Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[Supine]

Mine had a PPG meeting on Wednesday (by Zoom). I attended that - though no medic did, only a senior receptionist.

But if for example you need a blood test form - routine, kidney, liver, thyroid, medication level etc it seems special arrangements need to be made (although they are not clear what).

I have for some years got the drift that the NHS is the modern equivalent of the mediaeval church.
They alone have the means of salvation - or damnation.

If we are going to have to practice NHS procedures contactless as it were, maybe the powers that be - Simon Stevens, Matt Hancock etc should consider a mediaeval innovation that at least allowed infected lepers etc to maintain contact with the sacrament:

A hagioscope (from Gr. άγιος, holy, and σκοπεῖν, to see) or squint is an architectural term denoting a small splayed opening or tunnel at seated eye-level, through an internal masonry dividing wall of a church in an oblique direction (south-east or north-east), giving worshippers a view of the altar and therefore of the elevation of the host.[1] Where a squint was made in an external wall so that lepers and other non-desirables could see the service without coming into contact with the rest of the populace, they are termed leper windows or lychnoscopes.

Then they can sit in their sugeries and pass out prescriptions and blood test forms without fear of catching our diseases.

Clearly this indicates the high regard we hold workers in Tescos, Lidl and Morrisons by the way. They still have to mix with the hoi polloi.

You're a bit of an idiot aren't you. Is that tin foil hat making your head warm?

 

[CH1]

You're a bit of an idiot aren't you. Is that tin foil hat making your heard warm?

I dunno - are you an accountant?

 

[Teaboy]

They really do feel like they've been written by someone around 25 years old who is in their first big proper job in a fancy London office and thinks work and travelling to and from work is all just a super whizzy jolly time.

I hope they get the opportunity to reassess their work in 25 years time. I wonder how they will feel then about plastic plants and proper bants.

I disagree. I'm pretty certain that was written by a male senior manager, likely very senior. Young people in advertising and marketing are generally more savvy and nearly always more in touch with the times. This has the hallmarks of a male senior manager who hasn't noticed they're past it and just regurgitating nonsense that they would have got away with 20 years ago. These guys actually like going to work and see every workplace through the eyes that created their own workplace and think its the best place ever.

He wrote all that because he couldn't write what he really wanted to:

Getting paid shit loads of money to do fuck all. Being out of the house and away from the wife and kids. Going out drinking at lunchtime with the lads in the office because you're still one of the lads despite being over 50. Promoting the lads and paying them more than women because you're all mates and do coke together. Being out of the house and away from the wife and kids. Mistaking obligation to respect seniority for actual respect and admiration. Sexually harassing the new young female recruits until they either give in or leave. Knowing HR has your back. Being out of the house and away from the wife and kids.

 

[quimcunx]

Here is what the next few months is going to look like:

I went to meet a couple of people in the open air on BHM. Having broken my public transport avoidance a fortnight earlier I bravely got a bus there and back. I also went in a couple of shops in the past week as per usual. I now have a mild cold. I put my symptoms in the tracker and they suggested I get a test even though the only symptom I have for covid is a slightly elevated temperature. So now my plans for next week are cancelled or postponed. And one of the friends I met is having to make other arrangements regarding helping a sick relative. And it is 99.99% just a cold.

Multiply that by 65m people carrying out normal activities every day at varying degrees of risk/contact.

 

[LDC]

Mine had a PPG meeting on Wednesday (by Zoom). I attended that - though no medic did, only a senior receptionist.

But if for example you need a blood test form - routine, kidney, liver, thyroid, medication level etc it seems special arrangements need to be made (although they are not clear what).

I have for some years got the drift that the NHS is the modern equivalent of the mediaeval church.
They alone have the means of salvation - or damnation.

If we are going to have to practice NHS procedures contactless as it were, maybe the powers that be - Simon Stevens, Matt Hancock etc should consider a mediaeval innovation that at least allowed infected lepers etc to maintain contact with the sacrament:

A hagioscope (from Gr. άγιος, holy, and σκοπεῖν, to see) or squint is an architectural term denoting a small splayed opening or tunnel at seated eye-level, through an internal masonry dividing wall of a church in an oblique direction (south-east or north-east), giving worshippers a view of the altar and therefore of the elevation of the host.[1] Where a squint was made in an external wall so that lepers and other non-desirables could see the service without coming into contact with the rest of the populace, they are termed leper windows or lychnoscopes.

