Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[StoneRoad]

Hey, I don't want to see it - it's just the logical conclusion of the anti-lockdown arguments.

Then please, make that part clearer.

I've close friends in that age group, and I'm not that far away myself. [witness as I've had a jab !]

 

[elbows]

The 'Hancocks former pub landlord' story still has legs it seems...

Coronavirus: Medical regulator investigates £30m Covid contract firm

Hinpack, which makes test tubes, is run by the former landlord of a pub near Matt Hancock's old home.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[hypernormalized]

OK - I'll give you a plan, it's not a good one but I think it is the only alternative in the situation you outline - a failure of vaccinations to prevent NHS overload and a societal refusal to carry on with social distancing. And basically, it is that everyone over 70 or with severely life limiting preconditions does not get any treatment for Covid19. Strict triage to keep them at home to sink or swim. Age reduces further if hospitals really fill up. Thousands of people dying at home with no care.

In this situation I reckon your mum might only want to see you through a screen anyway.

Your latter situation is what you suggest we do forever anyway, is it not?

This seems strictly better than saying that anyone of any age should just live their life through a screen.

Socially distancing forever is obviously worse than triage, I agree that this is a possible outcome and don't understand how anyone could think otherwise.

 

[elbows]

He's chosen Monday to announce it in the Commons, because it's the first day that Parliament is back after the recent recess.

And even this crappy government dont tend to rely on single days figures.

Plus I would urge people to spend a little time on the dashboard clicking on the cases section drilled down to the 'local authority' level. It is now possible to find quite a lot of locations where the decline in case numbers has stopped recently, with levels currently plateauing at somewhat similar levels to those that were seen during the November measures dip. Places I clicked on to establish this include Manchester, Leeds, Coventry, Leicester, Sheffield, Nuneaton & Bedworth, Belfast, Oxford. But there are also places which are still showing a clear downwards trend, and its still a bit early for me to state this point very strongly.

 

[elbows]

Your latter situation is what you suggest we do forever anyway, is it not?

This seems strictly better than saying that anyone of any age should just live their life through a screen.

Socially distancing forever is obviously worse than triage, I agree that this is a possible outcome and don't understand how anyone could think otherwise.

Forever is a largely pointless concept in this discussion.

If the vaccination approach failed then they will either try to fix it with new vaccines, or they would eventually be forced into another approach, such as zero covid. And I dont believe in trying to get deep into those possibilities unless it actually looked like we were going to end up in that situation.

 

[elbows]

OK - I'll give you a plan, it's not a good one but I think it is the only alternative in the situation you outline - a failure of vaccinations to prevent NHS overload and a societal refusal to carry on with social distancing. And basically, it is that everyone over 70 or with severely life limiting preconditions does not get any treatment for Covid19. Strict triage to keep them at home to sink or swim. Age reduces further if hospitals really fill up. Thousands of people dying at home with no care.

In this situation I reckon your mum might only want to see you through a screen anyway.

I dont think the numbers even add up with that approach either.

This chart is made using data for England only, from the monthly age data spreadsheet at Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity

Note for example the yellow line for the 18-54 age group.

 

[hypernormalized]

Forever is a largely pointless concept in this discussion.

If the vaccination approach failed then they will either try to fix it with new vaccines, or they would eventually be forced into another approach, such as zero covid. And I dont believe in trying to get deep into those possibilities unless it actually looked like we were going to end up in that situation.

I agree, just exploring the hypothetical.

I don't really see the sense in planning for the situation in which vaccinations fail permanently, it feels like prepping to me. Positives: you've survived the apocalypse. Negatives: you're in a dark room plugged into a wall eating beans forever. No thanks.

 

[hypernormalized]

I dont think the numbers even add up with that approach either.

This chart is made using data for England only, from the monthly age data spreadsheet at Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity

Note for example the yellow line for the 18-54 age group.

View attachment 255470

I believe it's covered by the "age reduces further" in lazythursday's comment, no? The yellow line is biased towards the higher end of the age group. You end up triaging down to 60, 50, 40, ...

Horrible state to be in, regardless of how you slice it.

 

[miss direct]

I'm not saying they're making their decisions based on the day of the week, but for certain people/media outlets (let's say those who call for an end to all restrictions every time there's a slightly lower number in cases/reported deaths), ie my head of department, making the announcement about sending children back to school on a Monday, just after daily figures are out, will solidify in their minds that everything is fine and covid is on its way out.

I mean people who don't pay much attention to the numbers usually but will tomorrow because they will be watching the announcement (parents, anyone who works in a school). Ok, maybe I just mean my boss, who has been pressuring me to come into work since January even though there's been no reason why I couldn't work from home.

 

[elbows]

I believe it's covered by the "age reduces further" in lazythursday's comment, no? The yellow line is biased towards the higher end of the age group. You end up triaging down to 60, 50, 40, ...

Horrible state to be in, regardless of how you slice it.

I suppose my point is that if going for such an approach, you'd have to start with the bar set lower than 70 at the start. And good luck if expecting to see people carrying on normal levels of economic activity in such circumstances.

 

[hypernormalized]

I suppose my point is that if going for such an approach, you'd have to start with the bar set lower than 70 at the start. And good luck if expecting to see people carrying on normal levels of economic activity in such circumstances.

Agree. For what it's worth, I'm not interested in the economic argument for ending lockdown, it's the social angle I care about.

