Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[cupid_stunt]

Yep, and encouragingly, a large majority of positives are coming from Pillar 2 now, with only around 100-odd Pillar 1. That means most positives are coming from people who are not seriously ill, or even ill at all.

Which is great news, and fits in with extra testing in areas of concern, which has even included knocking on doors & carrying out on the spot tests.

 

[elbows]

I didnt really want to start thinking about the challenges of winter yet. But since the recommendations in the 'Preparing for the challenges of winter 2020/21' which the Academy of Medical Sciences wrote on request from Vallance/SAGE involve lots of stuff that has to be put in place or otherwise prepared for in July and August, I thought I better link to it now. Because it is a bit depressing to read, but its also depressing to save my rants until a time when its too late to act. So for now a compromise, I am linking to it now but I'm not going to start quoting from it or commenting on its contents at the moment.

https://acmedsci.ac.uk/file-download/51353957

 

[8ball]

You could put your rants in the spoiler code.

 

[elbows]

You could put your rants in the spoiler code.

That might be an idea but even if I go down that route I will try to aim for the 2nd half of August rather than this stage in July

Meanwhile

Hospital nurses were told their "lives would be made hell" if they complained over conditions on a coronavirus ward, a union has claimed.

Unison has raised a group grievance for 36 employees, most of them nurses, at Nottingham University Hospitals Trust.

It said staff on the Queen's Medical Centre ward were not trained properly, faced bullying for raising concerns and denied PPE "as punishment".

The trust said the allegations were "very troubling".

The union said the staff, which included nurses, senior nurses and healthcare assistants, volunteered to work on the hospital's only ward dealing with end-of-life coronavirus patients.

Coronavirus: NHS nurses told 'lives would be made hell'

Staff dealing with dying patients faced "horrendous" bullying for raising concerns, it is claimed.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[8ball]

That's certainly rantable.

 

[elbows]

Sounds like Whitty defended parts of that last week of pre-lockdown government failure.

Coronavirus: 'Infection here for many years to come'

Even progress in developing a vaccine is unlikely to mean the virus will be eliminated, MPs hear.

www.bbc.co.uk

Crucial evidence about the scale of the outbreak and modelling about how quickly it could spread was presented to ministers on 16 March.

But it was a full week later that a total lockdown was announced.

Prof Witty said it was not a "huge delay" given the "enormity" of the decision.

He also pointed out that others steps were taken in the meantime, including the closing of schools.

Closing schools, which they had spent a fair proportion of the previous weeks press conferences (on March 9th and 12th if I remember correctly) trying to justify not doing.

 

[8ball]

Wasn't the direction of travel pretty obvious before the end of Feb?

 

[elbows]

Wasn't the direction of travel pretty obvious before the end of Feb?

Yes. And then there was a period where establishments in europe started to realise they would have to think the unthinkable. Johnson finally bothered to attend a COBRA meeting about the virus in early March, but it wasnt till Italy locked down that the penny really dropped across europe, but was met with a finally flurry of resistance from Johnson & Co. It was the week of March 9th that was orthodoxy and dogma busting for many european countries. But that was also the week the UK moved to the next phase and the public and journalists discovered how crap and out of step with other countries in the region this next phase was going to be. So that plan died by weekend (the 'herd immunity' justification was plan A's last stand and it backfired instantly). Then followed a week of cobbling together and starting to act on and communicate plan B instead, whilst trying to pretend there had been no overarching u-turn.

Thats one side of the picture anyway. But there was also some bad testing, data and modelling problems that caused them to fail to appreciate what stage of the pandemic wave we were actually at, hence a load of bollocks about how we were '4 weeks behind Italy' when we were actually 2 weeks behind Italy. And these mistakes only dawned on them at just about the same time the shit was hitting the fan on the front I described in the previous paragraph.

 

[8ball]

I remember at the time it seemed to be that they had pissed away 4, possibly 5 weeks at least, though the details have grown hazy.
If the virus had been as bad as initially feared we would be right up shit creek.

 

[elbows]

I remember at the time it seemed to be that they had pissed away 4, possibly 5 weeks at least, though the details have grown hazy.
If the virus had been as bad as initially feared we would be right up shit creek.

Different amounts of time squandered on different fronts. Some of the failings go back many years and would have made it hard to make the best use of the latter part of January, and February. A rational and unconstricted analysis of the situation in Wuhan when they had to lockdown in January would have resulted in much stronger measures sooner, at the supranational as well as national level (eg in the crappy world we actually have, WHO was more interested in the first month supporting the world tourism board than recommending any border closures which were a no-no because they are a no-no for neoliberalism).

