Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[Loose meat]

Our local hospital is now saying don't turn up with anything not life-threatening, as numbers of covid cases plus 18 months of backlog have put them a gnat's bollock away from collapse. This is one of the biggest hospitals in the south west, where the population is likely to increase by a factor of three or four times in a fortnight or so when school holidays start.

That's strange.

I had got a specialist appointment for 12 October cancelled on Monday. Hospital phoned this morning to rearrange for .. this Thursday - 3 months sooner.

Last I heard, 2% of NHS was Covid orientated. Literally 321 patients in ICU across the UK.

 

[andysays]

Nationally, there will be a push on safe working, locally less so. It will all be about making sure the university 'supports' staff amid unsafe working rather than resisting it. A 'non militant' branch, with me as the lone leftist on the Exec, a really shitty situation that gets even shittier in these circumstances.

Having said that, now that johnson has said 'no social distancing, normality, get back to work', the legal/quasi-legal grounds on which you can object to unsafe Covid working are limited. It's why of course you need high levels of unionisation and political strategies of resistance.

Liked for the last sentence, not the shitty situation.

Good luck with it.

 

[elbows]

That's strange.

I had got a specialist appointment for 12 October cancelled on Monday. Hospital phoned this morning to rearrange for .. this Thursday - 3 months sooner.

Last I heard, 2% of NHS was Covid orientated. Literally 321 patients in ICU across the UK.

Its a general problem with A&E demand at the moment.

Your ICU figures are out of date. The latest UK number is 369.

if it doubles three times then it will be back at levels that people can more obviously associate with previous nasty waves.

 

[elbows]

And if growth in 'patient in mechanical ventilation beds' continues at the same pace as seen recently, it will take a couple of months to reach the same height as the previous peak.

I dont really expect things to evolve that neatly though, so I currently have no prediction for how bad that number will get, or how quickly.

 

[elbows]

And my 'couple of months' comment is simply based on plotting the existing UK ventilation bed numbers using a logarithmic scale, which turns exponential growth curves into simple straight lines, and then just drawing a future line with the same trajectory in my mind.

Like I said, I wouldnt expect the picture to actually turn out quite that tidy and consistent, rates of growth wont necessarily remain constant and we dont know when the peak in cases will happen. But its a useful lesson for those who repeatedly fail to grasp what exponential growth looks like.

 

[cupid_stunt]

Patients in hospital hit 2,140 on Sunday, that's an increase of almost 225% in a month.

Patients admitted on 30th June - 406, bringing the 7-day average increase to +29.1%.

That percentage increase continues to creep up, but even it if stayed at 30%, that could take us to over 1,000 a day, in the next 4 weeks.

 

[Teaboy]

Patients in hospital hit 2,140 on Sunday, that's an increase of almost 225% in a month.

Patients admitted on 30th June - 406, bringing the 7-day average increase to +29.1%.

That percentage increase continues to creep up, but even it if stayed at 30%, that could take us to over 1,000 a day, in the next 4 weeks.

It was pretty explicit in the press conference yesterday that they will tolerate large numbers of hospitalizations but are banking on the peak of the wave being reached before hospital capacity. I think big numbers are going to be the norm for the next few weeks.

 

[SpookyFrank]

SpookyFrank Not Exeter I hope - a mate has to have urgent back surgery (possibility of paralysis with but also without) but has been told Truro has a year's waiting list and he'll have to go to Exeter.

Exeter yes, but the announcement relates to A&E alone. Anything scheduled should be going ahead as planned as far as I know. But that Truro waiting list gives you an idea of the scale of the problem. Healthcare resources in this part of the country are pretty knife-edge even when there isn't a pandemic on.

e2a: Devon hospital on highest possible alert

 

[elbows]

Patients in hospital hit 2,140 on Sunday, that's an increase of almost 225% in a month.

Patients admitted on 30th June - 406, bringing the 7-day average increase to +29.1%.

That percentage increase continues to creep up, but even it if stayed at 30%, that could take us to over 1,000 a day, in the next 4 weeks.

Restricting myself to daily hospital admissions/diagnoses for England rather than the whole of the UK, so that I can see more recent data up to 4th July, I get the following sort of picture. First two graphs use linear scale and the last one uses logarithmic scale.


Smoothed using 7 day averages:

 

[bimble]

Christ, on that note I will technically leave the U75 Brains Trust to its daily masturbation.

Just logged on. Saw the last posts. Why fucking even bother: the U75 Brains Trust. Logs out.

You keep announcing your disgusted departure then coming back again several times in the very same day to check how we are managing without you. Maybe you could find a more fulfilling hobby.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Last I heard, 2% of NHS was Covid orientated. Literally 321 patients in ICU across the UK.

There are also staff absences due to isolation, as well as the disproportionate impact of covid cases on space, staffing and other resources because of the need to isolate covid+ patients.

 

[elbows]

There are also staff absences due to isolation, as well as the disproportionate impact of covid cases on space, staffing and other resources because of the need to isolate covid+ patients.

Yeah staff absenses are one of the motivations for government to fuck around with the self-isolation rules for contacts of positive cases. They cant wait to make that change, but even they decided that they have to wait a bit longer before daring to proceed with that.

 

[elbows]

 

[redsquirrel]

We're already getting pressure to go into the office as of the 19th. Puts me in a shitty position. Because I don't want to go back into the office, frankly I don't believe the government and am not willing to take the risk of long-covid. I'm operating on reduced lung capacity. Which is why I got the vaccine long before most people my age.

Am I within my rights to refuse to go in?

I'd echo what others have said - first step talk to your union.

