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Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

I have a classmate who claims an exemption from wearing masks on the basis that he has already had Covid (and possibly other reasons that he has told uni but not us) but makes regular contributions to our class Whatsapp group about 'unnecessary lockdowns' and the 'so-called virus'. I really want to kick off (and did politely the first time he did it) but don't want to be the dick in the group. And he's a personable enough fellow otherwise. It really fucking bugs me though. Thankfully no more on site lectures for the time being.
Can you just follow his gubbins by posting links that refute it, without comment, so that anyone who wants to can find out why what he says is bollock?
 
Agreed - it’s always difficult to justify possibly expensive risk mitigation strategy until it is needed, then it’s probably too late and the fingers start pointing afterwards.
One of the significant aspects of the uselessness of this government is their sensitivity towards having fingers pointed at them. More specifically, well-moneyed fingers used to leafing through large wads of banknotes.
 
The one time I did reply to his nonsense I got instant support and agreement. I think others already know and are just better at ignoring him than me. Better all round to keep schtum in this case.
Main thing is to keep lines of communication open rather than send people further down the rabbit hole.
 
I have a classmate who claims an exemption from wearing masks on the basis that he has already had Covid (and possibly other reasons that he has told uni but not us) but makes regular contributions to our class Whatsapp group about 'unnecessary lockdowns' and the 'so-called virus'. I really want to kick off (and did politely the first time he did it) but don't want to be the dick in the group. And he's a personable enough fellow otherwise. It really fucking bugs me though. Thankfully no more on site lectures for the time being.
Raise it with course leaders. Students should be wearing masks unless exempt especially on a school focused course
 
Kieth Starmer, just now: "We all agree schools must stay open..."
Talking about it at work with an international team - the Chinese guy was very surprised our schools and colleges were open. Apparently in China, they were the last things to re-open after the lockdown, and even then only after several weeks without any new cases in the wider community.
 
Raise it with course leaders. Students should be wearing masks unless exempt especially on a school focused course
He's got the little uni exemption sticker. He may even be genuinely exempt for some reason just not for the reasons he's told classmates and he's a conspiracist. And I have no idea what the rules are at his placement and whether he's claimed an exemption there or not.
 
Anyone done any number crunching with March and April rates and lockdown reducing them back then, compared with where we are now and what we can expect the coming weeks in reduction of cases? Feels highly unrealistic to me that with where we are now and the restrictions we have about to start we can get the rates down in anything like the planned 4 weeks. Even if they are down surely in 4 weeks we'll be in still having high rates of hospitalisations and deaths still? Be interested to see the figures and timescale...
 
Anyone done any number crunching with March and April rates and lockdown reducing them back then, compared with where we are now and what we can expect the coming weeks in reduction of cases? Feels highly unrealistic to me that with where we are now and the restrictions we have about to start we can get the rates down in anything like the planned 4 weeks. Even if they are down surely in 4 weeks we'll be in still having high rates of hospitalisations and deaths still? Be interested to see the figures and timescale...
You won't be surprised when this purgatory lasts longer than four weeks
 
I'm not convinced if it goes to parliament for a vote on any extension in 4 weeks that it will get passed though?
The lockdown is too short to make any real difference. The government insists on keeping major channels of infection open in schools and universities. There is no reasonable track and trace system or a testing regime which would identify precisely the nodes of contagion. It's all grasping at straws in the dark while billions of pounds of taxpayers' money are spaffed into Johnson's mates' pockets. And we have yet to see how the virus really transmits in the cold. There'll be an extension. Because what else can they do, admit their utter incompetence?
 
Anyone done any number crunching with March and April rates and lockdown reducing them back then, compared with where we are now and what we can expect the coming weeks in reduction of cases? Feels highly unrealistic to me that with where we are now and the restrictions we have about to start we can get the rates down in anything like the planned 4 weeks. Even if they are down surely in 4 weeks we'll be in still having high rates of hospitalisations and deaths still? Be interested to see the figures and timescale...

Such an exercise would not be easy to accomplish, and even if it were I would not likely be capable.

Its not easy because they dont know what R the measures will actually achieve. And if R varies in other settings like care homes and hospitals then this also changes the timescale of how quickly and how to expect things to improve. After all, even the admission rate statistics are not pure, they include people who are already in hospital and are catching it there, so they dont give us an unblemished indicator of new community severe case levels. This also includes the idea that some of the people who catch it in hospital will not become ill enough from Covid-19 to have otherwise been admitted to hospital, they remain in hospital for the other reasons that caused them to be admitted in the first place.

The closest I might be able to suggest from other sources is things like that graph the other day of how long lockdown needs to last under a variety of possible values for R. I think it was from independent sage and it wasnt me that posted it.
 
The lockdown is too short to make any real difference.

I do not recognise this concept, or rather I consider it to be a dangerous and counterproductive sentiment especially when what counts as a 'real difference' is not defined.

