Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[Artaxerxes]

I appreciate that the Grayson Perry issue is of less importance than the more important stuff on this thread, but .....





I really can't wok out to make that Twitter screenshot of the piece in any way readable??

The significant part is the quote. It's just the telegraph taking comments from elsewhere and then making their own article and headline.

 

[teuchter]

11. Travel

You should avoid travelling in or out of your local area, and you should look to reduce the number of journeys you make. However you can and should still travel for a number of reasons, including:

• travelling to work where this cannot be done from home
• travelling to education and for caring responsibilities
• hospital GP and other medical appointments or visits where you have had an accident or are concerned about your health
• visiting venues that are open, including essential retail
• exercise, if you need to make a short journey to do so

If you need to travel we encourage you to walk or cycle where possible, and to plan ahead and avoid busy times and routes on public transport. This will allow you to practise social distancing while you travel.

I've been looking at the travel guidelines from Thursday.

Last time round, I was quite scrupulous about travel - didn't go anywhere except for where I could walk or cycle from the front door. Meanwhile I was well aware that many people with cars were driving 50 or 100 miles away to go for a nice walk in the countryside or see the sea.

This time, they aren't quite saying "essential" travel only.

It seems it's up to me to decide what my "local area" is and what a "short journey" is.

Why can't we just have a distance based guideline? Try not to travel more than 10 miles from your home, something like that?

 

[elbows]

But, a big increase in patients in hospital - 11,458, and patients in ventilator beds have gone over the 1k figure - 1,075.

That UK number of hospitalised patients was actually a drop from the day before. But thats because this data is a bit messy at times for reasons including:

The UK number is several days behind the number available for England, because the Scotland and Wales numbers are 1 day later than Englands on the dashboard, and Northern Irelands are 2 days behind Englands. So that latest UK total is for November 1st.

Also Northern Ireland retroactively fiddle with the numbers on given dates. I presume that if someone tests positive, they go back and add that to the admissions and in hospital numbers for dates in the past. Which means the UK totals for dates already published can still change later.

And sometimes there are reporting gaps where some hospitals in a region dont report their numbers properly on a given day. For example looking at data for England by region, For example the North East and Yorkshires number of people in hospital went from 2374 on 31st October to 2162 on 1st November and then 2574 on 2nd November and 2662 on the 3rd. Therefore I consider the 2162 number to be invalid, a blip. When combined with other possible blips on the same day, the number for England went 9213->9077->9816->10377 and the 9077 figure should be disregarded.

Such blips show up pretty clearly in the graphs. They are also a reason why I have to be careful about getting excited at first signs of changing trajectories, because I have to wait a while to make sure those arent data blip realted too. And when it comes to hospital data at times of very high pressure on services, I also have to think about whether there are any ceilings in the numbers that are caused by lack of capacity in the system rather than what is actually happening with numbers of people getting seriously ill. We know that there was some demand reduction due to people who should have been hospitalised staying at home to 'protect the NHS' in the first wave, either of their own accord of because of bad telephone advice or temporarily altered admissions criteria etc. Also the number of people in hospital is also obviously affected by people being discharged or dying.

Anyway the overall hospital trajectory remains unpleasant and we are at the stage where the North has reached or gone past the number of patients in hospital with Covid-19 at the peak of the first wave.

 

[Mation]

I've been looking at the travel guidelines from Thursday.

Last time round, I was quite scrupulous about travel - didn't go anywhere except for where I could walk or cycle from the front door. Meanwhile I was well aware that many people with cars were driving 50 or 100 miles away to go for a nice walk in the countryside or see the sea.

This time, they aren't quite saying "essential" travel only.

It seems it's up to me to decide what my "local area" is and what a "short journey" is.

Why can't we just have a distance based guideline? Try not to travel more than 10 miles from your home, something like that?

Durham is more than 10 miles from London.

 

[emanymton]

Police attend Zizzi restaurant in Bristol over alleged Covid test breach

Investigation into reports of staff ordered to go to work while awaiting virus test results

www.theguardian.com

A source familiar with the matter told the Guardian: “A manager told staff to go to work while awaiting test results. One staff member was also told if they didn’t go to work they wouldn’t receive statutory sick pay. One asymptomatic staff member received a positive test result text while they were at work and didn’t go home.”

They said a member of kitchen staff had also been at work exhibiting symptoms of a fever, but was not sent home. Another asymptomatic person continued to work after their partner had tested positive

...

Zizzi has not been asked to provide customer details from NHS test and trace or public health to help trace people who visited the restaurant last week. This may be because it has not been identified as the location of a potential Covid outbreak

 

[Chilli.s]

Unused testing capacity of 300 000 ? So testing is as poorly organised as tracing

 

[Buddy Bradley]

Why can't we just have a distance based guideline? Try not to travel more than 10 miles from your home, something like that?

Because what people have within 10 miles of their home is not uniformly distributed.

 

[mauvais]

All it needs is a simple formula based on localised population density and the modal journey time for a spread of different essential trips.

 

[Roadkill]

Unused testing capacity of 300 000 ? So testing is as poorly organised as tracing

Tbf they are building up testing capacity so it could partly reflect that.

One place where there are definitely problems is the ONS/Oxford surveillance testing programme, which I'm on. I was supposed to have my fourth weekly test the weekend before last but heard nothing from them, so I rang up on the Monday and was told they'd had some difficulties but I'd get a call back in a couple of days. Tbf I did, but I was at work at the time the woman had available so she said she'd pass it to a colleague to pick up and it'd be done on Saturday, and since then I've heard nothing.

