitals) under 20,000. Well there is plenty of debate about who has and has not died of COVID19, and where they have or have not died.
But there is no debate about whether someone has died or not (death is the hardest endpoint). Below is a comparison of week 15 (APR 10) cumulative deaths for the years 2010-2019 (mean and 95% CI) with those for 2020. I have only listed the categories ABOVE the historic 95% confidence interval. As you can see, COVID19 is a serious disease in the over 45 category, with twice as many men dying as women. We have certainly surpassed 20,000 additional deaths by now. As to how many have died from COVID19, I think it is immaterial. Surprisingly, deaths of women 85+ are not higher than normal! Something is working.
So those 19,321 excess deaths are from all causes - Covid and non-Covid - but iirc we had a mild winter flu season, so probably went into this from a "below average" excess deaths position to start with?
Not sure that reads correctly - mild flu season, gave us below average excess deaths at the start of the year, now we are 19,321 above the average?
Correct it is ALL cause mortality. There is also a statistic for cumulative respiratory deaths (ICD-10 code J00-J99), and that ratio is currently 0.99 which is 281 deaths historic geomean (which is why it does not appear). The data is correct. There are new entries for COVID19, but these are not helpful.
I take comfort that Females 85+ are not on that list.
you know much about the reliability of the Cepheid test?
I don't really, but I read the instructions here Seems to have a decent limit of detection. The issue with PCR is really whether those swabs did pick up viral material as you scraped then across the back of the nasopharangeal passage.
If they pick up virus, that assays is very likely to detect it.
I think what is happening is much worse for the elderly than a bad flu season. Look at the regular reports of care home with 10 to 15 deaths in a shirt space of time. Last night a local, Glasgow, care home had its 7 death in 6 days. Other residents likely to die. That is more than a 10% death rate in a week for that home.
Last post - I'm very happy with the convergence of my global model, so here is the UK projection. Declining half-life is 12 days. With the eye of faith you can see the peak in cases at about 8/APR and the the peak in deaths about 5 days later (that is the estimated lag time from the global data).
And I'll say it again the model predicts CUMULATIVE cases and deaths using two methods, then I calculate back the expected number of cases and deaths/day. I don't uses a conventional prediction interval, the bands are for the mean. Anyway, 20,000 deaths is long gone 🙁
Just in case we have some stupids reading this thread:
https://twitter.com/welshgasdoc/status/1253455600870195202?s=21
Guarantees you won't die of covid-19 though, so statistically very good.
*puts disinfectant down*
He also mentioned getting UV into the body as a cure.
Is that why healthy restaurants always have a “light bites” section on the menu?
just seen sturgeons comments
wow, treating the citizens like adults
its not anything amazing but just contrasts with the way our own ministers seem incapable of doing so
She's on when I get home from work. I watch her (and the tiny sign language lady 😉 ) and then ignore what sycophant #1 Mr Raab has to say. As a general rule the women of politics seem to be kicking the mens butts at the moment for delivery and content. Only SKS and perhaps Rishi Sunak are notable exceptions to what seems to be a pretty dire crop of male politicians we've found ourselves lumbered with. Im sure there's some good backbenchers hiding out there but the front benches are awash with mediocrity at best. Its no wonder you won't hear many a straight answer. They just don't get it to start off with.
Unfortunately, as we have seen again and again, not all adults act like adults.
But the majority of people do, which could be be enough. We will see in a year or two whether Sweden trusting it's people had a better or worse effect that the countries like the UK not trusting people. I do think the Swedish population is more sensible than the UK population though so may skew it a bit.
Another round of Anti Body testing
https://www.livescience.com/covid-antibody-test-results-new-york-test.html
Not seen the paper for it yet (twitter thread breaks down by location)
https://twitter.com/NYGovCuomo/status/1253352837255438338
Hancock on the BBC using he analogy of booking a Flight to book a request for a Test online. FFS....
And also claiming that the Scottish document yesterday is just copying what England had already done... 'they've only set out the conditions for easing restrictions and nothing else, just like we did a week ago'
The man's a muppet.
