Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[maomao]

On the other hand, when we spent a week with a fever, sore throat and a cough in Feb/March, at the time we thought there was no chance it was Covid because we were told there were only 23 cases in the whole country (Feb 29th figure). However now we know that that was complete bollocks, and taking into account we'd taken our toddler to a central London museum with lots of grubby kids' play areas the week before it's fair enough for us to speculate that we might well have had it. Insisting that I'd definitely had it would be equally wrong.

 

[elbows]

There was a thread in mumsnet a few weeks ago saying that the first covid cases in europe were earlier than first thought. Cue loads of people, presumably from different parts of the country, saying they had something in January december November that they now wonder if it was covid. If that number of people just from one corner of the internet had it it would have been pretty apparent/exponential after xmas hols I would think.

There are so many variants of viruses and reactions to them and often certain symptoms seem predominant different years. I remember one year there were lots of neck lumps. I had one.

We had a similar thing on this forum if I recall, albeit at a different time. Sometimes the underlying science in the story about the virus being earlier is faulty, eg the mumsnet stuff could have been in response to a Spanish sewage system sample taken last year, that seemed to show much earlier virus presence but that was later discredited as having been caused by sample contamination.

There are some signs that there were sporadic amounts of infection in the UK from some point in December onwards, due to people travelling from Wuhan to the UK during the period where their outbreak had started but not been properly identified and dealt with. Leading eventually to stories such as the following ones from the BBC. But the important thing to consider is the numbers involved - we will never know the real numbers but we can guesstimate a bit given how long it took for us to have a serious pandemic wave. The chances that any illness anyone here experienced in December was Covid-19 was very small but not 0, and this would have risen as time went on. I dont think it rose to a level where Covid guesses were far more likely to be correct until after the half-term holiday viral seeding events.

Coronavirus doctor's diary: The strange case of the choir that coughed in January

Dr John Wright is intrigued by some singers who became ill long before the UK's first known Covid-19 case.

www.bbc.co.uk

Among the first singers to get ill was the partner of a man who returned from a business trip to Wuhan on 17 or 18 December and developed a hacking cough.

Also Fergus Walsh had a positive antibody test which lead to an article where he talked about having Pneumonia in January but discounted that possibility, which prompoted a lot of reader responses which lead to a follow-up article.

Fergus Walsh: 'I was gobsmacked to test positive for coronavirus antibodies'

The BBC's medical correspondent tested positive for Covid-19 antibodies but was unaware he'd had it.

www.bbc.co.uk

Fergus Walsh: Was coronavirus here earlier than we thought?

Could Covid-19 have been here earlier than we thought? The BBC’s medical correspondent investigates.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[frogwoman]

Isn't there evidence that there are more asymptomatic flu infections than previously thought? I had thought that 'flu' was a much worse illness than a cold but it seems that some people only get light sniffles with it if they have symptoms at all.

 

[elbows]

Isn't there evidence that there are more asymptomatic flu infections than previously thought? I had thought that 'flu' was a much worse illness than a cold but it seems that some people only get light sniffles with it if they have symptoms at all.

It depends whose 'previous thoughts' you judge it by.

There has long been resistance from some quarters in regards accepting the large role of asymptomatic cases in a number of illnesses. But I expect if I search for research papers, I will find some that are far from new and go on about asymptomatic influenza spread.

A 2014 example as a starter: Three-quarters of people with flu have no symptoms

 

[CNT36]

I'm very rarely ill, but had a dry cough and a week or so of feeling slightly shitty in late February/early March, and on one level I know it was just some bug, but I also had a lingering hope it was covid, enough to go and get an antibody test when they came out.

It's weird isn't it, like we all want to have had it and been OK. Someone's going to do some really interesting research into the psychology of all this one day.

Sadly this is dangerous thinking. There's some largely anecdotal evidence that people have recovered from relatively minor cases of Covid-19 and only to become reinfected and have a more severe or even fatal case. Hopefully this is rare and that the drop off if antibodies being reported doesn't mean there is no protection.

 

[Doodler]

Having been on a few building site recently I know that there is little to no attempt at any sort of measures. Its not surprising to here they are then carrying as normal when they are off site. Most construction workers (bigger sites anyway) will be fully branded with their company details, I'd report them to their company and have done in the past for different things (wolf whistling etc). There is no need to name names so so individual gets kicked off site its just that it tends to work as head office don't like their name being dragged through the mud.