 

[wemakeyousoundb]

All it needs is a simple formula based on localised population density and the modal journey time for a spread of different essential trips.

SERCO could write this for a measly 12 billions or so.

 

[Mation]

All it needs is a simple formula based on localised population density and the modal journey time for a spread of different essential trips.

We need smart front doors that will only open after we've told them where we're going and it has made the calculation based on this formula.

SERCO could make and install these, too.

 

[teuchter]

Because what people have within 10 miles of their home is not uniformly distributed.

So?

 

[andysays]

So?

So what happens when someone needs to make an essential purchase (a new lock for their bathroom door, for instance), but there is no supplier within the somewhat arbitrary 10 mile limit you've suggested?

 

[teuchter]

So what happen when someone needs to make an essential purchase (a new lock for their bathroom door, for instance), but there is no supplier within the somewhat arbitrary 10 mile limit you've suggested?

If it's essential and not available within the limit, go outside of the limit. Everything else, stay within the limit. Not very complicated.

 

[clicker]

So what happen when someone needs to make an essential purchase (a new lock for their bathroom door, for instance), but there is no supplier within the somewhat arbitrary 10 mile limit you've suggested?

Order online?

 

[Buddy Bradley]

Order online?

Because everyone has internet and a computer?

 

[scifisam]

So what happen when someone needs to make an essential purchase (a new lock for their bathroom door, for instance), but there is no supplier within the somewhat arbitrary 10 mile limit you've suggested?

Wouldn't it be the same as apparently sometimes happens in Wales, you're stopped and asked the reason for your travel? If you genuinely do have a good reason (like a hospital appointment, one of the occasions you're most likely to need to travel more than ten miles), fine, you have an exceptional reason.

 

[Espresso]

Wouldn't it be the same as apparently sometimes happens in Wales, you're stopped and asked the reason for your travel? If you genuinely do have a good reason (like a hospital appointment, one of the occasions you're most likely to need to travel more than ten miles), fine, you have an exceptional reason.

But there is a border between England and Wales. So the police can put patrols on all the roads that cross the border to ask people where they are going and why.
That doesn't apply to a ten mile radius from your house or my house or anyone else's house.

 

[scifisam]

But there is a border between England and Wales. So the police can put patrols on all the roads that cross the border to ask people where they are going and why.
That doesn't apply to a ten mile radius from your house or my house or anyone else's house.

That's true, it would be difficult to police.

 

[existentialist]

But there is a border between England and Wales. So the police can put patrols on all the roads that cross the border to ask people where they are going and why.
That doesn't apply to a ten mile radius from your house or my house or anyone else's house.

The border is wiggly and crossed by many small roads, sometimes repeatedly - it'd be a nightmare to enforce strictly.

 

[clicker]

Because everyone has internet and a computer?

Yes, I think you get them free when you buy a bathroom door.

 

[Indeliblelink]

Local MP posted this -
“Click-and-collect” or phone orders of alcohol will now be allowed from pubs and microbreweries during lockdown. This will be a massive help for a lot of community pubs and small local brewers.

 

[Espresso]

The border is wiggly and crossed by many small roads, sometimes repeatedly - it'd be a nightmare to enforce strictly.

Obviously that's true, but at least they have some chance of doing it.
Unlike trying to stop people going more than ten miles from their house in this country. Because there is zero chance of that.
If we were the sort of country that had mandatory ID cards, then it would be possible. I'm not saying we should have mandatory ID cards, before anyone asks, but I know they exist elsewhere and would be the only way I can see that anyone could be challenged or fined for being too far away from home.

 

[scifisam]

Although I think people were being stopped by police inside Wales, weren't they? Not just at the border.

 

[teuchter]

But there is a border between England and Wales. So the police can put patrols on all the roads that cross the border to ask people where they are going and why.
That doesn't apply to a ten mile radius from your house or my house or anyone else's house.

It would be impossible to fully police a 10 mile limit just like it's impossible to police a "avoid leaving your local area" limit.

In a scenario where you're trying to establish whether what someone's done is reasonable, it's much easier to ask the question "are you within X miles of your home" than "are you within a short journey of your home" and get a yes or no answer. Even if someone ever actually gets challenged, that's the question that's in the back of their mind when they are making decisions about what to do. You have a better chance of reasonably consistent behaviour throughout the population because the limit of travel doesn't depend on the attitude of the individual it applies to.

The point is, at least everyone is working to the same guidelines, rather than it being left up to individual interpretation. Because when you leave it to individual interpretation, then you effectively penalise the most conscientious people, and you increase the likelihood that people feel a sense of unfairness. This was a problem right through the first lockdown.

 

[sojourner]

Police only need to do a quick reg check to see where you live. One of the reasons we're not going to Scotland.

 

[xenon]

Police attend Zizzi restaurant in Bristol over alleged Covid test breach

Investigation into reports of staff ordered to go to work while awaiting virus test results

www.theguardian.com

Shit. That place gets busy too and comprises a large open dining area with different food styles on offer.

 

[xenon]

Although I think people were being stopped by police inside Wales, weren't they? Not just at the border.

A mate who's a teacher in Wales, living in Cardif and teaching in Newport, has to carry information to show to the Police if stopped. (not sure he has been stopped though, will ask next time we speak.)

 

[andysays]

New advice about "shielding"

Clinically extremely vulnerable people in England are being strongly advised not to go to work outside their homes during lockdown from Thursday. Under updated government guidance, they should go out only for exercise or to attend health appointments

 

[weepiper]

Fifty deaths in Scotland today