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Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

Does anyone know what the current thinking is on how the virus is spread? Initially everyone was washing their hands all the time, cleaning stuff that came through the door etc. Then it became clear that most transmissions were airborne and spread by breathing. But is there still thought to be a risk from indirect contact? A risk worth worrying about? The reason I ask is that at our local hospital the waste porters have been told that henceforth, in some circumstances, COVID waste may be mixed in with non-COVID waste. This is new. Previously waste was segregated and only some designated porters dealt with it. 'Infection Control' say that the new rules are OK, but they blow with the wind. Any ideas?
 
elbows said:
Yes although there is some tedious detail that means it is described as 'five full days', you need to test negative on days 5 and 6.

eg see this graphic from the BBC article about the change. I may have more to say when I've seen more official documents as well as the UKHSA justification for this change.

View attachment 305777

www.bbc.co.uk

Covid self-isolation in England being cut to five full days

People will be able to end isolation after negative tests on days five and six from Monday.
www.bbc.co.uk
Click to expand...
That successfully employs the kind of mud-based clarity we have come to expect.

E2a: in case I wasn't clear, I meant from the government, not from you, elbows!
 
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Kevbad the Bad said:
Does anyone know what the current thinking is on how the virus is spread? Initially everyone was washing their hands all the time, cleaning stuff that came through the door etc. Then it became clear that most transmissions were airborne and spread by breathing. But is there still thought to be a risk from indirect contact? A risk worth worrying about? The reason I ask is that at our local hospital the waste porters have been told that henceforth, in some circumstances, COVID waste may be mixed in with non-COVID waste. This is new. Previously waste was segregated and only some designated porters dealt with it. 'Infection Control' say that the new rules are OK, but they blow with the wind. Any ideas?
Click to expand...
Perception of this risk in general are that it has reduced in many peoples minds compared to how it was perceived in the first wave of the pandemic.

Personally I doubt the risk is zero but it probably looks small compared to other risks that people focus on more these days. Peoples attitudes towards pandemic risk in general have also changed a bit since vaccines etc, which then has a knock on effect on how hard they try to shutdown all possible transmission paths. And attitudes varied quite a lot in the first place, eg I never nuked my shopping, I just avoid touching my face and wash my hands frequently when handling it, and so I havent really felt the need to change that.

Hospital waste is a pretty specific thing though, and I doubt the authorities are operating on the basis that risks associated with it are zero. A far as I know this is still the latest version of the NHS COVID-19 Waste management Standard Operating Procedure:

Coronavirus » COVID-19 waste management standard operating procedure

www.england.nhs.uk www.england.nhs.uk

Lots of tedious detail including plenty that would have to be looked up in other documents, and what the 'some circumstances' you mention actually are may make quite a difference.

The Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens designates waste arising from COVID-19 patients as infectious clinical waste (EWC code 18 01 03*). It must be packaged in UN-approved orange bags in accordance with the safe management of healthcare waste (HTM 07-01). The transport categorisation for this waste is Category B. Sharps and pharmaceutically contaminated items should continue to be segregated into appropriate containers sent for incineration; these should not enter the orange bag stream.
Click to expand...

In summary, infectious clinical waste including waste visibly contaminated with respiratory secretions (such as sputum or mucus from the mouth and nose) generated from an individual who had tested positive for COVID-19 and is still within their required isolation period, should be treated like any other infectious clinical waste – that is, as it would be for TB, hepatitis, etc, following national waste regulations.
Click to expand...
 
elbows said:
Perception of this risk in general are that it has reduced in many peoples minds compared to how it was perceived in the first wave of the pandemic.

Personally I doubt the risk is zero but it probably looks small compared to other risks that people focus on more these days. Peoples attitudes towards pandemic risk in general have also changed a bit since vaccines etc, which then has a knock on effect on how hard they try to shutdown all possible transmission paths. And attitudes varied quite a lot in the first place, eg I never nuked my shopping, I just avoid touching my face and wash my hands frequently when handling it, and so I havent really felt the need to change that.

