Yes, but that was kind of the plan (or at least accepted) all along wasn't it? The Government wants to avoid a second peak which overwhelm the NHS, they are accepting that numbers are going to go up to an extent but also... the economy.
Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion
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Yes, but that was kind of the plan (or at least accepted) all along wasn't it? The Government wants to avoid a second peak which overwhelm the NHS, they are accepting that numbers are going to go up to an extent but also... the economy.
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
All over the press
The amount of former industrial areas on there is frightening
Yes, and how few are in the South East.
David Clapson
Well-Known Member
No shit, Sherlock. But the question about their data needs to be asked.
elbows
Well-Known Member
When the situation reaches that of Leicester, it can be tricky to ascertain which are the likely sites of transmission, and which are just spill-over signs of broader community infection.
So here we have the story about people testing positive who work at the Walkers crisps factory, but the company can claim stuff that I cannot prove or disprove with the level of info I have.
So here we have the story about people testing positive who work at the Walkers crisps factory, but the company can claim stuff that I cannot prove or disprove with the level of info I have.
Coronavirus: Walkers crisps confirms 28 cases at Leicester site
The crisp giant says its products are unaffected, and it believes infections occurred off-site.
www.bbc.co.uk
Artaxerxes
Look out, he's got a gnu!
Selling off healthcare data in the middle of a pandemic.
Surprised I am not.
Surprised I am not.
Only about three hours ago I was more optimistic than that, but much less so now the pillar 2 data has leaked out. This doesn't look good...
elbows
Well-Known Member
Public Health England havent found much in the way of explanations for the Leicester situation, and its not exactly going to inspire confidence that the right places and approach have been identified when they start going on about, well, I'll quote it:
Coronavirus: 'No obvious source' of Leicester Covid-19 outbreak
The report said the increase in reported cases could be down to "growth in availability of testing".
www.bbc.co.uk
sheothebudworths
Up the bum - no babies!!!
Are they serious?!
Surge in Leicester cases due to a massive uptake of people there enthusiastically gagging over home tests?
Ah well, never mind then.
Surge in Leicester cases due to a massive uptake of people there enthusiastically gagging over home tests?
Ah well, never mind then.
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elbows
Well-Known Member
Well, I dont think I can judge. It depends on how 'partly' they think it may be a factor.
And I am still missing important bits of info that would help me judge. Such as the number of tests in each of these locations, not just the number of positives. Because looking at the percentage positive can help compensate for changes over time that are caused by changes to the testing regime rather than the viral reality.
And ideally both us and the authorities should always be combining positive test data with other data such as a variety of indicators from hospitals, so that number of positive tests alone is not the only indicator that can trigger draconian measures. Hancock has mentioned a couple of hospital-related numbers in relation to Leicester so that is one sign of this happening, but I dont know how sophisticated their analysis has been. And I've gone on in the past about local sewage analysis being another very useful sounding indicator, because that avoids the lag that comes with hospital data and wont be skewed by variations in who is getting tested and in what numbers. But I cannot claim to know whether such sewage analysis systems are actually up and running in this country, how local the data is, how timely it is and who is looking at it.
Other questions raised by these uncertainties over the reality in Leicester vs elsewhere are to do with the perils of attempting a bunch of different kinds of contact and local outbreak contact tracing and epidemiological investigations at 'the wrong time/stage of the pandemic' or with too much uncertainty about how to interpret the results. I think I might need to explain this point better anotehr time, but it includes the possibility that so far the authorities have still been mostly used to only spotting the tip of the iceberg, and wont be sure how strongly to react when something approaching the full iceberg starts being spotted from time to time in places where they actually end up looking.
As well as learning how many tests have actually been carried out within the recent time period in all the locations around the country, it would also be helpful to understand what different factors have driven the levels of testing in different places, how much variation in attention different locations have received by the authorities etc. Because its not hard to imagine a scenario where a particular local incident at a specific location receives the attention of the authorities, and in the course of this work they end up spotting a whole level of transmission that is actually going on in plenty of other places too, but hasnt received the attention or been formally measured.
