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Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

elbows said:
I would like to better understand where this 'growing sense' comes from. Is it just down to timing, that they were expecting case numbers to creep upwards or even explode in a manner that doesnt seem to have happened so far? If so then thats an understandable feeling but I would be waiting another month or two at least before indulging in it myself. Especially since there seems to be a natural inclination to tend towards such a sense of optimism unless those thoughts are stopped in their tracks by an insurmountable wall of horror. And this was always likely to be a period where optimism could flourish, to some extent at least. Because people seem to be highly tuned to our current picture at any moment in time, eg attitudes of some healthcare professions starts to shift once they've not seen high level of admissions for a while. Such phenomenon do bother me a bit because I saw signs that such thinking was involved in our failure to be ready to thwart the first wave, and I am not convinced that all the right lessons have actually been learnt from that yet. But I dont want to make the opposite mistake either, and so I am ready to change my tune if data over the next 4-6 weeks continues to point at a less nerve-wracking picture.
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I'd love for things to be OK but I think an exceptionally warm spring and summer and commensurate ability to be outdoors has mitigated an awful lot. None of this means we'll all be able to be in and out of each other's houses and in cinemas, theatres and gigs this winter as far as I can tell.

Re: NHS services, I have finally booked an appointment to get my contraceptive implant replaced two months overdue (although allegedly it should work OK for another year, the every three years thing is just to be sure). Having to schlep into central London as the only two (also inconvenient) places I can get it done in North London since my local health trust put all its sexual health under a service for the entirety of NW London are booked up the moment they have slots because of the backlog.
 
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elbows said:
Articles like this one are a bit annoying to me because if you are going to go on about false positives, you should really go on about false negatives too.

www.bbc.co.uk

Coronavirus: Tests 'could be picking up dead virus'

Scientists say a positive coronavirus result does not guarantee that someone is infectious.
www.bbc.co.uk
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Prof Carl Heneghan again. This time highlighting the possibility there may be false positives in Covid tests, when it's know that around 24% of tests give false negatives. Previously he was one of the academics who highlighted that the official death figures included people who died at any time after a positive test, prompting the change to 28 day limit and knocking 5000 off the official death toll, when it's known that the official figure is a huge underestimate. He's also criticised the figures used to impose local lockdowns.

Am I detecting a theme to his work? Is there a reason his work is so well publicised?
 
I work in the NHS (mental health). We have been working continuously throughout, bar a couple of weeks when the clinical staff were stood down whilst decisions were made on how to carry on with assessments and treatment. Currently we are working full throttle. If anything we are providing more appointments for more people than pre-lockdown. Circumstances mean that our admin team is stretched more than it has ever been, and the NHS heroes attitude has long since evaporated. We work full-time, mostly at the same physical location (on a site adjacent to a COVID assessment ward) as previously, but with greater workloads, with additional strains through having to accommodate staff members WFH on rotation, and with periods of short-staffing due to COVID-related sickness, testing, self-isolation and so on.

Meanwhile in my personal life I have been waiting for a follow-up to an urgent diagnostic physical health procedure which I originally had in December. The procedure was booked with one of the numerous private providers which has been given privileged access to NHS patients under creeping marketisation and for reasons of ‘choice’ (that is, I didn't get to choose who provided me with the treatment; the government chose to parcel up and hand out elective bits of the NHS cradle-to-birth system to profit-making companies). My initial follow-up was cancelled with days' notice as the company was closing its doors to all patients. I was told they would be in touch to let me know when they could reschedule me. I heard nothing for 4? 5? months, then got a call from someone in the company's call centre checking in with me - have your symptoms resolved themselves, are they about the same, have they got worse, that sort of thing. Except in the course of the conversation it emerged that his notes told him I had an entirely different procedure to the one I had actually had. I asked him to get back to me when he had located the correct patient notes. He never did.

Then a week ago I had another person from the company call me to say that they were opening up again and offered me a narrow range of appointment slots at quite short notice. Having booked one (during work hours, obviously), I was then told that I would have to self-isolate for several days before the procedure.

Because of the stresses on the team noted above (the appointment would have been at a time when we were already scheduled to be short-staffed), I felt I had to decline the appointment. The irony of an NHS worker who had worked through all of lockdown not getting healthcare from a mandated private provider which was shuttered for the whole of lockdown was not lost on me.
 
