Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[teuchter]

I hadn't got that they were drinking fountains (was thinking they were wash basins). Understanding that, I can see that it is making some point about racial segregation. But it remains unclear what exactly it's trying to say. I'm not sure if the linked pipework is significant; maybe it's not.

It could be trying to say that those who get offered the vaccine (on a global basis, or maybe in a USA context) are more likely to be white & wealthy but then I don't see what the specific relevance of Biden and Fauci is.

The fact that Biden and Fauci are there gives it a kind of anti-vaxx tone but this is in London - why is it showing US rather than UK politicians/advisors?

 

[Yossarian]

I don't think there's any hidden message with the pipework, seems to be a faithful reproduction of this image.

 

[pogofish]

The square of booze sheds at the beach have finally been closed - and look sorrier than ever now they are completely fenced-off.

 

[Teaboy]

The situation in Scotland really is quite baffling. I've not been that impressed by the SNP's handling of the crisis, sure its been better than Johnson and his mates but that is a horribly low bar to set. When compared to other similar sized European countries it doesn't look good.

I'm kind of mystified that there isn't stronger rules being brought in, I mean having to deploy the army is an alarm call surely? Or have I missed something?

 

[cupid_stunt]

That 7-day average has dropped again, now down -18.4%, and that's almost 2 weeks since the schools went back, so somewhat surprising.

The daily reported new cases continue to drop, and that 7-day average was down -22.4% yesterday, and -23% today.

And, it now seems to be reflected in the hospital admissions & patients in hospital, both dropping slightly.

 

[brogdale]

Fucking state of this.

 

[weepiper]

The situation in Scotland really is quite baffling. I've not been that impressed by the SNP's handling of the crisis, sure its been better than Johnson and his mates but that is a horribly low bar to set. When compared to other similar sized European countries it doesn't look good.

I'm kind of mystified that there isn't stronger rules being brought in, I mean having to deploy the army is an alarm call surely? Or have I missed something?

It's been happening in England for ages already

Army supporting ambulance services in England

High demand and staffing shortages have meant the Army has been called in to help look after patients.

www.bbc.co.uk

Record number of armed forces personnel help with Covid response

The Defence Secretary has today updated Parliament on the role the UK Armed Forces are playing to tackle Covid.

www.gov.uk

 

[StoneRoad]

Fucking state of this.

I know people who work there !
That'll P155 a few of them off most severely ...

 

[elbows]

The situation in Scotland really is quite baffling. I've not been that impressed by the SNP's handling of the crisis, sure its been better than Johnson and his mates but that is a horribly low bar to set. When compared to other similar sized European countries it doesn't look good.

I'm kind of mystified that there isn't stronger rules being brought in, I mean having to deploy the army is an alarm call surely? Or have I missed something?

The whole of the UK is basically nailed to the same approach, with some meaningful but still fairly minor differences.

Scotland tended to have slightly better rhetoic and public health messaging during the pandemic so the current approach can seen especially jarring there. But its been this way for months, it was the same with their pre-summer holiday peak when numbers soared far past levels where they would previously have taken action.

They are wedded to the same path partly because they dont have control over all the areas of policy that would enable a truly independent pandemic approach, but also because establishment attitudes there have much in common with the rest of the UK. And at this phase of the pandemic the authorities in all four nations are emboldened to push their luck. Because they have seen that it might be possible to just about cope with the peaks, so there is a greater temptation to hold their nerve and see if a corner is turned without having to slam on the brakes real hard. They are still reliant on public behaviour and mixing patterns changing when the picture becomes grim, and there is quite a bit of focus in their weekly reports about how contact patterns are changing week by week.

 

[teuchter]

Hospital admissions don't currently appear to be increasing whether you look at the UK as a whole or England alone. It looks plausible to me that there is a gradual decrease.

 

[elbows]

For sure there was a real decrease, its visible in the positive case figures for England by age group. Includes older age groups which will have a larger impact on hospitalisations.