In the (as we've discussed, silly pie-in-the-sky) not-conquerable scenario where we just fight a forever-war against coronavirus at high levels, I'd happily have the triage age set significantly below mine if it meant the generations after me got to enjoy at least some semblance of the life I've had.

 

[elbows]

I'm not saying they're making their decisions based on the day of the week, but for certain people/media outlets (let's say those who call for an end to all restrictions every time there's a slightly lower number in cases/reported deaths), ie my head of department, making the announcement about sending children back to school on a Monday, just after daily figures are out, will solidify in their minds that everything is fine and covid is on its way out.

I mean people who don't pay much attention to the numbers usually but will tomorrow because they will be watching the announcement (parents, anyone who works in a school). Ok, maybe I just mean my boss, who has been pressuring me to come into work since January even though there's been no reason why I couldn't work from home.

Those making arguments that run contrary to obvious reality will indeed seize on anything they can, or ignore data that does not help their cause. But they will do that whatever, I dont think it has any bearing on the governments announcement timing.

The media pay more attention to 7 day rolling averages than single daily numbers And a lot of headlines are generated by weekly data that comes out on Tuesdays (death certificate deaths), Thursdays (weekly surveillance report) and Fridays (weekly ONS infection survey).And those are all rather laggy so there are certainly periods where some of these different measures give different impressions to eachother, which could cause public confusion.

In terms of the optimal time for the government to announce stuff with the best possible optimal good news data backdrop, I think they already went past that point and should have done the announcements at least a week ago if that was their top priority. This is quite well illustrated by this graph from ZOE:


I'd say the government have been relying on both impressive falls and impressive vaccine stats in order to deliver optimistic messages recently. The impressive falls are over for now, but they still have vaccinations to shout about. And I think the 'rush the reopening' brigade will take a similar approach.

 

[editor]

I know that it's possible to read Urban without registering, and that there might be nothing suspicious about the extent of their knowledge, it still rings a few dubious bells when two turn up, almost simultaneously. Not to mention the business of berating posters for their style of posting, so soon after arriving.

Time will tell. It usually does.

For the record: if it's one new poster simultaneously posting up under two names, they'd be unlikely to evade being caught out by the software
And as a belt'n'braces approach, whenever an 'interesting' new poster rocks up, I'll invariably manually check a few more details, but by default we give them the benefit of the doubt every time

Not perfect of course, but better than making a potentially innocent new poster feel uncomfortable as soon as they arrive!

 

[elbows]

It does look a bit like case numbers could start to go up again in some areas in the couple of weeks between the announcement and any relaxations kicking in, which will be a very awkward situation for all concerned. Its currently hard to tell, things could go back to reducing, or plateau, or go up in some regions.

Here for example are the latest ZOE regional R estimates:

 

[Miss-Shelf]

I'm not in a union. I only started the job last month and it's a short contract.

Neu is strong on teacher support right now . Might be worth asking for a temporary reduced fee membership given your orecarity of contract
NEU membership rates{brand}&gclid=Cj0KCQiApsiBBhCKARIsAN8o_4ivDJ9YEF78bJazYrWgb0piF5k2R44yL6eT1QsZHjzXQOCQ34vRw_IaAurJEALw_wcB

 

[Badgers]

 

[Miss-Shelf]

Neu is strong on teacher support right now . Might be worth asking for a temporary reduced fee membership given your orecarity of contract
NEU membership rates{brand}&gclid=Cj0KCQiApsiBBhCKARIsAN8o_4ivDJ9YEF78bJazYrWgb0piF5k2R44yL6eT1QsZHjzXQOCQ34vRw_IaAurJEALw_wcB

It's only a £ 1 for student and NQT membership !

 

[MBV]

Badgers /all - reckon this is a testing the waters leak?

 

[hypernormalized]

Badgers /all - reckon this is a testing the waters leak?

Golf/Tennis is weirdly specific.

Official rules wise, the only thing I really care about at this point is the end of social distancing.

If I have to play the game where we pretend our hands are forced, I'd rather everything be closed for longer and then we actually open them properly, the main purpose of a pub with masks and plastic barriers is to serve as corona meme fodder.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Badgers /all - reckon this is a testing the waters leak?

If it's in the Times, certainly, it's a deliberate leak by the Tories IMO. (Also very likely to be regardless of outlet.)

 

[Pickman's model]

Fuck me I wouldn't ask them for directions to the post office let alone out of a pandemic

This roadmap sounds like it's not worth the paper it's scribbled on

 

[frogwoman]

Golf and tennis before non essential shops?

 

[elbows]

Its a bit late to be testing the waters, it probably part of the actual plan.

Golf and Tennis did not make me raise an eyebrow, they are outdoor activities that dont involve large teams, I would expect such thing to feature sooner rather than later.

 

[cupid_stunt]

Golf and tennis before non essential shops?

Outdoors & no close contact, minimum risk.

 

[Pickman's model]

Golf and tennis before non essential shops?

Yes that's surely the wrong way round

 

[Cid]

They do make total sense, it's just a slightly odd thing to lead with.

 

[Pickman's model]

Outdoors & no close contact, minimum risk.

Yeh but what are you supposed to do to get your golf and tennis supplies?

 

[Pickman's model]

They do make total sense, it's just a slightly odd thing to lead with.

This is the government. Of course it's odd

 

[Cid]

This is the government. Of course it's odd

I'm just surprised it wasn't golf, tennis and shooting things. Probably just because it's not the season.

 

[cupid_stunt]

Yeh but what are you supposed to do to get your golf and tennis supplies?

Just play with your own balls.