Then they can sit in their sugeries and pass out prescriptions and blood test forms without fear of catching our diseases.

Clearly this indicates the high regard we hold workers in Tescos, Lidl and Morrisons by the way. They still have to mix with the hoi polloi.

WTF are you on about, that's all incoherent bollocks bordering on conspiracy thinking.

 

[Roadkill]

BJ leading by example, as always.

 

[frogwoman]

BJ leading by example, as always.

Superspreader event

 

[elbows]

Maybe they could punish those tories with the same fate as was temporarily offered to those who failed to wear a mask in Indonesia. This punishment option only lasted a few days I think so this article is already out of date.

Caught without a mask

A man, caught not wearing a face mask in public amid the COVID-19 pandemic, lies in a mock coffin while members of the public and the media take pictures as part of punishment by local authorities and enforced by local police in Jakarta, Indonesia.

news.abs-cbn.com

 

[Spandex]

Today's new cases:

I've got familiar with that graph as I've followed it and watched it grow, but I wonder how long until it's retired and replaced with a different one. It's always reflected the testing system as much as how many people actually have the virus - see where what should be a giant spike at the peak has been snapped off like a broken stalagmite by the government's decision to stop testing outside hospitals in March. What that does, however, is set an unrealistically low peak figure for the first wave of just over 5000 cases per day. There must've been many tens of thousands catching the virus every day in March. With the figure approaching 2000 today and a better testing system than in the spring, it can't be long before the official statistics show new cases outstripping the previous official peak.

 

[Teaboy]

I think the UK should be the UK on the 2 week quarantine list.

 

[elbows]

I think the UK should be the UK on the 2 week quarantine list.

I've been meaning to put UK and England figures in the same context and format as how they judge other countries. Someone may beat me to it, which I would welcome.

 

[Spandex]

According to the ONS (BBC link) "despite outbreaks in some local areas, overall case numbers remain stable" at "around 2,000 new cases of coronavirus per day".

How do they square that with 1940 new positive tests today? (I know ONS is England and Wales only, but Scotland only reported 158 cases today). Do they really believe that nearly all the Covid cases in the country are being picked up by a test? It would be great if that was true, but I suspect their swab test figures are coming out optimistically low.

 

[sheothebudworths]

Coronavirus tests run out in north-east England as cases surge

Officials criticise ‘diabolical’ system as scientists warn against government rationing

www.theguardian.com

Government officials said it was necessary to ration tests to divert capacity towards infection hotspots

'Capacity', lol.

 

[elbows]

There must've been many tens of thousands catching the virus every day in March. With the figure approaching 2000 today and a better testing system than in the spring, it can't be long before the official statistics show new cases outstripping the previous official peak.

The system is already creaking at these levels though, despite the increased capacity over time its not been enough for them to actually implement previous promises to care homes, and we've seen stories this week about how far some people have been asked to travel due to test rationing & reallocation of resources to areas that have known outbreaks.

With that in mind, I'm not convinced the current system could even get back to the number of positives they were managing to detect at the peak, unless there is also a notable increase in the percentage of tests that come back positive.

 

[elbows]

And make no mistake, having to ration tests in this way at this stage in early September is one of the most worrying signs I've seen for months.

 

[Teaboy]

And make no mistake, having to ration tests in this way at this stage in early September is one of the most worrying signs I've seen for months.

Indeed. I'm also quite surprised. I know the circus is in charge but I thought they might have got a semblance of a system in place by now. Its like going back 4 or 5 months.

 

[Chilli.s]

Not just badly organised, actually run out of tests. What a shitshow.

 

[cupid_stunt]

According to the ONS (BBC link) "despite outbreaks in some local areas, overall case numbers remain stable" at "around 2,000 new cases of coronavirus per day".

How do they square that with 1940 new positive tests today? (I know ONS is England and Wales only, but Scotland only reported 158 cases today). Do they really believe that nearly all the Covid cases in the country are being picked up by a test? It would be great if that was true, but I suspect their swab test figures are coming out optimistically low.

