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Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

zahir said:
Yes, but we’re talking about somewhere for people to stay for, presumably, a couple of weeks until there’s some guarantee that they aren’t going to spread the virus. I don’t see why that shouldn’t be possible.
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I said it would be possible. I also said how much more complicated it would be than it might appear at first. If you haven't worked in this area I expect it's really easy to not understand how much more complicated it is than just somewhere for them to stay for a couple of weeks. Hospitals struggle with this area, and they're set up for it.

It was also be a very different standard for people in care/nursing homes (which isn't just 'old' people btw) than for anyone else. That might be the right thing to do, but I can see the uproar about that now tbh.
 
Azrael said:
Regarding the discharge of elderly patients to care homes: if it can't be done safely, requisition some of the hotels currently lying empty, build temporary hospitals for the sickest elderly patients if needed, hire and train more carers if needed. The state's resources are vast. Decades of laissez-faire dogma has blinded us to what it can do when it wants to.
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This would take years to do simply because there is not enough nursing and care staff. Let alone the fact that hotels would need special adaptations. But yeh this is what happens when the population of care staff are undervalued with shit pay, terms and conditions and not replaced when they leave/retire/leave because of brexit/are deported.

The London Nightingale is unable to do what it should cus there are not enough icu nurses to carry out specialist care. Can have all the hospitals you like-redundent without properly trained ,paid staff.

Also even without there being a pandemic there has long been an issue regarding the quality of care for the elderly and anyone needing to be in a residential care setting.
 
prunus said:
Here's a little vignette on the UK's testing regime. It's only an anecdote obviously, but it has some interesting facets so I thought I'd share.

A family I know, two adults, two kids (under 10), one of the adults is a surgeon at a major NHS hospital; at the weekend the surgeon and one of the kids started showing symptoms of coronavirus, so they went to get the whole family tested on Monday.

They've only just received the results - that's 4 days later for someone who you'd think was a priority key worker surely?

The real kicker though - the two adults and the symptomatic kid tested negative - the asymptomatic kid tested positive. How does one interpret those results? And how does one apply the quarantine rules? The current guidelines are still that you quarantine for 14 days after the start of someone in your household who has it's symptoms. Should the surgeon now not go to work for a fortnight? Or for 7 days from the start of their symptoms (which is what it would be if they'd tested positive)? And when does the 14 days start if you apply that, as the only person tested positive has no symptoms?

I suppose strictly - start a 14 day quarantine for the 3 negative people from the day of the test, and a 7 day one for the positive kid from that same day.

Using the argument from personal incredulity is seems unlikely that the symptomatic cases are true negatives, under the circumstances (they've not been isolating from each other, and for those who haven't had under 10 year olds - snot goes everywhere); are the tests that unreliable? And given that the subject is a doctor, surely 4 days is too long?

Anyway, just wanted to share.
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Symptomatic cases could be virus free but body still dealing with the after effects of its own immune system.
 
Well the lockdown is holding on East London/Essex borders. There are cars about but not many people on foot. Even small shops are policing social distancing and the bloke who lost it and swore at the Screwfix staff for not being allowed in without a confirmed order did it from a good five metres away. I think a lot of the 'lockdown breaking down' stuff is either people sat at home worrying or people who actively want it to break down.

I also smelled fried chicken for the first time in six weeks but there was a queue so I didn't.
 
LynnDoyleCooper said:
I said it would be possible. I also said how much more complicated it would be than it might appear at first. If you haven't worked in this area I expect it's really easy to not understand how much more complicated it is than just somewhere for them to stay for a couple of weeks. Hospitals struggle with this area, and they're set up for it.

It was also be a very different standard for people in care/nursing homes (which isn't just 'old' people btw) than for anyone else. That might be the right thing to do, but I can see the uproar about that now tbh.
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As things are maybe you could make the comparison between people coming out of hospital and people coming off cruise ships, with some system of isolation and testing needed until they are given the all clear. I don’t think this just applies to care home residents and I didn’t intend to suggest that it isn’t complicated.
 
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LynnDoyleCooper said:
But they were quarantining (self-isolating) in their homes, also risking infecting other household occupants obviously.

What is being suggested by some is that people that lived in care or nursing care homes wouldn't have been allowed home once infected (or would have been removed from their home if infected there) but would have been sent somewhere else, whether they wanted to be or not. And that place would have to be single occupancy rooms, have a load of other structural stuff like catering and accessible toilets etc, with dedicated nursing and care staff, and able also to deal with the complex and resource intensive care that these patients would have needed.

I'm not saying it wasn't (or isn't) possible, but it's much more complex than it might seem.
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Im with ya.

We’re all upset aren’t we. We’re upset and we’re angry and we’re holding on to what could have/should have/might have been.
 
Jay Park said:
Im with ya.

We’re all upset aren’t we. We’re upset and we’re angry and we’re holding on to what could have/should have/might have been.
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Innit. I think the message yesterday that we're through the worst was shit too. It's very far from over, we won't be going back to any kind of normal for a long time as I think this is going to be grim for a good while longer.
 
Well, well done Hancock. Step up to the podium and pat yerself on the back. Target achieved. Panic testing NHS staff to help get your numbers up putting more pressure on the already pressured system. Let's hope you don't get too many positive testing, asymptomatic frontline staff that someone then has to sort out :rolleyes:
 
maomao said:
Well the lockdown is holding on East London/Essex borders. There are cars about but not many people on foot. Even small shops are policing social distancing and the bloke who lost it and swore at the Screwfix staff for not being allowed in without a confirmed order did it from a good five metres away. I think a lot of the 'lockdown breaking down' stuff is either people sat at home worrying or people who actively want it to break down.

