Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[cupid_stunt]

Must be a bit of a relief for people that Oldham avoided a lockdown, and is just subject to a slight tightening of current restrictions regarding mixing with other households, as the vast majority of new cases has been spreading between households, backed-up with extra engagement in the communities of the worst hit areas, fingers crossed this works out.

Oldham and parts of Blackburn and Pendle are facing extra restrictions to stem the spread of Covid-19.

Residents in those areas are not allowed to socialise with anyone from outside their household, as of midnight on Saturday.

Residents will be advised to avoid using public transport except for essential travel, and the number of people who can attend weddings, civil partnerships and funerals will be limited to household members and close family, with no more than 20 people.

Restaurants will also be encouraged to halt walk-ins, and only seat people who make reservations in advance.

Up to date map of areas of concern -

Coronavirus: Tighter rules for Oldham, Pendle and Blackburn

Residents of Oldham and parts of Pendle and Blackburn face stricter Covid-19 restrictions.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[elbows]

Hospital acquired infections has long been one of my themes.

Well apparently we are supposed to be impressed by these numbers:

Coronavirus: One in eight hospital cases were 'caught on-site'

Researchers looked at more than 1,500 coronavirus cases in hospitals at the peak of its spread.

www.bbc.co.uk

The King's College London study of 10 UK hospital sites plus one in Italy found at least one in eight patients who had received hospital treatment for coronavirus had caught it on-site.

Researchers said that was a relatively low rate and showed there was effective infection control in place.

And even if the methodology is reconsidered, leading to a much higher number, we are still invited to think that its fine.

Only those who tested positive 15 days or more after admission were counted as hospital-acquired infections, however.

And if patients who tested positive after five to 14 days are included, the proportion increases to 23%.

But, because of the long incubation period of the virus, it is impossible to be sure how many of these patients would have been infected in hospital.

Prof Duncan Young, an expert in intensive-care medicine at Oxford University, said the study would also not have captured those infected during a short hospital stay, as patients were not followed up after discharge.

I'm still not a fan of the BBCs Nick Triggle:

Those caveats do suggest the the risk of catching the virus in hospital remains still small.

Fucking brilliant eh. At a time when a huge amount of routine stuff was cancelled and lots of people avoided hospital completely, we still got the above sort of figures, and are supposed to judge it as some sort of success. Presumably even if we also consider the impact of discharging people into care homes we are still supposed to view the impact of all this stuff as being OK. No wonder we have been thoroughly exposed by this pandemic, and no wonder I will keep on speculating about how many of our normal seasonal flu deaths are due to hospital infection.

 

[brogdale]

Whilst I get and accept that rates of mortality, (particularly geriatric), tend to rise in heatwaves, I can't help being reminded of a previous Tory attempt to disguise the cause of death rate when the Third Churchill administration ascribed the approx 9k - 12k spike in deaths from the Dec 1952 Great Smog to an invented 'influenza epidemic'. Things don't change, way back then they were still desperate not to let matters of public health interfere with the 'smooth functioning' of their economy.

 

[kalidarkone]

Hospital acquired infections has long been one of my themes.

Well apparently we are supposed to be impressed by these numbers:

Coronavirus: One in eight hospital cases were 'caught on-site'

Researchers looked at more than 1,500 coronavirus cases in hospitals at the peak of its spread.

www.bbc.co.uk

And even if the methodology is reconsidered, leading to a much higher number, we are still invited to think that its fine.



I'm still not a fan of the BBCs Nick Triggle:



Fucking brilliant eh. At a time when a huge amount of routine stuff was cancelled and lots of people avoided hospital completely, we still got the above sort of figures, and are supposed to judge it as some sort of success. Presumably even if we also consider the impact of discharging people into care homes we are still supposed to view the impact of all this stuff as being OK. No wonder we have been thoroughly exposed by this pandemic, and no wonder I will keep on speculating about how many of our normal seasonal flu deaths are due to hospital infection.

I still don't get why NHS staff are not being routinely tested every 14 days given the working environment and the likelihood of being asymptomatic?

 

[cupid_stunt]

Latest from ONS on covid deaths.

Week ending 14 August (Week 33)

• Of the deaths registered in Week 33, 139 mentioned “novel coronavirus (COVID-19)”, the lowest number of deaths involving COVID-19 in the last 21 weeks and an 8.6% decrease compared with Week 32 (152 deaths), accounting for 1.5% of all deaths in England and Wales.
• The number of deaths involving COVID-19 decreased or remained the same across the majority of the English regions; there were 10 more deaths involving COVID-19 in London compared with Week 32.
• In Wales, the number of deaths involving COVID-19 decreased to 14 deaths (from 24 deaths in Week 32), while the total number of deaths in Week 33 was above the five-year average (53 more deaths).
• Of all deaths involving COVID-19 registered up to Week 33, 63.4% occurred in hospital with the remainder mainly occurring in care homes (29.6%), private homes (4.7%) and hospices (1.4%).

