Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[stdP]

Turkeys must be cooked in full PPE
Conga lines to be limited to no more than four households
Everyone must use their own coke straw, sharing forbidden
Chateau Lafite '52 to be classified as an essential worker
Community outreach program to knit life-sized nurses to fill vacant staffing positions
The cabinet to go on a national morale-boosting tour of Covid-stricken Michelin-star restaurants
Only mistletoe with two jabs and a booster shot to be allowed for snogging under

 

[Chilli.s]

It's confirmed Johnson is chairing a emergency covid cabinet meeting at 2pm, the cabinet does not normally meet on a Mondays.

He wants to get work out of the way quickly so as not to intrude on the holidays

 

[existentialist]

The HCP who jagged my arm for the booster was actually a recently qualified midwife.

#notallmidwives

 

[pbsmooth]

It's confirmed Johnson is chairing a emergency covid cabinet meeting at 2pm, the cabinet does not normally meet on a Mondays.

it's actually a staff drinks

 

[Wilf]

Waiting for the cabinet to act is the political version of getting a teenager to tidy their room.

 

[elbows]

I was supposed to have a hospital consultant appointment last week but they cancelled it at the last moment due to "the crisis we are currently dealing with". Not sure if that means a rise in admissions that's not yet visible in the published numbers, a projection for what's about to happen, or numbers of staff off sick. Possibly a mix of all of those.

Most likely it was due to management decisions from on high - NHS went into highest state of alert, enabling more decisions to be made centrally, and a rapid recalibration of priorities, focus and capacity was ordered.

 

[weepiper]

Covid in Scotland: ScotRail cancels 118 services as virus spikes

Positive cases and self-isolation are having an increasing impact on trains and other public services.

www.bbc.co.uk

Noticing a few 'closed due to staff shortages/illness' signs on the small shops around here.

 

[Elpenor]

For me, when sport fixtures start to be pulled due to covid it’s usually time for another lockdown

 

[baldrick]

Not London. Heres the latest on my street.

View attachment 301896

Scary. It is very interesting round my way actually - very poor but actually one of the lower case rates in Brum (firmly in the 100-199 category) but Sutton Coldfield/Little Aston/Four Oaks looking really bad, as is Hagley and Bromsgrove which are all very definitely the other end of the socioeconomic scale. Is it age profile maybe? Lots of young people where I am and relatively few vaccinated (54% 1st dose).

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

Scary. It is very interesting round my way actually - very poor but actually one of the lower case rates in Brum (firmly in the 100-199 category) but Sutton Coldfield/Little Aston/Four Oaks looking really bad, as is Hagley and Bromsgrove which are all very definitely the other end of the socioeconomic scale. Is it age profile maybe? Lots of young people where I am and relatively few vaccinated (54% 1st dose).

To be honest, after all this time I think a lot of the variation by area is just luck, or maybe natural fluctuation. Some areas have been persistently high I think so there are some factors there that can be analysed but when you're just looking at a snapshot, it could all change round in a week.

 

[elbows]

Triggle has been wheeled out to say the same stuff yet again:

Omicron: Why tougher Covid measures may not be worth it

Omicron is expected to cause a surge in infections. Should more be done to suppress it?

www.bbc.co.uk

Clearly they are going to come out with similar stuff eery time, and when wrong it will quietly be forgotten, no matter how many deaths that entails. If/when they eventually manage to have these lines somewhat mirror the reality that emerges, you can bet we will never hear the end of it. If that happens I expect some people will take a pop at me here for being too cautious. Hopefully should that happen I will be too busy celebrating the end of the acute phase of the pandemic to care.

 

[baldrick]

To be honest, after all this time I think a lot of the variation by area is just luck, or maybe natural fluctuation. Some areas have been persistently high I think so there are some factors there that can be analysed but when you're just looking at a snapshot, it could all change round in a week.

Yeah I dunno really, I'm wondering if people just aren't bothering with testing round here tbh.

 

[Doctor Carrot]

Nope. Keep them coming. Keep humiliating the bastards.

I can't really argue with that. I'd be happier about it though if we weren't in the middle of an absolute shit show of a public health crisis and there weren't low tax, austerity loving shit cunts waiting in the wings.

 

[elbows]

Yeah I dunno really, I'm wondering if people just aren't bothering with testing round here tbh.

A danger when people use local rates to get some sense of their own risk, is that the data is out of date by the time people look at it.

