Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[Teaboy]

Holy shit! What a sight I've just seen on my lunchtime walk.

On the river towpath we got caught up in a group of 60 - 70 schoolkids (around 15 year olds) walking back from I'm guessing a playing field because there were a couple of teachers there. After the kids had formed one mega bubble the teachers made a half hearted attempt to split them into their smaller bubble which last about 6 seconds before they reformed the mega bubble taking over the whole tow path and ambled their way back to school.

This is the first time since this all started that I've actually been worried about outside transmission, I couldn't get away from them quickly enough. Just a couple of classes in one school. Upscale that if you will?

Insanity abounds. I for one cannot wait for the announcement that the schools are going to have to close anyway and as a result we can add another couple of months to lockdown not to mention another few thousand deaths.

 

[elbows]

The following Nick Triggle article includes the usual suspects, but also a subject close to my heart, no doubt because NHS England have started publishing these figures so I dont have to extrapolate them myself from other data. I havent actually tracked down their new data yet, so here is the BBC version.

Covid: The things we’re not being told as lockdown looms

Ministers say lockdown needed, but some questions remain unanswered as MPs get ready for key vote.

www.bbc.co.uk

This is also of interest:

Prof Tim Spector, who leads the Covid Symptom Study, has gone even further, tweeting the peak of the second wave may have passed.

But he said this would take one to two weeks to translate to hospital infections and four weeks to change the trend on deaths.

Thats not a scenario I would bet huge amounts of money against. But as I've warned repeatedly, it is not a good idea to focus only on the overall headline numbers, especially if the wave timing are different for the young and students compared to the more vulnerable groups, and if care home and hospital outbreaks perpetuate the serious situation. And I always hedge my bets and would rather wait and see what the real data shows int he weeks ahead. And even if this lockdown is yet again what some would describe as 'too late', I will be bound to say it still has deep meaning, since the current levels of hospital admissions are already too much to cope with and we need to push down the numbers of infected people as quickly as possible.

 

[Steel Icarus]

Holy shit! What a sight I've just seen on my lunchtime walk.

On the river towpath we got caught up in a group of 60 - 70 schoolkids (around 15 year olds) walking back from I'm guessing a playing field because there were a couple of teachers there. After the kids had formed one mega bubble the teachers made a half hearted attempt to split them into their smaller bubble which last about 6 seconds before they reformed the mega bubble taking over the whole tow path and ambled their way back to school.

This is the first time since this all started that I've actually been worried about outside transmission, I couldn't get away from them quickly enough. Just a couple of classes in one school. Upscale that if you will?

Insanity abounds. I for one cannot wait for the announcement that the schools are going to have to close anyway and as a result we can add another couple of months to lockdown not to mention another few thousand deaths.

I've just seen from a town centre optician's window what happens when schoolkids finish for the day. Huge crowds, bumping into each other, clear mixing of year bubbles, not a mask in sight. Why the fuck are they letting them all out at the same time? They have staggered starts. My daughter goes there. Jesus wept

 

[elbows]

I still havent found the new form of hospital infection data but the following article which was originally in the Telegraph is highlighting the same sort of trusts I was seeing in my own cobbled together version of the data.

Nearly half of Covid patients in some hospitals likely to have caught virus after admission

barraco55.org

Some of the highest levels of infection within hospitals are in the North-West. At Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, 271 patients were diagnosed with Covid in the week ending October 25. Of those, 27 per cent were likely to have been infected after they went to hospital, the figures suggest.

Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust saw 210 patients diagnosed with Covid in the same week, with 25 per cent of cases likely to involve infection after admission. At Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust, and University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust, more than 44 per cent of Covid cases were probably “hospital-acquired”, the figures show.

Mr Hunt, the chairman of the Commons health select committee, said: “These are shocking figures. Many people died in the first wave after picking up the infection inside a hospital or a care home.