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

 

[elbows]

I still don't get why NHS staff are not being routinely tested every 14 days given the working environment and the likelihood of being asymptomatic?

Tragically I think there are still big issues with test capacity, even though the press dont go on about it so much anymore.

The signs of this are still there, eg there was supposed to be a system for care homes to get tests routinely but this already got delayed till September and may be delayed again, and in the meantime there are huge holes in the current system and they have to jump through hoops, only get tests for symptomatic cases etc.

I may as well stick in a couple of figures from antibody testing while we are on this subject.

REACT-2: real-time assessment of community transmission – prevalence of coronavirus (COVID-19) antibodies in June 2020

www.gov.uk

People who work in care homes with client-facing roles had an adjusted prevalence of 16.5% compared with 11.7% for healthcare workers with direct patient contact and 5.3% for workers who were not key workers.

Those who had had contact with a confirmed case had an adjusted prevalence of 21.0% compared with 3.5% for people who had had no contact with a suspected or confirmed case.

 

[elbows]

Whilst I get and accept that rates of mortality, (particularly geriatric), tend to rise in heatwaves, I can't help being reminded of a previous Tory attempt to disguise the cause of death rate when the Third Churchill administration ascribed the approx 9k - 12k spike in deaths from the Dec 1952 Great Smog to an invented 'influenza epidemic'. Things don't change, way back then they were still desperate not to let matters of public health interfere with the 'smooth functioning' of their economy.

I'll have a look at this weeks data in a bit.

To be fair when I was looking at deaths per day since 1970, I think the effects of the summer of 1976 did show up quite clearly. But there may well be more than one factor contributing to any blip this year.

 

[GarveyLives]

More here:

Cops weren’t told about coronavirus spit attack on station worker for 7 weeks despite her ‘urging bosses to call police’

‘We are vulnerable and scared’, say colleagues of tragic Belly Mujinga

​

in the midst of Covid-19-related protests about being unable to go to pubs or sunbathe, or having to wear face coverings, a very sad story:

"A devoted mother and transport worker, (Belly) Mujinga was confronted by an angry passenger as Covid-19 swept the UK in March. Her death made headlines and raised pressing questions about race, abuse and workers’ rights ..."

‘I feel she was abandoned’: The life and terrible death of Belly Mujinga

 

[miss direct]

Will teachers and other school staff be able to wear masks if they want to? I'm looking at a job but if I'm not allowed to wear a mask, I won't do it.

 

[kalidarkone]

Will teachers and other school staff be able to wear masks if they want to? I'm looking at a job but if I'm not allowed to wear a mask, I won't do it.

This was raised on 5 live yesterday and an education minister ,(forget who) did say that individual staff were permitted to wear masks because the important thing was that staff and pupils felt safe and confident.

 

[miss direct]

Oh good.

 

[brogdale]

the important thing was that staff and pupils felt safe and confident.

Yeah, right.

 

[Steel Icarus]

I'd feel a lot happier if everyone in my college had to wear masks everywhere outside classrooms.
Communal areas will not be open and lunches consumed in departments, but the corridors can get very crowded.

 

[Teaboy]

This was raised on 5 live yesterday and an education minister ,(forget who) did say that individual staff were permitted to wear masks because the important thing was that staff and pupils felt safe and confident.

My sister is a primary school teacher. Being accidentally spat at by children is a daily occurrence. Visor time I reckon.

 

[Chilli.s]

I still don't get why NHS staff are not being routinely tested every 14 days given the working environment and the likelihood of being asymptomatic?

Agree. This seems so obvious as a safety precaution if nothing else.

 

[Steel Icarus]

U turn on masks in secondaries

Exclusive: England set to U-turn on masks in schools

Tes understands that the government is set to announce that wearing face masks will be near-mandatory in communal areas of secondary schools in England

www.tes.com

 

[elbows]

On several occasions in the past I have posted about the earliest UK deaths, but those posts have tended not to stand the test of time because the data was usually corrected later to remove these couple of cases.

Usually I combine the subject with a rant about the fact we werent testing people unless the had a particular travel history. And my 'seek and you shall find' comments in regards the fact they didnt seem to even start testing seriously ill people until around February 28th, and once they did, they soon found cases and then a bit later deaths.

