Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[zahir]

It looks like cases in my local authority have been slowly increasing since the beginning of June.

 

[elbows]

It looks like cases in my local authority have been slowly increasing since the beginning of June.

The testing regime (eg track & trace) has changed and 'from June onwards' is therefore the sort of trend I would treat with caution. It depends, often times there are stories behind this data that we could do with learning about before we think we can see whats happening. Unless its something very clear and dramatic, I want to augment it with other data such as from hospitals and that 111 stuff to see if it helps tell the story accurately.

 

[The39thStep]

Sweatshops are basically the Tory dream. He's pretending to be 'worried' when in fact it's been open knowledge that factories in Leicester have been paying under minimum wage and breaking employment laws left, right and centre for years. The only thing he's worried about is Boohoo's share price (down 3% after a 'good' lockdown).

Which party has the Council in Leicester?

 

[maomao]

I went out today for the fourth time in the past few months (Bethnal Green), and tried wearing a proper mask for the first time - wore a bandana the other times. It was surprisingly difficult, to the extent that I don't think I could do it again. It's an N95 mask and was comfortable enough, but it made my breathing significantly more difficult. OK so I do have breathing problems, and cough pretty much all the time when I walk around, which is one of the reasons to wear a mask because it increases the chances of me passing on covid even when I'm asymptomatic, but it was such a marked difference in breathing that I think anyone would have found it hard. And it steamed my glasses up enough that my vision was badly obscured - had to pull it down in the supermarket in order to see what I was buying.

It's probably just a shit mask, although it was certainly sold as a proper one (wasn't me that bought it), but it made me understand people's dislike of masks a lot more. Surgeons wear masks for hours in warm environments but their disposable masks are way thinner than this one is. If other people got ones like mine then they will definitely be put off wearing them.

If I have to take public transport I'll go back to the bandana I was wearing before, or maybe get some disposable masks if I end up travelling more often than I usually do. Having any sort of barrier does still provide some protection to those around me without meaning I can't breathe well enough to walk around.

The only four people I saw wearing masks - I was out for a couple of hours and it was really busy - were two east Asian students wearing them on the street, which happens round here sometimes anyway, and two supermarket workers. Nobody in the park was wearing them, but I don't think that matters. Nobody else in the supermarket was wearing a mask, customers or staff, even those working on the shop floor - I felt like a weirdo. One of the supermarket workers without a mask on actually pushed past my friend to get by, even though he could just have asked him to move out of the way (he had no idea he was in the way). Unexpected rudeness and definitely breaching social distancing - maybe they'd had some arsey customers in earlier or something. None of the customers made any effort at social distancing and there was no one-way system or any attempt at limiting customers.

Not what I was expecting, TBH.



That is complying, though, because you were supplying help to a vulnerable person. And if it's just one person then you're not really spreading much around anyway.



Some on our street came out - I leaned out of my window and clapped - but not as many as the Thursday claps, which was practically every house on the street. But then it wasn't well publicised and I suspect that at 5pm on a sunny Saturday a lot of people weren't at home. And NHS workers only really care about the clap when it's something that comes up in a STD clinic.

N95s are quite tough going. I like them because they even block the smell of people smoking in the street (psycho ex-smoker) but they're definitely not for anyone with breathing difficulties. I can get to Asda and back in one but I couldn't run or ride a bike.

 

[wemakeyousoundb]

I went out today ...

The only four people I saw wearing masks - I was out for a couple of hours and it was really busy - were two east Asian students wearing them on the street, which happens round here sometimes anyway, and two supermarket workers. Nobody in the park was wearing them, but I don't think that matters. Nobody else in the supermarket was wearing a mask, customers or staff, even those working on the shop floor - I felt like a weirdo. One of the supermarket workers without a mask on actually pushed past my friend to get by, even though he could just have asked him to move out of the way (he had no idea he was in the way). Unexpected rudeness and definitely breaching social distancing - maybe they'd had some arsey customers in earlier or something. None of the customers made any effort at social distancing and there was no one-way system or any attempt at limiting customers.

