Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[Orang Utan]

wtf is going on about getting lateral flow tests?

i'm having to do one a day at the moment due to hospital visiting, so rapidly running out of the box full i got from my employer.

i went in to a pharmacist and they said i need a QR code (i'm not sure my phone handles such things - it is a smart phone but i don't do e-mail on it)

i've just tried to order a set, and it said it would send a code to my mobile (it sends the test results to that) and nothing has happened

anyone got any ideas what's going on / how i get some?

you can order some here:

Order COVID-19 rapid lateral flow tests

You can no longer order free PCR tests from the NHS.

www.gov.uk

you can only order one pack of 7 at a time, but you can order one a day. they come the next day. and they’re also nasal only. i could never do the mouth ones

 

[cupid_stunt]

wtf is going on about getting lateral flow tests?

i'm having to do one a day at the moment due to hospital visiting, so rapidly running out of the box full i got from my employer.

i went in to a pharmacist and they said i need a QR code (i'm not sure my phone handles such things - it is a smart phone but i don't do e-mail on it)

i've just tried to order a set, and it said it would send a code to my mobile (it sends the test results to that) and nothing has happened

anyone got any ideas what's going on / how i get some?

I ordered some last week via the link below, no QR code involved, and delivered next day.

Order COVID-19 rapid lateral flow tests

You can no longer order free PCR tests from the NHS.

www.gov.uk

 

[zora]

wtf is going on about getting lateral flow tests?

i'm having to do one a day at the moment due to hospital visiting, so rapidly running out of the box full i got from my employer.

i went in to a pharmacist and they said i need a QR code (i'm not sure my phone handles such things - it is a smart phone but i don't do e-mail on it)

i've just tried to order a set, and it said it would send a code to my mobile (it sends the test results to that) and nothing has happened

anyone got any ideas what's going on / how i get some?

Saw this in passing the other day when I was in Boots "something something from October QR codes", but as I still had a fresh pack (so 2-3 weeks supply for twice weekly testing) I didn't look into it further.

Just had a little google and found this with an update on the October change

C-19 lateral flow device distribution service - PSNC Website

This page is now archived and will not be updated The COVID-19 lateral flow device distribution service was decommissioned on 31st March 2022. This webpage contains information on and resources that were available to support the previous provision of the service. Please click on a heading below...

psnc.org.uk

with a link to the gov.uk site where you can get the code

This COVID-19 service has ended - GOV.UK

test-for-coronavirus.service.gov.uk

(^^^Don't know why this shows as "book drive through test..." , maybe still buggy because only just going live, hopefully not dodgy)

 

[Supine]

I haven’t done a test for a few weeks. Think I’m taking my foot off the gas.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

thanks - was trying not to do the delivery thing, as (for the same reasons as the hospital visiting) i'm at mum-tat's house more than own home at the moment.

i'll see what i can do with local pharmacies tomorrow...

 

[Cloo]

It feels like we're entering another dangerous phase in that, with infections overall seeming fairly stable (except in 10-14 year olds but they won't go to hospital and only a couple will die) the Tories think carrying on like this throughout winter is just fine, they won't need any more lockdowns, happy Christmas everybody falalalala-la-la-la-laaaa.

 

[Cloo]

Although I see today that after seeming to hover at 30-34k infections the last few weeks it's hopped up to 39k.

 

[zora]

thanks - was trying not to do the delivery thing, as (for the same reasons as the hospital visiting) i'm at mum-tat's house more than own home at the moment.

i'll see what i can do with local pharmacies tomorrow...

Oops, only just seen in your previous post that you have already tried to order a collect code but it didn't come through.

That gov.uk link does indeed seem to say that there is an option for a code to be sent by text message as well as by email, so don't know what went awry there.

 

[Orang Utan]

thanks - was trying not to do the delivery thing, as (for the same reasons as the hospital visiting) i'm at mum-tat's house more than own home at the moment.

i'll see what i can do with local pharmacies tomorrow...

can you not just pick mum’s address for delivery?

 

[Puddy_Tat]

can you not just pick mum’s address for delivery?

if i don't get anywhere with the pharmacies tomorrow, i'll do that

 

[Orang Utan]

if i don't get anywhere with the pharmacies tomorrow, i'll do that

it’s much easier than visiting a pharmacy! one minute online!

 

[Artaxerxes]

I don’t know any company in the insurance Square Mile that’s wanting to return 100% to the office. It ranges between aiming at 3 days a week in the office and having a lot of staff permanently from home. Not only is office space incredibly expensive, companies have also seen that productivity has risen on bread-and-butter day-to-day work. They want to keep that. The issue is that they also know there are long-term benefits (or even necessities) behind the chance encounters and chit-chat that comprises office life. The trick is to find a way to mix the two (ie so-called hybrid working) but that comes with its own new challenges too.