Given the world as it was actually ordered at the time, I have tended to say in the past that even if I had been in charge, it would have been hard to implement a proper lockdown much earlier than 2 weeks before we actually did, too many things in the way. But one or two weeks would have made a huge difference. Timing wasnt the the only big difference maker though, even if we had been as late as we were, the death picture could still have been very different if our testing regime, hospital infection, care home shielding and PPE situations were very different to the ones we actually saddled ourselves with. Or the other long terms stuff such as poverty, living conditions, working conditions, etc.

 

[8ball]

I was involved in organising a film festival around that time. I said a bit less than a month before lockdown that we would be locked down by at least a week by the festival date. In the event the lockdown came right on the date of it. The paralysis seemed staggering. They were actually talking about locking down openly for something like 10 days and just... not.

 

[frogwoman]

I think we pretty much are up shit creek tho tbh.

How bad is as bad as feared though, as depending where you are in the world and your general state of health etc, it can be 'better' than you thought or worse? I've got a Brazilian mate who says that more than 20 people she knows personally have died.

 

[elbows]

Also given that most of the things the pandemic has shone a light on so far are things that were always somewhat visible, but were ignored, dont be surprised if a large number of flu deaths we have in the UK in winter are driven by similar failings all the bloody time. The deadly hospital<->care home spread of infectious respiratory diseases is unlikely to be a phenomenon reserved only for this pandemic, its probably been significant in many flu seasons. I doubt its a coincidence that Germany did relatively well in this pandemic and seems to have a lower excess winter mortality than us in normal times too.

 

[8ball]

I think we pretty much are up shit creek tbh.

How bad is as bad as feared though, as depending where you are in the world and your general state of health etc, it can be 'better' than you thought or worse? I've got a Brazilian mate who says that more than 20 people she knows personally have died.

Not to minimise anything, but the talk was of everyone knowing people who have died (remember Boris's speech?). This was plausible from some of the estimations at the time. Given the state of the bloody Government, we could have lost millions of people if the virus had been that virulent (they were talking about half a million even while in the throes of delusions of competence).

 

[frogwoman]

Not to minimise anything, but the talk was of everyone knowing people who have died (remember Boris's speech?). This was plausible from some of the estimations at the time. Given the state of the bloody Government, we could have lost millions of people if the virus had been that virulent (they were talking about half a million even while in the throes of delusions of competence).

Yeah but its still only a relatively small number of people who have actually had it here tho, even in badly hit areas because of lockdown and social distancing, hygiene etc. I don't know if anyone actually thought millions of people would die in the uk.

The imperial college model said 66 thousand deaths with a lockdown by august and that's pretty much what we've had when you look at ONS figures etc.

Boris's speech was saying that everyone would know people who have died, but this was when they were still going on about herd immunity as a credible option (I remember that speech because it was the night I saw a mate for the last time before lockdown). If they had continued in that manner he would be right.

In places like Bergamo and parts of spain everyone does know someone who died.

 

[elbows]

I was involved in organising a film festival around that time. I said a bit less than a month before lockdown that we would be locked down by at least a week by the festival date. In the event the lockdown came right on the date of it. The paralysis seemed staggering. They were actually talking about locking down openly for something like 10 days and just... not.

If you are ever bored, try watching the 9th and 12th March press conferences They were painful at the time, and have certainly not aged well!

Im afraid the March 9th one has awfully echoey audio and doesnt even start until 11 and a half minutes into this video. So if you only watch one, make it the March 12th one, although the March 9th one does provide some context for the heat they were feeling before the March 12th one in regards their shitty plans.

9th:



12th:

 

[8ball]

I'm not sure that will be good for my blood pressure.

 

[elbows]

I'm not sure that will be good for my blood pressure.

You are missing March 9th classics such as (and I am paraphrasing slightly in places)...

Johnson:

"dont do things with no sound medical reason, or counterproductive things"
"other countries have different epidemiology"
(in regards to other countries measures) "be in no doubt we are considering all of them in due time, they may become necessary, but timing is crucial"

Vallance:

"have to do things in combination at the right time"
"push the peak into the summer"
"mass gatherings dont make much difference"
"do stuff based on where we are with the epidemic, not reaction mode"
"cannot suppress it completely, shouldnt do this or it will pop up again later in the year when the NHS is vulnerable in winter"

Whitty:

"not just what you do but when you do it"
"fatigue risk if we go too early"
"it increases slowly but then really quite fast, have to catch it before the upswing begins"

 

[two sheds]

my first proper facepalm ^^

 

[8ball]

"dont do things with no sound medical reason, or counterproductive things" - this actually made me laugh out loud at the time

"fatigue risk if we go too early" - but oddly not if you do it too late and need to be fucking locked down for ages...