Not what I was expecting, TBH.

This has been my experience in supermarket throughout. People nicely queueing outside then no or hardly any attempt at social distancing once inside.

 

[prunus]

UK calls halt to data on number of people tested for Covid-19

Their justification (that it only includes people being tested for the first time) is a proper brow-scruncher; yes that’s odd, and not that useful a metric - so why is that what you’ve been publishing? And why not just publish the actual useful number - the number of distinct people tested each day - rather than just giving up altogether? Surely you have this data? And trends in the percent positive rate are one of the important metrics in determining local outbreaks are they not? If the number of tests includes an unknown number of people tested more than once it could be skewing in either direction depending on whether those people had a higher or lower incidence that the overall testing population (and assuming that their test results are self-consistent). This just seems to be adding noise to the signal. Can anyone explain?

 

[editor]

OF COURSE it's THEIR fault!

Boris Johnson blames care home owners for deaths from coronavirus

‘We discovered too many care homes didn’t really follow the procedures in the way that they could have,’ prime minister claims

www.independent.co.uk

 

[teqniq]

A long read, but some pretty damning stuff in there, some of it obvious, some not so much (apologies if already posted):

Into the fog: How Britain lost track of the coronavirus

To tackle the coronavirus in Britain, doctors and health specialists needed to find it. But with few tests, little contact tracing and a government culture of secrecy, they lost sight of the enemy.

www.reuters.com

 

[littlebabyjesus]

UK calls halt to data on number of people tested for Covid-19

Their justification (that it only includes people being tested for the first time) is a proper brow-scruncher; yes that’s odd, and not that useful a metric - so why is that what you’ve been publishing? And why not just publish the actual useful number - the number of distinct people tested each day - rather than just giving up altogether? Surely you have this data? And trends in the percent positive rate are one of the important metrics in determining local outbreaks are they not? If the number of tests includes an unknown number of people tested more than once it could be skewing in either direction depending on whether those people had a higher or lower incidence that the overall testing population (and assuming that their test results are self-consistent). This just seems to be adding noise to the signal. Can anyone explain?

I think the article explains it. The full data shows that the govt has never met its own target, that's all. It's all very silly as testing has been ramped up significantly. If they hadn't made such massive promises, they could just publish it all without embarrassment - UK testing rates aren't bad now, compared internationally. Not the only country not using its full capacity either. Germany also isn't. As infection rates fall, it's not such a bad thing - the capacity is there in case of a future emergency. Seems an alien concept to this lot - having stuff ready in case of something bad in the future.

Totally agree with you, though. A simple X tests of Y people isn't skewing the data. So what if some of the people have been tested before.

They also seem keen to join together Pillars 1 and 2. I've been mostly paying attention to Pillar 1 cos it seems more organised, and provides more of a comparison with older data from when there was only one pillar.

It seems to me that they really have made a big effort to ramp things up, but they've still managed to make a hash of it. Mostly due to their own ridiculous, panicked overpromising. This government fucks things up even when it tries to do the right thing. It can't help it.

 

[elbows]

Pillar one on its own was useless for spotting new outbreaks, couldnt see the Leicester thing coming via those numbers.

I think there were a number of issues with actually working out how many people were tested under pillar 2, and their failure to solve these issues is also part of the story as well as their dishonesty relating to pretending they hit certain targets.

 

[elbows]

I see they are being shits about care home blame as well.

Coronavirus: Boris Johnson criticised over 'cowardly' care home comments

The PM said "too many care homes didn't really follow the procedures" on combating coronavirus.

www.bbc.co.uk

Boris Johnson has been criticised for saying "too many care homes didn't really follow the procedures" during the coronavirus outbreak.

The PM was responding to the head of NHS England's call for reform in social care within a year.

Mr Johnson said it was "important to fund" the sector, but it needed to be "properly organised and supported".

