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Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

weltweit said:
Coming to terms with the original covid-19 virus, doing hand washing mask wearing and social distancing, avoiding crowded places, working from home, etc - after a while I felt my actions could just about prevent me getting it. And so far I have indeed avoided it, though it isn't such a great life.

Now, this new variant with 70% greater transmission, has caused me to question my thinking. It used to be more than 15 minutes within 2m of an infected person, the threshold of the covid-19 app, a lot more people are going to catch this new variant. I wonder which of my assumptions are no longer valid and if it will be possible for me or anyone else to continue avoiding infection?
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I share your concern. Living in the deep purple zone it seems like the original fears about the virus from March are being realised in terms of transmission ability. I reckon it has followed public transport routes this time round. Look at Basildon, Barking, ect on the C2C line and a few weeks back it almost seemed to be following bus routes in some areas.
 
kenny g said:
I share your concern. Living in the deep purple zone it seems like the original fears about the virus from March are being realised in terms of transmission ability. I reckon it has followed public transport routes this time round. Look at Basildon, Barking, ect on the C2C line and a few weeks back it almost seemed to be following bus routes in some areas.
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I am thinking about some of the South London pockets around Woolwich heading south in particular. With the old variant if you wore masks you were generally OK. With this one you can not rely on masks when in close proximity. It didn't help when the train frequency was massively reduced in November due to staff shortages and C2C wanting to make some extra cash. People were going ballistic online locally because what had been socially distanced train journeys of 30 minutes or so were becoming really scary events due to trains every 20 minutes instead of 5. It felt mad to be in a socially distanced work place, whether an office or a building site, and then staring at a stranger's armpit all the way home. And there were people on the trains with what sounded like covid coughs which was terrifying. I remember getting onto one carriage and there was one bloke with a massive space around him coughing every minute or so from behind his mask whilst the other passengers had their backs turned. Crazy.
 
weltweit said:
Coming to terms with the original covid-19 virus, doing hand washing mask wearing and social distancing, avoiding crowded places, working from home, etc - after a while I felt my actions could just about prevent me getting it. And so far I have indeed avoided it, though it isn't such a great life.

Now, this new variant with 70% greater transmission, has caused me to question my thinking. It used to be more than 15 minutes within 2m of an infected person, the threshold of the covid-19 app, a lot more people are going to catch this new variant. I wonder which of my assumptions are no longer valid and if it will be possible for me or anyone else to continue avoiding infection?
Click to expand...

Did you have the same thoughts when you considered winter? Its a similar thing really, there are all sorts of variables that affect risk, mutations are part of that picture, not unique in that respect, not a cause for defeatism about personal chances of catching it.

Indeed if the response to this strain is stronger than the winter response would otherwise have been, if it gets people to take things more seriously, if it affects behaviour in a way that reduces the opportunities for the virus to spread, then the new strain (or rather our awareness of it and response to it) could even end up reducing your risk of catching the virus.
 
Went to the supermarket this afternoon (in South London) and it was very normal (for this year), other than that they'd reinstated having a staff member at the door to offer hand sanitizer. They've been excellent, and really conscientious throughout this whole thing. And it felt very reassuring a few weeks ago when they added an extra shelf to their aisles, holding the still boxed/crated stuff that I guess they usually keep out back. It creates the impression that food and essentials aren't in danger of running out, to me at least, and that seems to be borne out by the rest of the shelves remaining full/ not worryingly empty, no long queues and no overstuffed trolleys.
 
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Roadkill said:
The 70% greater transmissibility stat is alarming but unproven, so it's too early to start thinking in detail about what it means. The only sensible rule to work to atm is 'be very fucking careful.'
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A lot of people repeating the 70% though, didn't Vallance himself quote it at us today?
 
kenny g said:
I share your concern. Living in the deep purple zone it seems like the original fears about the virus from March are being realised in terms of transmission ability. I reckon it has followed public transport routes this time round. Look at Basildon, Barking, ect on the C2C line and a few weeks back it almost seemed to be following bus routes in some areas.
Click to expand...
Yes, transport routes seem very possible as a point of infection.
 
