Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[beesonthewhatnow]

We've had the same problem on Worthing's seafront this weekend, right bloody mess.

If the bins are full, take your bloody rubbish home, don't leave it by the bins for fucking seagulls to spread around.

It's the same everywhere, because people are disgusting, selfish, cunts.

 

[Roadkill]

A little bit of good news from round 'ere, which hopefully is the case elsewhere as well: independent food retailers 'thriving.' I use a couple of the shops covered in that article and they're excellent, so I'm pleased to hear they've seen some benefit.

 

[teuchter]

A little bit of good news from round 'ere, which hopefully is the case elsewhere as well: independent food retailers 'thriving.' I use a couple of the shops covered in that article and they're excellent, so I'm pleased to hear they've seen some benefit.

I think this effect is relatively widespread. Might nick the link for my anti car thread, because one thing this has revealed is that people could do a lot more shopping locally than they do.

 

[killer b]

I played a game of tennis at the weekend with a mate of mine who runs a pub - he's been delivering pizzas (they have a pizza oven in the pub) and beer for the duration of the lockdown and it's keeping 5 of them in full time work. He's not particularly keen on reopening the pub as it's way more hours and hassle...

 

[treelover]

many disabled and sick people are asking what next?


The news that the Govt has said that those in the vulnerable and shielding group 'can now go outside' is alarming and bewildering for many disabled and sick people. Has their condition gone away, their immune system suddenly repaired? They are asking, are the Gov't parcels going to end, or age uK food help, etc? What about the huge range of volunteers who have basically filled in what the State failed to do, many will be going back to work now. Lots of DASP are also still struggling financially, most got no increases in benefits, etc, and the threat of eviction now looms for some. Some are more frightened and concerned than at the start of the crisis, observing the huge crowds in parks, etc, on TV.
That is all without the coming financial crisis, DASP lost over 20 billion in benefits and services, post 2008.

 

[Supine]

Timeline of government failure

A timeline of failure.

Through arrogance and incompetence, thousands have needlessly died.

appeasement.org

 

[elbows]

I only watched a bit of the press conference today. Hancock was asked some tricky questions about the detail of local lockdowns, what form they could take. He didnt really want to answer the question, but one example he was prepared to give was that a hospital might close its A&E department.

That sort of thing was very high on my list of things we might expect to hear a lot more of in this phase, in contrast to the previous phase that included the main first wave. Indeed we probably already have one example, Weston hospital, although I wasnt impressed with the way certain authorities avoided being very explicit about what was going on there.

Institutional outbreaks are a big part of the story, as expected with this pandemic, but this side of the picture has been very patchy in terms of the public having a full sense of what is going on. Inevitably these things will become more visible in this phase, there is less 'fog of war' as numbers have declined, but it still bothers me to think of all the obfuscating language from officialdom that will probably accompany many local outbreaks.

 

[MrSki]

So they announce in today's figures an increase of 111 new deaths but the total figure is up by 556.

Latest figures
The number of people in the UK who have died after testing positive for Covid-19 is 556 higher than the equivalent total announced yesterday, although the Government is reporting the day-on-day change as 111.

The reason for the difference in these two figures is to do with how deaths are being incorporated into historic data retrospectively.

Yesterday’s cumulative total announced by the Department of Health was 38,489, which is 556 below today’s cumulative total of 39,045.

But since yesterday, 445 deaths have been added to the historic data.

from here

 

[elbows]

Timeline of government failure

A timeline of failure.

Through arrogance and incompetence, thousands have needlessly died.

appeasement.org

Good stuff. Inevitably incomplete but we've seen what happens when, for example, I try to do a little timeline of quotes on specific subjects from SAGE minutes, it becomes too much rather quickly and thats only one narrow angle.

I should say that there are a few aspects of the timeline approach which can encourage the wrong perceptions about when the critical UK mistakes were made, and when it is then feasible to start fixing some of the prior errors.

