Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[William of Walworth]

Sorry zora -- I missed your posts while posting my reply to David Clapson above (foot of previous page).

 

[zora]

Sorry zora -- I missed your posts while posting my reply to David Clapson above.

No probs

 

[zahir]

Gtr Mcr STILL doesn't know how many people are testing positive for COVID-19

'There are an enormous number of people that are being tested but we don’t know who they are, where they work, we don’t know what their results are'

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk

Public health officials and local leaders still have no idea how many people are testing positive for Covid-19 in Greater Manchester, due to continued chaos within the national system.

Health boss Sir Richard Leese said there were an ‘enormous number of people’ being tested at locations such as Manchester Airport and the Etihad about whom the region has no information whatsoever.

He said they don’t know who they are, where they work, or whether they have tested positive. As a result there is a 'crucial gap' in the region's ability to fight the virus, he added.

The data issue has now been dragging on since May 4 and stems from the two separate testing systems currently in operation.

One involves tests carried out by the public sector, which are then processed in NHS laboratories - such as at the Manchester Royal Infirmary - and fed back to public health officials, who use them to track the pandemic’s pattern here and plan local infection control.

But results from the second set of testing, which is carried out through a government process at various locations - including Manchester Airport - before being processed at private laboratories, have not been reaching local authorities since the first week in May.

Last week, the Department of Health and Social Care insisted in a statement to the Manchester Evening News it had been sharing that data with Public Health England for several weeks.

But one exasperated local source said the problem lay with the data itself, which they said cannot currently be broken down to local level and therefore cannot be usefully shared with councils.

Yesterday the region's health lead Sir Richard Leese said Greater Manchester was still in the dark as a result of the logjam.

“We still don't have the data from the national testing arrangements - at the Airport and the Etihad, for example,” he said.

“We don’t have the data from there, so there are an enormous number of people that are being tested but we don’t know who they are, where they work, we don’t know what their results are.”

Until that data is received, he said, it was impossible to get an accurate picture of where people are catching the virus.

Last week the number of new cases known to Greater Manchester was 438, down on 737 a month earlier, but he said that was not a true gauge due to the missing data.

The lack of information has continued as the region ramps up plans to ‘test, track, trace and isolate’ in the next phase of the pandemic.

Asked how significant the missing data was against that backdrop, Sir Richard said that information was currently a ‘crucial gap’ in the region’s battle against the virus.

“Undoubtedly there will be outbreaks of Covid-19, but if we can identify them, localise them and contain them, then we make sure it doesn’t become a renewal of the epidemic,” he said.

“In order to do that we need to have that data.

"So when we start talking about returning to normal and all the things that we want to do, if we don’t have that data it is a crucial gap in order to be able to provide people with the confidence that we can manage Covid-19 going forward over the next 18 months, two years.”

 

[little_legs]

 

[little_legs]

Friends, do you remember govt's commitment to carry out 100K tests/day? Well, not so fast.

Tens of thousands of coronavirus tests have been double-counted, officials admit

 

[maomao]

I wanted to see the photo that went with that because it wouldn't show so I went to Twitter and it's this:



Wtf is up with the person on the left's face? Is this some sort of protective head covering we're meant to start wearing or did someone decide there was something unnacceptable about the face in the original picture, cross it out and then forget to fix it?

 

[little_legs]

I wanted to see the photo that went with that because it wouldn't show so I went to Twitter and it's this:

View attachment 213958

Wtf is up with the person on the left's face? Is this some sort of protective head covering we're meant to start wearing or did someone decide there was something unnacceptable about the face in the original picture, cross it out and then forget to fix it?

Good God. LOL.

 

[elbows]

I wanted to see the photo that went with that because it wouldn't show so I went to Twitter and it's this:

Wtf is up with the person on the left's face? Is this some sort of protective head covering we're meant to start wearing or did someone decide there was something unnacceptable about the face in the original picture, cross it out and then forget to fix it?

Its hair, they have their backs to us.

 

[maomao]

Its hair, they have their backs to us.

I could do better hair than that. But I think you're right.

 

[little_legs]

I could do better hair than that. But I think you're right.

Ah, the lack of hairdressers has taken its toll on all of us. I see.

 

[bimble]

This article just compounds my sense that this is all going to go on for years and years, even if we sort of pretend that it's not. This way of looking at things, with no end (no clear end) in sight - not next year and very possibly not ever - is not good for your optimism levels but might it help if more people did start thinking this way, of this as the new normal, instead of imagining that in a few moths somehow it will be all over? I don't know.

Why we might not get a coronavirus vaccine

Politicians have become more cautious about immunisation prospects. They are right to be

www.theguardian.com

 

[Shechemite]

This article just compounds my sense that this is all going to go on for years and years, even if we sort of pretend that it's not. This way of looking at things, with no end (no clear end) in sight - not next year and very possibly not ever - is not good for your optimism levels but might it help if more people did start thinking this way, of this as the new normal, instead of imagining that in a few moths somehow it will be all over? I don't know.

Why we might not get a coronavirus vaccine

Politicians have become more cautious about immunisation prospects. They are right to be

www.theguardian.com

all the scum will benefit out of the misery.

 

[elbows]

Looking on the bright side, I dont actually want politicians and the establishment medical and scientific figures to be too complacent about a vaccine. Because that sort of thinking which involved over reliance on vaccines is part of what gave us crap pandemic plans in the first place. Its the sort of thing that can cause a government to avoid a proper virus suppression, test, track, trace, etc system, and just play for time till the magical solution arrives.

We've been told for a long time that we wont go back to an old normal any time soon, and that this is likely to be a long process. Hell its already been 4 months since we started talking about this virus on the forum. My own assumption is still to prepare for years of disruption, but not always the same level of disruption. In many ways on many fronts, I still prefer to take things one week at a time, and I still expect some twists in the tale, so I dont have a rigid sense of the future.

