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Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

Interesting that cases in Barnet have fallen this week compared to last (86 cases this week according to BBC, 16 fewer than last week) - don't know if this is just lack of tests, or a sign that it's not on as steep a path upwards as March/April. Yet.
 
Interesting that cases in Barnet have fallen this week compared to last (86 cases this week according to BBC, 16 fewer than last week) - don't know if this is just lack of tests, or a sign that it's not on as steep a path upwards as March/April. Yet.
Well in these parts, it looks likely the former.

'"In Stamford Hill, just 84 tests were available, at a centre that routinely saw several hundred people a day - even before schools reopened and people were encouraged to return to their offices'.

Two weeks ago Hackney had the highest number of positive cases diagnosed in London, but this week the borough is way down the list at 17 out of 32 boroughs.'

 
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Hancock announcement due 11am tomorrow - according to leader of Newcastle council

They (the councils) need something to enforce social distancing / curfews / mask wearing - because "when the drinks in the brains are out" although I think the proposals are still too weak, especially with this mantra about going back to work, pubs and schools (PM & Chancellor also need to extend a modified & more selective furlough scheme or find some other way to protect jobs in certain sectors).

I'm lucky enough to live in a low rate / rural area.
But at the weekend loads of non-local bodies (without masks) were milling around in the "town centre" all far too close to each other, especially in the market place and local park. As for the bus queues !
 
Just a former director of the WHO who has been commentating critically on the UK government handling of the pandemic since the early days, injecting reality into a distorted early picture on many occasions. I have not monitored his track record since though.

He’s involved in Independent Sage and I’d take him to be one of the most reliable voices around, whether or not he’s right in this instance.
 
In order to judge the 38,000 infections per day claim, we'd need to know what proportion of cases they think the testing system was picking up on the last day in which the number actually rose (ie just before the issues with testing system supply and demand manifested to such an extent that no numbers 'by date of specimen' managed to exceed that total on any subsequent day yet, which currently looks to be around September 7th). And we'd need to know what they think the doubling time has been since then.

Since I dont know the answers to those, if I instead take the data up till around September 7th at face value, then its hard to get anywhere close to 38,000 by now without a very short doubling time indeed. What is much easier to achieve is if the 38,000 relates to cases in the last 7 days, not a single day. Given that from September 1st to 7th it went from a bit over 10,000 to a bit over 20,000, that seems plausible and a reasonable fit. However this might just be a coincidence and the 38,000 he got really is supposed to be a daily figure but one that was modelled in a fancier way rather than being a simple projection forwards of the actual number of cases detected.
 
I was taking it as an estimate of the number of actual infections in the real world rather than the number that would be picked up by testing, if testing was working.
 
Its a shame I dont know more about the estimates they've had internally leading up till this moment.

Well, I know about the ONS survey one, because it is published every week. But the most recent version currently available covers a time period that already feels like quite a long time ago in epidemic terms:


During the most recent week (30 August to 5 September 2020), we estimate there were around 0.58 (95% credible interval: 0.38 to 0.84) new COVID-19 infections for every 10,000 people per day in the community population in England, equating to around 3,200 new cases per day (95% credible interval: 2,000 to 4,600).

However it is not as simple as comparing that to the actual number of positives that were detected through testing on days in that period, because when they say community population, their estimates only apply to private residential cases, not hospital cases or care homes or other institutional settings.

I dont even know if that 38,000 number is supposed to be for the whole UK or England or England and Wales.

But dont get me wrong, its not a completely insane and implausible number, I'm just probing it and what it could actually refer to because thats what I do. I'm always droning on about how easily small numbers can become big numbers, and the guesstimates about how many new cases there were every day at the peak of infection in the first wave were very much larger still. In some ways I'm more interested in what they think the current doubling time might be. And as I also always go on about, whether they have any useful data from sewage surveillance that is feeding into their current picture in a useful way.
 
I'll reserve my thoughts on that Cameron stuff for another day.

Regarding the whole number of infections and lockdown decisions thing, despite the various numbers stuff I was just waffling on about I am actually keener on thinking about it from a different angle:

Whatever the actual number of daily infections right now, the key thing is that it is clearly too many for the testing system to cope with.