More generally you are better to never (or only in the most extreme circumstances) direct refuse a request by an employer/line manager. Rather you should reply that you are unable to comply with the request because of x, y, z.

In this case the first thing is have you had a personal risk assessment carried out by a suitable person? If not that is your first reasons for why you are unable to comply with any request to return to work at this moment.

 

[elbows]

When he said they havent put a number on it, what he really means is they had decided not to share a number publicly at this time, just like with yesterdays press conference where we knew they would not properly answer questions along those lines.

 

[Storm Fox]

Newsthump's satire nails it again.

Man wistfully recalls time when Government didn’t actively try to kill its citizens

A man has spent the morning gazing wistfully into the distance remembering a time when the Government didn’t seek to actively kill the population.

newsthump.com

 

[Wilf]

Newsthump's satire nails it again.

Man wistfully recalls time when Government didn’t actively try to kill its citizens

A man has spent the morning gazing wistfully into the distance remembering a time when the Government didn’t seek to actively kill the population.

newsthump.com

Wembley about 60-70% full for the Italy v Spain match, but not spread out at all. Behind the goals they are as stacked as you'd expect pre-Covid. Fucks. Sake.

 

[Wilf]

I hadn't noticed that under 18s also won't have to isolate if they come into contact with an infected persons (in addition to the double vaccinated).

Double-jabbed contacts won’t need to self-isolate from 16 August, says Javid

Close contacts of people in England who test positive will not have to self-isolate if they have had both vaccinations

www.theguardian.com

Fucking insanity. We are now well into 'how would you design a policy to maximise the spread of a virus' territory.

 

[LDC]

I do think the next few months is looking like it's possibly going to be the most unpredictable and bonkers bit of the last 18 months.

 

[elbows]

I do think the next few months is looking like it's possibly going to be the most unpredictable and bonkers bit of the last 18 months.

Everything is fine, I asked the super computer to model what will happen with Javid-19 as health secretary and got this result.

 

[Supine]

I do think the next few months is looking like it's possibly going to be the most unpredictable and bonkers bit of the last 18 months.

I think this weeks decisions will really hurt Johnson/Javid in the medium term. When i say medium term I’m thinking by September. I’m not looking forward to working away from home for the next few months.

 

[elbows]

I'm interested in what sorts of problems people are thinking of when they talk about timeframes like September. So since you just mentioned that sort of timeframe, I hope you dont mind if I use this as an opportunity to ask for more information about this sort of expectation.

 

[Cat Fan]

I hadn't noticed that under 18s also won't have to isolate if they come into contact with an infected persons (in addition to the double vaccinated).

Double-jabbed contacts won’t need to self-isolate from 16 August, says Javid

Close contacts of people in England who test positive will not have to self-isolate if they have had both vaccinations

www.theguardian.com

Fucking insanity. We are now well into 'how would you design a policy to maximise the spread of a virus' territory.

Seems like the strategy for under 18s is herd immunity

 

[elbows]

Yes its been quite easy to make that claim ever since they removed the school masks requirements, and since then more parts of that jigsaw have revealed themselves, making an even stronger case that this is part of their plan. I believe they are occasionally asked this in interviews and their public stance remains the same as it has since around March 14th 2020 - simply deny herd immunity is part of any of their plans. As opposed to briefing journalists that it was very much part of the plan right up until that fateful day in March last year.

They used vaccines to enable them to go back to the classic approach of dealing with a pandemic, to reenable their original instincts and priorities.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

i've had a worrying thought

what if matt 'fucking useless' hancock was (relatively speaking) the competent one?

 

[Supine]

September.

My back of a fag packet data modelling is telling me this. We have exponential growth with the current rules. Delta appears to have an R0 of 6-7 as opposed to 3ish before (don’t quote me on these numbers).

The gamble is that vaccinations will achieve herd immunity before hospitalisation overwhelms the nhs. Vaccination uptake is slowing as the keen are done or booked in already. The vaccine hesitant will take persuasion so getting 85%+ of the population vaccinated could take some time. So exponential growth will continue.

This all leads me to believe an autumn lockdown is inevitable. I’d like to think the UK population and press will see this as a massive Johnson/Javid fuckup, but who knows what will happen in that regard.

When I put that all together my model shows a rather bad situation in August and political ramifications in September. Hope i’m wrong.

 

[elbows]

Thanks very much for taking the time to explain.

I certainly know what you mean. I am thinking that in some ways the shit will probably hit the fan before July ends. But its also harder to predict peak timing this time.

I suppose the safest thing to predict right now is an increasing media etc focus on all the disruption that increasing number of cases bring in the next few weeks. Far more regions are reaching the point when the curves become more obviously steep to those viewing them on a linear scale. And thats becoming more true in regions other than the North West and North East & Yorkshire. So things like the plight of the North being possible to ignore by those in the Westminster bubble will no longer be enough to ensure the mood music remains tuned to 'everythings fine'.

 

[elbows]

And some of my key expectations for July still cover a broad range because they mostly boil down to how steep the rise in hospital admissions is. I'm going to try really hard not to post so much in the coming days, until I have a fresh chapter of the story to describe in regards hospital admissions. I am just about to look at hospitalisations by region by age group data, so perhaps I'll have a graph or two of that later, if I think any of them show something worth adding to the discussion right now.

 

[Supine]

Hospital admissions will be interesting. Johnson keeps talking about the link between cases and admissions being broken. Scientists keep saying the link has been changed. If Johnson really believes what he says he is an absolute bellend.

One of the key pieces of info we need now is how cases actually turn into hospitalisations. Time will tell.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

If Johnson really believes what he says he is an absolute bellend.

I'm not sure he has ever believed anything he says, but he is still an absolute bellend