However its no guide for me as to what happens next. Especially as we can see a couple of young age group with a different trend, which I have drilled down into a bit using some additional graphs.

Note that this data involves cases by specimen date so the most recent figures are incomplete.



The 5-9 and 10-14 age groups are the only ones that have graphs like that at the moment.

 

[elbows]

Another look at hospital infections:

‘Higher proportion’ of patients caught Covid in hospital during second wave

An estimated 36,824 people were infected after being admitted to hospital with a non-Covid health issue between August 2020 and May 2021

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Brainaddict]

Does anyone know if covid test centres or postal pcr tests give quicker results these days? Or will it be about the same? I'm in London if that makes any difference.

 

[chilango]

Not sure where to put this but I've been told (2nd hand but via sensible people I trust) that there is a Government instructed "media blackout" (not my words) in operation on aspects of the Covid surge right now. This chimes with seeing how my Uni are manipulating their case stats by not counting cases reported by staff/students but diagnosed off campus.

 

[killer b]

Not sure where to put this but I've been told (2nd hand but via sensible people I trust) that there is a Government instructed "media blackout" (not my words) in operation on aspects of the Covid surge right now. This chimes with seeing how my Uni are manipulating their case stats by not counting cases reported by staff/students but diagnosed off campus.

I don't think university administrators need to be instructed to do this sort of thing tbh

 

[Fruitloop]

chilango any more details? Which bits are they particularly trying to cover up?

 

[Teaboy]

Does anyone know if covid test centres or postal pcr tests give quicker results these days? Or will it be about the same? I'm in London if that makes any difference.

Badgers may be able to give you a steer. The 2 times I've had tests both were postal and got the results back within 24 hours of sending them back. I would have though that the drop in centres would be quicker as you don't have to wait for it to be sent to you. That's just me guessing though.

I don't know how many drop in test centres are still operational but the one near where I live certainly appears to be.

 

[elbows]

With regards the media, I expect its the usual stuff that is actually a bit more subtle than that.

Its not so much that things are totally hidden, its more a question of emphasis and mood music. The media are easily lead and various aspects have a sense of 'duty' which involves trying to move with the times and the agenda. When the agenda is to get people to behave more normally, and to accept high ongoing levels of infection, Covid reporting will take a backseat and the narrative will soften. But so far there has been the ongoing possibility that the authorities will require people to modify their behaviour during certain periods so that systems can cope, and so there are moments where it feels like the switch suddenly gets flipped and the mood music changes overnight. We've seen that a number of times in this pandemic so far, eg when we suddenly start seeing images from intensive care units and interviews with healthcare professionals or other experts urging caution.

The above doesnt apply to every nook and cranny of the media, certain specific publications and individual journalists will have their own stances that they've stuck to throughout, and there is more than one phenomenon at work when it comes to media control and manipulation. Existing bias and the 'right people' with the 'right attitudes' in the right jobs, knowing how the game is played, knowing how power works and what happens if you go against the flow is a big chunk of this, but more formal or spooky versions probably exist too, especially when it comes to the state broadcaster.

And there are limits to how far the above can be pushed. For example in March 2020 when UK plan A was a doomed joke, some journalists were unconvinced by plan A and asked the right question in the press conferences. Others tried to sell us the bullshit plan and ended up looking murderous and stupid. And even now some newspapers will splash the specific concerns of experts on their front pages from time to time. But what we dont have is a large mainstream media entity that was prepared to take an ongoing stand against the entire approach, there is no newspaper that wanted to go to war with the whole idea of letting this many infections happen every day. Some do manage to reflect ongoing concerns as to whether the current plan is sensible and workable.

 

[chilango]

No, the Uni thing is separate, but part of an overall strategy to downplay, or suppress, the scale of what's happening.

 

[chilango]

chilango any more details? Which bits are they particularly trying to cover up?

Don't know. I was told - from someone who'd know and would have no reason to exaggerate - that "the government has ordered a media blackout of Covid coverage". That's the quote. What exactly it means or covers I don't know.vBut what I do know is that if that is being talked about at the levels it's coming from then we should brace ourselves for a tough autumn/winter.