And regardless of what Whitty advises Johnson and what Johnson agrees to do in regards lockdown, how exactly is the 'new normal' that has been phased in over months supposed to continue in that way when test rationing, largely restricting tests to priority groups seems to be on the cards?

They spent a long time earlier this year telling us that testing & contact tracing was key to being able to relax various restrictions. Even without a new formal lockdown, aspects of peoples lives will inevitably grind to a halt again when there is no timely testing system available. And resulting loss of confidence tends to spill over into other areas.

This probably is the sort of moment where I would slam the brakes on for a bit. Its the only genuine way to reduce demand for testing, reduce the number of infections.
 
Here's the twat and the staff he's reckelessly endangering

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A lot of that bollocks seems to be down to a combination of understanding (sort of) that masks don't protect you, and a misunderstanding that wearing a mask is supposed to protect you.

It seems to be really hard to grasp the difference between the PPE that we all know that frontline workers need in order to protect themselves with the idea that wearing masks and face coverings in a general setting is meant to protect other people, and that this is reciprocal.

My mask protects you. Your mask protects me.

I'm not sure that message is getting out clearly enough.
 
Thank you, MrSki and elbows, I was just about to ask this very question (by how much of a factor we think - fear! - unreported cases have risen since test/trace/isolate has broken down), and your posts have answered it - in as much as possible.
 
My mask protects you. Your mask protects me.

I'm not sure that message is getting out clearly enough.
Absolutely. And the reason it isn't being shouted from the rooftops is because the last thing this bunch of utter cunts in charge want or accidentally consider is the concept of people looking after one another. They're all The weak shall perish in their void hearts
 
Is it just this country whose testing system has entirely broken does anyone know - are the testing systems in for instance France Germany etc still functioning?
 
I don't normally go with the 'thick/selfish twats' line when it comes to specific outbreaks, preferring to focus on the context created by our inept rulers. But in this case you do have to wonder, whilst still noting it was the government that allowed crowds into Doncaster Races:

Looks like the race meeting was forced to ban spectators after the first day:

So, yeah, people make some bad decisions, leading to a spike in cases, but they do it in a shitty context create by Johnson et al.

Turns out they didn't actually go to the races.

A statement on Wednesday evening from the Welsh Government clarified the party did not attend the races being held in the South Yorkshire town, as part of a pilot event for 2,500 people.

Doncaster Racecourse has confirmed it had no ticket bookings for any groups from south Wales for the event.

"Doncaster Racecourse has received no contact from any organisation, including the NHS or the Welsh Government, to verify the attendance of any individuals at last week's event for the purposes of track and trace," it said.

 
Is it just this country whose testing system has entirely broken does anyone know - are the testing systems in for instance France Germany etc still functioning?

According to this, which is only up to 10th Sept., the UK is ahead of France & Spain on testing, whereas they are both ahead of us on cases.

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I can see the curfew on pubs & restaurants going national very soon.

But asked whether further measures such as a curfew could be put into place, the prime minister told The Sun newspaper: “I don’t think we are yet in that position but look around the world at what other countries are doing. What I don’t want to be doing is locking down sections of the economy.

“I remember when the pubs used to close at 11 anyway in the old days. That sort of thing, we will be looking at it.”

 
What does "curfew" mean in the UK? We had curfews in Turkey in the Spring, and they meant people couldn't leave their homes (apart from the garden, and key worker type people with permission slips). Does it just mean pubs are closed here?
 
Haha what the fuck.


Hey Dave! Thanks for popping up with this self-justifying nonsense to remind us what a total shitbag you are. With the current clown car to hell laying waste to the country after May's made-of-fail administration it's starting to slip minds the levels of extreme cuntitude you aspired to with your smash-and-grab on the nation for your rich mates. 120,000 dead from austerity. Not even Johnson has killed that many people yet.
 
What does "curfew" mean in the UK? We had curfews in Turkey in the Spring, and they meant people couldn't leave their homes (apart from the garden, and key worker type people with permission slips). Does it just mean pubs are closed here?

In this context it just seems to be earlier closing for the likes of pubs & restaurants, which we are already seeing happen in certain areas.
 
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