Thanks. These characters tend more from the small domestic bodge job end of the scale.

 

[two sheds]

Those probably aren't good diagnostic criteria for any specific virus

I think I burbled on about this elsewhere, but the essential problem here is one of belief. Even if someone catches Covid-19 - even if they end up being treated for it - they are, at the psychological level, still dealing with something they can't see, touch, smell, or sense in any way: so it's all about whether we believe it represents a risk. And the problem with belief is that it's very flexible - there's no "risk-o-meter" sitting along the bottom of our eyeline to tell us how much risk we're at.

So, on that basis, someone is able to believe in the risk enough to put on a facemask, go into work, do their job taking all necessary precautions, etc. But, through every moment that they're doing that, the belief that they are at risk becomes more and more difficult to sustain - "I've been working in my job for 3 weeks, and haven't caught it, so it is less of a threat". Rinse and repeat. Slowly, without that belief being topped up with facts - facts that, likewise, we are able to believe - it becomes weaker, and the steps we take to protect ourselves become less important. Or, as LynnDoyleCooper just pointed out, we add a belief - "I've already had it, so I'm safe"

To some extent, we'll all be doing this - to reference Kahnemann again, it's all about System 1 thinking ("fast" thinking). The counter to it is to invoke our System 2 thinking - and a lot of the discussions in a forum like this, where people like elbows are producing facts, stats, figures, people like LynnDoyleCooper are providing a combination of front-line reports and medical knowledge, are essentially doing the System 2 thing. But there's a couple of problems with that: first of all, lots of people don't really do System 2 thinking: it's often the kind of thing that emerges from even quite a basic scientific training, where, along with finding out what happens when you do some basic chemical experiment, you're also learning that "what I intuit" doesn't necessarily follow in objective reality. So people without that training will find it harder to make judgements based on facts they can't actually see for themseves. And the other thing is that System 2 thinking is hard work - walking into a Tesco where hardly anyone is wearing a mask, the old System 1 kicks in and says "look, it can't be risky, because those people don't think it is, also I don't want to stand out or look stupid", and it can take a conscious effort to go into System 2 and say "butbutbut, the numbers say that people ARE getting infected, people ARE dying" at a time when it feels less immediate or relevant than putting ourselves to the inconvenience of masking up.

I'm not even pontificating here - what I described in the passage above was exactly the thought process I noticed myself going through as I walked towards my local Tesco. OK, I did mask up (I went to another personal System 1 belief of "fuck you, I know better than you, and I'm doing the Right Thing, dammit" ).

As with any kind of large-scale threat, the human factor - what we believe, and what we do with those beliefs - is a massively significant factor, and one that I think is often discounted or ignored.

Great post, thanks

 

[planetgeli]

I also have a concern it encourages people to be a bit less careful with the social distancing etc measures if they've convinced themselves they've had it.

Yes. This is a natural progression of the the thinking that sees it as something revolving around the self. As I said, it's understandable, because it brings thoughts of our own mortality, that we should be concerned about ourselves. But the clue is in the pandemic bit. Pan meaning 'all'. Maybe it's a paradox some can't get away from. But at a time of a threat to one, it seems wrong if we lose sight of the threat to all.

 

[Teaboy]

New restrictions in Aberdeen after that break out seemingly centred on pubs. Given there appears to have been 40 odd infections traced from one pub one wonders what was going on there? Not much distancing I guess.

 

[LDC]

Those probably aren't good diagnostic criteria for any specific virus

I think I burbled on about this elsewhere, but the essential problem here is one of belief. Even if someone catches Covid-19 - even if they end up being treated for it - they are, at the psychological level, still dealing with something they can't see, touch, smell, or sense in any way: so it's all about whether we believe it represents a risk. And the problem with belief is that it's very flexible - there's no "risk-o-meter" sitting along the bottom of our eyeline to tell us how much risk we're at.