Shadow care minister Liz Kendall said "terrified" staff had been "told by the prime minister that it's their fault".

And they are trying to pretend that the role of asymptomatic transmission was not considered at the time:

Responding to the criticism, a No 10 spokesman said care homes had "done a brilliant job under very difficult circumstances".

He added: "The PM was pointing out that nobody knew what the correct procedures were because the extent of asymptomatic transmission was not known at the time."

I had a look at some past posts and found plenty of talk about asymptomatic transmission possibilities in the early days, for example this on Feb 20th:

#1,525

Its true that nobody knew exactly how much of a role it had but there were suspicions from quite early on that it could be significant. The theme had come up numerous times before that last post I linked to.

 

[zahir]

This article talks about the early debate over asymptomatic transmission.

How the World Missed Covid-19’s Silent Spread

It refers to this letter published on 30 January.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2001468

 

[elbows]

Good. The article doesnt cover every aspect, such as the misleading findings of the WHO China team (headed by the now invisible Bruce Aylward) where the claim was made that there were hardly any asymptomatic cases in Chinas outbreak. But it has a good stab at some of the most infuriating aspects of medical dogma and the biases of the orthodoxy against emerging evidence that challenges their assumptions and planning.

Dr. Rothe, though, was shaken. She could not understand why much of the scientific establishment seemed eager to play down the risk.

“All you need is a pair of eyes,” she said. “You don’t need rocket-science virology.”

Oh how I know that feeling from the first months of watching this pandemic unfold. I didnt get it all right, far from it, but some of the important themes were obvious from quite early on and the unreasonable resistance to them was also a bit too obvious.

To see the following in an article is something of a relief because I have touted theories about the resistance to these ideas that are along similar lines, that there is a bias against inconvenient facts that leave humans with less power to manage their fate. But this bias actually compounds such issues and we surrender the advantage of timely adaptability when we stick out heads in the sand.

“It’s not like we had some easy alternative,” said Dr. Libman, the Canadian doctor. “The message was basically: ‘If this is true, we’re in trouble.’”

and

Looking back, health officials should have said that, yes, symptomless spreading was happening and they did not understand how prevalent it was, said Dr. Agoritsa Baka, a senior European Union doctor.

But doing that, she said, would have amounted to an implicit warning to countries: What you’re doing might not be enough.

Oh heaven forbid we deliver such implicit warnings with sufficient time to act on them.

 

[elbows]

I also find that whole thing especially annoying because papers from other respiratory diseases from years ago demonstrate quite well that there is much disagreement and uncertainty about this topic, but also that the implications of notable asymptomatic transmission have been on pandemic planners minds for a long time.

Just one example, from 2009 and dealing with a review of influenza-related evidence on this theme. This particular one comes down on the side of thinking asymptomatic spread of influenza may have been overestimated, but in making this point they reveal that the issue has clearly been considered in a pandemic planning context before.

Does Influenza Transmission Occur from Asymptomatic Infection or Prior to Symptom Onset? - PMC

A better understanding of transmission dynamics is essential in influenza pandemic planning. If a substantial proportion of transmissions were to occur during the presymptomatic phase or from asymptomatic individuals, then infection control measures ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

A better understanding of transmission dynamics is essential in influenza pandemic planning. If a substantial proportion of transmission were to occur during the presymptomatic phase or from asymptomatic individuals, then infection control measures such as contact tracing and quarantine of exposures will be of limited value, in addition to constraints based on the short serial interval for influenza transmission. However, we have found limited evidence to suggest the importance of such transmission. The role of asymptomatic or presymptomatic influenza-infected individuals in disease transmission may have been overestimated in recent articles dealing with pandemic planning. More definitive influenza transmission studies are needed.