My own observations using data have been limited mostly to hospital & death data until just the last few days, and from that angle Leicester actually stuck out more for a prolonged period earlier on in this pandemic, eg when it came to deaths in hospital and the way the numbers were declining slowly in Leicester, May was more notable than June. I wonder if thats what drew attention and then test capacity/accessible popup test sites to Leicester in the first place, and then because they were actually looking they found plenty of milder cases in this younger cohort that keeps getting mentioned in connection with Leicester. I know I went on about 'seek and you shall find' at the earlier phase of the pandemic where we 'didnt have any deaths because we werent looking for any, and then we looked and soon found some', but I suspect there are other versions of 'seek and you shall find' too. Ones that can happen in these later phases and offer a repeat performance of demonstrating things to the authorities that they should already have known. And in many cases probably did already know/assume/suspect to be the case, but then managed to overlook these assumptions when it came to other aspects of their response/surveillance/triggers.
Anyway I cannot make a solid claim either way, I cannot say that Leceister does not deserve the attention and measures that have been directed at it. Maybe it does and maybe it doesnt. I can say that I feel the picture is too patchy for me to be confident either way.
I suppose there is another simple thing we could do to put the positive tests per 100,000 figure theyve got for Leicester into context. I'm too tired to go looking right now, but I believe there are at least one or two weekly or semi-regular uk numbers published where they estimate/model how many cases they think there were in the uk per week. That number would be expected to be higher than the typical figures they have directly obtained from testing, because its always acknowledged that testing does not come anywhere close to detecting every case, not even vaguely close. So maybe we should compare those modelled numbers to the Leicester number. Then ask ourselves whether authorities should react the way they have with Leicester if the Leicester number is higher than testing has shown elsewhere, but not alarmingly higher than the estimated/modelled sense of where the country is at with its levels of infection right now. Depending on what that number is this paragraph may be making a useless point though, I dont have the number in mind right this second, maybe I will go and look now.
The bit about PHE not having tracked things down to a single massively contributing outbreak setting is not really surprising, this was expected. Because if they were confident that what had been found was loads of cases mostly clustered around a single setting with just a bit of broader leakage, they would have used the very narrow whack-a-mole technique they've used elsewhere before now, rather than feeling the need to take the response to this much broader level. But again whether this has actually been a sensible approach depends really on whether Leiester is the exception or just the first place they've actually looked hard enough to get a truer sense of the picture. And questions on this front can interact with questions about whether we've moved to the right phase of unlocking for the phase of infection levels we actually have in this country right now.
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editor
hiraethified
Wales is - far more sensibly - only letting pub gardens reopen from Mon 13th July. And that kind of approach is why they've got a transmission rate far lower than England's. Opening on a Saturday night is sheer fucking stupidity.
Coronavirus in Wales: Pubs and restaurants can open outdoors from 13 July
Self-contained accommodation will also be able to take bookings two days earlier than planned.
www.bbc.co.uk
Wales is - far more sensibly - only letting pub gardens reopen from Mon 13th July. And that kind of approach is why they've got a transmission rate far lower than England's. Opening on a Saturday night is sheer fucking stupidity.
Coronavirus in Wales: Pubs and restaurants can open outdoors from 13 July
Self-contained accommodation will also be able to take bookings two days earlier than planned.www.bbc.co.uk
Interesting, I'll continue the conversation over on the pub thread.
Buddy Bradley
Pantheistic solipsist
I am a paramedic working for NHS test and trace but I've yet to make a single call
I am being paid to sit and refresh my computer screen every 15 minutes. The ‘world-beating’ system is a shambles
Another useful set of data would be the numbers phoning 111 with symptoms. The testing at home and in test centres is only intended to be done within the first five days of symptoms starting. Many people will be reporting symptoms much later than this.
In my case I got very mild symptoms two and a half weeks ago. I thought it was unlikely to be coronavirus but self isolated for seven days to be on the safe side, by which time all symptoms seemed to have gone. It then came back at the end of last week and I had three nights with increasing difficulties breathing before it eased off. I’ve since spoken to a 111 doctor and a local GP. I gathered from both that there seems to a pattern of people taking a turn for the worse at around day 10 of symptoms. I asked the GP about testing and she said that at this stage it was likely to come back negative but suggested trying to book a test anyway as a positive result would be helpful from their point of view. It sounds like they’re facing an increasing problem with people who think they’ve had the virus and are still having difficulties months later, and without a positive test result the doctors are left with an obvious uncertainty about diagnosis.