It all matters. Whether its enough depends on what goals you are trying to achieve. But in terms of individual lives being saved, it all matters, even when it falls well short of being ideal or bringing the situation under control. Anything is better than nothing, the little things arent pointless and dont let anyone tell you otherwise.
 
Such an exercise would not be easy to accomplish, and even if it were I would not likely be capable.

Its not easy because they dont know what R the measures will actually achieve. And if R varies in other settings like care homes and hospitals then this also changes the timescale of how quickly and how to expect things to improve. After all, even the admission rate statistics are not pure, they include people who are already in hospital and are catching it there, so they dont give us an unblemished indicator of new community severe case levels. This also includes the idea that some of the people who catch it in hospital will not become ill enough from Covid-19 to have otherwise been admitted to hospital, they remain in hospital for the other reasons that caused them to be admitted in the first place.

The closest I might be able to suggest from other sources is things like that graph the other day of how long lockdown needs to last under a variety of possible values for R. I think it was from independent sage and it wasnt me that posted it.

Thanks, yeah it'd be a complex mix of factors, expect somewhere it's been done, and I have seen modelling that shows what fraction of R1.0 each aspect of lockdown will bring. My SWAG makes it not at all likely we'll be anywhere near sorting the rates in 4 weeks. Less compliance, less strict, and less time than March/April.
 
Thanks, yeah it'd be a complex mix of factors, expect somewhere it's been done, and I have seen modelling that shows what fraction of R1.0 each aspect of lockdown will bring. My SWAG makes it not at all likely we'll be anywhere near sorting the rates in 4 weeks. Less compliance, less strict, and less time than March/April.

They have a fairly low degree of confidence in their estimates for what difference each measure for R has, and also end up suggesting that its not as simple as just adding up all the different R impacts of each measure to reach a total. And there is a very complicated picture nationally in terms of how busy hospitals are (and busy is also bad for hospital infection) and how much behaviours had already been modified for months by local lockdowns and the level of infection within the community, the base level of current infection that the impact of R will then either decrease or increase.

And as I always say with things like closing schools, that measure has a big impact not just because of the direct school infection pathway, but because closing schools disrupts other activities that adults do when things are more normal. eg the lack of 'schools as childcare facilities' is one of the reasons the measure works, and thats not in effect when schools are fully open and people are told to still go to work.

The first time round the behavioural changes and then lockdown a week later showed up very dramatically in all of the hospital data. It was a change that couldnt be missed and it didnt even take too many days of lag before it being obvious that the peak really had been reached, even via deaths statistics which are especially laggy.

But when I drill down to data I have now for use in hindsight, but that I didnt have at the actual time of the first wave, such as total COVID-19 beds occupied per hospital trust, the picture the first time around is quite a bit more complicated. There are stories to be figured out that the data merely tips me off about but does not provide the underlying story of. I will fish out a couple of graphs and make a follow up post with a pretty vivid example of what I mean, and then I will rant about what unfinished business this reveals that leaves me very unsatisfied right now.
 
I do not recognise this concept, or rather I consider it to be a dangerous and counterproductive sentiment especially when what counts as a 'real difference' is not defined.

It all matters. Whether its enough depends on what goals you are trying to achieve. But in terms of individual lives being saved, it all matters, even when it falls well short of being ideal or bringing the situation under control. Anything is better than nothing, the little things arent pointless and dont let anyone tell you otherwise.
One 'target' which I've seen mentioned for these 4 weeks of restrictions is to bring R down below 1.

I suspect, though this is a gut feeling rather than anything more scientific, that that target won't be met, and that an extension is therefore likely.
 
I do not recognise this concept, or rather I consider it to be a dangerous and counterproductive sentiment especially when what counts as a 'real difference' is not defined.

It all matters. Whether its enough depends on what goals you are trying to achieve. But in terms of individual lives being saved, it all matters, even when it falls well short of being ideal or bringing the situation under control. Anything is better than nothing, the little things arent pointless and dont let anyone tell you otherwise.
Ok, it won't stop the circulation of the disease even if it temporarily reduces the r number. If there was any genuine will to bring this plague under control then there wouldn't be this arbitrary month, they'd have said straight off this will be at least a month. This won't be the last lockdown.
 
This won't be the last lockdown.

Indeed most of my predictions since the first wave happened have been almost entirely sponsored by the simple idea that there is a level of strain on the hospital system which forces even this shit government to blink and then act, and that it is therefore makes no sense to ever predict no more lockdowns, tightening of measures and u-turns. And that the Barrington clowns with their 'just shield the vulnerable' bullshit have nothing of substance to offer that could seriously change that fundamental equation.
 
What I didn't realise until the other day was that the Barrington declaration is a bit like that Backing Blair petition we had some fun with years ago. One of the eminent clinicians who's signed it is actually longdog.

