the only reason their use is encouraged is Johnson and his cronies bought gazuillions of them

Is the NHS really that compliant? Would they really push something which is a waste of time and money just to please Johnson and his cronies?

Edit : My understanding is that how accurate a rapid lateral flow test is directly relates to how infectious a person is, so ranging from 95% accuracy in situations where the person is highly infectious to not accurate at all where the person is hardly likely to pass on the virus.

While I was working in the NHS we only used PCR tests IIRC

As I said – I am not well informed on this but the high rate of false negatives with LFTs really concerns me

Edit for your edit – is it not also that being self administered sampling technique is poor?  Have you tried sticking a swab 3″ up your nose?  Its not easy

Feel free to Ignore me tho

While I was working in the NHS we only used PCR tests IIRC

It’s gone downhill since you left!

Depends how they’re used, surely? High specificity but low sensitivity can still be a useful tool for regular checks to reduce transmission in the community, they just can’t be used to say with confidence that any particular individual is clear of the virus. Good for having fewer carriers in school, for example… but awful for ensuring there are no carriers on a hospital ward.

What appears to be certain is that Omicron is very significantly different to other variants.

Surely the worry is that means it might b escape the vaccine

Hence why even Johnson is willing to risk his bonkers backbenchers and bring back masks at a time when he’s already on their shit list

As an aside I see that there’s a lot of mystery tcell immunity bollox appearing on social media again, siggghhhhhh

Everyone who’s arrived from South Africa should be self-isolating and tested *now*, not from next bloody week. This is why you have to go through the ball-ache of filling in a passenger locator form in the first place.

Even if you just use the address given on the form to post out the PCR tests, you’ll catch plenty of cases and instantly know the rough proportion of Omicron infections in the UK.

Everyone who’s arrived from South Africa should be self-isolating and tested *now*, not from next bloody week

Indeed

If Holland & Germany can tell us exactly how many people got off the latest flights with covid (quite a lot as it happens !)
The fact that we aren’t planning to be getting this in place until next week says its already too late

Direct passenger flights between the UK and the six countries have been banned until 4am on Sunday morning, to allow time for quarantine arrangements to be put in place in England.

https://amp.theguardian.com/money/2021/nov/26/how-latest-update-to-englands-travel-red-list-will-affect-planned-trips-uk-southern-africa-new-covid-19-variant

Israel goes almost full lock down banning any foreign visitors,and we get to wear masks in shops and transportation!

Come on chaps jolly good show we’ll teach this nasty Covid who’s boss. Blah blah guff

UK could never do anything like that far to many idiots out there not complying to any thing.

It’s not political it comes down to stupidity and ignorance and flouting the basic rules from the start of the pandemic until now and beyond.

If the UK said tomorrow we’re locking down like Israel I for one would support that.

Have you tried sticking a swab 3″ up your nose? Its not easy

Surprisingly satisfying though. As any two year old knows. Horizontal, right to the back. Think Mr Blockhead.

Mrs TiRed sat in the SA fanzone last weekend at Twickenham. Has been feeling poorly all week. Infected and treble vaccinated. Other viruses are available, but a lateral flow is not an unreasonable option. A PCR with no spike gene would be concerning!

UK could never do anything like that far to many idiots out there not complying to any thing.

England!  Scotland still has high complience

Yep, Israel have gone on a virtual war footing in comparison to here .Lol

They are also activating anti terror laws to use phone tracking to, erm, track the virus.

As an aside, their only Omicron infected person is triple jabbed. I know that is hardly important in the context, just adding it to the info pool on here. No mention of them being in hospital or anything though.

Bringing back masks without any social distancing, is a bit of a chocolate teapot response.

I was triple jabbed when I caught Delta in September.

There’s been several reports ^^^^^ that the hospitalised in SA are generally unvaccinated, much like here.

If we are reintroducing day 2 PCR tests for all arriving trsvellers, is this nhs T&T, or more private ones?

England! Scotland still has high complience

Interesting that the numbers are still similar. Maybe there in no link between compliance and infection. Or its just nonsense

Be interesting to see what happens on trains tomorrow, I’m very much in the minority on my commute

Mask wearing is easiest, least disruptive & still very effective way of reducing transmission

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/17/wearing-masks-single-most-effective-way-to-tackle-covid-study-finds

https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj-2021-068302

If we are reintroducing day 2 PCR tests for all arriving travelers, is this nhs T&T, or more private ones?

Private ones you have to pay for. Got an email from the airline this morning.

https://www.gov.uk/find-travel-test-provider

The head of the South African Medical Association says so far at least that it doesn’t appear to be the case with Omicron. Although she’s says that it will take 2-3 weeks to have a much better idea with hospitalisations and deaths.

Even then, we can’t use the SA experience of hospitalisations and deaths from Omicron as a reliable template.

% of the population who are over 65

UK – 19
SA – 6

I think we can all be hopeful that Omicron, being a mutation of the original strain rather than delta, may not be quite as potent, even if it is very transmissible.

One of the anecdotal points from the Hong Kong cases, which were both confined to a quarantine hotel and tested regularly, was that the PCR positives came relatively late on, significantly after transmission had occurred. Could hint at one reason why it is so easily transmitted (and would be bad news for countries which are relying on a single PCR and self-imposed isolation to contain it).