Hospital waste is a pretty specific thing though, and I doubt the authorities are operating on the basis that risks associated with it are zero. A far as I know this is still the latest version of the NHS COVID-19 Waste management Standard Operating Procedure:

Coronavirus » COVID-19 waste management standard operating procedure

www.england.nhs.uk www.england.nhs.uk

Lots of tedious detail including plenty that would have to be looked up in other documents, and what the 'some circumstances' you mention actually are may make quite a difference.
Click to expand...
Thanks for all that. The circumstances I referred to are where there is overflow from COVID wards to non-COVID wards, and a handful of COVID patients are on a non COVID green ward. This is becoming more common because of the volume of COVID patients. Yet it didn't happen during the previous waves.
 
Ah I see, that does sound like the sort of circumstance whre they will fudge things and could end up breaking the rules if they try to overlook some stuff in the process. But its a specialised topic and I cant really take it further than the waffle I already came out with.
 
Indie SAGE looked at the term endemic today, what it actually means and its implications. This is timely given the way its being used for propaganda purposes at the moment (my choice of words not theirs).

oops problem with the youtube link right now, I'll put it back in later.

They do rather shit on the idea that there is a nice tidy path of viral evolution where the 'milder' aspects of Omicron are a sure sign of whats to come next.
 
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The situation with young children and covid hospitalisation finally made it to the UK press, but with lots of reassurances given. Clearly a subject where panic is a concern, which may well be why we heard very little about this stuff all through the pandemic till now, where attention to the numbers now forces a response, in contrast to countries like the USA which have featured it more in previous waves too.

www.bbc.co.uk

Babies in England hospitals with Omicron as a precaution

The virus is causing some to develop fevers but not serious illness, experts say.
www.bbc.co.uk

www.theguardian.com

More UK infants in hospital amid Omicron wave but experts urge calm

Proportion of hospitalised children aged under one rises, though medics say most cases are very mild
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 
The daily deaths figure seems incredibly high. I've been waiting for some sort of Christmas/New Year correction but it's now the middle of January. The last figure I heard was 270 in a day and the day before that was well over 300. This suggests Covid is killing well over 1000 a week right now.

Am I right? elbows?
 
Yes, although incredibly high as a concept is probably skewed by the incredibly high number of deaths we had in the first few waved of the pandemic.

There was some discussion of deaths earlier this week in this thread.

And its probably better to look at deaths by date of death, the first graph on this page of the dashboard, so the effect of late and weekend reporting can be removed:

coronavirus.data.gov.uk

Official UK Coronavirus Dashboard

GOV.UK Coronavirus dashboard
coronavirus.data.gov.uk coronavirus.data.gov.uk
 
elbows said:
The situation with young children and covid hospitalisation finally made it to the UK press, but with lots of reassurances given. Clearly a subject where panic is a concern, which may well be why we heard very little about this stuff all through the pandemic till now, where attention to the numbers now forces a response, in contrast to countries like the USA which have featured it more in previous waves too.

www.bbc.co.uk

Babies in England hospitals with Omicron as a precaution

The virus is causing some to develop fevers but not serious illness, experts say.
www.bbc.co.uk

www.theguardian.com

More UK infants in hospital amid Omicron wave but experts urge calm

Proportion of hospitalised children aged under one rises, though medics say most cases are very mild
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
Click to expand...
Gah! This whole 'it's mild' narrative is really boiling my piss now. No one goes into hospital for a mild viral infection. A cold where you bung a couple of lemsip and get on with the day is a mild viral infection. Going to A&E and requiring oxygen is not a mild viral infection. How the fuck has this decades old distinction been lost in the space of 2 months?
 
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Mation said:
I'd agree. Positive by lateral flow is positive according to what's detected in the sample as provided at the time, whereas PCR amplifies the sample up to detect what's in there, rather than the original viral load (I think).

Is it not the case that f there's enough of the virus currently (at time of testing) to be detected by lateral flow, then there's enough to be infectious? Does transmissibility decrease over time independently of the amount of virus that can be detected?
Click to expand...

The amplification re PCR helps detect small amounts of the virus, and small amounts of virus likely indicates the person is either pre-infectious, or post. Whereas LFT's are not as sensitive and generally just pick up the virus when the person is at their most infectious- though I don't think there's a clear line in that positive LFT= infectious Negative LFT= not infectious as they are still gathering research on cycle thresholds(google those, a whole other level of boffinry) in PCR tests so I think that's all a work in progress atm. They don't- at least in Scotland- do more PCR tests after someone tests positive as they could as Killer B says test positive for weeks. Testing positive on an LFT ten days later whilst asymptomatic is pretty rare though it is known to happen- and research I've looked at generally shows that people aren't infectious 8 days or more after onset of symptoms- so if you factor that in with staffing crisis in the NHS it's perfectly understandable that those with positive LFT's after 10 days who are also asymptomatic are told to go back to work as it is highly unlikely they will be infectious.
 