So, on that basis, someone is able to believe in the risk enough to put on a facemask, go into work, do their job taking all necessary precautions, etc. But, through every moment that they're doing that, the belief that they are at risk becomes more and more difficult to sustain - "I've been working in my job for 3 weeks, and haven't caught it, so it is less of a threat". Rinse and repeat. Slowly, without that belief being topped up with facts - facts that, likewise, we are able to believe - it becomes weaker, and the steps we take to protect ourselves become less important. Or, as LynnDoyleCooper just pointed out, we add a belief - "I've already had it, so I'm safe"

To some extent, we'll all be doing this - to reference Kahnemann again, it's all about System 1 thinking ("fast" thinking). The counter to it is to invoke our System 2 thinking - and a lot of the discussions in a forum like this, where people like elbows are producing facts, stats, figures, people like LynnDoyleCooper are providing a combination of front-line reports and medical knowledge, are essentially doing the System 2 thing. But there's a couple of problems with that: first of all, lots of people don't really do System 2 thinking: it's often the kind of thing that emerges from even quite a basic scientific training, where, along with finding out what happens when you do some basic chemical experiment, you're also learning that "what I intuit" doesn't necessarily follow in objective reality. So people without that training will find it harder to make judgements based on facts they can't actually see for themseves. And the other thing is that System 2 thinking is hard work - walking into a Tesco where hardly anyone is wearing a mask, the old System 1 kicks in and says "look, it can't be risky, because those people don't think it is, also I don't want to stand out or look stupid", and it can take a conscious effort to go into System 2 and say "butbutbut, the numbers say that people ARE getting infected, people ARE dying" at a time when it feels less immediate or relevant than putting ourselves to the inconvenience of masking up.

I'm not even pontificating here - what I described in the passage above was exactly the thought process I noticed myself going through as I walked towards my local Tesco. OK, I did mask up (I went to another personal System 1 belief of "fuck you, I know better than you, and I'm doing the Right Thing, dammit" ).

As with any kind of large-scale threat, the human factor - what we believe, and what we do with those beliefs - is a massively significant factor, and one that I think is often discounted or ignored.

Cheers for taking the time to write that, really excellent and interesting. I need to do some reading around that, I think I have a heavy bias towards the 'system 2' approach/way of thinking to the point that some of the 'system 1' stuff expressed by people can be infuriating!

 

[existentialist]

Cheers for taking the time to write that, really excellent and interesting. I need to do some reading around that, I think I have a heavy bias towards the 'system 2' approach/way of thinking to the point that some of the 'system 1' stuff expressed by people can be infuriating!

Thinking, Fast and Slow - Wikipedia

 

[teuchter]

Scotland's first local lockdown

Coronavirus: Aberdeen goes into lockdown as Covid cluster grows

Travel restrictions are in force, households cannot meet inside and bars and restaurants have been ordered to close.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[LDC]

Thinking, Fast and Slow - Wikipedia

Thanks, have just ordered the book too for holiday reading.

 

[teuchter]

Thanks, have just ordered the book too for holiday reading.

I read that a while ago and it was the last section - "two selves" that I found most interesting... and useful.

 

[souljacker]

New restrictions in Aberdeen after that break out seemingly centred on pubs. Given there appears to have been 40 odd infections traced from one pub one wonders what was going on there? Not much distancing I guess.

It would be interesting to see the CCTV from the pub and find out from the landlord what measures he had been taking for safety. That would tell us a lot about why things go wrong.

 

[mauvais]

Thinking, Fast and Slow - Wikipedia

I've read most of that, it's a decent book but starts repeating itself half way through. Be aware however some of it is at least questionable - various snippets it references within have either been discredited or questioned, like the idea (Bargh) that priming people with words about the elderly made them walk slower.

 

[LDC]

I've read most of that, it's a decent book but starts repeating itself half way through. Be aware however some of it is at least questionable - various snippets it references within have either been discredited or questioned, like the idea (Bargh) that priming people with words about the elderly made them walk slower.

Most books would have been much better as pamphlets if you ask me!

Thanks for the warning, and yeah, the Wiki makes some of sound a bit NLP-ish which I have come across from some training/coaching stuff in the past, and while some of it made sense and was useful, some of it was definitely bollocks.

 

[mauvais]

Most books would have been much better as pamphlets if you ask me!

Thanks for the warning, and yeah, the Wiki makes some of sound a bit NLP-ish which I have come across from some training/coaching stuff in the past, and while some of it made sense and was useful, some of it was definitely bollocks.

