I suspect "shopping" isn't just the essential supermarket shop. It will also include the mooching/socialising type of shopping.
Excellent interview with the head of public health in Manchester on the radio this morning. "Do you blame students for the rise in the virus?"
"We don't blame any group for any spread, be it by age or ethnicity. Lots of groups are not following the guidelines and causing the virus to spread. We just want to make sure these students have the support they need while in isolation"
Rather slapped the interviewer down quite nicely.
The German RKI has consistently reported that shopping is very low risk. The German track and trace has been working well from the outset and shops just don't figure. If you read German this will tell you where you're likely to get infected. If you want check for shopping or shops look for "einkaufen gehen", "einzelhandel", "laden", happy hunting, they really don't figure.
The place you're most likely to catch the virus according to RKI is in your own home. And the way it gets into your home is most likely from work or school.
Fora moment there I forgot that Kelvin is a renowned epidemiologist and isn’t just making things up to fit his own narrative. Silly me.
JP
I get given the blue surgical disposable masks by work. All advice is use once and throwaway. Several of them have been laundered in trouser pockets, and they come out untouched, which seems backed up by the environmental reports of them in the water cycle.
What am I missing? I'm certainly reusing mine against advice, just washing them.
My youngest son (aged 20) got Covid19 back at the end of February, before it was trendy.
Raging sore throat, temperature, sweating, etc, etc.
He's now back at uni. One of his flatmates turned out to have it yesterday, and now my son has got it.
So, immunity shimmunity.
Blimey, I laughed at John Bishop. My taste has changed, must have corona.
immunity shimmunity
So has he had 2 positive tests confirmed then? Or are you just assuming he had it back in Feb?
So has he had 2 positive tests confirmed then? Or are you just assuming he had it back in Feb?
This!
his own narrative
My ‘narrative’ is that shopping has been made as safe as possible. Claiming that everyone just carried on shopping during lock down, so it must be low risk, is nonsense. We shut more than half of retail completely, and many people stayed away from what remained open. How we use shops was completely transformed during lockdown, and is still nothing like it was before. We need to keep that up for now. And continue to work to make it even safer… then hopefully more retail can stay open when we have to increase other control measures (which France need to really get on with now, they are well ahead of us).
'Retail' is dead.
I went to the big city a few days ago; can't try anything on; not shoes, not jackets, not trousers. So why bother going to an actual shop?
Claiming that everyone just carried on shopping during lock down, so it must be low risk, is nonsense. We shut more than half of retail completely, and many people stayed away from what remained open.
I've been in one shop since March, and that was to pick up an order I made over the phone. My wife has been in none.
which France need to really get on with now, they are well ahead of us
Are you sure about that? The UK isn't testing contacts such as family members, ask A-A, but France is so the daily cases tally is not comparable, it's still very easy to get a test here. If you eliminate people from the sytem that wil almost certainly test postive you reduce both the number of case and the percentage positive which become misleading.
In the UK the conditions for recording a death as a Covid death have been changed with a time limit that means many Covid victims who go through intensive care will exceed it. When you look at excess deaths it's clear which countries most underestimated deaths for the first wave because they didn't record Covid deaths as Covid deaths.
Pointing at others while doing nothing has alredy been tried as a tactic, it didn't work.
What should we "get on with", Kelvin? Continue with the current damage limitation exercise which tries to pick a way between the level of economic activity and excess deaths or something else? This genie isn't going to be put back in the bottle, the first confinement round proved that, it's a question of doing what can be done to limit spread without economic collapse or a revolution.
What should we “get on with”, Kelvin?
Put more measures in to slow the spread. Pretty obvious really. France is well ahead of the rest of Europe. We’re not far behind. The UK completely messed up in the Spring, and we may well mess up again this Autumn… France is currently who we should be watching to see what is going to be hitting us here soon.
Such as? Be specific please because no it isn't obvious as you have said no more than "measures". Bearing in mind the measures already in place, where infections are happening (work, school and university etc.), how effective the extra measures might be and how the population might react.
France is well ahead of the rest of Europe
It really isn't, check out worldometers. I don't follow every country but I do follow Spain (which is just over the hill and where I am hoping to be able to go shortly) with over 600 deaths in the last five days.
Edit: reply deleted, this is all too tedious again
Not tedious at all kelvin, apart from listening to Nicola at lunchtime, I avoid all other news, this thread is the only covid related stuff I read, it's all good.
This place is actually a beacon of sanity at times!
So has he had 2 positive tests confirmed then? Or are you just assuming he had it back in Feb?
Couldn't get tested back then as hadn't just returned from China/Italy, so just carried on as normal. But he had all the symptoms. Also some (different) flatmates also had it at the same time.
What should we “get on with”, Kelvin? Continue with the current damage limitation exercise which tries to pick a way between the level of economic activity and excess deaths or something else? This genie isn’t going to be put back in the bottle, the first confinement round proved that, it’s a question of doing what can be done to limit spread without economic collapse or a revolution.