The ONS figure is for up to 25/8/20, so are lagging 10 days behind, there's been around a 40%+ increase in rolling average of daily new tested cases since then.

 

[frogwoman]

The running out of tests thing is similar to what's happening in parts of the US.

 

[elbows]

Indeed. I'm also quite surprised. I know the circus is in charge but I thought they might have got a semblance of a system in place by now. Its like going back 4 or 5 months.

Well I expected that we would need other forms of testing adding to the mix in order to cope with winter demand, eg saliva ones with quick turnaround times. And indeed thats what they start going on about when trying to say something positive in the face of a week like this, because they probably dont have much else to cling to. The problem is I dont know when trials of these tests will be complete or how much capacity they will manage with those either. And I absolutely did not expect the system to be coping so badly already, at this early stage of September. I thought we were still at the stage where it would be possible to look like we were on top of some things at least. After all, the actual rise in number of infections is not yet thought to resemble the sort of resurgence seen in some parts of europe of late.

 

[Teaboy]

The running out of tests thing is similar to what's happening in parts of the US.

If there is a global shortage problem with this then why not communicate it? Why pretend everything is fine and all normal? If it's not the government's fault why not shout it loud?

Am I getting a bit tin foil hat here or is there some sort of geopolitical thing going on? I'm guessing these testing kits mostly come from China and well relations have soured recently. Plus I see Hong Kong is trying to test their entire population for reasons...

Someone please tell me if I'm disappearing down a rabbit hole here?

 

[frogwoman]

I thought that we made our own? I have heard some stuff about this but don't know enough about it though.

 

[nagapie]

Superspreader event

If only.

 

[Chilli.s]

This is what will happen:

However, scientists said diverting tests away from “low-risk” areas meant any new outbreak would go undetected.

Guardian quote.

 

[elbows]

The ONS figure is for up to 25/8/20, so are lagging 10 days behind, there's been around a 40%+ increase in rolling average of daily new tested cases since then.

And they know the ONS study might not cover everything in as much detail and with as much certainty as they would like, which is why there were stories some weeks ago about how they were going to increase the number of people taking part in this household-survey based form of testing.

The numbers they produce are not useless but I wouldnt take them as fact on their own, since their figures are based on a very low number of people in their survey actually testing positive. I havent read this weeks report yet but perhaps I will have further tedious detail to talk about later.

As for the daily testing numbers, I'm trying to go more by the specimin date than date of reporting, but this adds further lag to the picture. All the same I shall probably wheel some graphs out of this stuff at some stage in the next week or two.

 

[Spandex]

The ONS figure is for up to 25/8/20, so are lagging 10 days behind, there's been around a 40%+ increase in rolling average of daily new tested cases since then.

40% increase in tests in the last 10 days?

Doesn't look like it from the graph on the government's UK Covid dashboard: Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK

It hasn't got exact figures, but it can't be more than about a 15% increase in tests carried out in that period...

 

[cupid_stunt]

40% increase in tests in the last 10 days?

Not a 40% increase in tests, a 40% increase in new tested cases.

 

[Spandex]

Not a 40% increase in tests, a 40% increase in new tested cases.

Duh at self

 

[elbows]

When talking about 'running out' of tests and also the number of tests in recent times, there are multiple factors at work. Sometimes one ingredient runs out at one place and causes a delay, sometimes the capacity limits are elsewhere in the system. Sometimes the disaster is not just with access to testing, but how long it takes to get the results back.

And I'm pretty sure there was talk of a backlog in recent weeks, which potentially will have affected the numbers in certain ways. This is one of the reasons I am recently looking at positive test numbers by date of specimen rather than date of reporting.

But sticking to number of tests, not number of positives, the data on the dashboard for that tends to be by date of reporting, not specimen date. And if I make my own graphs of this data, it looks very much like something happened in August which prevented the slow rise in Pillar 1 PHE testing capacity from continuing. Or if the capacity was still growing, something limited the ability to use or report the results of these tests in a timely manner.

 

[elbows]

Well I expected that we would need other forms of testing adding to the mix in order to cope with winter demand, eg saliva ones with quick turnaround times. And indeed thats what they start going on about when trying to say something positive in the face of a week like this, because they probably dont have much else to cling to.

Oh I forgot that they also go on about some new lab that is due to open, which I havent looked into at all yet.