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Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

Sounds like we are going to find out how much they fuck up a city-wide testing scheme:

I'm really glad that my area, St Helens, is gonna be covered by this. Will report back, obviously, but me and the fella will be going for these tests, see how regular we can get them, and how accessible they will actually be.

Rates are coming down round here though, since Tier 3 started. Here and in Liverpool. So that's a tiny something, eh?
 
Ive been watching all this with interest. I’m also watching what is happening with regard to Brits wanting to come over here. I’m shocked that so many are finding different ways of breaking the rules both here and there. It seems to be becoming almost a matter of pride with some to find a way of coming here on holiday and flouting the closure of our internal borders, and ignoring the nothing but essential travel rules there.

There‘s a huge amount of pedantic semantics around the regulations in the U.K. and the fact that there are several days before they come into effect. People are unutterably short sighted.

I’m following the rules, as are all my Spanish friends, but Brits think they have the right to do exactly as they please. I had to go to the airport three or four weeks ago, the vast majority of people not wearing masks were almost all British. What the fuck is wrong with you people?
 
Ive been watching all this with interest. I’m also watching what is happening with regard to Brits wanting to come over here. I’m shocked that so many are finding different ways of breaking the rules both here and there. It seems to be becoming almost a matter of pride with some to find a way of coming here on holiday and flouting the closure of our internal borders, and ignoring the nothing but essential travel rules there.

There‘s a huge amount of pedantic semantics around the regulations in the U.K. and the fact that there are several days before they come into effect. People are unutterably short sighted.

I’m following the rules, as are all my Spanish friends, but Brits think they have the right to do exactly as they please. I had to go to the airport three or four weeks ago, the vast majority of people not wearing masks were almost all British. What the fuck is wrong with you people?

You are seeing a very tiny subset of people. By the very nature anyone pulling this sort of trick is going to be a selfish wanker so its hardly surprising that they are all selfish wankers.
 
And there you have it



Sir Rocco Forte was banging on about the Great Barrington Declaration on Sky business news this morning.
He is obviously an excitable fellow - abeit at 75. According to Wikipedia he paid for a victory party to celebrate Boris becoming leader of the Tory Party - then gave £100,000 towards the Tory General Election campaign last year.

Boris is not doing what he was told by Rocco though - yet.

Nice to know that Rocco is in company with Mr Banana Rama and Harold Shipman in supporting Great Barrington Great Barrington Declaration - Wikipedia
 
What the fuck is wrong with you people?

Messaging so mixed people aren't convinced it's that bad, I reckon. They opened the travel corridor to Brit favourite Tenerife (among other places)last week, before locking down and saying don't travel, this week. School's were closed last lockdown, but not this. The Government ran a scheme subsidising getting as many people as possible out into restaurants, but is now closing them all. Plus some politicians very clearly not following government guidelines with no censure whatsoever.

(Plus all of this leading to more than usual belief in conspiracy lunacy)
 
T-cell immunity stuff that I dont actually have time to read and think about properly right now but I should post it anyway.

Broad overview here. Apparent immunity measured but this study does not provide evidence of correlation with protection against reinfection (that would require exposure trials). It does underline that antibody assays alone do not provide sufficient information about the immunity of any given person.

Preprint - 'Robust SARS-CoV-2-specific T-cell immunity is maintained at 6 months following primary infection', Zuo et al., DOI:10.1101/2020.11.01.362319
 
It should be fascinating. How bad do you think it will go? What will they do with test refusniks?

I dont know, there are many aspects of new testing that I support and think is part of the future, so most of my skepticism is sponsored by the government midhandling of things every step of the way so far, rather than anything specific with these tests.

I dont think they will push the test refusenik issue at this stage, they will focus on those who are willing to engage. I'll be very interested to see what sort of numbers this scale of testing produces.
 
It wont be surprising if this happens, since its been on the cards for a while. If infections due to the reduction in self-isolation time are more than compensated for by greater compliance then I wont complain.

The Guardian also understands that the self-isolation period for those who test positive for coronavirus, and their contacts, could be cut from the current 14-day period to seven days as early as this week.

 
What do you say to someone who isn't worried because the average age of death in the uk is 82? They even know a couple of people with post viral fatigue, but still think it's basically a problem of very elderly people dying slightly earlier.
 
On the contrary, I think people will be made up to be able to access testing without symptoms.

Agreed. If I had some sort of family event tomorrow that was being attended by my parents, it would be great to go and get us all tested before hand. I've mentioned before in other threads that the only way I can see us getting back to normality is through testing. We are never going to get track and trace sorted whilst it's being run by the governments cronies and vaccines aren't ready yet so it's either mass testing or more lockdowns.
 
What do you say to someone who isn't worried because the average age of death in the uk is 82? They even know a couple of people with post viral fatigue, but still think it's basically a problem of very elderly people dying slightly earlier.

I would probably resort to intensive care statistics like those I stuck on the nerdy thread recently.

ICNARC – Reports

Screenshot 2020-11-03 at 12.06.47.png
 
This has just gone out to HE students. Sorry for the formatting fuck up, I got it through work and haven't got time to disentangle it. Presumably a more readable version will be out there. The underlined was the bit that struck me. A bit vague and the possibility of phased returns home?

What a truly fucking stupid decision it was to get them on campus in the first place.