Hancock is being thrown under the bus as he is the one who is being trotted out most to make himself sound stupid trying to talk his way out of the ridiculous contradictions this government of dogmatic tosspots were always bound to put themselves in.
The core problem is that the Tories actually know how stupid a large proportion of the public are and how they never get past the first five words of any message. It is a realisation that has enabled them to con the electorate into voting against their own interests. Twice. They are frightened about their great discovery now it could backfire. They know that if they hint at easing any lockdown a sizeable proportion of the population will just go '**** it' and get the barbecue out and be on the phone to everyone on the street.
The Tories rightly fear the very gullibility they have so effectively weaponised.
And also claiming that the Scottish document yesterday is just copying what England had already done…
Even if true, it was explained much better
And worth repeating, enough people have follow the rules to smooth the curve so the NHS could just barely squeeze through. We need to focus as much on that successful majority response as start to clamp down on people breaching the rules, so it is clear what the consequences may be as we start to look at easing lockdown
Listening to Matt Hancock on Radio 4, he and Raab are clearly having a competition to see who can inspire the most genuine concern amongst the population. Clearly they're both monumentally out of their depth, appointed as they were for their enthusiasm for Brexit rather than any actual ability.
A pair of utter clowns who you'd think couldn't possibly be making a bigger hash of this. I suspect that once the Jester-in-chief eventually returns he'll eclipse them both on that score.
If there wasn't an orange lunatic on the other side of the Atlantic recommending injecting yourself with Dettol, then they'd be far and away the most incompetent administration on the planet. As it is they're in a close second place.
Nice to hear from The Donald that Boris is doing ok. Lovely of them to have a chat to compare notes on their shared *-wittery. Maybe when he gets the chance he might want to communicate with the UK electorate in some way? Maybe through the medium of interpretive dance?
Like the *ing coward he is, it's obvious he's just hiding now
The ****!!
The man’s a muppet.
And he was stressing how important community testing and contact tracing is… after ignoring the WHO and others telling governments just that when we dropped both.
it’s obvious he’s just hiding now
Of course Trump could be lying. But this is how these people operate now… tell the public diametrically opposing things… make sure the public have no idea what to believe, so that truth doesn’t matter. Johnson is simultaneously very ill and very well.
Anyway…
https://twitter.com/welshgasdoc/status/1253462161671815169?s=21
Yeah, I can't be the only one who's watching the performance of Trump and Joris Bohnson and thinking that Adam Curtis's Hypernormalisation is being eclipsed by the day
They still have a long way to go to match Putin, but it does feel like they are trying to.
They still have a long way to go to match Putin, but it does feel like they are trying to.
Well, Putin has a lot of animal cunning and a population that was collectively traumatised into a sort of numb 'belief' in power. Not because they actually believed, but because anything else was deemed unthinkable. Also, Putin has a programme. Trump and Poundshop Trump are just opportunist idiots.
appointed as they were for their enthusiasm for Brexit rather than any actual ability
That's what happens when populist dogma becomes your raison d'etre.
See also ignoring potential EU cooperation on ventilators and then claiming you lost the email down the back of the sofa then the dog ate it.
Everything must be subservient to Brexit.
There’s some quite marked comments about working with other countries in the Scottish document.
There’s some quite marked comments about working with other countries in the Scottish document.
Has a whiff of federalism and garlic to it, old boy.
No no, we will stand alone. We will fight covid-19 on the beaches, in the fields and in the streets. We will never surrender.
We will stand shoulder to shoul.....err, I mean two metres apart and we will give this foreign virus a good old British thrashing.
David Hare on Today on R4 was an entertaining listen as he sliced up the Brexit yes men we now have masquerading as ministers.
But he misses the point as he assumes that the Tories are predominantly patronising the public. I suspect they are actually scared of the anti-intellect, anti-expert movement they have created and know that any hint of relaxing lockdown will flick the totally binary switch in the heads of their new followers and mean lockdown is effectively totally reversed.
I guess it can be viewed in different ways, anybody with any sense knows the rough plan and can see the complications, the rest need as much help as possible.