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Cloo said:
I'm expecting big breakouts in charedi orthodox Jewish communities in the next month as there is not a chance they won't gather for New Year and Yom Kippur. Apparently things are already really fucked in Israel, which was doing quite well but now has the largest new infections per million in the world, apparently, in part because the ultra orthodox insist on gettting together in vast numbers for things like their head rabbi's grandson's wedding. :facepalm:
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Infection rate in Stamford Hill is already up to 79 per 100,000, and the council are warning that local lockdown may be necessary (see also Hackney chit chat thread).
 
Spandex said:
Prof Carl Heneghan again. This time highlighting the possibility there may be false positives in Covid tests, when it's know that around 24% of tests give false negatives. Previously he was one of the academics who highlighted that the official death figures included people who died at any time after a positive test, prompting the change to 28 day limit and knocking 5000 off the official death toll, when it's known that the official figure is a huge underestimate. He's also criticised the figures used to impose local lockdowns.

Am I detecting a theme to his work? Is there a reason his work is so well publicised?
Click to expand...

I've not kept up with which individuals were responsible for various stances early on, but its good to know this stuff. I wish I was surprised by the shamelessness of those whose views were potentially bad for the death rate the first time around and may have learnt absolutely nothing from what unfolded. Its annoying that they are still able to have their words carry such weight now after their initial performance.

Its certainly not surprising to see this stuff pop up now, with the agenda of schools reopening and trying to get more people back to offices etc. They obviously sense a window of opportunity to push a particular line, and there is always a chance they will be more right this time than they were last time. I will attempt to maintain a high level of skepticism without completely disregarding every concept and angle they bring up.
 
DaveCinzano said:
I work in the NHS (mental health). We have been working continuously throughout, bar a couple of weeks when the clinical staff were stood down whilst decisions were made on how to carry on with assessments and treatment. Currently we are working full throttle. If anything we are providing more appointments for more people than pre-lockdown. Circumstances mean that our admin team is stretched more than it has ever been, and the NHS heroes attitude has long since evaporated. We work full-time, mostly at the same physical location (on a site adjacent to a COVID assessment ward) as previously, but with greater workloads, with additional strains through having to accommodate staff members WFH on rotation, and with periods of short-staffing due to COVID-related sickness, testing, self-isolation and so on.

Meanwhile in my personal life I have been waiting for a follow-up to an urgent diagnostic physical health procedure which I originally had in December. The procedure was booked with one of the numerous private providers which has been given privileged access to NHS patients under creeping marketisation and for reasons of ‘choice’ (that is, I didn't get to choose who provided me with the treatment; the government chose to parcel up and hand out elective bits of the NHS cradle-to-birth system to profit-making companies). My initial follow-up was cancelled with days' notice as the company was closing its doors to all patients. I was told they would be in touch to let me know when they could reschedule me. I heard nothing for 4? 5? months, then got a call from someone in the company's call centre checking in with me - have your symptoms resolved themselves, are they about the same, have they got worse, that sort of thing. Except in the course of the conversation it emerged that his notes told him I had an entirely different procedure to the one I had actually had. I asked him to get back to me when he had located the correct patient notes. He never did.

Then a week ago I had another person from the company call me to say that they were opening up again and offered me a narrow range of appointment slots at quite short notice. Having booked one (during work hours, obviously), I was then told that I would have to self-isolate for several days before the procedure.

Because of the stresses on the team noted above (the appointment would have been at a time when we were already scheduled to be short-staffed), I felt I had to decline the appointment. The irony of an NHS worker who had worked through all of lockdown not getting healthcare from a mandated private provider which was shuttered for the whole of lockdown was not lost on me.
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Your story about outsourced treatment is not so different from mine- which is wholly NHS.
I'd been waiting since last August for investigation of left ear bone/nerve disfunction at UCH. I was 65 - now 66 by the way.
I got an audiology appointment in January - followed by a CT scan in February.
Was contacted by phone to arrange a telephone consultation - for early July. This was followed by an MRI scan in early August.
To be honest I don't even know if they are operating more slowly than normal.
But nothing can happen now until I have further Audiology and a face to face consultation.
Given than my first appointment letter said that the normal waiting time - pre coronavirus was 138 says I can't complain can I?