Why do people find it so hard to wear a mask (properly), wash hands and socially distance?

What’s hard is my friend finding she has cancerous cells, having to wait longer than usual for a bit of treatment and a biopsy. Now waiting for the results of the biopsy and to see if her treatment has worked, all again taking longer that it should. Then if she needs a full operation, waiting far longer than she should. She’s an NHS worker and all this extra waiting is caused by overcrowded hospitals and lack of staff (a lot of whom are leaving).
Please help the NHS it’s not hard, it really isn’t.

I’ve yet to read anything in the new England rules that kick in on Tuesday 30th, about masks becoming mandatory again for those that work in offices, warehouses. It seems to be literally shops and public transport.

Surely indoor non-public workers aren’t going to be exempt, along with all the school kids?

Be interesting to see what happens on trains tomorrow, I’m very much in the minority on my commute

Same here – barely anyone wears masks anymore (I do). However most people DO generally avoid sitting next to others (although that often then means lots of people stood even closer together in the aisles which is surely a greater risk).

Mask wearing is easiest, least disruptive & still very effective way of reducing transmission

If face covering wearing is actually effective why have the case rates throughout the UK been broadly similar despite face covering wearing being mandated in some parts and not others? From personal experience compliance in Scotland was high but very few people are still wearing them in England.

I’ve yet to read anything in the new England rules that kick in on Tuesday 30th, about masks becoming mandatory again for those that work in offices, warehouses.

I imagine the benefits are considered to be less in these environments than they are in supermarkets and on public transport where complete strangers mix at regular intervals and for mostly short periods of time.

To be honest, I thought it was still mandatory on public transport and the guidance was to wear them in supermarkets – I’m not entirely sure what has changed.

It’s not political it comes down to stupidity and ignorance

it is political when you consider tory support comes from either the monied elite or the stupid and ignorant.
you need to appease your voter base at all costs.

Interesting that the numbers are still similar. Maybe there in no link between compliance and infection. Or its just nonsense

Its an odd one.  On one hand we have good evidence that masks reduce infection rates – on the other we cannot see this in infection rates comparisons scotland and england

i have no answer to why on the individual level it works but this does not seem to be seen across populations.

maybe someone on here with a bit of expertise can square this circle!

johnson, javid and others saying mask wearing will be mandatory on public transport and in retail is laughable – as it was last time.
Who is going to implement it and what happens when punters, as they will, say ‘No’.
Empty and pointless words which are nothing more than an appeal to the great british public to exercise great british common sense – good luck with that.

i have no answer to why on the individual level it works but this does not seem to be seen across populations.

Is it because what we see publicly does not mirror behaviour in private settings, where masks and especially distancing went out the (closed) window a long time ago?

The good thing about this story is that any time I see someone sharing it as evidence that wearing masks cuts Covid incidence by 53%, I know they haven’t read the paper it’s based on and aren’t fussed about the quality of evidence as long as it produces the right number 🙃 pic.twitter.com/V7LcJatdtA

— John Burn-Murdoch (@jburnmurdoch) November 18, 2021

Thats plausible more cash

Currently in a soft petridish, soft play. Most adults are masked up. Pleasantly surprised.

soft play for adults….that a secret club by invite only?

The first rule about soft play club…

Omicron Covid wondering why the government thinks it can't attack people until Tuesday. pic.twitter.com/9urzhqRMWl

— HappyToast ★ (@IamHappyToast) November 28, 2021

Thats me now triple jabbed as of 12am this morning, with a flu vaccine on the side. So hopefully if i do catch anything it won’t fing kill me.

MCTD has it, infection occurs when people are in a small enclosed space for extended periods, so not shops and super markets. Public transport to some extent, hospitality, definitely, in the home, probably the biggest source of infection.

Anecdotally though my was saying they think mask wearing has had an impact in school where mask wearing has been mandatory when moving around or even in lessons if there is an outbreak in a particular year group.

Got to LOL at the thought that we can keep it out by restricting travel. It’s already here, has been for a while.

If all it took was mask-wearing to stop hospitals from becoming shambolic s***-shows, you’d have thought Wales would showing everyone how it’s done (we’ve had a mask mandate in place since September 2020). FWIW, the publicly-available Welsh NHS data shows that total occupancy has been at about 75% since March 2020, and last time I checked a few weeks ago, Covid patients made up less than 10% of total patients. Despite this, we have basically no non-essential healthcare available.

As we are apparently going into another winter with masks, I look forward to running my own informal experiment again. That is – on cold mornings, I look at groups of masked people, and see if anyone else has noticed the clouds of condensation coming out of everyone’s “aerosol-proof” masks.

That is – on cold mornings, I look at groups of masked people, and see if anyone else has noticed the clouds of condensation coming out of everyone’s “aerosol-proof” masks.

I think a totally sealed barrier would be counterproductive in terms of continued respiration.

The idea of the mask is to catch larger droplets and restrict the distance the smallest ones go, particularly when propelled with more force ie coughing/sneezing. Of course it’s not going to stop everything, and may not protect you entirely if you’re right next to the diseased invidivual, but it might avoid infecting the person three rows away on the bus.

What Martin said, I’m not sure I can recall any claims that masks (at least the ones joe public actually wear) would stop the virus, just reduce it the distance it can travel from exhalation.