bemused
Well-Known Member
I did many hours working on y2k projects.
Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion
- Thread starter Sasaferrato
- Start date
sparkybird
ask the bird...
Not here in Spain. In the summer govt allowed them to be sold at farmacias. The cost over the last couple of weeks has varied from €4 to €7.5
Private tests at clinics are €30-40 for LFT and around €80 for PCR.
If you get a +ve home test LFT you're supposed to call the regional health authority, but it's overwhelmed and no one can get through. So some people just seem to stay at home, hopefully get better and nothing gets registered. Tough luck if you need a cert to be off work......
I actually think the UK system of reporting isn't doing too badly. Never thought I'd be saying that
elbows
Well-Known Member
I'm pretty sure that even the code was published, and was what we might expect given it was adapted from other sorts of diseases and involved years of fiddling around with somewhat crude legacy code. I have a background in development but I was not in a position to get the model running for myself. And a model is only as good as its inputs and the assumptions fed into it for different scenarios, and I would not have been qualified to get all of those right when evaluating it for myself.
The results of the first wave modelling have been reviewed, but I cannot find that stuff right now. It appears that the results were more than appropriate enough to guide policy in a sensible way if the political will was there, but there were some early mistakes with the modelling in the weeks before the original plan a was abandoned. Some of the most glaring mistakes with interpreting data were fixed by mid-March, enabling a rapid policy u-turn at that time which then resulted in the first lockdown. Basically the expert establishment managed to get the wrong impression of how far advanced into the first wave we already were at the time, and this showed up really dramatically at one point when people on the internet and this forum had deduced we were about 11 days beind Italy, and then Vallance came on telly and claimed we were 4 weeks behind Italy. Within days they realised they had gotten that all wrong and we were already deep in the shit, so every subsequent press conference that month involved a scramble to adjust in a big way. I believe one of the problems was that the people feeding real, observed data into the modelling had not realised how laggy and incomplete the NHS data was in the early days. A estimate of the hospitalisation ratio may also have been belatedly changed in a notable way in March 2020 which led to the sudden realisation that anything less than a lockdown was not going to allow the numbers to stay within limits considered tolerable for the NHS.
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Storm Fox
Trying the find the next noun to verb
Why, there wasn't a problem
bemused
Well-Known Member
Interesting, I work with retrodictive software to detect fraud. and the most common issue is the quality and veracity of the inputs.
bemused
Well-Known Member
It was the dullest thing I did in my life, patching hell.Why, there wasn't a problem
two sheds
Least noticed poster 2007
you saved all our lives though
bemused
Well-Known Member
If it wasn't for me planes would have crashed into mountains and power plants around the world would have exploded. My super hero name is 'patching bitch'you saved all our lives though
Numbers
an ting!
Ditto, and got paid ridiculous amounts of money to do so too.
miss direct
misfungled
Free lateral flow tests don't exist in Turkey, and people there seemed both shocked and impressed when I told them about the system in the UK.
elbows
Well-Known Member
In present times some of the biggest challenges with the modelling involve the messy picture of population immunity, and unknowns about the detail of variants.
At all stages the modellers have also prefered to focus on the impact of formal restrictions of various sorts and introduced on specific dates, rather than the vast unknowns that result from behavioural changes as a result of worsening mood music etc long before lockdowns were imposed. This is one of the reasons some are then able to criticise the worst case modelling, because the public actually pay attention and change their behaviours in ways that have some similarities to formal measures, but also some differences. These earlier changes in behaviour prevented some of the worst scenarios from taking place in full.
In the early days of the pandemic the real-world data being fed into the modelling was in a terrible state. A big reason why is that we did hardly any testing, and testing was restricted for too long to people that had a specific history of travel to places with known outbreaks such as China. Once we finally broadened the testing requirements so that at least people very ill in hospital who didnt have that travel history could be tested, we discovered that people had already been getting sick and dying and that there had been more community transmission than assumed. Then they had to slam on the brakes much sooner and harder than they had been indicating they would in prior press conferences. The penny really dropped around 13th-16th March 2020, and Imperial modelling was soon released to show the picture they were suddenly staring at.
klang
klang
In Germany (well, at least in Bavaria), LFT's are free but have to be done at one of the official testing stations. They email you the results within 15mins or so. A negative result allows you into public pools, theatres, etc.
You can home LFT test, but a home testing kit costs a few euros and doesn't count for anything, officially.
bimble
floofy
you're required to go to a test center before entering say a pool even if fully jabbed?
(Two years in and whilst mostly bored, the amazing variety of ways different countries have been dealing with it is still kind of fascinating.)
klang
klang
yes. a month ago anyway, rules might have changed since, but only a vaxx passport plus negative official lft plus id allowed you into a pool. They had such harsh rules to encourage people getting jabbed as vaxx uptake was pretty slow.
(same for non-essential shops and other leisure facilities)
(recovered from covid counts as one jab iirc)
elbows
Well-Known Member
Todays press conference was really something.