In this case what stood out as an obvious example is where they keep going on about the UKs lack of contact tracing. Well the most costly mistakes with this were early on, and any country that had an epidemic beyond a certain size would have to temporarily stop contact tracing. Our big issue was that we never did this stuff wholeheartedly in the first place, back when our outbreak was a suitable size. At various later points on the timeline presented in that article, our epidemic was much too large to do contact tracing on at that stage.

Indeed when I started thinking about this, I was reminded of something by their repeated references to contact tracing in Germany. I remembered that some time ago I found an article that said Germany also abandoned contact tracing for quite a period, presumably when their epidemic reached a certain size. #6,198

Anyway now that we are back to a situation where number of new infections is at least somewhat closer to being practical to contact trace, we obviously have a whole new chapter in the story of UK contact tracing, one that is likely to involve issues that show up in future timelines of failure, but that I could still hope might become somewhat fit for purpose at some stage.

 

[frogwoman]

So they announce in today's figures an increase of 111 new deaths but the total figure is up by 556.



from here

Is it only deaths today that are being reported . Huh?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Is it only deaths today that are being reported . Huh?

Sounds like it's probably deaths from a while ago in care homes.

These additional deaths are linked to cases that have been identified through testing that has been carried out by commercial partners, rather than testing that has been done in NHS and Public Health England laboratories.

Doesn't make much sense not adding them to the 111, cos most of the 111 aren't from yesterday and some will be from a while ago. But hey ho - someone somwhere didn't want the headline. Onwards we stumble toward 40k.

tbh today's 111 figure is a weekend figure anyway. Seven-day rolling average is more meaningful. Tomorrow's catch-up on the weekend total will be over 200.

 

[MrSki]

Is it only deaths today that are being reported . Huh?

Well as far as I know the daily death rate relates to deaths reported on the previous day whether they happened weeks before but this seems unexplained & probably does not look good with the easing of the lockdown.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

And yes, there are 'commercial partners' in UK Covid-19 Land. No doubt doing commercially very nicely thankyouverymuch.

 

[elbows]

So they announce in today's figures an increase of 111 new deaths but the total figure is up by 556.
from here

Thanks for the info about that.

I dont think I would have noticed, because I tend to only use those particular numbers to see the trends, rather than for accurate totals at any moment in time.

For more accurate numbers, I use the weekly ONS stuff. However what normally happens when these come out each Tuesday is that the largest number, which is total excess deaths for the relevant period this year, gets most of the attention. And that is a really important number to consider. But the ONS data also includes totals for England & Wales for cases where Covid-19 is actually mentioned on the death certificate. And I can get the same sorts of numbers for Scotland and Northern Ireland elsewhere. And when I look at those numbers, it makes it impossible to use the daily government numbers for anything more than spotting trends and having at least something from the most recent week or two.

Here is an example of why:

For the 15th of May (latest date I've got till tomorrows ONS release), the UK figure that was announced daily was in the 34,000-35,000 range. But the ONS+NRS+NISRA total by 15th May was 46,432. (and the excess deaths was just under 60,000). So I cant really take seriously daily figures that are still below 40,000 now, when I have figures far above 40,000 that dont even include the last 2 weeks yet.

 

[David Clapson]

Anyone hear David King on R4 earlier? This takes the fucking biscuit. At 47:30 PM - 01/06/2020 - BBC Sounds

Ewan Davies: do you think Britain has in a way been cursed by having such good scientists, that we've overthought a lot of this, it's taken us too long to reach decisions, particularly in that crucial phase in March when we were ditherinmg over the lockdown...meanwhile other countries just got on with it because they didn't have all the people to think about it in the same way that we have?

King: what you've just said, I'm going to now say in public for the first time, I agree with. There's a sense of hubris, we feel we know exactly what we're doing, we're going to do our own computational work, our own calculations...I really do think you've put your finger on it.

 

[elbows]

Good, I rest my case. Ha, if only, once I've had a nice long rest (from tomorrow onwards throughout June) I'm sure I will feel the need to go on and on about my case again. But you know all the themes by now. My neverending rants about the orthodox approach, dont leave it to a particular set of experts, the absurdities of this country etc. I'm glad we didnt have to wait years to hear from more sources and directions what has long been pretty obvious.