I also smelled fried chicken for the first time in six weeks but there was a queue so I didn't.
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I've not long got back from town. Only going out every few days. Just a walk and to pick up a few basics. There were people out probably doing similar , road works in progress but definitely much quieter than a regular Friday afternoon would be. Obviously down to their being no where to go. A bbit eery walking past silent pubs and empty picnic tables, light traffic.
 
Callie said:
Well, well done Hancock. Step up to the podium and pat yerself on the back. Target achieved. Panic testing NHS staff to help get your numbers up putting more pressure on the already pressured system. Let's hope you don't get too many positive testing, asymptomatic frontline staff that someone then has to sort out :rolleyes:
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And bizarrely, thanks to Hancock's enthusiasm for the South Korean approach, we're relying on this bumptious Toryboy to overcome Whitty and his soul-sucking defeatism. What a world.
 
kalidarkone said:
I would imagine that the work situation described would benefit from FRSM (fluid resistant surgical masks) I have to wear them at work all the time because of working in a clinical area and because the nature of the job means one cant distance unless in the loo or on break.
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In my job, grounds maintenance, we're not having to be that close to each other that much and, perhaps more importantly, we're not interacting with people who are likely to be infected or who are highly vulnerable should they become infected.

The masks we have are standard dust mask type PPE, and given the apparent shortage of specialist PPE, I think it's better that it's reserved for those of you in frontline medical positions, but thanks for your suggestion.
 
And to illustrate the point starkly, at the same briefing we have John Newton claiming that testing capacity doesn't make a difference to the necessity of lockdown and Hancock saying it's the route out.

Dear God, just how have our medical and scientific establishments become so dogmatically opposed not only to contact tracing, but the very concept of containing a communicable disease? They're having to be dragged kicking and screaming towards even a semblance of the South Korean approach.
 
Hospitals have not been able to ensure the safety of staff and with 24 HR waiting time for covid results on wards initially patients inevitably contracted it and went home before symptoms showed.
From my experience in London covid tore through our hospitals and lessons now should be learned and systems improved.
 
ONS release this morning

Deaths involving COVID-19 by local area and socioeconomic deprivation: deaths occurring between 1 March and 17 April 2020

Provisional counts of the number of deaths and age-standardised mortality rates involving the coronavirus (COVID-19) between 1 March and 17 April 2020 in England and Wales. Figures are provided by age, sex, geographies down to local authority level and deprivation indices.

Statistician's comment
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“By mid-April, the region with the highest proportion of deaths involving COVID-19 was London, with the virus being involved in more than 4 in 10 deaths since the start of March. In contrast, the region with the lowest proportion of COVID-19 deaths was the South West, which saw just over 1 in 10 deaths involving coronavirus. The 11 local authorities with the highest mortality rates were all London boroughs, with Newham, Brent and Hackney suffering the highest rates of COVID-19 related deaths.
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“People living in more deprived areas have experienced COVID-19 mortality rates more than double those living in less deprived areas. General mortality rates are normally higher in more deprived areas, but so far COVID-19 appears to be taking them higher still.”
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Nick Stripe, Head of Health Analysis, Office for National Statistics
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They've cooked the books, and were always gonna cook the books. If it boosts the chances of a halfway effective suppression strategy being implemented, venial among the government's string of mortal sins.
 
BBC test reality check...

What the UK government means by hitting its testing target
8d2f0e4d-2626-41cc-801c-c1b5cc6f389d.jpg

Reality Check
Having set a target of 100,000 tests per day by the end of April, the government now says it reached 122,347 tests on Wednesday (the last day of the month).
The government had been averaging around 20,000 tests a day but this increased significantly over the last week.
When home testing kits became a significant part of the testing strategy last week, the Department of Health began counting those sent out as part of its daily test figures.
So, it doesn’t mean the test was actually used by someone on that day - or even received.
Previously, only instances in which the swab had been processed through a lab were counted as a test.
But the new definition - added on 27 April - included tests "posted to an individual at home".
On 29 April, the definition was extended yet further to also encompass "tests sent to... satellite testing locations".
According to figures released on 30 April, home testing kits accounted for over 18,000 of the daily tests, or a quarter of the total.

It looks like there were about 40,000 posted tests that are counted FFS...problem with setting a target is you have to meet it so counting methods are changed....but surely the data has to be tests distributed, tests processed, outcomes of tests...this is not rocket science...
 
Petcha said:
They promised to test 100,000 people. They've conducted 122,000 tests on 73,000 people. So so dodgy.
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Extremely, but it's at least built up the capacity to, as he puts it, "unlock the lockdown" via aggressive contact tracing and isolation.

As the alternative's indefinite detention in Whitty's pestilential hell, awaiting an "inevitable" second wave of a SARS virus that we must treat like the flu because that's what the pandemic plan says it is, I'll put up with Hancock's godawful Covid Oscars.
 
Surely these medical idiots they wheel out every day should be impartial?

I know they're covering their arses for the collosal fuck ups they've made so far, but they're doctors. Where's their integrity? They seem to out bullshit Boris at times.
 
agricola said:
so they counted tens of thousands of tests because they'd been posted?
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From the same briefing:
deliciouslies.jpg
Hancock: 122,347 'tests'
Newton: 27,497 tests posted to individuals and 12,872 tests posted to 'satellite testing stations'

I think you can do the maths...

Then at exactly the same time Hancock was speaking:
 
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