Anyway both of these subjects get a look in again today thanks to the following:

Coronavirus: Nottinghamshire woman, 75, 'first positive test within UK'

The woman is also believed by scientists to be the first in the UK to die after contracting Covid-19.

www.bbc.co.uk

Analysis of samples by the University of Nottingham showed a 75-year-old woman, from Nottinghamshire, tested positive on 21 February.

The woman is also understood to be first in the UK to die after contracting Covid-19.

Nearly 2,000 routine respiratory samples taken from patients at a Nottingham teaching hospital between January and March were tested.

The report states: "Patient 1 in this study is, to the best of our knowledge, the earliest described community-acquired case of SARS-CoV-2 in the UK, admitted to hospital care on the 21st of February 2020, and was also the first UK COVID-19 death, preceding the earliest known death by 2 days."

The work also revealed that early coronavirus cases in the UK would have been identified if testing criteria had at the time been less strict, say the scientists.

Professor Jonathan Ball, one of authors of the study, said there was "widespread community transmission of coronavirus" in Nottingham in early February.

However, the research said the cases went undetected because testing for coronavirus required a strict criteria to be met like a recent travel history.

Prof Ball said: "Had the diagnostic criteria for COVID-19 been widened earlier to include patients with compatible symptoms but no travel history, it is likely that earlier imported infections would have been detected, which could have led to an earlier lockdown and lower deaths.

"However, the capacity for testing available nationally was not sufficient at the time to process the volume of testing required.

"In order to prepare for any future pandemic such as this, the UK urgently needs to invest in and expand diagnostic capacity within NHS and PHE diagnostic laboratory services."

Some of the language used in the article is still stupid because they should always be saying 'first known' instead of implying we have really found the very first case and death. Sometimes the article does fine on this front, but in other places the language is sloppy.

Its good to see those points being made by Professor Ball.

 

[elbows]

Since that death was in Nottingham I suppose this is an opportunity for me to mention that I remain pissed off that too much of the emphasis in early public communications was about London being ahead of the rest of the UK. It pisses me off because there was some early data that suggested public adherence to measures was higher in London, at least at the beginning. Some of that might be due to some things in London being especially easy to measure, eg the extensive public transport system and the high number of passengers normally using it. But it could also have been because Londoners were encouraged to think they were at more risk than everyone else. Dont get me wrong, I'm glad things were said that caused more Londoners to take things seriously, but Im not happy that opportunities were not taken to give people in other parts of the country a better idea about the timing & risks they faced.

Because at some stage in the first half of March they had data suggesting hotspots elsewhere. This quote is from SAGE minutes of March 18th:

SAGE noted that there may be other hotspots where spread is more advanced, such as the Derby/Nottingham/Leicester area. It is possible that some of this is due to nosocomial transmission, but this is not yet known.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/888785/S0385_Seventeenth_SAGE_meeting_on_Covid-19_.pdf

I suppose this also ties into the other story I mentioned today, because nosocomial spread means spread within hospitals and other healthcare settings.

 

[elbows]

Oh and if I'm remembering properly, at some stage either a politician like Hancock or perhaps someone like Vallance did namedrop one of those other places into a press conference rather casually, but as you can tell I've forgotten all the detail. Hancock certainly developed form for randomly mentioning places later on, when the idea of local measures was just appearing on the horizon, and this has somewhat clouded my memory about the earlier instance I'm trying to recall. In any case mentioning one of those places (with fuck all detail to give proper context) instead of all 3 fits in with my previous gripe.

 

[muscovyduck]

Oh and if I'm remembering properly, at some stage either a politician like Hancock or perhaps someone like Vallance did namedrop one of those other places into a press conference rather casually, but as you can tell I've forgotten all the detail. Hancock certainly developed form for randomly mentioning places later on, when the idea of local measures was just appearing on the horizon, and this has somewhat clouded my memory about the earlier instance I'm trying to recall. In any case mentioning one of those places (with fuck all detail to give proper context) instead of all 3 fits in with my previous gripe.

Was it Gwent? Seem to remember they had problems quite early on

 

[teqniq]

FFS

Bereaved families of frontline workers will be stripped of their benefits if they take compensation payment

"Matt Hancock made much of awarding £60k compensation - it turns out low income families awarded the lump sum will therefore be stripped of their benefits". - News

www.thelondoneconomic.com

 

[sheothebudworths]

There's this, too -


The prime minister, Boris Johnson, has pledged to meet with families who have lost loved ones during the coronavirus pandemic following a series of calls from a bereavement campaign group.

The Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group said they had asked for meetings with Boris Johnson on a number of occasions.

Speaking to Sky News, Johnson said that he was not aware of any letters from the group, but said he would respond. He added that he would “of course” meet with the bereaved.