I knew their were loads of fake names, I tried to sign up as Dr Toby Jug, but needed a fake email address, so didn't bother, fair play to longdog, :thumbs:
 
But when I drill down to data I have now for use in hindsight, but that I didnt have at the actual time of the first wave, such as total COVID-19 beds occupied per hospital trust, the picture the first time around is quite a bit more complicated. There are stories to be figured out that the data merely tips me off about but does not provide the underlying story of. I will fish out a couple of graphs and make a follow up post with a pretty vivid example of what I mean, and then I will rant about what unfinished business this reveals that leaves me very unsatisfied right now.

I just cobbled some graphs together to illustrate a point or two but they are rather unpolished. My focus is on the first wave and these graphs vary a little in terms of how much recent data I tacked onto the end of them, but that period isnt the point anyway so...

There is what I would call the classic shape of curve for number of Covid patients in hospital, very similar to all the other sorts of data curves you'll have seen throughout this pandemic. Variations on this shape were seen across many trusts. Here is just one example:

Screenshot 2020-11-02 at 20.32.57.png

But there are plenty of exceptions to this too, and therein lies stories. Some may be stories of bad data, or when sudden changes happen, a correction of data or change in case definitions. Some might be stories about the success of lockdown in that particular area, or less success, or specific ongoing outbreaks. Some are stories about hospital outbreaks which were eventually spotted and dealt with. Hospital outbreaks that were eventually dealt with is actually a good fit for very many of the different shapes shown, but since I am biased about that issue I am bound to see it and be keen to attribute things I see to that cause, perhaps unfairly.

And when I look at them, I also think of other stories from past months, such as the ones about how lockdown never brought the virus under control in various places up North in the same way it did down south and in the zoomed out, big picture national statistics. I have mixed feelings about some of those stories, because even the hospital graphs I look at do show that even in places that allegedly never got the virus under control in the first place, eventually their numbers did come down, there was still respite for the healthcare service for a chunk of summer. So something must have worked at some point! Which being me often leads me straight back to one of my subjects of strong focus, hospital infections and periods where a grip was eventually gotten on such things. And much of what I say about hospital infections can also be applied to the care home sector.

I'm sticking the other graphs that deviate from the classic one shown above in spoiler tags to stop this post from being way too long when scrolling through this thread. Many other examples are available but I got overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of data, points I could try to make, correlation between extra peaks on some of these graphs and known hospital outbreaks (eg Weston) so I just picked a few examples at random.

Also, in regards to looking for signs of when measures have worked big time, these graphs all have one thing in common - even though the subsequent downwards trajectory varies considerably, and there are timing variations between different places, they all show the moment when the numbers stopped increasing. So the first signs of success were very large and dramatic, even where later moments in the graphs are stories of failure. Although do have to be a bit careful with this point because hospital data is also influenced by admissions policies (including artificial demand destruction by raising the bar for admission), discharge policy, and how many patients are dying and how quickly. So I should repeat the exercise with other data such as admissions, especially when looking for signs in the coming weeks. So I dont consider the following to be completely ideal illustrations for my points today, but they are all I have to hand right now and I'm rushing so I can take a break from this side of things for a little while.

Screenshot 2020-11-02 at 21.00.13.png

Screenshot 2020-11-02 at 20.29.06.png
Screenshot 2020-11-02 at 20.27.22.png
Screenshot 2020-11-02 at 20.24.34.png

By the way despite all the horrible death-related graphs I've done in this pandemic, so far its actually been the degree of variation between different hospital trust graphs that I've found most upsetting to contemplate. But its just the starting point for further inquiry, I am not in a position to tell all the proper stories that lurk behind the variety of shapes shown.
 

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I'm starting to find it a bit confusing, I have friends from all levels of class , and they are all good people , i mean proper sound people, who put on your parties and festivals , work in your banks and in our pubs and EVERYONE is chatting about civil unrest. Its weird ,ive never seen it before at this level
 
Well thats an increasing issue in Europe and the authorities here are probably expecting more trouble than last time. I wouldnt know what to predict myself, and there are many different ways people could talk about it. For example lots of people here were talking about it the first time around, but not in the sense that they supported it, just that they expected it. In the end there was much less of a backlash than they expected. My own expectations are pretty blank, I will just wait and see, but in theory I would expect more trouble this time than last. Most people I know support lockdown, but then I dont know that many people, and I am currently mostly disconnected from the younger members of society. I am somewhat connected to bitter middle-aged people who will make noises about unrest in order to let off steam and justify their petty rulebreaking as being part of some grand cause, but right now I'm trying to avoid reading what they say online and I'm certainly not mixing with any of them in the physical world.
 
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I'm starting to find it a bit confusing, I have friends from all levels of class , and they are all good people , i mean proper sound people, who put on your parties and festivals , work in your banks and in our pubs and EVERYONE is chatting about civil unrest. Its weird ,ive never seen it before at this level

Keep people cooped up for 6 months to a year and shit starts to bubble.
 
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