Michelle Donelan MP Minister of State for Universities Sanctuary Buildings 20 Great Smith Street Westminster London SW1P 3BT tel: 0370 000 2288 www.education.gov.uk/help/contactus 2 nd November 2020

Dear students, I understand the questions that many of you may have following the Prime Minister’s announcement on Saturday, outlining the new national restrictions due to come into place on 5 November 2020. Things have moved quickly as we continue to respond to the pandemic, but I wanted to write to you at the earliest opportunity to explain how these restrictions will affect you and your studies. We are in the process of finalising guidance setting out what these new restrictions will mean for Higher Education, universities, and students, and this will be available shortly. This guidance will explain that: • By keeping universities open, we are prioritising education so that there is no gap in your academic journeys and lives. • As for everyone under the new national restrictions from 5 November, you should stay in your current home. This means you should not leave your term time address to return to your parents’ or carer’s home until at least 2 December - and should continue to learn at university for the remainder of this term. o The reason we are asking you to remain at your university area and not to travel home before the new restrictions come into place on Thursday is to prevent any further spread of COVID 19 – any movement around the country will risk the lives of our loved ones. o I know and appreciate that a number of you may want to be back with your family during this difficult time, but I urge you to stay where you are in order to save lives. I can assure you that I will work with universities to ensure well-being, communications and mental health support are prioritised. • We as a government recognise the importance of face to face teaching, including for your mental health and wellbeing, and we expect this to continue. Universities have worked hard to make teaching and learning COVID-secure, and we have not seen evidence of increased transmission within these environments. If you have any concerns, please do speak to your university – it is crucial that you and staff members feel safe. • Your university must ensure the quality of the tuition you receive. If more teaching is moved online, standards must be maintained. This means ensuring that courses provide a high-quality academic experience, students are supported and achieve good outcomes, and standards are protected. We have been very clear about this and have worked with the Office for Students to regularly review the online tuition being provided. o If you have any concerns please do speak to your university. If you need to, you can make a formal complaint, and if you are still not happy you can refer your case to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator. • I know that the current year has been hard, but I want to reassure you that your education, health and wellbeing remain my top priority. Universities are required to provide mental health and pastoral support and this will be available to you in the coming weeks. Please also take a look at the Student Space platform, which you may find helpful. I want to thank you again for your hard work and perseverance. I remain committed to helping you to continue your university studies during these unprecedented and challenging times. Yours sincerely, Michelle Donelan MP Minister of State for Universities
 
Agreed. If I had some sort of family event tomorrow that was being attended by my parents, it would be great to go and get us all tested before hand. I've mentioned before in other threads that the only way I can see us getting back to normality is through testing. We are never going to get track and trace sorted whilst it's being run by the governments cronies and vaccines aren't ready yet so it's either mass testing or more lockdowns.

I reckon it's extremely important though to highlight what these tests can and cannot do, and that they are being sensibly deployed as part of a wider strategy and really good messaging.
While incidence is so high it could be counterproductive if it gave people the much invoked false sense of security.
As I understand it, the tests can only really show infectiousness for that moment in time/that very day, so if people think they can safely have a gathering the next day they might be mistaken.
But I am also very hopeful that for the time being they could be very useful in identifying asymptomatic infectious people and getting them to self-isolate and therefore help drive incidence right down. At that point they might then also be helpful in the scenario you mention.

In my (patchy) understanding, very keen to learn more!
 
Agreed. If I had some sort of family event tomorrow that was being attended by my parents, it would be great to go and get us all tested before hand. I've mentioned before in other threads that the only way I can see us getting back to normality is through testing. We are never going to get track and trace sorted whilst it's being run by the governments cronies and vaccines aren't ready yet so it's either mass testing or more lockdowns.
So you're in Liverpool too then? I've just been saying to my lass on Whatsapp that it will mean when we do get to visit, we'll have been tested regularly so it'll be more relaxed all round.
 
Ah, that is interesting, thanks. So average age for admission to intensive care is more like 65 by the looks of it, with significant admissions in (presumably) late forties, and fifties. I don't think that is widely known.

By the way I should have said that those figures are for cases from September 1st onwards.

The fairly broad range of people who need intensive care is one of the reasons I keep going on about how governments wont listen to anti-lockdown fuckwits even if they would like to lean in that direction ideologically, the number of hospitalisations and intensive care patients is just too great and is not restricted to the very old.

Here are some more figures in that report so you can see the averages and the cases before September 1st, as well as some other aspects such as ethnicity and index of deprivation. Again this is for intensive care, not hospitalisations in general.

Screenshot 2020-11-03 at 13.49.26.png
 
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Covid secure...

The business secretary, Alok Sharma, is facing questions after a union health and safety inspection identified concerns over social distancing in his private office days before a member of his inner circle tested positive for Covid-19.

The Guardian has learned that an employee in Sharma’s private office tested positive last Monday after reporting Covid symptoms a day earlier, with other members of staff in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Beis) forced to isolate.

But Sharma – who had a meeting with the individual the Thursday before, with the pair also in the department’s Whitehall office the following day – went on a trip to South Korea on Saturday, where he continued meeting foreign dignitaries after being informed of his colleague’s positive test result when it came through on Monday.

 
By the way I should have said that those figures are for cases from September 1st onwards.

The fairly broad range of people who need intensive care is one of the reasons I keep going on about how governments wont listen to anti-lockdown fuckwits even if they would like to lean in that direction ideologically, the number of hospitalisations and intensive care patients is just too great and is not restricted to the very old.

Here are some more figures in that report so you can see the averages and the cases before September 1st, as well as some other aspects such as ethnicity and index of deprivation. Again this is for intensive care, not hospitalisations in general.

View attachment 237155
Thanks, this is useful to know. Feels like we have lost so much awareness of what is going on by the media/govt just focusing on the couple of figures of death count and hospitalisation count. I guess you need to simplify figures for daily announcements but it would be good if there were weekly releases of more detailed stats that the media was reporting.
 
watching this live at the moment
Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance give evidence to MPs on second England lockdown – watch live
 
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