I write and talk a lot about this stuff in my professional life so it’s too exhausting to do it too much on here too. But a lot of the problem is that different sectors of people have fundamentally different ontological understandings of what “work” is. A lot of the discussion about what should happen next is thus starting from different underlying assumptions about what the world is and what it means, but those discussing it don’t realise that. Their conversations are thus just blowing past each other. The details are trying to be settled without resolving first what the purpose is.

The discussions that are happening (across all society, not just my working area) are also incredibly divorced from other big discourses of our time, like so-called “diversity and inclusion” and climate change. This really just points up the individualised liberal nature all these separate discussions are framed through, but even so it’s shocking just how little recognition is being given to wider debates. Companies are making public statements about encouraging inclusive environments, for example, and of working towards net zero emissions. In the next breath, they’re declaring that everybody should get back to the office. These things are not joined up.

One of the issues with modern work is that the very clear* defintions of Working Class have broken down and become nebulous, this has led to the Conservatives led by the richest people in the country somehow managing to paint themselves as the authentic voice of the working class and those claims repeatedly backed up by the media.

The very odd nature of modern work and the firesale on state assets over the last few decades means you have some very highly educated people working hand to mouth on zero hour contracts like Uni lecturers and plumbers owning a dozen properties


*it wasn't always clear even from the start tbh

 

[Fruitloop]

Arcticle about the issue of positive lateral flows followed by negative PCRs, that I mentioned a couple of pages back as being anecdotally a thing: Health chiefs probe 'high number' of positive lateral flow tests followed by negative PCRs

 

[_Russ_]

Looking at some stats this morning it seems that overall in the UK about 1 in 56 recorded C19 Cases ended up with a covid death recording, the same figures for the last 7 days shows about 1 in 295
How much of this is due to the vaccine and how much due to the high proportion of cases currently in the very young I have no idea.

 

[Spandex]

Looking at some stats this morning it seems that overall in the UK about 1 in 56 recorded C19 Cases ended up with a covid death recording, the same figures for the last 7 days shows about 1 in 295
How much of this is due to the vaccine and how much due to the high proportion of cases currently in the very young I have no idea.

Those two things aren't unrelated.

The reason Covid in the UK hammered 15 to 25 year olds over the summer and is hammering 14 and unders since the schools went back is because they aren't vaccinated. The reason deaths are down is because 25 and unders don't die from Covid nearly as much as over 50s.

Without most older people being vaccinated the current wave would've been much, much worse in terms of case numbers, hospitalisations and deaths.

 

[Sasaferrato]

One of the issues with modern work is that the very clear* defintions of Working Class have broken down and become nebulous, this has led to the Conservatives led by the richest people in the country somehow managing to paint themselves as the authentic voice of the working class and those claims repeatedly backed up by the media.

The very odd nature of modern work and the firesale on state assets over the last few decades means you have some very highly educated people working hand to mouth on zero hour contracts like Uni lecturers and plumbers owning a dozen properties


*it wasn't always clear even from the start tbh

A plumber is always going to be a greater asset to society than a lecturer in Ancient Greek.

 

[_Russ_]

Indeed and also things like the lack of testing early on skews the overall numbers probably in a way that makes the improvement in case-death ratio seem larger than it really is

 

[_Russ_]

nt

 

[_Russ_]

There used to be a poster who posted both as 'Russ' + some numbers and then as Oddjob. Short posts, didn't make a lot of sense. I wonder if it's the same fella (pretty sure he'd be due another chance after 17 years).

......Wakes to find the fire dead and arrows in his hat

 

[Sasaferrato]

Indeed and also things like the lack of testing early on skews the overall numbers probably in a way that makes the improvement in case-death ratio seem larger than it really is

Aye, it has been more than a bit of a clusterfuck.

This isn't going away, ever. It may become less virulent over time, vaccination will ameliorate the outcomes, but we are going to live with this forever. I'm 69, and expect it to still be here if I make it as long as my father did, he was 84 when he died.

The reason I'm so certain that it will persist is the huge reservoir of unvaccinated people worldwide.

 

[kabbes]

A plumber is always going to be a greater asset to society than a lecturer in Ancient Greek.

How are you measuring that?

Which plumber?

Which lecturer?

 

[Elpenor]

If only Justin, poster of old was still here, an ardent classicist he’d have had a fit at that assertion

 

[David Clapson]

The BMJ has published a study about which groups are vulnerable to severe Covid despite vaccination. Plain English summary here Study Identifies Groups Still At Risk of Severe COVID Despite Vaccination, original study here Risk prediction of covid-19 related death and hospital admission in adults after covid-19 vaccination: national prospective cohort study

These are the groups. The HR numbers are Hazard Ratios, whatever they are:

Down’s syndrome (HR 12.7)

Kidney transplantation (HR 8.1)

Sickle cell disease (HR 7.7)

Chemotherapy (HR 4.3)

Care home residency (HR 4.1)

HIV/AIDS (HR 3.3)

Liver cirrhosis (HR 3.0)