I was also due to have a regular outpatient appointment at Lambeth Hospital on 7th April - and wondering what would happen because of lock-down I emailed the consultant in charge, who replied that
a- they were out of the country and unable to return to UK at present due to flight cancelled until further notice.
b-SLAM were only allowing telephone or Skype consultations, but this was not practical from where they were.

I would have been due another appointment in early July and early September.
I've heard noting from SLAM, or the consultant.

My GP joked at me a couple of years ago that if I'd been seeing a particular retired SLAM psychiatrist I must have Borderline Personality Disorder. Did I feel abandoned? Ha Ha Ha. Whether I have Borderline Personality Disorder or not I certainly do feel abandoned by the NHS. I could go on for pages about it - starting with soon after I moved to Brixton in 1978.

Your loyalty to your department is commendable. I hope you get your treatment sorted out.
I wait to see if I'm required to self-isolate before seeing the ENT consultant at UCH in person.
As for SLAM I've rather given up. They have their hands full I know, and I am not a mad axe man.
But why are they closing the Lambeth Hopsital and selling the site for development?
And why is there no current financial report on their website?

What they do have in their old accounts is assets held for sale.- so watch out.
No doubt Lambeth Hospital was made into an asset held for sale very recently.
 
Spandex said:
Picking the UK - still the sixth worst affected country in the world in terms of deaths/million - as a comparator will make most countries responses look good. Sweden, however, is up there on the league table of death, in 11th place - just behind the US. In fact Sweden's 577 deaths per million is quite close to the US's 580 deaths per million. Do you think Trump's strategy is one worth looking at too? A fair comparison is with its neighbouring Norway - 84th worst affected country with 49 deaths per million. That doesn't make the Swedish approach look so clever.

As for medical services being withdrawn: I don't know what you're talking about. My partner's dad's cancer treatment is continuing sucessfully with just a slight delay in March/April. When I had an ear infection during lockdown I filled out an online form, the doctor called me within an hour and then asked me to come straight up to the surgery so they could look in my ear. It was quicker than normal. I'm sure there's some disaster stories if you look for them, but in general medical care is carrying on, just in a slightly different way.
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Although it's true that cancer treatment and some other emergency treatment has continued, a lot has been cancelled. I've had six appointments in different fields cancelled this year, as a patient. I was supposed to be starting biologicals for rheumatoid arthritis, was supposed to have a steroid injection followed by surgery on my shoulder, light therapy on my skin, surgery on my salivary glands, and a few other things. It's all been put off practically indefinitely, meaning that I've got about an extra year of pain and illness, and extra damage to my joints, that could have been mitigated.

You don't really have to look for disaster stories.
 
scifisam said:
Although it's true that cancer treatment and some other emergency treatment has continued, a lot has been cancelled. I've had six appointments in different fields cancelled this year, as a patient. I was supposed to be starting biologicals for rheumatoid arthritis, was supposed to have a steroid injection followed by surgery on my shoulder, light therapy on my skin, surgery on my salivary glands, and a few other things. It's all been put off practically indefinitely, meaning that I've got about an extra year of pain and illness, and extra damage to my joints, that could have been mitigated.

You don't really have to look for disaster stories.
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I don't mean to downplay or deny the very real problems people like you are experiencing. I'm sure there's loads of people in your situation as hospitals try to clear the backlog that built up over lockdown, while the staff try to figure out Covid-safe ways of working. I just wanted to put a counterpoint to the idea that health services have all but shut down in this country.

I suspect many of the problems in the health service at the moment are existing problems that have been exacerbated by the pandemic rather than caused by it. When have Mental Health services ever not been in crisis? When has there not been delays in booking treatment? What's new about the fractured semi-privatised structure of the NHS making things harder?

I really hope that you and everyone else on this thread who're having trouble get it sorted out. Good luck :)
 
I came home through the city centre of Leeds last night. Given that it's been all over the national news about the high infection rates here and the possibility of a second 'lockdown' you'd never have guessed. Bars and places all packed out, no social distancing that I could see, no signs of T&T posters, etc. You'd have been hard pressed to notice any difference to a pre-pandemic night out tbh.