 

[elbows]

Mind you various authorities try to set some very shitty standards when it comes to what they think they should have been expected to consider long before an actual pandemic happened. I've forgotten what dick came out with the idea that it was a revelation to them that there were bank/agency staff in care homes that would work in more than one home during the pandemic and thus be a potential vector of transmission of the virus between homes, but someone did recently. When we are dealing with this level of negligence and ineptitude, I suppose it should be no surprise that details pertaining to how the virus actually spreads are easily ignored.

 

[editor]

This was strangely satisfying, albeit pointless

Take our survey to tell us what you think about the Government's coronavirus response

How do you think the Government has handled the coronavirus pandemic and what do you think about Boris Johnson's premiership so far?

www.telegraph.co.uk

 

[maomao]

This was strangely satisfying, albeit pointless

Take our survey to tell us what you think about the Government's coronavirus response

How do you think the Government has handled the coronavirus pandemic and what do you think about Boris Johnson's premiership so far?

www.telegraph.co.uk

I just did that in conservative voting retired sergeant major mode. Don't think they care what lefties think.

 

[elbows]

Another one for the asymptomatic pile:

Only 22% of people testing positive for coronavirus reported having symptoms on the day of their test, according to the Office for National Statistics.

This hammers home the importance of "asymptomatic transmission" - spread of the virus by people who aren't aware they're carrying it.

Coronavirus: Majority testing positive have no symptoms

A survey by the Office for National Statistics looked at who had been infected in the community in England.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[zora]

Bleugh, I am feeling somewhat despondent again today. I am not at all happy with the level (or lack) of distancing I am seeing all around me now.
Back at work in retail in Central London for the past three weeks. Public transport still pleasingly empty (I can thankfully walk, but I always have a good look what the buses look like). Also lots of people having lunch and picnics together with more distance than they otherwise would have had.
BUT distancing in my workplace is really poor, both among staff and with customers. I am actually really upset (and in the process of drafting a long email outlining my concerns). There are just countless interactions between people at less than two metres, less than one metre even without any masks or anything. Outside other workplaces, lots of groups hugging hello and goodbye, and filing six deep into a pub where I am sure their distancing won't suddenly magically improve. Staff in other workplaces, cafes etc, also not distancing, constantly reaching over one another. I don't even blame anyone personally, for example in my workplace, apart from one Trumpian arsehole, all my colleagues are kind, considerate, reasonable people, and it seems to be just the human nature and workflow thing - but why oh why can't this cunt government make masks mandatory.

Just a minute ago, the latest Guardian update had something on "Boris Johnson explains that if masks are worn they should cover the nose as well as the mouth" and something vague about a public information campaign. So maybe this is just one of their soft (and late) launches of a new initiative, and maybe they will still make masks compulsory, but it's a desperately small straw for me to clutch at!

 

[LDC]

A long read, but some pretty damning stuff in there, some of it obvious, some not so much (apologies if already posted):

Into the fog: How Britain lost track of the coronavirus

To tackle the coronavirus in Britain, doctors and health specialists needed to find it. But with few tests, little contact tracing and a government culture of secrecy, they lost sight of the enemy.

www.reuters.com

That is really very good (bad). Thanks.

 

[LDC]

Bleugh, I am feeling somewhat despondent again today. I am not at all happy with the level (or lack) of distancing I am seeing all around me now.
Back at work in retail in Central London for the past three weeks. Public transport still pleasingly empty (I can thankfully walk, but I always have a good look what the buses look like). Also lots of people having lunch and picnics together with more distance than they otherwise would have had.
BUT distancing in my workplace is really poor, both among staff and with customers. I am actually really upset (and in the process of drafting a long email outlining my concerns). There are just countless interactions between people at less than two metres, less than one metre even without any masks or anything. Outside other workplaces, lots of groups hugging hello and goodbye, and filing six deep into a pub where I am sure their distancing won't suddenly magically improve. Staff in other workplaces, cafes etc, also not distancing, constantly reaching over one another. I don't even blame anyone personally, for example in my workplace, apart from one Trumpian arsehole, all my colleagues are kind, considerate, reasonable people, and it seems to be just the human nature and workflow thing - but why oh why can't this cunt government make masks mandatory.