Neurological conditions (HR 2.6)

Recent bone marrow transplantation or a solid organ transplantation ever (HR 2.5)

Dementia (HR 2.2)

Parkinson’s disease (HR 2.2)

 

[elbows]

Arcticle about the issue of positive lateral flows followed by negative PCRs, that I mentioned a couple of pages back as being anecdotally a thing: Health chiefs probe 'high number' of positive lateral flow tests followed by negative PCRs

I'm glad they have noticed that signal and are investigating. I'd like to have been talking much more about this in recent weeks, but I lacked the data and the detail with which to offer any useful thoughts about what is going on. Some possibilities likely exist beyond those mentioned in that article, eg issues to do with the timing window of opportunity to detect the virus in vaccinated people via PCR test. Or problems with some aspect of the PCR tests/the lab work that underpins them as opposed to some lateral flow tests being faulty.

 

[Fruitloop]

Yeah. My gut tells me it's more likely to be false negatives in the PCRs, as anecdotally some of the people with positive LFTs seem to be pretty sick with quite Covid-y symptoms, but I don't have any actual evidence

 

[elbows]

Yeah. My gut tells me it's more likely to be false negatives in the PCRs, as anecdotally some of the people with positive LFTs seem to be pretty sick with quite Covid-y symptoms, but I don't have any actual evidence

Yes and then it becomes a question of why there have been more false negative PCR results. The possibilities with the most serious implications, such as changes to the virus itself thwarting the tests, need to be ruled in or out urgently.

 

[Cloo]

I don’t know any company in the insurance Square Mile that’s wanting to return 100% to the office. It ranges between aiming at 3 days a week in the office and having a lot of staff permanently from home. Not only is office space incredibly expensive, companies have also seen that productivity has risen on bread-and-butter day-to-day work. They want to keep that. The issue is that they also know there are long-term benefits (or even necessities) behind the chance encounters and chit-chat that comprises office life. The trick is to find a way to mix the two (ie so-called hybrid working) but that comes with its own new challenges too.

I write and talk a lot about this stuff in my professional life so it’s too exhausting to do it too much on here too. But a lot of the problem is that different sectors of people have fundamentally different ontological understandings of what “work” is. A lot of the discussion about what should happen next is thus starting from different underlying assumptions about what the world is and what it means, but those discussing it don’t realise that. Their conversations are thus just blowing past each other. The details are trying to be settled without resolving first what the purpose is.

The discussions that are happening (across all society, not just my working area) are also incredibly divorced from other big discourses of our time, like so-called “diversity and inclusion” and climate change. This really just points up the individualised liberal nature all these separate discussions are framed through, but even so it’s shocking just how little recognition is being given to wider debates. Companies are making public statements about encouraging inclusive environments, for example, and of working towards net zero emissions. In the next breath, they’re declaring that everybody should get back to the office. These things are not joined up.

A lot of the government 'get back to work' talk seems to be aimed at older retired people who don't understand that a lot of work really can be done effectively from home, playing on this idea that everyone is lazy and workshy these days and has too many rights, so as to encourage calls to take them away.

Also, I note how wfh is joining the ranks of 'things that should not be aligned with politics being aligned with politics'. Wfh is 'woke' and for 'snowflakes' - which is of course bullshit as it can be great for people for lots of personal and life circumstance reasons. But of course it speaks to reactionary senior business types and people who don't understand modern working practices. Aka tory voters.

 

[kabbes]

The BMJ has published a study about which groups are vulnerable to severe Covid despite vaccination. Plain English summary here Study Identifies Groups Still At Risk of Severe COVID Despite Vaccination, original study here Risk prediction of covid-19 related death and hospital admission in adults after covid-19 vaccination: national prospective cohort study

These are the groups. The HR numbers are Hazard Ratios, whatever they are:

Down’s syndrome (HR 12.7)

Kidney transplantation (HR 8.1)

Sickle cell disease (HR 7.7)

Chemotherapy (HR 4.3)

Care home residency (HR 4.1)

HIV/AIDS (HR 3.3)

Liver cirrhosis (HR 3.0)

Neurological conditions (HR 2.6)

Recent bone marrow transplantation or a solid organ transplantation ever (HR 2.5)

Dementia (HR 2.2)

Parkinson’s disease (HR 2.2)

The hazard ratio will be the probability of death in the study group compared with a control. The study group here will be comorbidity between Covid, presumably after vaccination, and the stated condition. In this context, however, from what you’ve posted, I’m not sure whether the control is people without the stated condition who are vaccinated and get Covid or some other combination.

 

[Chz]

Yeah. My gut tells me it's more likely to be false negatives in the PCRs, as anecdotally some of the people with positive LFTs seem to be pretty sick with quite Covid-y symptoms, but I don't have any actual evidence

The false negative rate with LFTs is running just under 50%!

 

[Sasaferrato]

How are you measuring that?

Which plumber?

Which lecturer?

Any of either.