I’ve now had the test and as expected it’s come back negative. I’m fairly sure that I’ve got the virus though. The site for booking the test is clear about it needing to be done within the first five days but does in fact allow you to go ahead and book a test anyway. I think that at this stage a positive result would have been meaningful but the negative result doesn’t really say anything at all.
My guess would be that a lot of people, like me, won’t be calling 111 until they start to feel seriously ill, by which time the five day window for home and test centre testing will have closed. If they end up being brought in for observation or being hospitalised then presumably there will be further testing. Otherwise they won’t get tested or their tests are likely to come back negative. Anyway it would be interesting to see some figures for the number of people in this position.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
And, of course, the narrative around testing will be leading a lot of people to feel they don't want to burden an apparently already overburdened system with "what's probably just a bit of a bug", so lots of people won't get tested for that reason.
Which tends to serve the Government's "Pandemic? What pandemic?" line rather well...
prunus
Tick tock.
The current instructions are quite clear to be fair to them “If you have any of the main symptoms of coronavirus (COVID-19), you must stay at home (self-isolate) and get a test.”
Nothing about not burdening the system or trying to decide by yourself if it’s just a bit of a cold or not.
The definition of main symptoms is quite restricted though - high fever, new “continuous” cough and/or changes to taste and/or smell, and therein lies the potential for problems - it’s based on the idea that 90%+ of cases will have at least one of those symptoms, which is starting to look suspect, certainly in terms of asymptomatic and very mild cases.
Out of interest Zahir did you have any of those 3 symptoms?
Nothing about not burdening the system or trying to decide by yourself if it’s just a bit of a cold or not.
The definition of main symptoms is quite restricted though - high fever, new “continuous” cough and/or changes to taste and/or smell, and therein lies the potential for problems - it’s based on the idea that 90%+ of cases will have at least one of those symptoms, which is starting to look suspect, certainly in terms of asymptomatic and very mild cases.
Out of interest Zahir did you have any of those 3 symptoms?
elbows
Well-Known Member
This weeks version of the surveillance report is out. Which means we get the latest version of the map and data from pillar 2. Dont ask me why there is no number for a few areas.
www.gov.uk
National COVID-19 surveillance reports
National COVID-19 surveillance reports, including weekly summary of findings monitored through various COVID-19 surveillance systems.
One question I’d ask about the list of symptoms is at what stage people in fact get them. I certainly had a fever at the weekend and maybe there was some slight change to smell. This was nearly two weeks after the first symptoms though, long after the five day window for the test.
gentlegreen
I hummus, therefore I am ...
What the hell is going on in those hotspots ?
clicker
nanook rubs it....
Does this mean ppe is working now in hospital and care homes to limit transmission, but the workplace and to a lesser extent prisons, aren't seeing numbers falling at the same rate?
Its a very good question and one they need to find the answer to very quickly. I mean, we can speculate here with a likely degree of accuracy but really definitive answers are needed.
Aye, and especially since comparing the week 26 and week 27 data on positive tests per 100k actually paints quite an encouraging picture for much of England. Selfishly, I looked first at KuH, where it has fallen from 22.6 to 3.8. I didn't spot (though wasn't looking closely so may have missed) any other equally big drops, but a lot of places look to be down, and the map (the Figure 9 elbows has screenshotted above) for week 27 shows a lot less orange and red and correspondingly more blue than for week 26. All of which serves to throw the hotspots into even more worrying relief...
elbows
Well-Known Member
I'll reiterate the angle that came up last night though - these figures are potentially misleading when they dont take into account the variation in the number of tests actually carried out in these different regions. And since the government still cannot give us figures for 'pillar 2 number of people tested' in total, let alone by area, we lack this context.
two sheds
Least noticed poster 2007
Private Eye this issue came with:
Good(ish) news
SURPRISINGLY, the mass UK gatherings outside - from VE Day onwards - have yet to be followed by significant spikes in hsospital admissions and deaths from Covid-19. They could yet happen, but so far, so lucky.
Good(ish) news
SURPRISINGLY, the mass UK gatherings outside - from VE Day onwards - have yet to be followed by significant spikes in hsospital admissions and deaths from Covid-19. They could yet happen, but so far, so lucky.
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