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Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

Bahnhof Strasse said:
It ties in with Williamson’s tongue poking at verifying the sodding vaccine, just public school pricks.

I shall again quote Mick Jones on being reminded Shapps is his cousin, “He’s a cunt.”
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Wait, what, Mick Jones is Grant Shapps' cousin? Mick Jones from The Clash Mick Jones? :eek:
 
It was a milestone that was likely reached in the first wave but we have to have this establishment pissing about where the daily number is treated as though its the real number, the most accurate number.

I will continue to sporadically report on the number of deaths since 1st September by that measure, to provide some sense of the second wave impact, a sense the media seem uninterested in providing. Well I did see some BBC thing that said 80% of the deaths happened in the first wave, but this was using ONS data which did a better job of capturing the first wave totals but has been much poorer at even matching the number of 28-day positive deaths in more recent months.

UK Covid-19 deaths from 1st September onwards: 18,560.
 
Artaxerxes said:
What’s the latest on excess deaths so far guys second wave?
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As the graph StoneRoad posted shows, deaths from non-Covid causes are recently down below the normal excess 5 year average. ie the grey area in the BBC graph does not reach as high as the dashed line recently. Which means that for the 2nd wave I expect excess death totals to fail to capture the full extent of Covid deaths, and for various ONS numbers to be lower than even the governments 'deaths within 28 days of a positive test' numbers. If we dont end up with lots of flu and other sorts of excess winter death, then I expect this gap to become even more pronounced, since the 5 year average number of deaths will increase quit a lot as we get further into winter.

Such a reduction in non-Covid deaths is likely to be down to a combination of factors. Various aspects of lockdown and recession were always expected to lead to less of various sorts of deaths to start with, including a reduction in deaths due to a decrease in pollution. High flu vaccination rates and a possible lack of flu epidemic (still too early to tell) will, if that happens, make a big difference too. And I know some people were expecting less deaths because some of the people who would have died at this time of year already died earlier in the year due to Covid-19. I will only be able to analyse that picture properly with quite a lot of hindsight, since I'll want to wait for non-provisional ONS deaths for the entire season to come out that show all the deaths by cause of death, and will then need to compare that to rates of death for all those causes in previous years. Some provisional version of this probably already exists and comes out weekly or monthly but its a bit heavy so I havent looked into it yet and may just wait for the complete data later.
 
For example, if I count UK deaths in ONS reports that mention Covid-19 on the death certificate, from September up to November 20th (last date of current ONS data by date of death), and ONS (& NRA & NISRA) excess deaths for the same period:

Excess deaths are at about 11,400.

Death certificate Covid-19 deaths are at about 14,000. And dashboard 'deaths with positive test within 28 days' for the same period only up to November 20th are also at around 14,000.

Meanwhile dashboard 28 day deaths from September 1st all the way up to December 3rd are currently at 19,059.

So in this second wave so far, the ONS totals aren't giving me bigger numbers than I can get off the more timely daily dashboard figures. And the excess death estimates aren't helping me get a sense of how many Covid-19 deaths happened but weren't recorded as covid deaths, but in the first wave they were of much more use for that.
 
elbows said:
I'm not really sure how accurate the lateral flow tests are, so I am unsure if its really a good idea to use them at this stage to allow care home visits, although I would obviously want to bring in the harm of isolation and loneliness as factors when trying to balance that decision.

Touching as some of the images are, some are also the wrong sort of touching, and I will quite loudly suggest that it is not a good idea to have your 95 year old mother kiss your mask :facepalm:

View attachment 241511

www.bbc.co.uk

Rapid Covid test: Daughter and mum, 95, hug for first time since March

Christine Colburn embraces her mum for the first time in months after taking a rapid Covid test.
www.bbc.co.uk
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Well I didnt see much subsequent awareness in the media etc about why mask kissing is not something to encourage, but then again I wasn't looking so maybe there was some realisation on that front. I know my mother was hopping mad that nobody in the media thought about that before using such footage.

But when it comes to my earlier point about the effectiveness of this sort of testing, it appears authorities are having second thoughts:

Greater Manchester councils have become the latest to pause rapid testing for care home visitors over concerns they fail to detect enough infections.

Data suggests the rapid kits miss about a third of the most infectious cases picked up by conventional lab tests.

Lateral flow tests are being used in England so residents can see family indoors for the first time since March.
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www.bbc.co.uk

Covid: Greater Manchester stops care home tests over accuracy fears

The rapid tests picked up five infections out of every 10 found by conventional lab tests.
www.bbc.co.uk
 
And some more detail from that same article:

It was already known that lateral flow tests were less sensitive - they miss about 50% of infections overall.

But lab tests had suggested that figure could fall to 5% when a high level of virus was present.

The government had argued that the tests were therefore as effective as PCR tests at picking up people with the most virus in their systems - those most likely to be currently infectious.