What are you thoughts on the Victoria response Edukator? I wouldn't have put Australians down as responding well to authoritarianism but they seem to have complied with extremely harsh measures. Perhaps the geography means that approach simply couldn't be applied in europe, with much smaller distances between population centres.
Personally I think our government will be forced into another "lockdown" on human interaction but will not force sections of the economy to close. This is so they can't be blamed directly for allowing businesses to fail whilst providing inadequate support.
Couldn’t get tested back then as hadn’t just returned from China/Italy, so just carried on as normal. But he had all the symptoms. Also some (different) flatmates also had it at the same time
So probably just a normal seasonal bug then given documented cases of coronavirus reinvention are few and far between.
Bearing in mind the measures already in place, where infections are happening (work, school and university etc.),
For the last two the public perception and the reality are probably two quite different things.
In what sense?
Just had an email from eldests 6th form college to say that one of the staff has just been their first positive test - track and trace had linked him to a non-school case.
Couple of close staff contacts have been advised to isolate, everyone else crack on as normal.
tpbiker
So probably just a normal seasonal bug then given documented cases of coronavirus reinvention are few and far between.
Flatmate has tested positive. Awaiting results of my son's test.
I guess the flatmate result could be one of those false positives - from More Or Less today, that's running at around 20% or so of results.
What? That sounds like someone has badly misunderstood something.
I guess the flatmate result could be one of those false positives – from More Or Less today, that’s running at around 20% or so of results.
Is that last bit true? 20% of tests get a false positive that seems crazy high. Not saying you're wrong just that it seems madness
from More Or Less today, that’s running at around 20% or so of results.
Suggest you listen again to the prog; heard it twice and that is not what David Spiegehalter said in his explanation.
How could you listen to that episode and come away with that conclusion!
I guess the flatmate result could be one of those false positives – from More Or Less today, that’s running at around 20% or so of results.
hiw on earth have tou cone to that conclusion?
a 20% false positive rate would be the worst qpcr ever, in 20 years of doing qpcr, ive never seen anything like that
What is the false positive rate then? I know of two folk who have had positives followed by a subsequent negative within 48 hours.
What more or less explained (quite well I thought) was that the false positive rate isn't what a lot of people seem to think it it. It's not the fraction of positive cases that are false positives, but rather that fraction of negative cases that are incorrectly labelled positive. The reason being that this is a constant whereas the fraction of positive cases that are false positives depends on the fraction of positive cases in the population.
To take an extreme example, if you test a population that are all negative then the fraction of positive cases you detect that are false is obviously 100%. Similarly if you test a population that are all positive then the fraction of false positives is zero.
If you randomly screened the population (where the prevalence is really low) then you could end up with something daft like 90% of the cases you detect being false positives. However, we are not doing that. We are testing people who come forward because they think they may have the disease. So, that fraction of positives that are false is probably insignificant. But putting an exact percentage on that is hard as the prevalence in that population is changing all the time.
@scotroutes its quite possible that the virus had fallen to below detectable levels after 2 days, although its possible that in some cases of high viral load you could get dead virus being detected long after ( tho this is rare)
if first test was within 7 days of infection & 2nd test after 7 days, then you could get that restult
all this comes from Matt Hancock being interviewed by julia hate-brewer, saying false positives were less than 1%
this was leapt on because as cases are so low at the moment, for every 1000 peoole tested then 10 will be false positives, but as infection rate is 1 in 1000 nationally, so the lockdoen sceptics, toby young etc are saying that 90% of the increase seen is fake.
(ONS study actually said 0.05% anyway, hancock was jyst being lazy and rounding up)
but people getting tested have symptoms or already in an area with an outbreak, theyre not a random 1 in 1000 sample, some already in hospital, so false +ve rate is much much lower in the real world, & varies by setting.
its actually the other way we should be worried about , the test itself is only as good as the sampling, majority of which are now home tests + delays on processing will degrade viral RNA beyond point of detection (degraded RNA is my nemesis in work)
Harding reckoned it coukd be as much as 20% of tests could be false negatives
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52906909 and delays have been really bad in some cases
other pont is that false +ve rate is constant so localised rises are still rises!
the BMJ have created a little tool to explore this
idiot journalists, lockdown sceptics & even shamefully some maths professors should take note
https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1808
This whole thread gives me a headache.
It's so painfully obvious that you (in the UK) are not getting good enough information and guidance from your leaders in order to make informed choices about your behaviors. You don't know where people are catching the virus (and where they are not)...... that graph posted back there would be absolutely laughable if it wasn't quite so serious. "people go to the shops" ffs.
Because of our relatively low numbers, the information from our track and trace system in New South Wales is pretty good, and includes genotyping tests to trace them all the way back to source.
We do get a few infections with no known source, but those are getting fewer and farther between. Most of our numbers are either from travelers in quarantine, or from known sources - as part of infection tracing.