Just a minute ago, the latest Guardian update had something on "Boris Johnson explains that if masks are worn they should cover the nose as well as the mouth" and something vague about a public information campaign. So maybe this is just one of their soft (and late) launches of a new initiative, and maybe they will still make masks compulsory, but it's a desperately small straw for me to clutch at!

That sounds hard, yeah really needs some decent public info asap, and make masks compulsory in all indoor setting outside your own home.

Re: my bolded bit, sometimes it's really hard not to think that people are fucking idiots.

 

[tim]

The weekly death rate is slightly below average for the second week running, which is better than being double the average which is what it was at the peak

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

 

[Numbers]

A long read, but some pretty damning stuff in there, some of it obvious, some not so much (apologies if already posted):

Into the fog: How Britain lost track of the coronavirus

To tackle the coronavirus in Britain, doctors and health specialists needed to find it. But with few tests, little contact tracing and a government culture of secrecy, they lost sight of the enemy.

www.reuters.com

Cheers for posting that.

 

[Roadkill]

A long read, but some pretty damning stuff in there, some of it obvious, some not so much (apologies if already posted):

Into the fog: How Britain lost track of the coronavirus

To tackle the coronavirus in Britain, doctors and health specialists needed to find it. But with few tests, little contact tracing and a government culture of secrecy, they lost sight of the enemy.

www.reuters.com

That's a really good article, but I can't help feeling it falls a bit short of what it could have been. For instance, it mentions the no-bid contract for the contact-tracing app, but doesn't mention that it went to one of Cummings' dodgy mates, and it doesn't mention all the dodgy PPE contracts either. It paints a good picture of incompetence and obfuscation, but seems to shy away from talking about what looks to be neither more nor less than corruption.

 

[teqniq]

Yeah I thought it pulled it's punches on that front as well. The whole secrecy thing however is somewhat of an eye-opener.

 

[scifisam]

When workers are tested for covid, it's going to be counted as a taxable benefit.

Coronavirus: Workers will not pay tax on tests by their employer

The Treasury grants tax exemption for the tests following criticism from MPs.

www.bbc.co.uk

I don't know how much tax difference that will make to most workers, but it shouldn't even be 50p.

The employers shouldn't have to pay for it either.

And I can't think of a better way to discourage workers and employers from testing.

 

[cupid_stunt]

When workers are tested for covid, it's going to be counted as a taxable benefit.

Coronavirus: Workers will not pay tax on tests by their employer

The Treasury grants tax exemption for the tests following criticism from MPs.

www.bbc.co.uk

I don't know how much tax difference that will make to most workers, but it shouldn't even be 50p.

The employers shouldn't have to pay for it either.

And I can't think of a better way to discourage workers and employers from testing.

That'll get sorted very quickly.

Mr Sunak said: "I'm delighted with him for raising this with me and of course we will look into it very quickly."

 

[teqniq]

A tale of indifference and pass the buck. The evils of outsourcing:

Death at the ministry - Tortoise

For Emanuel Gomes, the most striking thing about the coronavirus lockdown was that it never existed. “From this evening, I must give the British people a very simple instruction: you must stay at home,” Boris Johnson told the nation on the evening of 23 March, as he declared a national emergency...

members.tortoisemedia.com

 

[two sheds]

Government to scrap free parking for NHS staff

‘Free parking for staff has only been made possible by support from local authorities and independent providers and this support cannot continue indefinitely’

www.independent.co.uk

Utter, utter cunts

 

[phillm]

Government to scrap free parking for NHS staff

‘Free parking for staff has only been made possible by support from local authorities and independent providers and this support cannot continue indefinitely’

www.independent.co.uk

Utter, utter cunts

They couldn't even wait to year-end could they? His nursing 'saviours' should speak out and call out his utter cuntery. Seeing him in full bluster and deflection mode in PMQs turned me into as boiling bilious rage.