Kevbad the Bad said:
Thanks for all that. The circumstances I referred to are where there is overflow from COVID wards to non-COVID wards, and a handful of COVID patients are on a non COVID green ward. This is becoming more common because of the volume of COVID patients. Yet it didn't happen during the previous waves.
Click to expand...
I'm guessing then you mean that the waste guys in question are now dealing with a ward that has covid and non covid patients? The document Elbows shared probs quite complicated if you aren't used to waste in a healthcare setting but strictly speaking when waste leaves a healthcare setting it isn't really segregated as "covid" and "non covid" so I would guess rather than following new rules, the existing rules are being applied to a setting with mixed scenarios going on? Could be wrong though. I've been dealing with orange and black bagged shite last two weeks in a red wing, which is why I had a stab at yer post. In Scotland, though. We keep it all for 72 hours first but we are a care home, that might be undoable in a hospital, not sure.

Also I'm defo now using "the offensive stream" in life, at some point.
 
Doctor Carrot said:
I've corrected my last post because it's actually only be 2 months since Omicron was detected, less than in fact. Amazing the speed of it and the speed with which 'it's just mild' has caught on. 400 people dying a day from it at the moment and it's just mild... Crazy.
Click to expand...
Where's this "400 people a day" coming from?
 
Doctor Carrot said:
There have been some days this week showing that figure or close to it.
Click to expand...
On 12th Jan there were 398 deaths reported, but that was a catch up day for reporting after lower figures had been reported at the weekend.

Here's the current 'by date of death' figures from the dashboard:
20220115_083715.jpg

The higest number of recorded Covid deaths on a single day so far since Omicron hit is 231 on 6th Jan.

If you look back at the past 6 months, more people are currently dying per day than during the Detla wave:
20220115_083642.jpg
But if you look back over the whole pandemic, these figures are dwarfed by the huge numbers of people dying in the first two waves in the pre-vaccine era:
20220115_083617.jpg

We shouldn't lose sight of the fact that two hundred people dying every day is a lot of people, every one of them a personal tragedy for someone.

I guess the blasé attitude of the government is in part because these kinds of death figures are what we might see in a bad flu season, but then bad flu seasons don't tend to go on for six months, like the current wave of deaths has so far, and every grown up in the country isnt offered three free vaccines while there are work from home orders, mask mandates and millions of people told to self-isolate, like there currently is.
 
Spandex said:
On 12th Jan there were 398 deaths reported, but that was a catch up day for reporting after lower figures had been reported at the weekend.

Here's the current 'by date of death' figures from the dashboard:
View attachment 305997

The higest number of recorded Covid deaths on a single day so far since Omicron hit is 231 on 6th Jan.

If you look back at the past 6 months, more people are currently dying per day than during the Detla wave:
View attachment 306005
But if you look back over the whole pandemic, these figures are dwarfed by the huge numbers of people dying in the first two waves in the pre-vaccine era:
View attachment 306006

We shouldn't lose sight of the fact that two hundred people dying every day is a lot of people, every one of them a personal tragedy for someone.

I guess the blasé attitude of the government is in part because these kinds of death figures are what we might see in a bad flu season, but then bad flu seasons don't tend to go on for six months, like the current wave of deaths has so far, and every grown up in the country isnt offered three free vaccines while there are work from home orders, mask mandates and millions of people told to self-isolate, like there currently is.
Click to expand...
I thought there were a few days that had around 400 deaths rather than just one catch up day so thanks for clarifying.

You're right, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact there's still lots of people dying a day. Nowhere near what we've seen previously of course but still a lot.

I've tried to stop reading so much about the pandemic the last few days as it really does wind me up, the blasé attitude you talk about.
 
There were plenty of other SAGE documents published recently, but I've only looked at a couple of them so far.