“We seem to have learned the lessons in care homes, but are still not doing weekly testing of hospital staff. To make the same mistake twice would be indefensible.”

 

[Badgers]

Holy shit! What a sight I've just seen on my lunchtime walk.

On the river towpath we got caught up in a group of 60 - 70 schoolkids (around 15 year olds) walking back from I'm guessing a playing field because there were a couple of teachers there. After the kids had formed one mega bubble the teachers made a half hearted attempt to split them into their smaller bubble which last about 6 seconds before they reformed the mega bubble taking over the whole tow path and ambled their way back to school.

This is the first time since this all started that I've actually been worried about outside transmission, I couldn't get away from them quickly enough. Just a couple of classes in one school. Upscale that if you will?

Insanity abounds. I for one cannot wait for the announcement that the schools are going to have to close anyway and as a result we can add another couple of months to lockdown not to mention another few thousand deaths.

My sis (teacher) just got out of 14 days Isolation last week and this morning her youngest (10) has C19 symptoms so is being tested.

Some years are there, some are not. It is a daily changing mess.

 

[elbows]

So we are going to be treated data about hospital infections this time around, but much murk and avoidance of scrutiny remains.

 

[IC3D]

elbows the bottom quote implies staff transmission while I believe was a factor first time round this time PPE is worn constantly. What I have seen is patient to patient while awaiting results of first and second swabs. How to mitigate without faster more accurate tests I don't know. Encourage patients to wear masks would help but not really practical.

 

[elbows]

elbows the bottom quote implies staff transmission while I believe was a factor first time round this time PPE is worn constantly. What I have seen is patient to patient while awaiting results of first and second swabs. How to mitigate without faster more accurate tests I don't know. Encourage patients to wear masks would help but not really practical.

Most of the experts are quite correct to call for routine testing of staff too, the problem hasnt been solved just because some very large holes in the PPE situation have been plugged.

The design of some hospitals themselves is also a problem, especially when it comes to corridors and meeting places/break areas for staff.

And there are current stories such as this one:

Six NHS staff contract Covid after car sharing without wearing masks

University Hospitals of North Midlands trust already has 600 personnel off work due to virus

www.theguardian.com

I blame the authorities because a lot of these things are predictable and there is only so much that individuals can achieve themselves, all it takes is one lapse of judgement, and we need the systems to be responsive to this. And one of the reasons asymptomatic transmission is an issue with such large implications is that we cannot help but base a lot of our behaviour on how we feel, and not having symptoms causes lapses time and time again. Routine testing of everyone in these situations is required to carry a big chunk of the weight of this problem, and none of my constant noise about hospital infections in this pandemic is seeking to focus on individual failings.

 

[elbows]

I had to resort to a bloody daily mail graphic so that I could work out whether the numbers I've been generating myself by subtracting one set of official statistics from another are in line with what the media are reporting on this week. I've only checked three of the affected trusts so far but my numbers are a solid match so far, so I will be able to talk about specific NHS trust hospital infection levels with more confidence from now on. Not that any of my data is ready to bore people with yet, so here is the aforementioned Daily Mail graphic. These percentages are for one weeks figures, not the whole pandemic or the whole second wave so far. They are for the week ending October 25th, and the graphic is far from exhaustive, there are plenty of other trusts I could show.

 

[brogdale]

Er...fuck...if correct:

 

[cupid_stunt]

It is correct, and up 182 on the deaths reported last Wed - 310.

 

[brogdale]

500 becoming the non-weekend ball-park now.

 

[elbows]

I guess the number is so high today that I should drag out the colour-coded graph again to put the number in context?

 

[Pickman's model]

I guess the number is so high today that I should drag out the colour-coded graph again to put the number in context?

go on then

 

[killer b]

The last few days have been (comparatively) low so I guess it's a catch up?

 

[elbows]

Yes.

 

[IC3D]

Routine testing of staff should have been a no brainer from day 0. Its incredibly frustrating elbows esp as trusts appear to follow govt guidelines and not take any initiative.