 

[8ball]

my first proper facepalm ^^

There was so much facepalm during those days.

 

[frogwoman]

Remember this shite? Lots of bootlickers were sharing it around March.

 

[8ball]

Remember this shite? Lots of bootlickers were sharing it around March.

It's very reminiscent of some muzzle propaganda I saw.

 

[elbows]

There was so much facepalm during those days.

The R rate for facepalms in this pandemic broke all known records. By Friday 13th March they were doubling every 3 seconds.

 

[8ball]

The R rate for facepalms in this pandemic broke all known records. By Friday 13th March they were doubling every 3 seconds.

I think it peaked somewhere around Barnard Castle.

 

[elbows]

"dont do things with no sound medical reason, or counterproductive things" - this actually made me laugh out loud at the time

I spent some time trying to capture a sample of one moment where it sounded a bit like Johnson accidentally said "our timing is criminal" but upon repeat listening he hadnt actually flubbed his line quite as clearly as that, so I had to let that one go. It might still have been a freudian slip that didnt quite come to full fruition, and Vallance starts to react slightly to the gaffe, but it was a bit of a stretch so I gave up on that footage.

 

[elbows]

I think it peaked somewhere around Barnard Castle.

Ahh the second wave of facepalms. Although there is still some disagreement about whether that really counts as a second wave, or just a resumption of the first.

 

[8ball]

The Lancet: Most comprehensive study to date provides evidence on optimal physical distancing, face masks, and eye protection to prevent spread of COVID-19

Keeping at least one metre from other people as well as wearing face coverings and eye protection, in and outside of health-care settings, could be the best way to reduce the chance of viral infection or transmission of COVID-19, according to a systematic review and meta-analysis synthesising...

www.eurekalert.org

So, the next step on the way to our Mad Max dystopia...

 

[two sheds]

Remember this shite? Lots of bootlickers were sharing it around March.

I questioned that at the time <polishes lapel modestly> along with the propaganda-style graphs showing hospital bed capacity at around a third of peak requirement.

 

[elbows]

Remember this shite? Lots of bootlickers were sharing it around March.

I dont think I saw that one at the time, I was too busy ranting on here and doing the splits by explaining the rationale behind various actions or inactions in a way that, to my shame, wasnt always a million miles away from the 'expert rhetoric' of the time, whilst also dealing with the people here who placed more trust in the government than was wise.

Just look at this BBC classic from, oh no surprise, March 13th, that week and that day again, the last stand of plan A and the role of the state broadcaster in that.

Its even got a graph which, if considered in a certain way makes it obvious why some people thought we were 2 weeks behind Italy, not 4, but of course the focus of the article is very much not about looking in that direction:

Coronavirus: Three reasons why the UK might not look like Italy

Boris Johnson's chief scientific adviser says the UK is four weeks behind Italy, What does that mean?

www.bbc.co.uk

Much of Italy is currently in lockdown as the country's tally of coronavirus deaths has topped 1,000.

The outbreak is putting the Italian healthcare service under immense strain. But will the UK follow this path?

On Thursday, Boris Johnson's chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, said the UK was four weeks behind Italy "in terms of the scale of the outbreak" if not "in terms of the response".

Does that mean we're four weeks away from a similar fate?

Not necessarily. Here are three reasons why experts believe the UK's epidemic could be different from Italy's, and why the number of cases here means something different.

The epidemics in both countries may be growing at a similar rate now, but early on the UK had more diagnosed cases than Italy. Italian numbers shot up on 23 February, leading scientists to think there was a period when the virus was spreading without being detected.

That gave less room for measures like tracing contacts of those who had fallen ill and isolating cases to slow the spread.

Professor of international public health Jimmy Whitworth says that put the health system "behind the curve" in controlling the epidemic.

Well its a good thing we werent sleepwalking into the very same mistake at the time that was written. Oh, wait! Bwaaaaarrrrrppppppp no facepalm is big enough to do justice to reading this now. Hindsight barely required, it was shit at the time too. We didnt even start testing very sick people in hospital till late February if they didnt have the right travel history.