I know what you mean about NLP which is often framed in a very manipulative way - 'here's how to influence people, and you should use this'. This book tackles the subject more as interesting phenomena, 'this is how your brain works' sort of thing. The caution is more about how it's pop science described in a lightweight kind of way, which is a good thing in that makes it accessible, but the psychological reality is often more complex, so don't take it as absolute fact.

 

[elbows]

It would be interesting to see the CCTV from the pub and find out from the landlord what measures he had been taking for safety. That would tell us a lot about why things go wrong.

Personally I stick with my impression that the main way to avoid infections in a fairly small space with a lack of ventilation and people not wearing masks is for nobody with the virus to happen to be in there. As soon as that isnt true, you are asking for a cluster of infections.

We dont seem to be taking ventilation seriously in the summer, which does not bode well for the winter when there are pressures to shut that bloody door, theres a freezing cold draft.

So yeah, broadly I think that the only reason we have gotten away with a limited number of pub-related clusters so far is that pubs were reopened at a time when the chances of any one punter or member of staff having the virus is quite low compared to during the initial wave. This compensates for the fact that a lot of 'covid secure' locations are likely anything but. And when the number of cases of infection rises, keeping the pubs open automatically becomes more risky again.

 

[zahir]

Theres a huge symptoms overlap between a wide range of respiratory viruses in humans. This is one of the reasons why a lot of them get lumped together as 'influenza-like illnesses' in surveillance reports, and why proper diagnostic testing is required in order to determine which virus was actually responsible for an illness in any given human.

The UK governments 'if you have a fever and a new, continuous cough' way to guesstimate whether someone had covid-19 is not a reliable guide, they were only able to get any value out of this at all because at that time of year and with a pandemic wave raging, it was easier to assume this was a sign of Covid-19. As soon as you get to a period of the year where other respiratory viruses are especially active in humans, it wont be much use. If they had upgraded the advice sooner to include the 'loss of taste and smell' earlier on then it would have helped more people to make better guesses, but would still not have been reliable or highly appropriate for winter months.

I gathered from the doctor I saw at the respiratory clinic that they are seeing a lot of people who don’t have a positive test and having real problems judging whether they are likely to have Covid or not. She said they were being careful not to ascribe everything to Covid, but also pointed out that lockdown will have reduced the transmission of every other respiratory virus.

 

[Buddy Bradley]

It would be interesting to see the CCTV from the pub and find out from the landlord what measures he had been taking for safety. That would tell us a lot about why things go wrong.

Poor ventilation would be my guess, rather than it being a particular hotspot for sprayers or anti-handwashers.

 

[existentialist]

I know what you mean about NLP which is often framed in a very manipulative way - 'here's how to influence people, and you should use this'. This book tackles the subject more as interesting phenomena, 'this is how your brain works' sort of thing. The caution is more about how it's pop science described in a lightweight kind of way, which is a good thing in that makes it accessible, but the psychological reality is often more complex, so don't take it as absolute fact.

Yeah, I must admit that pretty much all I've taken from the book is the notion of System 1/2 and the core ideas around that. Which, as it happens, align quite nicely with the Freudian conscious/unconscious division, or Adler's "private logic", so one could argue that, at least that far, it's been substantiated . I just reckoned I'd get more traction here with Kahnemann than if I started banging on about id, ego and superego

 

[Teaboy]

Poor ventilation would be my guess, rather than it being a particular hotspot for sprayers or anti-handwashers.

Yes, poor ventilation and a lack of distancing because pissed up people. It doesn't bode well for pubs going into Autumn and Winter.

 

[pogofish]

Scotland's first local lockdown

Coronavirus: Aberdeen goes into lockdown as Covid cluster grows

Travel restrictions are in force, households cannot meet inside and bars and restaurants have been ordered to close.

www.bbc.co.uk

Yes - centred on the Hawthorn Bar - Which has a history of being where the Orangemen/fash types drink - the local BNP branch used to have their meetings there, although it has had a recent make-over, so they may have been ousted?

And oodles of spod-points if anyone can name the band who that gent in the BBC pic used to play-in.

