Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[AverageJoe]

It came to the country from many independent sources. There were many 'seeds' over time. Many cases were missed, and they were expected to be missed. There is no meaning to trying to identify a single airport, our epidemic didnt start with one single case coming into the UK.



Many small changes happen. A whole bunch of UK samples genomes are available on the web and are visualised by the likes of nextstrain.



At best a misleading oversimplification, at worst a complete load of rubbish.



That isnt how mutations work with this virus. It is posssible that aspects of peoples underlying conditions may make them more susceptible to the virus being able to reproduce in far higher quantities. This means there may be more opportunities for mutation within such hosts, and more opportunities to shed a lot of the virus and infect others. But the mutations themselves are random errors, and indeed the rate of mutations for this sort of virus is reduced by the fact it does have some error checking built into its replication abilities. That reduces the speed of mutations, but does not prevent them completely. Point is, the sort of underlying condition you have does not determine what sort of mutations occur.



Well when developing a vaccine you will want it to cover a broad range of the variants of the virus that are actually circulating in people. I expect thats what that point is supposed to be getting at.



PPE is a complex subject and there were a bunch of different failings, some of them over many years. There was never enough for everyone, there were some specific shipments from China that failed quality control checks but thats just one small piece of the story.

Half truths and misinformation. Our testing was behind because our entire attitude towards diagnostics testing in normal times and during pandemics was one that was rather limited by our general attitudes, funding and management structures relating to diagnostics labs. We simply didnt envisage testing on the mass scale that now seems entirely sensible and necessary. Once we decided that actually we needed to ramp up our testing capacity, then we ran into all sorts of supply issues and other bottlenecks, but these were not the original reason for our strategy and doing so badly compared to Germany.

Im not hear to argue with you mate. Just telling you what a world leading blood specialist who has three books released and is one of the most senior in her field told me over the phone today after she called to see how my son is getting on.

I've no dog in this fight.

 

[two sheds]

Why are you not off your head yet by the way elbows ?

 

[xes]

I read some police ground rules earlier which said you could drive short distances to go for walks. The qualifier was the walk should be a lot longer than the time taken to drive to the place. Hadn't seen that before. So, on one level we've got major restrictions in place in terms of work, pubs, restaurants, sport etc. But in reality, provided you don't do anything dickish you've really got the opportunity to go out a couple of times a day and even go for short drives. Realise that's NOT the actual policy, but it is something most people could easily get away with if they wanted.

I'm genuinely unsure whether that makes it a 'commonsense lockdown' or whether it's already a bit too frilly round the edges. Sometimes the problem with frilly ragged things is not how messy they are now, but whether the original ragged edges allow full on unravelling later.

That would explain why all the country lanes are chock full of parked cars, because they've closed all of the car parks to stop people driving out to nice walking places.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

TBH, many of those of us who are still working find it more or less impossible to observe social distancing impeccably whilst carrying out our work to keep delivering the services that the rest of you depend on.

And as has been mentioned before, many working in construction and related fields (who may still be carrying out urgent and essential work, even if that isn't obvious to you) only get paid if they carry on working - no furlough and 12 week holiday on 80% pay for them.

Right. Not sure where you got this 'even if that isn't obvious to you' crap from. I didn't say anything about the essential or not nature of the work. However, it seems unlikely that all that work that was non-essential last week has suddenly changed to become essential this week. There has been a wholesale shift from last week to this.

Nice digs, though, matey.

We all rely on other people's work, and props to those delivering essential services right now. Shame on those who control the system that leads to workers doing non-essential construction work, though. Selfish, greedy fuckers.



Po

 

[kropotkin]

Im not hear to argue with you mate. Just telling you what a world leading blood specialist who has three books released and is one of the most senior in her field told me over the phone today after she called to see how my son is getting on.

I've no dog in this fight.

A haematologist is not a public health consultant, epidemiologist or a virologist. People should understand the limits of their knowledge and stop pretending to know things they don't.

Even "world famous" experts in a topic are guilty of this. In my experience those least connected with actually dealing with the pandemic seem to make the most noise.

 

[killer b]

Im not hear to argue with you mate. Just telling you what a world leading blood specialist who has three books released and is one of the most senior in her field told me over the phone today after she called to see how my son is getting on.

