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Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

Breaking news just now quoted on LBC and I wasn’t paying attention as the presenter began, but the PM has said the forthcoming tier system has a ‘sunset of 3 February 2021’
 
FridgeMagnet said:
not a law

he says a lot of things
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It became a legal requirement, at the same time that pubs were made to close at 10pm by law

“From Thursday, we will extend the requirement to wear face coverings to include staff in retail, all users of taxis and private-hire vehicles and staff and customers in indoor hospitality, except when seated at a table to eat or drink,” Johnson said.

“In retail, leisure and tourism and other sectors, our Covid-secure guidelines will become legal obligations.”
Click to expand...
 
I actually found the specific law by looking on my own - it has been amended, I was wrong. (The amendment covers any staff member who "is in any part of a relevant place listed in Schedule 3 which is open to the public, and comes or likely to come within close contact of any member of the public".)

The thing is that it makes no difference so why does it matter? People go into shops all the time without masks. Staff wander around with their noses hanging out. Nothing happens. I mean apart from virus transmission of course.
 
FridgeMagnet said:
I actually found the specific law by looking on my own - it has been amended, I was wrong. (The amendment covers any staff member who "is in any part of a relevant place listed in Schedule 3 which is open to the public, and comes or likely to come within close contact of any member of the public".)

The thing is that it makes no difference so why does it matter? People go into shops all the time without masks. Staff wander around with their noses hanging out. Nothing happens. I mean apart from virus transmission of course.
Click to expand...

Which part of 'some areas' are struggling to understand?

That maybe the case in London, and other areas with fairly high infection rates, it is not the case everywhere, some areas don't have so many fucking dickheads, hence most people comply, and it results in far lower infection rates.
 
Where I work (a large supermarket) all staff must wear masks unless exempt, visors alone are not acceptable face coverings. Cashiers working behind a Perspex screen may choose not to wear a face covering ONLY whilst behind the screen - almost all staff do still wear them. My own feeling is that my face mask helps prevent my exhaled droplets from landing on the customer’s groceries as I scan them, a visor protects my face from droplets exhaled by the customer who is standing much higher than my seated position. The perplex screens are reassuring but customers do lean around them!

We have had occasional unannounced visits from the police, and have been congratulated on the level of compliance.
 
frogwoman said:
Maybe this needs it's own thread. An uncontrolled bird flu pandemic would be a civilisation ending event, luckily it doesn't transmit efficiently between humans really.
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I dont think there are any respiratory disease threats on the radar that I would automatically describe as a civilisation ending event.

One key unknown factor is that in order to determine how deadly a bird flu pandemic would be, we would need to wait and see what a strain that had adapted to spread more effectively between humans was actually like in terms of infection fatality rate, hospitalisation rate etc.

Also 'bird flu' is a name that has been attached to a number of very different influenza strains this century. The most recent outbreaks and concern are about a H5N8 strain I believe. Most of what I learnt about bird flu in the past was in regards to the H5N1 strain, so I have quite some catching up to do regarding H5N8.
 
FridgeMagnet said:
A statement by Boris Johnson is not a law. This is something that the cops and press, for example, have found hard to deal with, particularly in lockdown 1, where he said you could only go out once a day.
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I think it was Gove who said you could only excercise outside for a period of one hour. That never had any basis in law either.
 
ska invita said:
Always worth checking the lead story in the Sunday Times
This is quite a big one if true

www.thetimes.co.uk

Boris Johnson in retreat as Tory revolt over Covid lockdown tiers rocks No 10

Boris Johnson capitulated to Tory MPs last night, announcing that he would reform his new coronavirus crackdown before Christmas after threats by backbenchers t
www.thetimes.co.uk www.thetimes.co.uk
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I am not currently treating this news (varieties of which have now been reported widely) as significant. There will be several opportunities for me to change my mind on that in future, for example if they make a load of obviously political decisions next time they review the tiers in mid December, or if they actually bring the system to a premature end in early February. But for now I just file it under 'Johnson flounders around and tries to push the rebellion off to a future date'.
 
Espresso said:
This bird flu business is taking hold, I see on the BBC it's been detected in a turkey farm in Yorkshire and all the birds will have to be culled.
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That strain of bird flu remains firmly in the 'disease with immediate consequences for the poultry industry' but where broader public health issues have not even reached first base. Because we lack evidence of this strain infecting humans, and past studies of this strain imply that it remains well adapted to birds rather than mammals. Which still requires vigilance from authorities and industries, and continued tracking of outbreaks and the evolution of the virus. But not a situation that I or anyone else should assume will turn into a disease that affects humans, otherwise I could have spent this whole century fretting that this or one of the other multitude of strains of bird flu was about to lead to an imminent pandemic. And that would not be a sustainable form of assumption or level of vigilance, credibility would quickly erode once these threats failed to deliver in a timely way. Even H5N1 bird flu, which did manage to cause some human infections, outbreaks and deaths, in a bunch of countries from 2003 onwards, and thus was well past first base, did not go far in a direction that made me think a pandemic was highly likely and imminent, although I had a different opinion when first learning about that strain, before I became more clued up. And such assessments can always change, especially with influenza that has reassortment potential where different strains can borrow parts from other strains when co-infection of both strains occurs within one host, so we do need suitable expert vigilance and monitoring of these things. But one of the reasons I learnt about pandemics and respiratory diseases in the first place was so that I would have a better idea of when the right time for me to be concerned and share those concerns is, so I dont run myself ragged with false alarms.
 
I know but I feel bound to say those things because when the subject comes up in a thread like this one, I make assumptions about what will be on some peoples minds. There are a lot of people out there who wont have paid much attention to such things in the past, but have new found vigilance in these areas because of the pandemic we've found ourselves with this year.
 
elbows said:
I know but I feel bound to say those things because when the subject comes up in a thread like this one, I make assumptions about what will be on some peoples minds. There are a lot of people out there who wont have paid much attention to such things in the past, but have new found vigilance in these areas because of the pandemic we've found ourselves with this year.
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aye, I agree - especially as I understood that this plague is thought to have spread from a wet market, and one dealing with live wildlife ...
 
frogwoman said:
Covid restrictions will have an effect on flu as well, so it isn't such a serious issue for humans. Terrible news for farmers and wildlife tho
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This strain of flu hasn't been known to infect humans (afaik), so that's why it isn't as serious an issue for all, rather than because of the knock-on effects of covid restrictions. Some bird flu viruses do cause human epidemics or pandemics, but (so far) this isn't one of them.
 
The latest Imperial College London REACT study findings are out, covering the 2 weeks ending 24/11, it shows we've stopped cases increasing, they were doubling every 9 days, and instead seen a reduction of 30% in new cases, with the 'R' number estimated at 0.88.

Swab tests on over 105,000 people as part of a major research study have shown that coronavirus infections are declining in England.

An interim report from the REACT programme, which includes results from home coronavirus tests taken between 13th and 24th November, shows that an estimated 0.96% of England’s population has the virus, or around 1 in 100 people.

This is roughly a 30% drop in the number of infections compared with previous findings, where more than 1 in 80 or 1.3% of people had the virus as of 2nd November.
Click to expand...

Let's hope the stronger tier system will continue to drive numbers down, before whatever clusterfuck is released over Christmas.

www.imperial.ac.uk

Coronavirus prevalence has fallen nationally with R below 1, REACT study shows | Imperial News | Imperial College London

Swab tests on over 105,000 people as part of a major research study have shown that coronavirus infections are declining in England.
www.imperial.ac.uk www.imperial.ac.uk
 
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