If we remove the fact that my sense of how best to 'ride out' this wave is not the same as this governments, and that Johnson is a shithead, the press conference was massively in tune with stuff I've been saying in recent days and weeks.
There was for example a lot of emphasis from Whitty and Vallance about not looking simply at the overall peak in cases, but in how things are going with the number of infections in older age groups.
And I nearly fell off my chair because at one point Johnson mentioned nosocomial spread!
Thats infections acquired in hospital, a subject that deserves a lot of attention. I give it a lot of attention all the way through the pandemic, the authorities give it plenty of attention privately, but as little as they can get away with publicly. Partly because its embarrassing and would create pressure to act in ways they dont want to act, partly because it puts people off going to hospital for other serious health emergencies and that has consequences. Whitty is particularly tuned to that last point, it forms part of his sense of balance and his duty, albeit in a way that has other consequences I'd like to avoid too. And since I am not the chief medical officer and do not have a large audience, I can go on about it in ways he will not do publicly.
Johnson actually managed not only to mention it, but to give it an even larger role in the data than it likely deserves! He mentioned it in connection with the whole 'in hospital because of covid' vs 'in hospital for other reasons but then tested positive for covid'. There was a slide about this in the press conference, but Whitty was very careful with his words when going through that slide. Johnson was not careful, and so he ended up suggesting that 25-30% of people in hospital with covid had caught it in hospital. Actually those figures are a mix of people who caught it in hospital, and people who caught it in the community before then going into hospital for other reasons. But Johnson didnt mention that, oops! I do not have the means to decode what proportion are down to hospital infections - it will be a lot, but it wont be all of them, so Johnson botched this bit. This more than compensates for the disgusting lack of attention this subject normally receives, but I dont know if the press will pick up on this, and plenty of viewers may not have met the word nosocomial before. Johnson will certainly have met it on numerous occasions in private briefings where experts feel less need to be guarded about this topic.
If we remove the fact that my sense of how best to 'ride out' this wave is not the same as this governments, and that Johnson is a shithead, the press conference was massively in tune with stuff I've been saying in recent days and weeks.
There was for example a lot of emphasis from Whitty and Vallance about not looking simply at the overall peak in cases, but in how things are going with the number of infections in older age groups.
And I nearly fell off my chair because at one point Johnson mentioned nosocomial spread!
Thats infections acquired in hospital, a subject that deserves a lot of attention. I give it a lot of attention all the way through the pandemic, the authorities give it plenty of attention privately, but as little as they can get away with publicly. Partly because its embarrassing and would create pressure to act in ways they dont want to act, partly because it puts people off going to hospital for other serious health emergencies and that has consequences. Whitty is particularly tuned to that last point, it forms part of his sense of balance and his duty, albeit in a way that has other consequences I'd like to avoid too. And since I am not the chief medical officer and do not have a large audience, I can go on about it in ways he will not do publicly.
Johnson actually managed not only to mention it, but to give it an even larger role in the data than it likely deserves! He mentioned it in connection with the whole 'in hospital because of covid' vs 'in hospital for other reasons but then tested positive for covid'. There was a slide about this in the press conference, but Whitty was very careful with his words when going through that slide. Johnson was not careful, and so he ended up suggesting that 25-30% of people in hospital with covid had caught it in hospital. Actually those figures are a mix of people who caught it in hospital, and people who caught it in the community before then going into hospital for other reasons. But Johnson didnt mention that, oops! I do not have the means to decode what proportion are down to hospital infections - it will be a lot, but it wont be all of them, so Johnson botched this bit. This more than compensates for the disgusting lack of attention this subject normally receives, but I dont know if the press will pick up on this, and plenty of viewers may not have met the word nosocomial before. Johnson will certainly have met it on numerous occasions in private briefings where experts feel less need to be guarded about this topic.
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elbows
Well-Known Member
And thank fuck they at least had journalists on a screen rather than sitting there in person like they did in briefings towards the end of last year.
Someone even asked a good question about proper masks for hospital staff, an ongoing scandal in this country, and one which has a relationship to the nosocomial spread stuff I've just been going on about.
Whitty was correct to say that there is an ongoing technical argument about that stuff. In my opinion the wrong side has come out on top of that debate within the UK establishment all the way through the pandemic so far.
Someone even asked a good question about proper masks for hospital staff, an ongoing scandal in this country, and one which has a relationship to the nosocomial spread stuff I've just been going on about.
Whitty was correct to say that there is an ongoing technical argument about that stuff. In my opinion the wrong side has come out on top of that debate within the UK establishment all the way through the pandemic so far.
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sparkybird
ask the bird...
Likewise for my friends in Mexico and Guatemala. Private tests are relatively expensive so of course hardly anyone bothers.
elbows
Well-Known Member
This sort of thing also happened with someone I know here in this town in the midlands, but that was some months ago during Delta pressures. He had a heart attack at work and the ambulance was taking too long so a colleague took him to the hospital by car instead. Someone there told them he would probably have died if they had waited instead.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
Shocking as this is, it's not new. And particularly in rural areas. Doesn't stop it being shit, though, and if it is able to heap further culpability on this shitehouse of a government, then bring it on...
elbows
Well-Known Member
Yeah. Its a pretty new thing in this pandemic for my town though, didnt used to happen pre-pandemic except on exceptionally rare occasions.