Earlier this month, the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on coronavirus heard from bereaved families who said they felt they were being “swept under the carpet” by the government.

Grieving family members said they had written to the prime minister asking to meet and share their experiences but were told that officials were unable to meet “due to the current pandemic”.

Last week, the APPG chairwoman, Liberal Democrat Layla Moran, wrote to Johnson and said she was “shocked” to learn that he had “refused” to meet the group – which represents 1,600 families.

The prime minister told Sky News: “I am not aware of those letters but I will of course write back to every letter we get.

“Of course I will meet the bereaved.”

 

[Artaxerxes]

Have the bereaved not suffered enough?

 

[Poot]

Teens test positive for Covid after Greece holiday

Young people enjoying themselves too much, Goddammit. A party in Zante and then a party in Plymouth. Makes a change from the sort of things that used to be passed on during such fun. Although they've probably caught those, too, no doubt.

* old woman shakes fist at sky *

 

[sheothebudworths]

Have the bereaved not suffered enough?

Apparently not. They have repeatedly asked to be heard and been refused. Hilarious, you fucking dickheads.

 

[Badgers]

Well that is a weight off #worldbeating

UK will pay low-income residents to self-isolate because of COVID-19

Britain will pay low-income residents to self-isolate if they have confirmed or suspected coronavirus as the government steps up measures to keep the virus under control.

uk.mobile.reuters.com

The government said individuals who test positive for the virus will receive 130 pounds for their 10-day period of self-isolation. Other members of their household, who have to self-isolate for 14 days, will be entitled to 182 pounds.

 

[Buddy Bradley]

What's that, about £2 per hour for the average work hours you'll be missing? So generous.

 

[maomao]

It's less than ssp which is 95 a week but they're giving ten day and fortnight amounts to try and make it sound more.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Since that death was in Nottingham I suppose this is an opportunity for me to mention that I remain pissed off that too much of the emphasis in early public communications was about London being ahead of the rest of the UK. It pisses me off because there was some early data that suggested public adherence to measures was higher in London, at least at the beginning. Some of that might be due to some things in London being especially easy to measure, eg the extensive public transport system and the high number of passengers normally using it. But it could also have been because Londoners were encouraged to think they were at more risk than everyone else. Dont get me wrong, I'm glad things were said that caused more Londoners to take things seriously, but Im not happy that opportunities were not taken to give people in other parts of the country a better idea about the timing & risks they faced.

Because at some stage in the first half of March they had data suggesting hotspots elsewhere. This quote is from SAGE minutes of March 18th:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/888785/S0385_Seventeenth_SAGE_meeting_on_Covid-19_.pdf

I suppose this also ties into the other story I mentioned today, because nosocomial spread means spread within hospitals and other healthcare settings.

I spent the first months of lockdown in Nottingham and adherence to distancing rules was patchy, especially after the first couple of weeks. But at the time the narrative was that London was most affected, and all official sources stated that the risk in Nottingham was relatively low. I was working in schools in Nottingham right up to the middle of March.

 

[elbows]

I see very few indications that we are better prepared to cope with what is to come.

Covid: hundreds self-isolate after Norfolk poultry plant outbreak

At least 350 staff and households affected despite PM vowing to address food factory issues

www.theguardian.com

At least 350 people and their households will have to self-isolate after 75 staff tested positive for coronavirus at a poultry plant in Norfolk, as Boris Johnson was urged to do more to get a grip on factory outbreaks.

The Banham Poultry site, about 15 miles south-west of Norwich, had been partially closed and all staff who worked on its cutting floor had been sent home, local health officials said.

The prime minister assured MPs in June that the prevalence of outbreaks in meat processing plants was being taken seriously by the government. However, when asked last week, Whitehall officials were not able to produce any data that even measured the scale of the problem.

NHS test and trace hit by delays and Covid home test failures

System still short of 80% target on contacts, and one in seven home tests fail to produce result

www.theguardian.com

England’s test-and-trace system has been hit with fresh problems as there were delays in contacting nearly 2,000 people infected with coronavirus, and one in seven home tests failed to produce a result.

An unexplained “temporary infrastructure issue” meant nearly 3,000 more people than usual were transferred to the contact-tracing system after testing positive for Covid-19 in the week ending 19 August.

Two-thirds of these people had been tested days or weeks earlier, meaning there was a delay in reaching them and their close contacts when they should have been self-isolating.

The proportion of home tests kits failing to produce a result that week rose sharply, from 4% to 15% of the total, equating to more than 18,000 tests.

The Department of Health and Social Care figures also show that test and trace failed for a ninth week running to reach its target of contacting 80% of close contacts of people who test positive for Covid-19.