I have for example made comments about various regions where Omicron was not showing up in hospital data yet, or not showing up in positive case data. That doesnt mean I think there isnt much Omicron in those areas yet, just that its effects havent shown up via dramatic changes to the data in those places yet.

 

[baldrick]

A danger when people use local rates to get some sense of their own risk, is that the data is out of date by the time people look at it.

I have for example made comments about various regions where Omicron was not showing up in hospital data yet, or not showing up in positive case data. That doesnt mean I think there isnt much Omicron in those areas yet, just that its effects havent shown up via dramatic changes to the data in those places yet.

You're right that the data is not necessarily to be relied on. But with the local reluctance to get jabbed plus the bizarrely low case rate currently I'm just wondering whether rather than it seeming at odds at my first glance it actually indicates a coherent picture of lack of engagement with health services/covid messaging. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next few weeks.

 

[elbows]

You're right that the data is not necessarily to be relied on. But with the local reluctance to get jabbed plus the bizarrely low case rate currently I'm just wondering whether rather than it seeming at odds at my first glance it actually indicates a coherent picture of lack of engagement with health services/covid messaging. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next few weeks.

Factors do include attitudes towards testing, and how badly an area was hit in previous waves, especially recent waves.

Some data is available that looks at case rates by socioeconomic status. And the picture shown by such data has changed at different moments of the pandemic. There are stories to be told there, for example there have been times where foreign holidays, skiing holidays, restaurants and dinner parties and university education have meant that some of the richer areas have had the big rises first. At other times 'who can actually work from home' has led to the opposite picture.

Attitudes towards testing and the financial implications of testing positive, and uneven access to testing, are some of the reasons I wish that sewage/wastewater covid analysis data was published routinely in England.

 

[Doctor Carrot]

Desperate calls for retired teachers are being made now.

I'm sure those retired teachers will be chomping at the bit to come back to unventilated classrooms full of disease ridden kids.

 

[brogdale]

Desperate calls for retired teachers are being made now.

I'm sure those retired teachers will be chomping at the bit to come back to unventilated classrooms full of disease ridden kids.

Via supply agencies that managements can't afford.

 

[Flavour]

It's a sort of lockdown from below, all these people calling in sick and forcing museums to close, football matches to be abandoned.

 

[elbows]

It's a sort of lockdown from below, all these people calling in sick and forcing museums to close, football matches to be abandoned.

Yes and this has happened every time. Most famously during the first peak of the Delta wave due to the press becoming fixated by 'the pingdemic', but on the other occasions too.

 

[planetgeli]

It's gone mental hasn't it? It cant just be my family. People I know with Covid positive via PCR right now.

Granddaughter (and her brother and mum had it 2 weeks ago)
2 Nieces
2 sisters-in-law
Ex-partner of my partner's sister
2 daughters of a friend nearby
Best friend's partner.

I really don't know that many people as family or friends. 9 in one week suggests the vaccines aren't offering anything like the 60% protection claimed before omicron.

 

[Flavour]

where are these people located planetgeli ?

 

[planetgeli]

where are these people located planetgeli ?

All in London apart from one in Brighton and 2 in Barcelona.

 

[elbows]

Pre-Omicron estimates of protection against symptomatic infection were higher than 60%. But they do vary, here is just one example:

The relative VE estimate in the 14 days after the BNT162b2 (Comirnaty, Pfizer-BioNTech) booster dose, compared to individuals that received a two-dose primary course, was 87.4 (95% confidence interval 84.9-89.4) in those individuals who received two doses ChAdOx1-S (Vaxzevria, AstraZeneca) as a primary course and 84.4 (95% confidence interval 82.8-85.8) in those individuals who received two doses of BNT162b2 (Comirnaty, Pfizer-BioNTech) as a primary course. Using the 2-6 day period post the booster dose as the baseline gave similar results. The absolute VE from 14 days after the booster, using the unvaccinated baseline, was 93.1(95% confidence interval 91.7-94.3) in those with ChAdOx1-S (Vaxzevria, AstraZeneca) as their primary course and 94.0 (93.4-94.6) for BNT162b2 (Comirnaty, Pfizer-BioNTech) as their primary course.