I've no dog in this fight.

I don't think elbows is arguing with you, just correcting some of the misleading stuff your leading blood specialist friend has told you.

 

[MickiQ]

Any news as to whether it's transmitted by 5G towers built by Huawei?

To me that seems totally logical.

You're safe now that enough of them have been torched.
Mrs Q, Youngest and I took part in tonights clap, spoke to my neighbour across the road (seperated by the width of the road) making it the first time I have spoken to someone in the flesh for almost 4 weeks. Most houses are turning out in our cul-de-sac but there seem to be fewer on the main road. Some idiot was letting fireworks off in the distance.

 

[elbows]

Point is, the sort of underlying condition you have does not determine what sort of mutations occur.

I should probably expand on this point, because in theory some truth may be found if we change the angle of the claim, turn it on its head.

A lot of the mutations that are seen have no particular consequences. Mutations in some specific areas of the virus are of more interest though, some specific ones can change the way the virus interacts with humans, eg how effectively it binds to certain human tissues. In theory, a mutation in this area could make people with certain conditions even more susceptible to the virus. So a small fraction of the mutations can have implications for people, but it still isnt their other conditions that affect the mutation, its that the mutation could affect how bad the virus is for people with those conditions. Or more likely, for people in general, since thats where the largest evolutionary pressure is, how the virus gets on with people in general, not a subset with underlying conditions.

 

[quimcunx]

Maybe the government and media would be better calling out employers and police could be better deployed visiting open businesses to check up on what levels of cuntery employers are up to rather than harassing people out for a walk.

 

[AverageJoe]

I should probably expand on this point, because in theory some truth may be found if we change the angle of the claim, turn it on its head.

A lot of the mutations that are seen have no particular consequences. Mutations in some specific areas of the virus are of more interest though, some specific ones can change the way the virus interacts with humans, eg how effectively it binds to certain human tissues. In theory, a mutation in this area could make people with certain conditions even more susceptible to the virus. So a small fraction of the mutations can have implications for people, but it still isnt their other conditions that affect the mutation, its that the mutation could affect how bad the virus is for people with those conditions. Or more likely, for people in general, since thats where the largest evolutionary pressure is, how the virus gets on with people in general, not a subset with underlying conditions.

Thank you. I think this is kinda what she was saying but I couldn't explain it properly.

Hell, I still clap in amazement when I open the fridge and the light comes on.

I always appreciate your insights, you and a few others really help me (try to) understand the more in depth aspects of this

 

[quimcunx]

Obviously we dont know because were doing bugger all testing or tracing but I'd love to know the numbers and types on transmission since the first week of lockdown. Is it 95% within households and care settings? 80%? 40%? 50% care settings, 20 % shops, 20% households? 10% construction sites? 80% breath 20% surfaces?

My feeling is that if I pass 100 people in a week of walks and shop trips then most likely none of them even have it.

 

[elbows]

A lot of the mutations that are seen have no particular consequences. Mutations in some specific areas of the virus are of more interest though, some specific ones can change the way the virus interacts with humans, eg how effectively it binds to certain human tissues. In theory, a mutation in this area could make people with certain conditions even more susceptible to the virus. So a small fraction of the mutations can have implications for people, but it still isnt their other conditions that affect the mutation, its that the mutation could affect how bad the virus is for people with those conditions. Or more likely, for people in general, since thats where the largest evolutionary pressure is, how the virus gets on with people in general, not a subset with underlying conditions.

Actually if I push some of those concepts to their extreme, then it probably is possible to envisage a scenario where, if evolutionary pressure had a long time to do its thing with a particular virus within a particular host with particular conditions, something along the lines of the original point could be seen. ie the virus mutates randomly a lot, but some of those random mutations just happen to be a lot better suited to further reproduction within that particular host, so they gain the upper hand where others fail. And then if that version is shedded a lot and other people catch it, and it does well everywhere else too, it may become the dominant strain. Thats sort of as close as I can get to getting a logical theory out of the original point, but I wouldnt consider it to be a specially notable factor in this pandemic really. Indeed its not a subject I feel especially well equipped to discuss in a completely accurate way, so who knows how many mistakes I made with my attempt. But the original concept, as presented, I still consider to be misleading and thats the only reason I replied to that and some of their other points.

