Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[elbows]

Dump the shite contract with mates of mates & have a word with Germany who had it up & running and adopt their system. It is not rocket engineering. FFS just use something that is proven to work rather than trying to have your own 'world beating' APP.

Germany had a long term different attitude & infrastructure when it comes to mass diagnostics testing, giving them a very different foundation upon which to build a pandemic testing system.

The UK claims to have learnt from them by creating the National Institute of Health Protection, allegedly modelled after the Robert Koch Institute in Germany. Appointing Dido Harding to head it means it has not started with its credibility fully intact, and there are limits as to what it can achieve for this pandemic as opposed to the next one.

 

[elbows]

Doesn't sound good, but I wonder how much the increased testing focused on those areas has played into those numbers.

Percentage of tests positive can help with that, although I only have overall regional numbers to hand rather than being able to zoom in further without much effort.

This from todays latest weekly PHE surveillance report:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/923668/Weekly_COVID19_Surveillance_Report_week_40.pdf

 

[killer b]

Yeah, the story of why can't we just do this instead? is a much longer one than just the last 6 months - you need to look at the last 40 years instead.

 

[elbows]

Yeah, the story of why can't we just do this instead? is a much longer one than just the last 6 months - you need to look at the last 40 years instead.

And I still remember reading that during some period of the first wave, Germany didnt actually have the capacity to maintain their much praised contact tracing system either. However I have not been able to get full confirmation that this is what actually happened, but it sounds very plausible, since pretty much no country seems to have the capacity to do full contact tracing once the number of cases reaches a certain level.

 

[SpookyFrank]

It's just hard to imagine quite how psychopathic you'd have to be to even entertain the idea that 'credit rating' represented an appropriate means of gatekeeping Covid testing. These fuckers are properly sick.

Can you meaningfully be said to exist if you don't have multiple credit cards and a car loan?

They blame austerity on ordinary folk living beyond their means and then punish people who live within them. Arseholes.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Would it be possible/legal to share the NHS info/NI details with a private company though?

They do that all the time already.

Patient data from GP surgeries sold to US companies

Dealings with international pharma raise new fears about American ambitions to access NHS

www.theguardian.com

...then probably using credit checking is the most straightforward & easily accessed way of confirming identity for most people?

Except that this is what they're doing and it doesn't work.

 

[killer b]

They do that all the time already.

Patient data from GP surgeries sold to US companies

Dealings with international pharma raise new fears about American ambitions to access NHS

www.theguardian.com

the data in this story has been anonymised, which would make it pretty useless as a way of checking someone's ID.

 

[SpookyFrank]

the data in this story has been anonymised, which would make it pretty useless as a way of checking someone's ID.

They have a highly cunning way of getting around data protection stuff, namely by asking people if they want to a) share their personal data with whatever private company or b) not have access to this or that essential service. That apparently is a high enough standard of 'consent' to keep the lawyers happy.

 

[two sheds]

The test centres may work for people with cars but how about people who can't afford them or choose to do without them? If I need a test I'm not sure how I'd get to a local test centre (let alone Aberdeen . If you potentially have it then bus and train should be out, can't see taxi drivers welcoming the fare or neighbours being put at risk. Test by post I suppose but why not broadly?

You'd think they'd have mobile test centres, even for testing more widely.

 

[elbows]

The test centres may work for people with cars but how about people who can't afford them or choose to do without them? If I need a test I'm not sure how I'd get to a local test centre (let alone Aberdeen . If you potentially have it then bus and train should be out, can't see taxi drivers welcoming the fare or neighbours being put at risk. Test by post I suppose but why not broadly?

You'd think they'd have mobile test centres, even for testing more widely.

There are mobile popup/walk-in test centres, some army run, including ones that rotate around a region, so they arent actually there every day. However I expect coverage on this side of things is patchy at best. There is one in a multi-storey carpark in my town, and they were often mentioned in press articles about highly localised outbreaks, eg setting some up in Leicester back when they were the first local lockdown area.

 

[LDC]

The test centres may work for people with cars but how about people who can't afford them or choose to do without them? If I need a test I'm not sure how I'd get to a local test centre (let alone Aberdeen . If you potentially have it then bus and train should be out, can't see taxi drivers welcoming the fare or neighbours being put at risk. Test by post I suppose but why not broadly?

You'd think they'd have mobile test centres, even for testing more widely.

They have had some mobile and 'pop-up' test centres, there's been a few near me. A few people I know have had home tests in the last week as well, all have arrived day after they've been requested, then they've had results in about 48 hours.

 

[two sheds]

Would seem sensible if they came to the house (whereever suitable), limit travel for people as much as possible who may have the virus.

 

[killer b]

we have mobile walk in centres in Preston (we are top ten for infections too, which is why they're here I think)

 

[LDC]

Would seem sensible if they came to the house (whereever suitable), limit travel for people as much as possible who may have the virus.

No, that would be just far, far too resource intensive. Imagine the wasted time with people not being in, or the risk to people going round.

 

[planetgeli]

Have we had this article yet?