 

[editor]

The vapid one speaks

 

[andysays]

The vapid one speaks

Just to let you know, for some reason I'm getting the following message from McAfee about that link

We tested this page and blocked content that comes from potentially dangerous or suspicious sites. Allow this content only if you're sure it comes from safe sites.

Maybe I've inadvertently switched my security settings to ultra-high

 

[maomao]

Just to let you know, for some reason I'm getting the following message from McAfee about that link

We tested this page and blocked content that comes from potentially dangerous or suspicious sites. Allow this content only if you're sure it comes from safe sites.

Maybe I've inadvertently switched my security settings to ultra-high

It's Twitter. It'll do your fucking head in but it shouldn't damage your computer.

 

[andysays]

It's Twitter. It'll do your fucking head in but it shouldn't damage your computer.

I'll leave my settings as they are then

 

[Bollox]

POLITICO:IN FOR THE LONG HAUL
THE FORGOTTEN VICTIMS: Some much-needed front page attention today from the Daily Telegraph for the forgotten victims of COVID’s first wave. Political Correspondent Amy Jones reports on yesterday’s testimony to a cross-party group of MPs from so-called long-haul COVID patients, who remain seriously ill and unable to work many months after contracting the virus. “Up to half a million Britons are suffering the effects of ‘long COVID,'” Jones reports, “with some doctors dismissing many of the long-term symptoms suffered in the wake of coronavirus as ME. Psychosis, fatigue, loss of eyesight and mobility issues are among the wide-ranging conditions that have been identified.”

Same story in China: The Times reports on a new study in Wuhan which finds “the vast majority” of COVID-19 patients treated in intensive care “are still experiencing debilitating lung damage, three months after their discharge.” The study found patients “lacked energy and found it difficult to walk long distances,” and that “nearly half had developed symptoms of depression.”

And it’s not just those in hospital: Your Playbook author has a good mate — late 30s, slim, no diabetes or other previous health problems — who came down badly with COVID during the first wave in March. Nearly five months later, she remains completely debilitated. During the peak of her illness she was bed-ridden for weeks, but advised not to come into overcrowded hospitals as she was not “blue-lipped.” Because she was never hospitalized, she is still classed as a “mild” case and has found it almost impossible to access specialist treatment via the NHS.

‘I just want to get better’: “You’re given the all-clear bloods-wise, but are then just left to ride out the lasting symptoms, which when they peak are just as painful and devastating as it was the first time round,” she texts to say. “Shortness of breath, tinnitus, severe cognitive dysfunction, hours spent pushing your lungs up and down. I am bed-bound most of the time. I just want to get better.” Needless to say, this is pretty heartbreaking stuff to hear.

Thousands more: She’s self-employed, and on the few occasions she’s managed to do some work from home she says it has set her recovery back. She’s found some solace in Facebook support groups, containing hundreds — perhaps thousands — of people in the same situation. “I’ve had so many messages,” she says. “People whose lungs feel like glass, like they can’t breathe still, a closed throat, a constant dry cough. It’s making it very hard for people to see any light at the end of the tunnel. I have [my partner] for support but my body can be in absolute agony at times, and cognitively it’s very challenging. And if I was living on the breadline I would be screwed.”

Mild symptoms: She has made repeated trips to see her GP and says the doctor has been left “almost crying with frustration” as she has had no guidance herself on how to help COVID long-haul patients. “The ‘long COVID’ are the forgotten group,” my mate says. “It’s bullsh*t that the symptoms for many should be classed as ‘mild.'”

No support: After finally getting to see a specialist this week — nearly five months after the illness came on — she’s been diagnosed with scarring of the lungs and PTSD. The mental anguish is intense. “This chronic shortness of breath just makes you relive your peak, when you really were not knowing if you were going to die,” she explains. She now fears she may have chronic fatigue, in part caused by poor advice on how to cope with symptoms at the time. “People leaving hospital quite rightly get continual monitoring, to ensure they don’t end up like this,” she says. “People in my position need proper advice and support too — there are so many of us, you only have to look online.”

 

[Artaxerxes]

Just to let you know, for some reason I'm getting the following message from McAfee about that link

We tested this page and blocked content that comes from potentially dangerous or suspicious sites. Allow this content only if you're sure it comes from safe sites.

Maybe I've inadvertently switched my security settings to ultra-high

Worse, its Kirsty Allsopp on Twitter.