 

[Wilf]

I know at my place, a university, there's been a desperate attempt at getting everything face to face and on campus, even a 'festival' to celebrate the return. Getting everything back on campus is the primary response to some truly dire National Student Survey results.

 

[elbows]

If it gets really bad in terms of hospital pressure then we'll have the very opposite of a media blackout, authorities will require people to modify their behaviour and so we will never stop hearing about the terrible burden of the disease.

 

[chilango]

I know at my place, a university, there's been a desperate attempt at getting everything face to face and on campus, even a 'festival' to celebrate the return. Getting everything back on campus is the primary response to some truly dire National Student Survey results.

Yep similar here (dunno abou how we did on the NSS though). F2F is mandatory for students, online provision reserved for students stuck overseas afaics.

 

[platinumsage]

Don't know. I was told - from someone who'd know and would have no reason to exaggerate - that "the government has ordered a media blackout of Covid coverage". That's the quote. What exactly it means or covers I don't know.vBut what I do know is that if that is being talked about at the levels it's coming from then we should brace ourselves for a tough autumn/winter.

It sounds like a load of bollocks to me.

 

[platinumsage]

I know at my place, a university, there's been a desperate attempt at getting everything face to face and on campus, even a 'festival' to celebrate the return. Getting everything back on campus is the primary response to some truly dire National Student Survey results.

In our university, they kicked off the term with blended learning i.e. half online, half in person. Lecturers could choose whether to alternate the classroom with online, or do half the term one way and half the other. Predicatbly they all decided to teach the first half online, meaning students turned up with no staff to greet them. Now they're being offered extra pay to come in immediately.

 

[elbows]

It sounds like a load of bollocks to me.

To be able to demonstrate that it was not bollocks, we would need the claim to be much more specific for a start.

I'm sticking to my views about how its the emphasis and repetition or lack of repetition where a lot of the action is on this front.

For example the media, in this case the BBC, are not hiding the following factoid from the official state stats agency:

Covid-19 was the third leading cause of death in England in August, up from the ninth leading cause in July, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) says.

This is the highest ranking for Covid since March, when it was also the third leading cause of death.

(from the 10:58 entry of BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-58635383 )

So such inconvenient facts are not hidden, but how many front page headlines will they generate?

Personally I have found that a combination of the mass media, official data, some expert voices via media quotes and social media, and some scientific papers to be perfectly sufficient for me to develop a reasonable approximation of reality throughout the pandemic so far. But admittedly that does involve some reading between the lines in terms of timing, media stories, data definitions and analysis etc.

I suppose we could also look at the times that I have complained that the media has not been telling such and such a pandemic story. Usually when I've made this complaint, its only been a question of time and emphasis before the complaint becomes obsolete. Often I've just been able to get in there a few days or weeks early, and the mainstream narratives catch up in the end. Sometimes coverage of particular aspects is rather subdued, but its usually still there eventually. And the behaviours the authorities require from the public are very much reflected in media timing and emphasis, to the extent that it becomes fairly predictable, and I'm usually only slightly ahead of that game.

 

[teuchter]

Don't know. I was told - from someone who'd know and would have no reason to exaggerate - that "the government has ordered a media blackout of Covid coverage". That's the quote.

That's different from what you said in your first post.

 

[Fruitloop]

Doesn''t seem particularly different to me

 

[Wilf]

In our university, they kicked off the term with blended learning i.e. half online, half in person. Lecturers could choose whether to alternate the classroom with online, or do half the term one way and half the other. Predicatbly they all decided to teach the first half online, meaning students turned up with no staff to greet them. Now they're being offered extra pay to come in immediately.

Wow, that's really quite impressive, world beating levels of stupidity from the bosses there.

 

[Fruitloop]

Obv the information is out there if you go looking for it; Indie sage, twitter, ONS, PHE etc etc. But most people aren't looking for it so if there's a soft blackout in that sense it's still going to make a big difference to the information that the majority of people are getting.