It's quite hard not be angry/depressed about humanity sometimes tbh.
 
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Link to the full article.

Produced in the last few weeks and containing data up to August, it states: “The overall analysis suggests Bolton, Manchester, Oldham and Rochdale never really left the epidemic phase – and that nine of the 10 boroughs [of Greater Manchester] are currently experiencing an epidemic phase.”

The five worst-hit areas are all currently in the north-west. Bolton had 98.1 cases per 100,000 people last week, with 63.2 in Bradford, 56.8 in Blackburn and Darwen, 53.6 in Oldham and 46.7 in Salford. Milton Keynes, by comparison, had 5.9 per 100,000, and it was 5.2 in Kent and 3.2 in Southampton.
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www.theguardian.com

Covid-19 ‘could be endemic in deprived parts of England’

A leaked government document suggests the national lockdown did little to cut infection in parts of the north
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 
And yet again I think the city council here are being totally negligent. No door-to-door visits, no city wide warnings through advertising, no leaflets in multiple languages through the letterbox, no vans with loudspeakers going round areas. Absolutely fuck all.
 
LynnDoyleCooper said:
And yet again I think the city council here are being totally negligent. No door-to-door visits, no city wide warnings through advertising, no leaflets in multiple languages through the letterbox, no vans with loudspeakers going round areas. Absolutely fuck all.
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Where's 'here' Lynn?
 
LynnDoyleCooper said:
I came home through the city centre of Leeds last night. Given that it's been all over the national news about the high infection rates here and the possibility of a second 'lockdown' you'd never have guessed. Bars and places all packed out, no social distancing that I could see, no signs of T&T posters, etc. You'd have been hard pressed to notice any difference to a pre-pandemic night out tbh.

It's quite hard not be angry/depressed about humanity sometimes tbh.
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Eh, I agree with you that it is alarming how busy Leeds seems to be but I do think there are a lot of people still being careful. Briggate is busy but I would not say it is anything like as busy as prior to Covid-19. The contrast between now and during lockdown can make it seem as things have got back to normal but Saturday afternoon in Leeds Briggate used to be absolutely rammed. I think there's more people being careful than it can often appear, as the people being less careful are what we notice.

Totally agree with you on the council though. Useless.
 
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maomao said:
I'm studying this year and I have a very shiny booklet on 'dual delivery' education (or a link to a very shiny PDF anyway) and no news yet when my first class or lecture actually is.
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Miss-Shelf said:
I work in a university and I don't know either
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What MS said.
At my work we were supposed to have our timetables released last week and they were just nonsense. Going to be an absolute fucking disaster, anyone who was not brain dead could see that timetabling and preparation for teaching was going to be mental this year and universities needed to start employing extra people to help out back in May but arsehole senior managers more worried about bottom line and their mega-salaries than staff and students.
 
Mrs B was told what modules she's teaching (none of which she's taught before) 2 weeks ago. 😬

On the plus side, admissions are up in her uni (a northern ex-poly) so at least she isn't worrying about impending redundancy. Numbers being up is a little unexpected, I'll be very interested to see what the picture is across the country - anyone know who the winners and losers are yet?
 
maomao said:
I'm studying this year and I have a very shiny booklet on 'dual delivery' education (or a link to a very shiny PDF anyway) and no news yet when my first class or lecture actually is.
Click to expand...

Same here. Teaching in some form starts on the 28th but whether it'll be online or real life remains a mystery. Would be useful to know as I also have to move house that day and will likely have no internet access at the new place for some time.
 
SpookyFrank said:
Same here. Teaching in some form starts on the 28th but whether it'll be online or real life remains a mystery. Would be useful to know as I also have to move house that day and will likely have no internet access at the new place for some time.
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I'm starting tomorrow (eek!) and while it's been a bit last minute they seem to know what they're doing. We're on Microsoft teams for online classes Mondays and Wednesdays and we have actual classes in a classroom every Tuesday (though these will apparently be accessible online too for people who are quarantining). Apart from that, work placements have been put back three weeks and there'll be no observations (apart from mentors) till next year. Lecture groups have been cut in size and core lectures will be recorded but tutorials will be online and extended. I'm reasonably happy with it as it stands (though I don't like MS teams much).
 
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