Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[StoneRoad]

Annnnd we're now an area of intervention with special measures. But not til Tuesday, so we're all absolutely fine for the weekend. Right-o.

I think that when these extra restrictions are announced, they should be implemented asap and within 24hrs at the most. Waiting until after a weekend is bloody ridiculous.

 

[elbows]

I have seen signs in recent weeks that the opposite issue to what happened in March may be happening in peoples minds in regards London.

I complained that in March the government told Londoners that they were ahead of the rest of the country in the pandemic, and that they should pay special attention to the advice and measures.

This was fair enough in some ways, and London was a bit ahead, but the problem was that various other places were not really so far behind London, the risks to people in those other places was also high but the government messaging didnt reflect this enough.

Well now we might have the opposite issue. Months of focus on hotspots in the midlands and up north has led to me seeing the occasional comment on this forum that Londoners arent at especially high risk right now. I believe that stance is not appropriate, its weeks out of date.

Coronavirus: 'Widespread virus growth across the country'

The R number has risen to between 1.1 and 1.4 as officials warn of "far worse things to come".

www.bbc.co.uk

New cases of coronavirus could be hitting 6,000 a day in England, with "clear evidence" of a rise in positive tests in the under-35s, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The ONS found infection rates were higher in the North West and London, based on random testing of thousands of people in households.

 

[LDC]

I think these extra restrictions are announced, they should be implemented asap and within 24hrs at the most. Waiting until after a weekend is bloody ridiculous.

That's my gut feeling too, but I'm assuming that the reason why that doesn't happen is there's some modelling that shows a warning before implementation increases compliance in the longer term, which I can see being the case tbh. When some measures have been announced suddenly, people moan about that like fuck and say they wanted a warning.

 

[TopCat]

How much credence are people giving the estimated numbers from the Zoe tracking thing? A friend (who's been doing it) says it's currently estimating 192/100k in my borough. Which sounds like a lot?

It does sound like a lot.

 

[Fez909]

I'd like to see some people perform their own exercises with case numbers data. Because we have seen a doubling time estimate of a week mentioned in the press. So its not hard to pick a number of current daily infections, for example from the weekly ONS survey or from Zoe covid, and then double that number for every week that we dont take action. See what sort of number you end up with after 4 or 6 weeks.

Of course it isnt quite that simple because of various new regional measures, and the doubling time could increase or decrease over time, and the current estimate for it might be wrong (they certainly got it wrong in early March) but it might still be able to give people some feel for the situation and a practical refresher on exponential growth.

By my calculations, over ONE BILLION brits will have coronavirus on Christmas day

Spoiler

18/09/2020​	69,687​
25/09/2020​	139,374​
02/10/2020​	278,748​
09/10/2020​	557,496​
16/10/2020​	1,114,992​
23/10/2020​	2,229,984​
30/10/2020​	4,459,968​
06/11/2020​	8,919,936​
13/11/2020​	17,839,872​
20/11/2020​	35,679,744​
27/11/2020​	71,359,488​
04/12/2020​	142,718,976​
11/12/2020​	285,437,952​
18/12/2020​	570,875,904​
25/12/2020​	1,141,751,808​

 

[Sue]

It does sound like a lot.

They were talking about a local lockdown a couple of weeks ago and sending letters out to people in the areas affected but doesn't seem to have happened. And obviously the whole testing thing is a complete shambles so who knows what's going on.

Coronavirus: Hackney’s top officials slam government’s ‘shambolic’ system as hundreds turned away from testing centres

Top officials in Hackney have slammed the government’s coronavirus testing system as a shambles, after hundreds of people who needed...

www.hackneygazette.co.uk

 

[elbows]

By my calculations, over ONE BILLION brits will have coronavirus on Christmas day

Ha

To be honest I was thinking more of number of daily new infections, but I presume you used number of weekly infections or number of people currently thought to be ill with it instead?

 

[Cloo]

So this week I think that I have heard of more people I know with symptoms (though not all with positive tests) than I did in any week in March/April. It could just be more awareness of symptoms, eg a number of them have got a weird taste in their mouth, and they may yet prove to be mild cases that others actually did have unknowingly earlier in the year. Or it could be that older, vulnerable people have got a much worse load coming…. Or again, that it is getting more infectious, but milder, as some scientists have posited. Thus far people seem to have had it for a few days without feeling especially atrocious, or they may not have got to the cough/chest pain bit yet.

 

[frogwoman]

September tho? With the change in weather there's a lot more respiratory stuff going around, not all of it covid related

 

[crossthebreeze]

The big issue in the North east is that the regulations & guidelines for the local restrictions allow for various types of paid-for childcare - childminders, nannies, nurseries etc - but not informal childcare. Loads of people taken off furlough or told to stop working from home now have to choose between losing income/job or breaking the law.

 

[elbows]

September tho? With the change in weather there's a lot more respiratory stuff going around, not all of it covid related

And then take that stuff and look at the implications of it. Eg the effects on all sorts of parts of society from the levels of staff absences we may see this winter, especially if there is no viable mass testing system to rule out Covid-19 in all essential workers and allow them to go back to work.

 

[chilango]

Yesterday I was walking through the oak when saw a group of c.20 young people sat around in group on the grass, probably about 0.5 - 1m apart on average. No masks. Busy chatting etc.

For a moment I reflected upon the Government advice to call the cops in such circumstances, but then I remembered...