 

[Epona]

This article just compounds my sense that this is all going to go on for years and years, even if we sort of pretend that it's not. This way of looking at things, with no end (no clear end) in sight - not next year and very possibly not ever - is not good for your optimism levels but might it help if more people did start thinking this way, of this as the new normal, instead of imagining that in a few moths somehow it will be all over? I don't know.

Why we might not get a coronavirus vaccine

Politicians have become more cautious about immunisation prospects. They are right to be

www.theguardian.com

Tbf, I don't know why people think even if we do get a vaccine that this might not be going on for years and years - even viruses where vaccines are developed aren't wiped out overnight - polio still exists in a couple of countries and smallpox was a worldwide scourge causing millions of deaths and is unique in that it has actually been eradicated worldwide. Pandemics aren't a new thing, pandemics of incurable viruses without vaccines are not a new thing. The new normal is probably what most of human existence has looked like until the 20th century tbh.

 

[Nine Bob Note]

I wanted to see the photo that went with that because it wouldn't show so I went to Twitter and it's this:

View attachment 213958

Wtf is up with the person on the left's face? Is this some sort of protective head covering we're meant to start wearing or did someone decide there was something unnacceptable about the face in the original picture, cross it out and then forget to fix it?

Keep at least one bed away from the PM, got it

 

[two sheds]

The idea of carrying round three fridges with you is just impractical imo

 

[bimble]

Tbf, I don't know why people think even if we do get a vaccine that this might not be going on for years and years - even viruses where vaccines are developed aren't wiped out overnight - polio still exists in a couple of countries and smallpox was a worldwide scourge causing millions of deaths and is unique in that it has actually been eradicated worldwide. Pandemics aren't a new thing, pandemics of incurable viruses without vaccines are not a new thing. The new normal is probably what most of human existence has looked like until the 20th century tbh.

Well exactly, all of that. But if that’s how it is, that we will be living with this virus for the foreseeable, that maybe life expectancy will go down again, isn’t it basically just going to be personal judgement sooner or later on when to go and hug your old parents and stuff like that?

 

[belboid]

This is apparently real

 

[teuchter]

I wanted to see the photo that went with that because it wouldn't show so I went to Twitter and it's this:

View attachment 213958

Wtf is up with the person on the left's face? Is this some sort of protective head covering we're meant to start wearing or did someone decide there was something unnacceptable about the face in the original picture, cross it out and then forget to fix it?

Is this actually a real graphic? I'm not bothered about the face, it's obviously the back of their head. But how is 3 fridges a useful measurement to anyone? And benches? What size of bench? An unusually short one metre long bench like the kind of length of bench that you would pretty much never see? What are they on?

 

[Epona]

Well exactly, all of that. But if that’s how it is, that we will be living with this virus for the foreseeable, that maybe life expectancy will go down again, isn’t it basically just going to be personal judgement sooner or later on when to go and hug your old parents and stuff like that?

Not really, no - if we have a chance to keep it at a level where billions aren't dying giving a chance to develop better treatments and potentially vaccines then we have to do that. The reason why I said "before the 20th Century" in my previous post is because that is when we started to develop modern medicine, the notion that everyone should have access to healthcare, better hygiene, and a now deep ingrained expectation that we ought to strive towards and fight for these things. To not do so would be to take a step back from some of the best values we have.

 

[Orang Utan]

This is apparently real

View attachment 213975

Pick in the back of the neck

 

[killer b]

Did they mean to make it so instantly parodyable?

 

[bimble]

Not really, no - if we have a chance to keep it at a level where billions aren't dying giving a chance to develop better treatments and potentially vaccines then we have to do that. The reason why I said "before the 20th Century" in my previous post is because that is when we started to develop modern medicine, the notion that everyone should have access to healthcare, better hygiene, and a now deep ingrained expectation that we ought to strive towards and fight for these things. To not do so would be to take a step back from some of the best values we have.

Not asking you or anyone to answer this personally obvs but I’m preoccupied with the parental hug question, because they keep asking me (theyre both mid seventies & not in UK). If staying away from them for the greater good / increased chance of a vaccine being developed means staying away for five years that’s too much, imo. Two years is long. Etc. It’s not without massive costs is all I mean, as we all know.

 

[Sue]

This is apparently real

View attachment 213975

Pick getting paid terrible money for days of backbreaking work.

Pick living in terrible accommodation and paying through the nose for it.

Pick getting treated like shit.

(Not personal experience but what I've heard from friends who've done this kind of work.)

 

[belboid]

Did they mean to make it so instantly parodyable?

As it is effectively a parody already, they didn’t really have any choice. It is hard to believe more than two minutes thought went into creating it tho.

 

[belboid]

Have we had this yet? Another i can’t believe it’s not on the joke thread.


Wetherspoons are actually bringing in beer goggles.

Goggles for their staff to wear. Who says Fuckwit Martin doesn’t understand immunology?

JD Wetherspoon pubs to reopen with staff in goggles post-lockdown

Blueprint includes daily health checks for staff and protective screens between tables

www.theguardian.com

 

[Steel Icarus]

The idea of carrying round three fridges with you is just impractical imo

Especially as Johnson's hiding in one of them

 

[andysays]

As it is effectively a parody already, they didn’t really have any choice. It is hard to believe more than two minutes thought went into creating it tho.

I immediately thought of this

 

[belboid]

I immediately thought of this

View attachment 213991

That is surely what it’s based on. It couldn’t be an accident, could it?

 

[BCBlues]

Especially as Johnson's hiding in one of them

It's like that game where you shuffle them around and guess which one Johnson is hiding in