 

[MrSki]

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Wow. It's Rapey Andrew-level of delusion.

Too honourable not to be friends with the rapist.
Too clever to possibly get the reaction right and save lives.

 

[elbows]

Tidying up a small detail about the first detected deaths in this country before I have my rest.

At some stage I mentioned here that a death that was earlier than any the first announced ones, had been added to the stats. We heard about the first death on March 5th. The death that was later added to the NHS England stats was on February 28th, which was the same time when they decided to actually test pneumonia patients in hospital regardless of travel history (although I think it took some time for this system to properly cover all applicable patients).

Anyway around April 22nd that February 28th death was removed from the NHS England numbers. I didnt know why at the time, but it turns out it was a data error:

Earlier this month, NHS England said its revised records showed the first death occurred on 28 February, but it has now clarified that this was a data entry error. A spokeswoman said: “The actual date of that death was 28 March, and the 28 February had been put in by mistake. The records have been updated.”

Several other deaths in the first days of March eventually showed up. These are mentioned in the same article that I got the above quote from, an article from the end of April:

Five already dead by time UK reported first coronavirus death

Official data shows first fatality took place in a care home three days before government announcement

www.theguardian.com

Since then I have noticed one other thing in terms of the first recorded death. The ONS data, which is considered far more complete than the other UK official sources, has one spreadsheet tab that records COVID-19 deaths by the week that the death occurred, rather than the week it was registered. And there is a death listed for the week ending 14th February 2020. According to that data it was someone male aged 75-79 and it was in the West Midlands.

Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional - Office for National Statistics

Provisional counts of the number of deaths registered in England and Wales, by age, sex and region, in the latest weeks for which data are available. Includes the most up-to-date figures available for deaths involving coronavirus (COVID-19).

www.ons.gov.uk

Of course this still isnt likely to have been the very first death, I couldnt say how many cases we might have missed in the early weeks due to the nature of the testing regime and the travel-related bit of the criteria for suspecting cases.

 

[killer b]

Too clever to possibly get the reaction right and save lives.

that's the gist of Davis' crawly question, but the response was that it was hubris. Seems reasonable to me.

 

[elbows]

Just to be clear that despite whatever they were doing with the numbers today, deaths that occurred some time ago are still part of the number they did announce.

I only have the numbers for England hospital deaths in front of me right now, but from those I can say that todays number included:

One additional death added to each of the following days:
19th, 23rd, 28th and 30th March. 1st, 8th, 9th, 13th, 18th, 19th, 21st, 22nd, 24th, 26th, 29th April. 3rd, 8th, 9th, 11th, 12th, 15th, 17th, 21st, 25th, 26th May.

4 additional deaths on May 4th. 2 on May 7th, 2 on May 27th, 6 on May 28th, 16 on May 29th, 40 on May 30th and 13 on May 31st.

 

[MrSki]

Just to be clear that despite whatever they were doing with the numbers today, deaths that occurred some time ago are still part of the number they did announce.

I only have the numbers for England hospital deaths in front of me right now, but from those I can say that todays number included:

One additional death added to each of the following days:
19th, 23rd, 28th and 30th March. 1st, 8th, 9th, 13th, 18th, 19th, 21st, 22nd, 24th, 26th, 29th April. 3rd, 8th, 9th, 11th, 12th, 15th, 17th, 21st, 25th, 26th May.

4 additional deaths on May 4th. 2 on May 7th, 2 on May 27th, 6 on May 28th, 16 on May 29th, 40 on May 30th and 13 on May 31st.

But weren't these deaths included in the daily figures before? Is it going to be like the No. of people tested data that has disappeared for the last ten days?

 

[killer b]

That MI6 Rogue account is such an obvious walt. Everything it reports should be treated with suspicion unless there's multiple other sources (he retweets a lot of news stories too)

 

[elbows]

But weren't these deaths included in the daily figures before? Is it going to be like the No. of people tested data that has disappeared for the last ten days?

