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Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

I'll be briefly digging ito some SAGE minutes and papers that were released int he last week or two.

I know there were some stories about how we were still going to discharge patients from hospital without a negative test, and the following from SAGE Meeting 60 of October 1st relates to that:


SAGE has previously advised testing of hospital patients prior to discharge. The Senior Clinicians Group agrees that universal testing of discharged hospitalised patients is beneficial. However, current constraints on testing means that prioritisation of capacity is required for other uses e.g. for health and social care staff.
Click to expand...

Also in that meeting they looked at the report looking at excess mortality around Europe and possible correlations. They decided to look more closely at the link between high mortality in this pandemic and high mortality in a recent influenza epidemic.

I noticed some weeks back that Johnson had started including a mention of adequate ventillation in his press conference rhetoric. Its probably because SAGE were looking at the issue in this meeting, and endorsed the following Environmental and Modelling group paper. Its a fairly big document that I dont have time to read properly right now but it could be useful to anyone who needs a weighty ventilation study, for example to bash useless management with.

 
scifisam said:
You should, though. It's not a pleasant test - you're not going to be doing it often for fun.
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“
You can only get a free NHS test if at least one of the following applies:

  • you have a high temperature
  • you have a new, continuous cough
  • you've lost your sense of smell or taste or it's changed
  • you've been asked to by a local council
  • you're taking part in a government pilot project “
 
kalidarkone said:
I would understand the sense in that if you hadn't been in contact with someone with a + test result, however given you have and you live with an elderly person with risk factors .....and there is plenty of evidence now of a% of people not displaying symptoms.....its what I would do in order to put my mind at rest.
Click to expand...
I’m not worried - people on the internet are!
 
Ted Striker said:
Why would you announce a furlough scheme that long, without an expectation for Lockdown to last a similar time? :hmm:
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The previous furlough scheme was running all summer and only ran out last week - the dampening of demand caused by lockdown doesn't stop the moment you reopen, so support measures need to continue well beyond the expected end of the lockdown itself.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
With a warning note that they reported R falling to 1.1 in September and then rising again, a bit of a false dawn, that is a calculation taken over the two weeks to 1 November. The very latest figures show that it may have fallen below 1 now. It is consistent with the flattening of new cases over the last fortnight. (It also doesn't include care homes, and is for symptomatic covid only.)
Click to expand...

I take their number with a large pinch of salt but it is interesting and I do include it in my sense of where we are at. Caveats include the possibility that this app is much better at tracking the eidemic in certain age groups than others, and that it may not capture epidemic waves in vulnerable groups and non-community settings at all well.

In theory the increasingly sombre mood music that has grown since the start of September, and the increase in severity of regional measures, should have seen quite a lot of behavioural changes and somewhat reduced opportunities for the virus to spread, although this picture will be patchy with a lot of regional variation. Speaking of which, I wouldnt go so far as to call national numbers useless at the moment, but they could be very misleading. Because there will be complex interaction in overall numbers between places at different stage of their local epidemics, a tug of war between places showing a flattening or decrease in number of cases and those still on the up. Same sort of phenomenon that may be present by looking at cases in different age groups. A good time to zoom in on specific areas and age groups.
 
Orang Utan said:
“
You can only get a free NHS test if at least one of the following applies:

  • you have a high temperature
  • you have a new, continuous cough
  • you've lost your sense of smell or taste or it's changed
  • you've been asked to by a local council
  • you're taking part in a government pilot project “
Click to expand...

Or you say you have one of those in order to get a test.
 
Orang Utan said:
Cos you’re not supposed to if you don’t have symptoms
Click to expand...

OK. But it would be more responsible to get the test. Then if you test positive you know you need to stay at home for longer. You'll also know that you are much less at risk for future infections, either getting them or passing them on.

It's not crying wolf.

It is a little odd that an anarchist board actually has so many people very much in favour of blindly following rules.
 
SAGE meeting 61 of October 8th mentions issues with data that comes via testing:


Operational issues in the testing systems, including the demand for symptomatic testing and testing delays, as well as corrections to the data on positive cases, have increased the level of uncertainty in estimates. There are also data issues following the return of students to universities relating to where cases are recorded.
Click to expand...

That last issue (students testing positive being linked to their home address/GP rather than Uni address) was briefly visible in the news a while back and I mentioned it here as potentially being the next big data fuckup, but the issue never rose to prominence.

This meeting also had some thoughts on why the wave may be evolving more slowly in London:

Data show lower prevalence and incidence in London compared to some other UK cities but there is variation within London. The reasons for apparent lower levels in London are not known but could include some degree of immunity (lower than 20%); different population behaviours because London was hard hit in the first wave; the effects of the loss of tourism and people working from home; differences in population structure and housing densities; or differences in levels of deprivation compared to other cities.

CoMix data suggest lower rates of contact in London than the North West of England over the summer period which may have also influenced current incidence rates.

ONS data also suggest a greater reduction in activity in the hospitality sector in London than elsewhere, in part due to reduced tourism.
Click to expand...

If I were looking at that I would also want to check whether hospital and care home infection control may be better in London, what role that could have, and the reasons. Reasons could include more attentive trusts, more resources, different capacity, different size of individual institutions, more staff routine testing pilots in the area, or more staff having immunity due to more of them catching it in the first wave. None of these necessarily happened at all, they are just areas I would want to explore but I dont have the contacts & data to do that.
 
scifisam said:
OK. But it would be more responsible to get the test. Then if you test positive you know you need to stay at home for longer. You'll also know that you are much less at risk for future infections, either getting them or passing them on.

It is a little odd that an anarchist board actually has so many people very much in favour of blindly following rules.
Click to expand...
I’m just concerned about wasting resources unnecessarily
 
killer b said:
The previous furlough scheme was running all summer and only ran out last week - the dampening of demand caused by lockdown doesn't stop the moment you reopen, so support measures need to continue well beyond the expected end of the lockdown itself.
Click to expand...

That is spot on. I suspect the Tories have also twigged that a lot of hospitality isn’t coming back from the latest lockdown and they want to kick that can down the road.

Sunak's strategy has been to provide as little security as possible and then be pushed into announcements at the last minute. The economic fall out from that is becoming clearer. I suspect this is an attempt to get ahead of the curve, but it’s too little too late in that sense.
 
scifisam said:
OK. But it would be more responsible to get the test. Then if you test positive you know you need to stay at home for longer. You'll also know that you are much less at risk for future infections, either getting them or passing them on.

It's not crying wolf.

It is a little odd that an anarchist board actually has so many people very much in favour of blindly following rules.
Click to expand...
Isn't there still an issue about the tests being less accurate if you have been infected but haven't yet developed symptoms?

Not sure about likely time scales here though.
 
scifisam said:
OK. But it would be more responsible to get the test. Then if you test positive you know you need to stay at home for longer. You'll also know that you are much less at risk for future infections, either getting them or passing them on.

It's not crying wolf.

It is a little odd that an anarchist board actually has so many people very much in favour of blindly following rules.
Click to expand...
Does getting the test really make any difference if you're isolating for 14 days anyway?

I didn't think there was any conclusive proof about having it giving any immunity either.
 
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