Covid cases doubled under most local lockdowns in England

"In 11 out of 16 English cities and towns where restrictions were imposed nine weeks ago, the infection rate has at least doubled, with cases in five areas of Greater Manchester rising faster than the England average in that time."

Seems the local lockdowns aren't proving to be a great success. Of course, we don't know how bad things would be without the lockdowns, but if the current rules were effective you'd hope to be seeing case numbers dipping by now.

While there's lots of emphasis on what you can't do in the lockdown areas - mixing households, groups of more than six, etc - there does seem to be a lot you can still do - going to pubs, cafes, restaurants, exercise classes, organised sports, shops and definately keep working, plus travel between these. The only things that seem actually to have been forced shut are nightclubs and pubs/restaurants at 10pm.

It's like they hope the fabled Swedish approach will work on a local level, and the evidence so far suggests it's not.

If Llanelli is anything to go by, the local lockdowns are a joke. Nothing is being policed and everyone I speak to there says there has been little to none change in behaviour.

As an example, my schoolkids are (nearly) all from Llanelli. Today they are on a trip (trips happen every Friday, we are a PRU) to a place that isn't even in Carmarthenshire, let alone Llanelli. As this is designated as 'school' business, sorry education, this is totally permissible.

 

[two sheds]

No, that would be just far, far too resource intensive. Imagine the wasted time with people not being in, or the risk to people going round.

Would it? Works ok for delivery companies with timed deliveries confirmed in advance. Wouldn't have thought there'd be any more risk to the people going round - they stand at the door or gate or van door and do the swab, is that any different?

You may be right, but on the other hand you've got people driving or being driven dozens of miles, perhaps having to fill up with petrol, with risk to those around them.

Announce them with ice cream van chimes cheer people up a bit.

 

[brogdale]

No, that would be just far, far too resource intensive. Imagine the wasted time with people not being in, or the risk to people going round.

In some local lockdown areas, certainly Leicester, that's exactly what has happened in some badly affected areas. When I saw the mobile, door-to-door testing teams going around with their trollies I thought that they were having to hit the areas in which they'd be a higher concentration of those unable/unwilling to apply online or who, like my DiL, would be rejected on the basis of their sparse credit history.

 

[elbows]

Well there was a half-arsed plan to get district nurses to test people at home, it was mentioned in the press in February but I believe the idea was quickly abandoned.

eg Coronavirus: community nurses begin training to carry out home testing

 

[LDC]

In some local lockdown areas, certainly Leicester, that's exactly what has happened in some badly affected areas. When I saw the mobile, door-to-door testing teams going around with their trollies I thought that they were having to hit the areas in which they'd be a higher concentration of those unable/unwilling to apply online or who, like my DiL, would be rejected on the basis of their sparse credit history.

Yeah, in a targeted way in specific areas I can see the value for sure, just not as general national strategy.

 

[two sheds]

I'll leave it there but just on people being out when the van arrived, I'm not sure someone should be going out too much if they thought they had the virus.

 

[killer b]

I'll leave it there but just on people being out when the van arrived, I'm not sure someone should be going out too much if they thought they had the virus.

sorry I was out, i had to get the train to edinburgh

 

[two sheds]

or Durham

 

[LDC]

I'll leave it there but just on people being out when the van arrived, I'm not sure someone should be going out too much if they thought they had the virus.

We'd all like to think that would be the case, but I've done some work on ambulances, and it was reasonably common to go to someone's house for them to have decided they weren't that ill after all and had gone shopping or something. (Add in all the complications of finding some addresses, errors in dispatch, parking time, people not hearing the door, getting grief, etc. and home visits become quite a lot more of a faff that you might think.)

 

[brogdale]

Yeah, in a targeted way in specific areas I can see the value for sure, just not as general national strategy.

I dunno; they reckon they're spending £100bn on testing; that's nearly £1500 for every UK citizen. Surely they'd be able to do a door-to-door for that?

 

[two sheds]

indeed - anyone out twice just shoot them, concentrate peoples' minds

 

[Sue]

The test centres may work for people with cars but how about people who can't afford them or choose to do without them? If I need a test I'm not sure how I'd get to a local test centre (let alone Aberdeen . If you potentially have it then bus and train should be out, can't see taxi drivers welcoming the fare or neighbours being put at risk. Test by post I suppose but why not broadly?

You'd think they'd have mobile test centres, even for testing more widely.

There are some walk-in ones in my London borough (think I saw something about 70% of people not having a car). One's a 15 min walk from where I live which is fine but no idea how many there are and would imagine not everyone's lucky enough to have one so close. (And even a 15 minute walk is maybe not possible for some people. )

 

[quimcunx]

And they are not in the same places every day.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Anyway, I don't particularly want to argue the government's case.

I should stop doing it then, if I were you.

 

[killer b]

Lol right. wanker.

 

[LDC]

I dunno; they reckon they're spending £100bn on testing; that's nearly £1500 for every UK citizen. Surely they'd be able to do a door-to-door for that?

Once you've deducted the profit for the company doing it, it works out at 17.4 pence per person though....