Effectiveness of BNT162b2 (Comirnaty, Pfizer-BioNTech) COVID-19 booster vaccine against covid-19 related symptoms in England: test negative case-control study

Background In September 2021, the UK Government introduced a booster programme targeting individuals over 50 and those in a clinical risk group. Individuals were offered either a full dose of the BNT162b2 (Comirnaty, Pfizer-BioNTech) vaccine or a half dose of the mRNA-1273 (Spikevax, Moderna)...

www.medrxiv.org

Even larger claims were made pre-Delta, pre-waning. How accurate the estimates actually were I cannot say.

Still early days for the Omicron estimates but numbers like the following have floated around so far:

Depending on the estimates used for vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic infection from the Delta variant, this translates into vaccine effectiveness estimates against symptomatic Omicron infection of between 0% and 20% after two doses, and between 55% and 80% after a booster dose. Similar estimates were obtained using genotype data, albeit with greater uncertainty.

Omicron largely evades immunity from past infection or two vaccine doses | Imperial News | Imperial College London

The Omicron variant largely evades immunity from past infection or two vaccine doses according to the latest Imperial modelling.

www.imperial.ac.uk

Crucial unknowns include what Omicron will do when it comes to older people.

 

[nagapie]

Most people in London didn't have time to get boosters before Omicron hit. Maybe the rest of the country will fare better.

 

[elbows]

Most people in London didn't have time to get boosters before Omicron hit. Maybe the rest of the country will fare better.

Natural immunity levels may also have waned more in London because the simplified picture we tend to have is that London got hammered more in the first wave and the second wave than the third (Delta) wave. And those first couple of waves tended to be sharper and end more rapidly in London than in some other regions. At the opposite end of the spectrum we have the North East which had a notably large Delta wave, and which is so far taking longer to show big increases in the numbers again now.

 

[20Bees]

My eldest (35) had a positive LFT on Saturday when she had started to feel rough, PCR at a drive-through yesterday morning and that was confirmed positive this morning. No notification whether it’s omicron.
She has apparently told other family that she will do a daily LFT and can end isolation when it’s negative. I can’t find anything on the gov website to confirm?

 

[elbows]

My eldest (35) had a positive LFT on Saturday when she had started to feel rough, PCR at a drive-through yesterday morning and that was confirmed positive this morning. No notification whether it’s omicron.
She has apparently told other family that she will do a daily LFT and can end isolation when it’s negative. I can’t find anything on the gov website to confirm?

They havent changed self-isolation rules for people who test positive, so unless I've got confused she is just plain wrong about that.

The authorities may reduce the length of self isolation for positive cases, eg down from 10 days to 7, if they think they have to due to insane pressure on essential systems due to staff shortages. This is being rumoured in the press, but hasnt happened yet. If it happens then it is possible that they might use additional testing as part of the change.

 

[elbows]

The rules:

If you are notified by NHS Test and Trace of a positive test result you must complete your full isolation period. Your isolation period starts immediately from when your symptoms started, or, if you do not have any symptoms, from when your test was taken. Your isolation period includes the day your symptoms started (or the day your test was taken if you do not have symptoms), and the next 10 full days. This means that if, for example, your symptoms started at any time on the 15th of the month (or if you did not have symptoms but your first positive COVID-19 test was taken on the 15th), your isolation period ends at 23:59hrs on the 25th.

[Withdrawn] [Withdrawn] Stay at home: guidance for households with possible or confirmed coronavirus (COVID-19) infection

www.gov.uk

Those rules havent changed for ages. Rules that have changed several times in recent months are for contacts of positive cases, including household contacts, not the positive cases themselves. Those are discussed on the same page but I'm not quoting them as they are not applicable to this case.

 

[20Bees]

They havent changed self-isolation rules for people who test positive, so unless I've got confused she is just plain wrong about that.

The authorities may reduce the length of self isolation for positive cases, eg down from 10 days to 7, if they think they have to due to insane pressure on essential systems due to staff shortages. This is being rumoured in the press, but hasnt happened yet. If it happens then it is possible that they might use additional testing as part of the change.

The rules:

[Withdrawn] [Withdrawn] Stay at home: guidance for households with possible or confirmed coronavirus (COVID-19) infection

www.gov.uk

Those rules havent changed for ages. Rules that have changed several times in recent months are for contacts of positive cases, including household contacts, not the positive cases themselves. Those are discussed on the same page but I'm not quoting them as they are not applicable to this case.

Thank you - I rather suspected she was making up her own rules