The clusters that we've seen as part of this second wave (which originated in Melbourne) are predominantly household transmission, restaurants and pubs/bars, but with a fair few gyms too. Pretty much nothing from supermarkets/shops/coffee shops (even though most of them have returned to business as usual), and very few from Schools. We have certainly had cases in schools, but these have not grown into clusters in the same way they have in restaurants/bars.
For context, a thai restaurant where they had a single infected guest for about 2 hours, resulted in about 100 cases, and about 80 came from a pub/restaurant (including at least one death) again, from a single infected patron.
Importantly - that's WITH restrictions in place.
that graph posted back there would be absolutely laughable if it wasn’t quite so serious. “people go to the shops” ffs.
Its taken from the track and trace questions that you are asked to fill in when you get a positive test.
Have you been shopping in the last week, most people would say yes.
predominantly household transmission, restaurants and pubs/bars, but with a fair few gyms too. Pretty much nothing from supermarkets/shops/coffee shops (even though most of them have returned to business as usual), and very few from Schools
Household transmission is another one, most people live in houses and if they do are highly likely to be near other people in the house.
Schools are an odd one, majority of people in schools are young and so likely to be asymptomatic but could take it home and spread it. If as in the UK, you are only tested with symptoms schools dont get shut because the kids dont get ill. Thats my theory anyway, my evidence is hiwever only anecdotal.
If only they asked those location questions when people went in for a test, the answers might be useful. As it is...a waste of time. Base rate fallacy is one explanation.
If only they asked those location questions when people went in for a test, the answers might be useful
Exactly, if they dont ask people who are negative its pointless
Its taken from the track and trace questions that you are asked to fill in when you get a positive test.
Have you been shopping in the last week, most people would say yes.
That was my point exactly. By the same standard, wearing a wris****ch causes Covid.
Household transmission is another one, most people live in houses and if they do are highly likely to be near other people in the house.
Yes, you only have to look at the new cases in Melboure after they had a very strict lockdown to see what impact household transmission has. They sent my uncle home from hospital in Wiltshire with it (while symptomatic, without having been tested FFS), he was back in hospital within 24 hours (later died) but those few hours at home with my Aunt were enough to pass it on to her (she has since recovered).
majority of people in schools are young and so likely to be asymptomatic but could take it home and spread it
That has not been our experience in Australia. Schools in NSW have stayed open throughout the first and second waves, but there have been no clusters associated with schools. There have been a few cases (I think 33 cases from 30 schools - of 7,000ish in the whole state), but none of them developed into clusters. My understanding is that there are relatively mild social distancing measures in place at schools here - people are not wearing masks in lessons etc, but inter-scool sports events are not happening.
duplicate post
majority of people in schools are young and so likely to be asymptomatic but could take it home and spread it
That has not been our experience in Australia
How do you know, do you have random testing?
They sent my uncle home from hospital in Wiltshire with it (while symptomatic, without having been tested FFS), he was back in hospital within 24 hours (later died) but those few hours at home with my Aunt were enough to pass it on to her (she has since recovered).
****ing hell.
How do you know, do you have random testing?
No, we have a track and trace system that actually works: we know where people caught their coronavirus from..... and there haven't been clusters associated with schools.
Where there have been cases at schools, I think there is a pretty robust testing response to identify any other kids who might have it.
It's technically possible that kids are getting it and spreading it at schools undetected...... but if that's happening, no adults are getting it as a result.
**** hell.
Yes, I was ****ing livid.
its quite possible that the virus had fallen to below detectable levels after 2 days
Aye, this was my take on it, in some caases the testing window seems to be quite small. St Mirren FC had 7 positives on a monday, and 6 of them were negative on the tuesday, I don't believe that to be a labeling error or test errors.
The sports media kept referring to it as a false positive, which it probably wasn't, this confuses people further.
in some caases the testing window seems to be quite small. St Mirren FC had 7 positives on a monday, and 6 of them were negative on the tuesday, I don’t believe that to be a labeling error or test errors.
Not necessarily a small testing window...... they might just been at the end of it, depends when symptoms first started/when they were first exposed. They might just have waited a week before getting a test.
They might just have waited a week before getting a test.
Evidence from this house suggests that the symptoms that spark a test happen a while after you first get "ill"
Not necessarily a small testing window…… they might just been at the end of it, depends when symptoms first started/when they were first exposed. They might just have waited a week before getting a test.
Agreed, but in the grand scheme of things, a week is a small window. In reality, because of the bubble football exists in, tests would have been carried out fairly quickly.
Just browsing bbc news, this struck me:
What are the symptoms?
New and continuous cough - coughing a lot for more than an hour, or having three or more coughing episodes in 24 hours
Fever - a temperature above 37.8C
Change in smell or taste - either you cannot taste or smell anything, or these senses are different to normal.
Public Health England says about 85% of people with Covid will have at least one.
If you are only tested if you have one of these, or are going into a hospital its not entirely surprising is it that the biggest criteria for getting a test predict positive tests