 

[elbows]

I always appreciate your insights, you and a few others really help me (try to) understand the more in depth aspects of this

Thanks. I'm sorry I had to point out some things I didnt like about the original statements, I couldnt help myself.

Also I'm at the stage with this pandemic that I got to with the Fukushima nuclear disaster - I start to get concerned that if I got something wrong and went on about it here, would anyone notice and be prepared to point out my mistake? The answer of course depends on what the mistake in question was.

 

[tommers]

Why? Tonight for a couple of minutes I beat the crap out of a big old saucepan with a large metal spoon, just to get rid of some of my anger and sadness...it worked a bit.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

Yeah im not saying its a bad thing or i cant understand why anybody gets anything good out of it - i guess it just reinforces that everything is different. Hearing people cheering every thursday at a set time just makes everything much weirder to me. Its become a ritual i suppose, every Thursday night we go and bang things and shout. This has been going on long enough that we now have rituals about it and that upsets me.

 

[weltweit]

elbows you might be interested in an article Marty1 just posted in the worldwide thread in which researchers explain that they have identified bat dna mutations in the NY strain which amongst other things pretty much rules out the virus having emerged from a Chinese lab in Wuhan.

 

[Supine]

Any news as to whether it's transmitted by 5G towers built by Huawei?

To me that seems totally logical.

yeah. Much worse than the shingles caused by 4G.

 

[elbows]

A haematologist is not a public health consultant, epidemiologist or a virologist. People should understand the limits of their knowledge and stop pretending to know things they don't.

Even "world famous" experts in a topic are guilty of this. In my experience those least connected with actually dealing with the pandemic seem to make the most noise.

Seems like a good opportunity for me to reiterate that I consider myself a generalist, and its thanks to the sharing of knowledge and specific data by specialists, and the discussions between them, generalists, interested members of the public, journalists etc that I have been able to have anything resembling a clue.

One of the more painful aspects for me as this pandemic slowly unfolded, was how much better a job various countries could have done if their largely formal and behind closed doors mix of experts from various disciplines, civil servants and politicians, had instead more closely resembled the efforts I saw publicly online from the aforementioned groups. At the very least what I saw in the open was not so far behind the 'pandemic reality curve' as the chosen ones were in many countries were. The fact the actual authorities have to factor the known limitations of their nations resources into their thinking is not enough in itself to fully explain the difference.

 

[keybored]

That clapping thing is starting to really freak me out.

Not like the "donate a fiver to the NHS" thing. Im angry about that, the clapping thing freaks me out.

Likewise. Could hear a pin drop last week but this week it sounded like the whole village was out, clapping like robotic sea lions and banging pots. A few rockets went off. I suspect my name is now on some parish list.

 

[lefteri]

It is with regards to the NHS whose resources haven't kept pace with the dramatic increase in the population. The great British public consider the NHS to be sacrosanct, therefore it cannot be consigned to the annals of history overnight, nevertheless, as has been the case with civil liberties, it is being disassembled./run down piecemeal.

One only has to look at the significant rise in the private healthcare sector to perceive where successive govs. over the past 30 odd yrs. are heading. Prior to this, it would have been unthinkable for an ordinary person to consider taking out private healthcare insurance, now its a common place occurrence. The likes of Harley St. physicians would have been the preserve of the rich and famous, most notably the monarchy and their entourage, paid for of course by the peasants, now its anyone above the rank of dish washer who can afford the insurance premiums. People are being given incentives and covertly coerced into patronising the private healthcare sector.

The NHS used to be up there with the best healthcare system on the planet, now its way, way down the list, despite the dedication of its staff, some of whom are also employed in the private sector.

so the nhs is underfunded, it’s got nothing to do with overpopulation

 

[elbows]

elbows you might be interested in an article Marty1 just posted in the worldwide thread in which researchers explain that they have identified bat dna mutations in the NY strain which amongst other things pretty much rules out the virus having emerged from a Chinese lab in Wuhan.