 

[Mation]

Routine testing of staff should have been a no brainer from day 0. Its incredibly frustrating elbows esp as trusts appear to follow govt guidelines and not take any initiative.

With what budget?

 

[andysays]

MPs have backed a four-week lockdown in England to combat coronavirus, which will kick in at midnight. Boris Johnson saw off a rebellion by Tory MPs opposed to the move, with the support of Labour. The government won the vote by 516 to 38, a majority of 478.

Not that there was really any doubt about the result, only perhaps about the number who would vote against. Predictions of 80 Tories rebelling appear to have been an exaggeration

 

[elbows]

Since my colour-coded graph has still managed to cause confusion in the past, I will have another stab at demonstrating the lag and reporting patterns that people should expect when looking at figures like these which shows deaths by date of death. eg Some people seem to end up wondering if the more recent days levels not being higher than previous ones is a good sign, when in fact its usually a consequence of laggy reporting.

So I have repeated the colour-coding exercise but using a whole weeks worth of changes to the deaths by date of death figures. So the blue is what the graph looked like a week ago and the red represents all the deaths reported since then. So when you look at the more recent days data in such graphs, you need to imagine similar patterns of more cases to be added on top of those later, just like some of the red figures ended up on top of some of the blue ones.

Also serves as a stark reminder that its the area occupied by the graph that matters, and how even modest increases per day quickly add up to considerably higher death totals over time.

 

[sheothebudworths]

Tory-linked firm involved in testing failure given new £347m Covid contract

Exclusive: Hancock has backed transfer of nearly £500m to Randox during pandemic

www.theguardian.com

God, they make my fucking skin crawl.

 

[IC3D]

By using funds pissed away on Tory chums see above Mation

 

[Mation]

By using funds pissed away on Tory chums see above Mation

Absolutely that's what the pissed away money should have been spent on, I just don't see how trusts could have commandeered it on their own initiative.

Well. Not without some, erm... major changes in strategy.

 

[Mation]

2020: The year that brought us the Provisional NHS

 

[IC3D]

So fucked off the money wasted hasn't been invested in NHS labs and research. The waste of an established infrastructure and all the talented HCPs is a declaration of war!

 

[elbows]

Was that Labour MP drunk on the committee today? He was completely incoherent. And the Tory one (mid/late 40s, male, glasses, bald) that was asking questions remotely to Vallance and Whitty came across as an anti-lockdown type.

Well I'm just looking at who voted against lockdown ( Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) (No.4) Regulations 2020 - Commons' votes in Parliament - UK Parliament ) and who didnt vote (Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) (No.4) Regulations 2020 - Commons' votes in Parliament - UK Parliament ) and I see that the MP I believe you are referring to, Graham Stringer, did not vote.

McVey voted against lockdown, and there are other names we would expect to see in that category too, like Fysh, Drax, Redwood, IDS.

Mundell, Theresa May and Grayling are amongst those who didnt vote. I know the press have focussed a fair bit on May giving a speech in parliament criticising the data used, the model that had a 4000 deaths per day peak etc.

 

[LDC]

Well I'm just looking at who voted against lockdown ( Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) (No.4) Regulations 2020 - Commons' votes in Parliament - UK Parliament ) and who didnt vote (Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) (No.4) Regulations 2020 - Commons' votes in Parliament - UK Parliament ) and I see that the MP I believe you are referring to, Graham Stringer, did not vote.

McVey voted against lockdown, and there are other names we would expect to see in that category too, like Fysh, Drax, Redwood, IDS.

Mundell, Theresa May and Grayling are amongst those who didnt vote. I know the press have focussed a fair bit on May giving a speech in parliament criticising the data used, the model that had a 4000 deaths per day peak etc.

Cheers, any idea who the Tory one was?

 

[Supine]

 

[teqniq]

Great use of police time and resources here:

 

[editor]

Gret use of police time and resources here:

That's insane.