What do you mean, I can read your question in more than one way.

Those particular deaths I listed were not recorded before, they are the new deaths that make up the sort of increase we hear about every day. But reporting on those sort of deaths, with that amount of delay, in this format, is totally normal.

I'm just pointing out that the shit they did to fiddle around with a total number is its own thing, it doesnt mean that the nature of the numbers we are getting every day has changed. ie the numbers we get every day have not suddenly switched to a format where they only represent deaths that happend in the last 24 or 48 hours.

Thats all I was pointing out due to some of the wording used in that tweet. It doesnt explain or excuse what they did with these other numbers that have come in from 'commercial testing partners'. In fact if I were to explore the broader issue with data from these commercial partners, its clear there has been a disaster on this front that has been ongoing for some time. We have most often heard about it in the form of local entities complaining that they cant get any localised test results from this pillar of the testing system, leaving them with an incomplete picture of the current local situation. It doesnt surprise me that its been happening with the broader death data too, and that when finally presented with a large clump of data from that, they didnt want it to lead to a spike in particular announced numbers on a single day.

 

[MrSki]

That MI6 Rogue account is such an obvious walt. Everything it reports should be treated with suspicion unless there's multiple other sources (he retweets a lot of news stories too)

Well you can do the maths yourself. The total number of deaths announced at Sunday's PC was 38489 .
Today it was 39045. That is not an increase of 111 is it? More like 556.

These are figures from the daily PC yet they try to claim it is 111. Cunts.

 

[killer b]

sure, but you can get that from the tweet he's quoting the info from - in fact, you could have just posted that - without megaphoning the pretend rogue spy.

 

[elbows]

By the way since the grim subject of death stats is part of the current conversation, other stuff from ONS is available on a more infrequent basis.

For example once a month there is a provisional monthly figures report which shows total deaths (not COVID-19 specific) by county and by town/city/area. It doesnt contain everything required to come up with total excess deaths per location, but even just comparing the figures for April which are now available to the ones next to them which are for March, can give some sense of the pandemics toll in different locations in April. For those that would rather do a more thorough job, previous years per month per location figures are available from the same webpage.

Deaths registered monthly in England and Wales - Office for National Statistics

Number of deaths registered each month by area of usual residence for England and Wales, by region, county, local and unitary authority, and London borough.

www.ons.gov.uk

 

[MrSki]

sure, but you can get that from the tweet he's quoting the info from - in fact, you could have just posted that - without megaphoning the pretend rogue spy.

Sorry do I have to ask you if it is okay to post quotes from particular twitter accounts? Could you list the ones that are unacceptable? As far as I know what he posted is true. What is wrong with that?

 

[killer b]

By the way since the grim subject of death stats is part of the current conversation, other stuff from ONS is available on a more infrequent basis.

For example once a month there is a provisional monthly figures report which shows total deaths (not COVID-19 specific) by county and by town/city/area. It doesnt contain everything required to come up with total excess deaths per location, but even just comparing the figures for April which are now available to the ones next to them which are for March, can give some sense of the pandemics toll in different locations in April. For those that would rather do a more thorough job, previous years per month per location figures are available from the same webpage.

Deaths registered monthly in England and Wales - Office for National Statistics

Number of deaths registered each month by area of usual residence for England and Wales, by region, county, local and unitary authority, and London borough.

www.ons.gov.uk

So subtracting the total figures from last april from the total figures from this april should give you the excess deaths for that month, is that right? If so, there's almost exactly twice as many deaths this april than last (in england and wales) - 44 thousand last year, 88 thousand this year.

variations as you'd expect - low density areas are mostly less hit, high density areas hit harder.

 

[killer b]

Sorry do I have to ask you if it is okay to post quotes from particular twitter accounts? Could you list the ones that are unacceptable? As far as I know what he posted is true. What is wrong with that?

Why would you have to ask? I was just flagging up that your source is a bit sus. I'd make a list for you, but there's only 24 hours in a day atm.