I can't read the article at the moment and I dont want to give undue attention to the lab stuff at the moment. But I can say that the virus can be a 100% unaltered bat virus of bat origin, without that in itself ruling out any lab involvement. Because under one scenario all you need to do is collect specific viruses from bats and take those samples to the lab, and then at some later point have a lab accident, such as a lab workers getting infected by it but not noticing, and then spreading it to their community beyond the lab.

 

[PD58]

Just an observation on today's briefing - the govt, Inc advisers, i think, know they fucked up big time in the inital stages of the pandemic regarding, well, most aspects. So, my take is that they will be very conservative on the first wave end game because if they also fuck this up who knows where this goes, hence they will not go public until the actual changes happen, plus Brexit will not be able to mask this, especially if the major European players come out of this better than us... happy to be contradicted on this?

 

[elbows]

Why are you not off your head yet by the way elbows ?

I wasnt really planning to anyway. But then I got a slight headache which stopped me using my synth. And then instead of managing almost a full days rest from following & posting about the topic here, Vallance decided to wind me up in the press conference. By uttering the words, as part of a long-winded reply to a journalists question, 'you can see that theres a flattening off of ICU cases'. When actually no, I bloody well cannot see that because the UK havent published ICU data in the daily briefing slides since April 10th! They did go back and correct the error they made in the last few releases of that data, when they got the numbers for Scotland and Wales the wrong way round, but I've had no new data since. Well I still get the number for Scotlands ICU because they publish that number seperately, but the rest of the UK data is unavailable to me and I am pissed off about it. Heaven forbid they actually show us that data on a week where its really important.

 

[elbows]

He mentioned 3-4 weeks behind Italy again as well, when a journalist included it in their question.

 

[existentialist]

Why are you not off your head yet by the way elbows ?

Yeah, birthday boy!

 

[scifisam]

KFC and Burger King opening is fine by me - they're only opening a few sites to begin with anyway, in areas where they can do delivery (Burger King has done delivery for a couple of years where I live). Most of the independent chicken shops here haven't closed at all. KFC and Burger King are scrutinised way more than those independent takeaways; they've promised to provide PPE and maintain social distancing as far as possible, and they'll be checked on that more than your local PFC will be.

Prescribing placebos makes no sense at all. What for? Imaginary illnesses? Illnesses that have no treatment or cure? Alongside the appropriate medication? It's just nonsense suggesting they should be prescribed. If you want a placebo go to a homeopath or some other quack.

As a kid I was once given a placebo asthma inhaler. Had an attack, the inhaler didn't work. Read the ingredients on the canister and it said "aqua." I guess my shithead doctor thought a nine-year-old was too thick to know what aqua meant, and presumably he was one of those rare doctors who thinks asthma is all psychosomatic. That's one of the dangers with allowing doctors to prescribe placebos - some of them will take it too far.

 

[treelover]

I wonder if they will unlock a bit for VE day anniversary they would like a patriotic feeling, etc.

 

[PD58]

I wonder if they will unlock a bit for VE day anniversary they would like a patriotic feeling, etc.

75 years ago - all those who were there are high risk so will not be 'let out'...and why would we wish to celebrate 'winning' a war at this at the current time? It's like Fogle's happy birthday singing idea, totally irrelevant.

 

[xenon]

I wonder if they will unlock a bit for VE day anniversary they would like a patriotic feeling, etc.

No, course not.

 

[newbie]

The total is here Number of coronavirus (COVID-19) cases and risk in the UK

I've been spreadsheeting the perfectly reasonable table they published as a csv file, daily until the day before yesterday, when it all changed. Yesterday there was no file, today there's's a ridiculous, long, badly structured list that it's going to take an age to persuade Excel to swallow and spit out in a sensible format. Why would they do that?

e2a that's ambiguous- the table format was perfectly reasonable, I'm not talking about the data itself.

 

[elbows]

Khan wants face masks to be compulsory for people travelling in London. Another sign of the shift in thinking over this issue. Given the somewhat more favourable noises made by government, CMO etc recently compared to the previous stance, I suppose I do expect the UK to adopt some form of this at some point.

Coronavirus: London mayor Sadiq Khan calls for 'compulsory' face masks

Sadiq Khan wants the UK government to follow the likes of New York in changing protection guidelines.

www.bbc.co.uk