However, data published from the Liverpool testing pilot suggests that when it comes to people with higher viral loads, rapid tests only pick up seven infections for every 10 picked up by a PCR test.

This means about a third of the most potentially infectious people could be told they were free of the virus. This could be even lower if the tests were conducted by non-clinically trained people.
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The previous government claims about this remind me why I bothered to get clued up about pandemics in the first place and why I have a 'bad attitude'.
 
So a huge period of delay between the likes of Hancock hyping up alternative sorts of mass rapid testing (probably in early April but I havent time to check), and actually deciding to use some of these tests as part of the pandemic response. And not rushing into those things at the time was said by the likes of Whitty to be because of how unhelpful and counterproductive inaccurate tests would be, so they needed to judge them carefully. Fast forward many months and the government finally end up promoting a bunch of uses for one particular type of these tests, and it still turns out that they were exaggerating the effectiveness of these tests and suggesting they be used inappropriately as a result. Well done.
 
So what are lateral flow tests still safe/useful for?

Well I dont think I'd use them for any of these 'demonstrate someone isn't infected' purposes like care home visits at all, just not good enough for that.

If you were keen to pick up a proportion of cases that would otherwise have been missed entirely due to limitations in PCR test capacity when it comes to mass testing of large chunks of a population, then these lateral flow tests can still be used for that. So long as the resulting data interpretation and peoples behaviour is based on the knowledge that you aren't going to find anything like every case using this method. Finding a proportion of, for example, asymptomatic cases, is still better than nothing, better than not finding any of them. But given the resources and logistics required to do the mass community testing everywhere, do have to consider how much difference all that effort will actually make when the tests involved are that unreliable.
 
Oops if I had bothered to read all of the BBC article then I would have known that they already made the points I made in that last post.
 
Anopther crap idea that was found wanting rather quickly:

www.bbc.co.uk

Nottingham's Christmas market closes for the rest of the year

The market in Nottingham closes for the rest of the year, following "unprecedented high footfall".
www.bbc.co.uk

Jo Cox-Brown, from Night Time Economy Solutions, said she had been in the city centre to support Small Business Saturday and witnessed crowds where people were close together and not wearing masks.

She said she worried the market could cause a spike in local coronavirus cases.

"It wasn't being well managed it wasn't being very well controlled," she said.

"People were defecating in doorways because there's no toilets open because hospitality is closed."

Ms Cox-Brown said many people who had been in touch were "really angry" the event went ahead and felt organisers were "putting their Christmas at risk".
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hWLBU21.jpg
 
Still trying to work out the cause of our local "spike" in cases (OK, it is "only" 30 in the past week, compared to single figures or zero/less than three suppression level until a few cases in mid-October, this good run was from April)

Doubt it is the local plastic bottle making plant - people from all over work there, and the case rates in neighbouring areas are going down .
We do have some "hospital / elderly care" facilities ...
alternatively, the local schools have not been totally clear of cases, either.
 
StoneRoad said:
Still trying to work out the cause of our local "spike" in cases (OK, it is "only" 30 in the past week, compared to single figures or zero/less than three suppression level until a few cases in mid-October, this good run was from April)

Doubt it is the local plastic bottle making plant - people from all over work there, and the case rates in neighbouring areas are going down .
We do have some "hospital / elderly care" facilities ...
alternatively, the local schools have not been totally clear of cases, either.
Click to expand...

Sounds like you live in a relatively small area. I think there is always the danger with smaller areas that haven't really seen many cases for people to get a bit complacent. Its certainly been the experience of a few friends and families. People have been largely fine just nipping round for a cup of tea, dropping of Christmas presents and holding small social gatherings because the area was virus free but soon as it does turn up it can spread very quickly.

It may not be a particular place or event just a bit of complacency combined with general fatigue.
 
Teaboy said:
Sounds like you live in a relatively small area. I think there is always the danger with smaller areas that haven't really seen many cases for people to get a bit complacent. Its certainly been the experience of a few friends and families. People have been largely fine just nipping round for a cup of tea, dropping of Christmas presents and holding small social gatherings because the area was virus free but soon as it does turn up it can spread very quickly.

It may not be a particular place or event just a bit of complacency combined with general fatigue.
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Quite possibly - it is a mainly rural area, one "town" and several villages plus many farms. Unfortunately, we are within commuting distance of a large urban area which had a significant peak recently ( a couple of months ago ). Mostly, though, people are quite good with masks and social distancing. Narrow pavements and small shops are a potential problem.
 
Pickman's model said:
i see they aren't including wales in the first tranche of vaccinations
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That's okay. According to that map they appear to be moving Wirral Hospital over the Dee into Wales. They also seem to be moving Epsom Racecourse to Tonbridge Wells and the Excel Centre to Canvey Island. I know Johnson loves big projects, but this is really ambitious...
 
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