This one is updated modelling from Warwick uni. They looked at what effect additional measures in January would have, and concluded that the difference would be limited by the peak of infections already having happened, but also that older people were already behaving cautiously in a manner similar to what the extra restrictions would entail. They also say that although such measures wouldnt have much effect on peak rate of hospitalisations, they would bring the wave under control more quickly, leading to a lower total number of admissions (the sort of finding that contradicts the shit Triggle was coming out with weeks ago).

They also do a version of the modelling which looks further ahead, and an exit wave of hospitalisations shows up.

 
The most recent SAGE meeting minutes available are from January 7th, so much of what they say is stuff that already became clear a while ago. eg stuff relating to Omicron severity and how well vaccines, especially boosters, have held up.


They do echo one thing that I mentioned Indie SAGE said in their video yesterday:

These data are consistent with Omicron being a more upper respiratory tract infection. It is important to note that future variants will not necessarily retain these properties.
Click to expand...

Stuff to do with the Omicron picture in children features. As does this action point, the results of which we started to see yesterday:

ACTION: CMO office to work with paediatricians to accurately communicate the assessment of the risk to children from Omicron.
Click to expand...
 
Brudgen makes a fair point in this story about Johnsons plight:

But Andrew Bridgen, Conservative MP for North West Leicestershire, said: "I don't need to see what Sue Gray says to know that for me Boris Johnson has lost the moral authority to lead the country.

"If there's another emergency where he has to call on the public to make sacrifices, he doesn't have that authority. That makes his position in my book, as prime minister, completely untenable."
Click to expand...

www.bbc.co.uk

Lead or step aside, senior Tory Tobias Ellwood tells Boris Johnson

Tobias Ellwood says "we need leadership" as MPs are inundated with messages about Downing Street parties.
www.bbc.co.uk

A future variant which has huge potential for woe and moves in a different direction to Omicron, will be rather incompatible with Johnson so the sooner he is gone the better. There is no way to know whether we'll have to face such a threat, but if we do then there might not be a huge amount of time to do the right thing, and so Johnson needs to be gone before such a scenario gets going.
 
elbows said:
Brudgen makes a fair point in this story about Johnsons plight:



www.bbc.co.uk

Lead or step aside, senior Tory Tobias Ellwood tells Boris Johnson

Tobias Ellwood says "we need leadership" as MPs are inundated with messages about Downing Street parties.
www.bbc.co.uk

A future variant which has huge potential for woe and moves in a different direction to Omicron, will be rather incompatible with Johnson so the sooner he is gone the better. There is no way to know whether we'll have to face such a threat, but if we do then there might not be a huge amount of time to do the right thing, and so Johnson needs to be gone before such a scenario gets going.
Click to expand...
The alternative could easily be worse than Johnson.
 
maomao said:
The alternative could easily be worse than Johnson.
Click to expand...
The alternative could be worse than Johnson in some respects, but I'm struggling to think of anyone who would come close in the specific area of complete absence of moral authority.

He's never scored that highly in that area, but any authority he might have had is now gone, and, as mentioned, any suggestion from a government he leads that we make further sacrifices to control covid will simply be laughed at now.
 
In terms of resisting imposing restrictions, perhaps. In terms of having a shred of credibility when it comes to asking the public to act during the pandemic, no.
 
Are we seeing the end of the pandemic?

Barring a terrible new variant, I feel we are. Everyone I know got it, nobody I know has it now.

I see that Pfizer has made a new Omicron vaccine. I'm all over that, because it'll give you some immunity to variants that have omicron ancenstry. That infection rate is worrysome if there is suddenly a more lethal version. Civil society could break down.
 
There is a massive reservoir of unvaccinated people out there and clearly people are unable to modify their habits to prevent them catching and spreading it - and every new infection has the potential to come up with a new more problematic strain.
A virologist I follow Amy Rosenfeld is still pencilling-in 5 years ...

No vaccine alone is going to prevent infection and transmission - probably not even if we are "boosted" every few months ...
 
Sunray said:
Are we seeing the end of the pandemic?

Barring a terrible new variant, I feel we are. Everyone I know got it, nobody I know has it now.

I see that Pfizer has made a new Omicron vaccine. I'm all over that, because it'll give you some immunity to variants that have omicron ancenstry. That infection rate is worrysome if there is suddenly a more lethal version. Civil society could break down
Click to expand...
Everybody you know?, what are you a bunch of professional crowd surfers?
 
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