I've gone back and checked when it happened to the person I know. It was the 4th October.
smmudge
i know the smudge is true
I feel like the UK is good at 2 things really - stats and modelling. As to actually taking action and putting the health of the population before profit, not so much.
gentlegreen
I hummus, therefore I am ...
I have this crazy plan to retire to a peninsula with a half hour drive to the two nearest hospitals or a 5 minute helicopter flight. ...
They do have local defibrillators though ...
Nine Bob Note
Self-Isolating before it was fashionable
Shame he couldn't have built more of them really, you know, as opposed to buying new carpets and curtains for the existing ones. In fact, given his taste in soft furnishings, new builds could have been cheaper.
elbows
Well-Known Member
As well as the Johnson nosocomial spread comments I mentioned earlier, there were a couple of other issues with todays press conference.
Vallance accidentally mentioned 15,000 hospital cases a day, when thats the latest number in hospital beds in England, not daily admissions.
And some of Whittys remarks about self-isolation and testing have led to this sort of article:
www.theguardian.com
Vallance accidentally mentioned 15,000 hospital cases a day, when thats the latest number in hospital beds in England, not daily admissions.
And some of Whittys remarks about self-isolation and testing have led to this sort of article:
Prof Chris Whitty sparks confusion over England’s Covid self-isolation rules
Chief medical officer says people should isolate until testing negative, contradicting official guidance
elbows
Well-Known Member
I was tempted to ask Spiegelhalter about this weeks ago on twitter but I didnt bother, and people tend to wait till things like the percentage estimates for Omicron reinfection start to become available.
It finally popped up in the news agenda. Even the likes of Peston tried to seek change on this long before Omicron, once they realised reinfections werent included in the daily totals (though they are for Wales these days), but there wasnt big pressure to act that time around because reinfections werent such a big number, it didnt distort the daily figures too much in previous waves.
www.theguardian.com
They've left it too late to make the change quickly enough by the sounds of it, given the sprawling mass of data that probably bubbles beneath the surface. I'm not that impressed with the following excuse although as a nerd I can appreciate that the systems are probably ugly to work with. But if my life depended on it and I was in that position, I'm pretty sure I could jerry rig a solution quickly, even if it wasnt ideal. And this sort of thing should have been planned for a very long time ago.
It finally popped up in the news agenda. Even the likes of Peston tried to seek change on this long before Omicron, once they realised reinfections werent included in the daily totals (though they are for Wales these days), but there wasnt big pressure to act that time around because reinfections werent such a big number, it didnt distort the daily figures too much in previous waves.
Scientists call for Covid reinfections in UK to be included in case figures
Intervention comes as data shows up to 15% of Omicron cases among those who have had coronavirus before
They've left it too late to make the change quickly enough by the sounds of it, given the sprawling mass of data that probably bubbles beneath the surface. I'm not that impressed with the following excuse although as a nerd I can appreciate that the systems are probably ugly to work with. But if my life depended on it and I was in that position, I'm pretty sure I could jerry rig a solution quickly, even if it wasnt ideal. And this sort of thing should have been planned for a very long time ago.
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prunus
Tick tock.
I was tempted to ask Spiegelhalter about this weeks ago on twitter but I didnt bother, and people tend to wait till things like the percentage estimates for Omicron reinfection start to become available.
It finally popped up in the news agenda. Even the likes of Peston tried to seek change on this long before Omicron, once they realised reinfections werent included in the daily totals (though they are for Wales these days), but there wasnt big pressure to act that time around because reinfections werent such a big number, it didnt distort the daily figures too much in previous waves.
Scientists call for Covid reinfections in UK to be included in case figures
Intervention comes as data shows up to 15% of Omicron cases among those who have had coronavirus before
They've left it too late to make the change quickly enough by the sounds of it, given the sprawling mass of data that probably bubbles beneath the surface. I'm not that impressed with the following excuse although as a nerd I can appreciate that the systems are probably ugly to work with. But if my life depended on it and I was in that position, I'm pretty sure I could jerry rig a solution quickly, even if it wasnt ideal. And this sort of thing should have been planned for a very long time ago.
Um, I can’t actually see how it could be difficult. Unless they’ve built it in Access or something. Or it was designed by idio…. Oh, sorry, as you were.
elbows
Well-Known Member
I'd possibly be able to go much further with my comments if I knew what the structure and tech was like myself. But certainly its easy to imagine all sorts of ways to crudely work around this, even if it was only fit to be a temporary solution pending a more impressive update. Duplicate some tables so as not to risk messing up the originals (or use a dev copy of the system and data), add some fields, write and run some scripts to reprocess existing data as a result. Or depending on what sort of processing they do on raw data sources, if they are even in charge of that side of things within that system, there may be some relatively straightforward code changes that could get the job done.
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