...I wasn't in the park I was on campus.

 

[quimcunx]

That reminds me I've been meaning to ask/confirm if the BLM protests that everyone supported but just NOT NOW were shown to have little or no effect?

 

[Cloo]

That reminds me I've been meaning to ask/confirm if the BLM protests that everyone supported but just NOT NOW were shown to have little or no effect?

I wondered about that. Haven't seen any reports of protests known to have led to widespread infections

 

[elbows]

That reminds me I've been meaning to ask/confirm if the BLM protests that everyone supported but just NOT NOW were shown to have little or no effect?

Although much was made of contact tracing, the scientific advisors never expected that the test & trace system and PHE outbreak investigation stuff would actually manage to identify every sort of outbreak scenario and factor properly. For example I'm sure I read papers where they did not think that system would yeild data useful enough to tell them about the role of supermarkets in the spread of the disease. And if they cant figure out supermarkets, I doubt they can figure out what role if any those protests had.

So I have to look at these things in theory rather than expecting to ever have the theory confirmed or rejected by hard evidence.

In theory even if there was a large increased risk of transmission as a result of behaviours linked to the protests, this would be a multiplier of what infection was already there. And since the highest profile of the protests coincided with a period where the rate of infection in the community was rather low, the expected impact would have been relatively low.

Length of time that the riskier behaviours happened for also a factor. Even the most foolish of the Johnson relaxation measures took time to contribute notably to the bigger increases in infection that we are now seeing, and those were measures that tend to affect behaviour all day every day by a rather large number of people.

 

[xenon]

That's my gut feeling too, but I'm assuming that the reason why that doesn't happen is there's some modelling that shows a warning before implmentation increases compliance in the longer term, which I can see being the case tbh. When some measures have been announced suddenly, people moan about that like fuck and say they wanted a warning.

And if they involve travel restrictions, you need to give people some time to change plans, e.g. to get home.

 

[zahir]

Today’s Independent Sage briefing.

 

[elbows]

"We are facing the risk again of expediential growth in Covid."

Taken from an article that also suggests Sturgeon is more in tune with '4 weeks behind France' than the 6 weeks crap someone alerted me to earlier.

Covid in Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon issues warning over tougher rules

The first minister says some "hard but necessary" decisions will need to be taken in the coming days.

www.bbc.co.uk

The next few days will be "critical" in deciding what steps will be taken to stop the spread of Covid-19 in Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon has said.

The first minister said the virus was on the rise and was now spreading "quite rapidly".

She said it was likely that some "hard but necessary" decisions would need to be taken in the coming days.

"If we want to avoid another full-scale lockdown, doing nothing almost certainly isn't an option," she said.

Ms Sturgeon warned that the country was following the path of France, which four weeks ago was in the same position that Scotland is now.

 

[elbows]

I'm always looking for signs that my sense of timing has not got much worse compared to March, since I dont want to mislead people. There is a sign in the Guardian that my thinking about the October half-term 'circuit breaker' being older advice, older timing rather than the latest state of thinking behind the scenes might be right.

Some reports had suggested this “circuit-breaker” which would fall short of a full lockdown, could coincide with autumn half-term in late October, to minimise disruption, but government sources said if it did take place, it would be likely to happen sooner. An announcement could come as early as next week.

PM considers imposing Covid 'circuit break' across England

Boris Johnson thinking about short-term restrictions that could include closing pubs

www.theguardian.com

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

Anyone seen this YouTube on vitamin D? It sounds too good to be true. But is it?

 

[chilango]

Anyone seen this YouTube on vitamin D? It sounds too good to be true. But is it?

We get Vitamin D from sunlight, right? So presumably sunny countries like Spain and Italy will have comparatively easier times of it during the Pandemic, right?

 

[platinumsage]

We get Vitamin D from sunlight, right? So presumably sunny countries like Spain and Italy will have comparatively easier times of it during the Pandemic, right?

No, not if people don't strip off and sunbathe. Older people in those two countries tend to avoid the sun, and there are actually high deficiency levels there.

 

[chilango]

No, not if people don't strip off and sunbathe. Older people in those two countries tend to avoid the sun, and there are actually high deficiency levels there.

Fair enough. Was being tongue in cheek anyway.

 

[two sheds]

Not sure what the video shows but I've seen vitamin D recommended from good sources. I'm taking supplements into winter certainly.

 

[StoneRoad]

I've managed a decent tan this year, and topped it up regularly.

I wonder how long such reserves last ? (anyone know off hand ?)

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

We get Vitamin D from sunlight, right? So presumably sunny countries like Spain and Italy will have comparatively easier times of it during the Pandemic, right?

If you’ve got the time to watch the youtube you’ll see that the latest vitamin d trials are actually from Spain. There are problems with the size of the tests, but it seems to be very impressive.

 

[MrSki]

4322 new cases today. Up 1100 on yesterday.

 

[bimble]

i've been taking vitamin d pills since around march having read something that sounded convincing. No idea if thats why I'm not dead yet though.

 

[maomao]

i've been taking vitamin d pills since around march having read something that sounded convincing. No idea if thats why I'm not dead yet though.

I just sunbathed through furlough and I start vit D supplements every September anyway.

 

[platinumsage]

I've managed a decent tan this year, and topped it up regularly.

I wonder how long such reserves last ? (anyone know off hand ?)

It'll be downhill from now until March. At what point it becomes suboptimal will vary with the individual.