Roadkill said:
The 70% greater transmissibility stat is alarming but unproven, so it's too early to start thinking in detail about what it means. The only sensible rule to work to atm is 'be very fucking careful.'
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Unproven isn't really true. The NERVTAG report on Friday had it down as 'moderate confidence' in that, and today they changed it to 'high confidence', a significant step that have the data to back-up. At this point I'd say while 'not proved' exactly, it's looking very certain to be the case and has now been quoted as fact by a number of scientists, Vallance among them.
 
LynnDoyleCooper said:
Unproven isn't really true. The NERVTAG report on Friday had it down as 'moderate confidence' in that, and today they changed it to 'high confidence', a significant step that have the data to back-up. At this point I'd say while 'not proved' 100% exactly, it's looking very certainly to be the case.
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So probable, but unproven. Not that it should make any difference in how any of us approaches this...
 
Mation said:
Went to the supermarket this afternoon (in South London) and it was very normal (for this year), other than that they'd reinstated having a staff member at the door to offer hand sanitizer. They've been excellent, and really conscientious throughout this whole thing. And it felt very reassuring a few weeks ago when they added an extra shelf to their aisles, holding the still boxed/crated stuff that I guess they usually keep out back. It creates the impression that food and essentials aren't in danger of running out, to me at least, and that seems to be born out by the rest of the shelves remaining full/ not worryingly empty, no long queues and no overstuffed trolleys.
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I’m around Essex so probably a few regional differences :p
 
elbows said:
Did you have the same thoughts when you considered winter? Its a similar thing really, there are all sorts of variables that affect risk, mutations are part of that picture, not unique in that respect, not a cause for defeatism about personal chances of catching it.
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tbh I never really take any precautions wrt winter, apart from not allowing myself to get soaking wet and cold, that sort of thing.

elbows said:
Indeed if the response to this strain is stronger than the winter response would otherwise have been, if it gets people to take things more seriously, if it affects behaviour in a way that reduces the opportunities for the virus to spread, then the new strain (or rather our awareness of it and response to it) could even end up reducing your risk of catching the virus.
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elbows that is an optimistic thought, I suppose it is also possible, but I am also wondering what will the new rules of engagement be? Will it be 5 minutes at 2m with an infected person for example? Or no minutes at all?
 
Roadkill said:
Sure. But also don't make assertions with a confidence the evidence doesn't yet support. I stress yet...
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It would be interesting to know the evidence UKG sent to WHO about the new variant. Certainly the countries that have now closed borders with the UK believe their action was justified.
 
elbows said:
Thats very useful, it means that lots of the graphs I was producing per trust rather sporadically are now obsolete and people can just use the dashboard.

I dont go via the postcode route much myself, so I'll also add that you can go to the healthcare section and then click to change area type to NHS trust and then search/select a particular trust to see figures and graphs admissions, current covid-19 patient levels, patients in mechanical ventilation beds.

View attachment 244654
Edit - actually the results I get when I make that selection arent right. I'm a bit tired right now but will try to figure out whats wrong and whether anything useful can still be seen this way.

edit again - it does work even though the results are wrong in that screenshot, it was just blip.
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Dunno if this is helpful cupid_stunt and elbows I've been following the Covid dashboard tech guy on Twitter for a while and completely forgot this may have been useful info for Urban! But he goes into a bit of detail earlier in his feed about how the Trust data is compiled

https://twitter.com/Pouriaaa
 
I could've cried with frustration during today's press conference when it became apparent that Johnson was announcing nothing. After Saturday's announcement of the made up that morning, back of fag packet tier 4 I hoped there may be something new announced.

It was too much to expect him to announce a new national lockdown, which is surely needed as cases rise across the country, with infection rates so high they have to keep finding new colors for their map to show how bad it is. He's determined not to be the first British politician since Cromwell to 'ban Christmas', and the right wing anti-lockdown shitsacks that infest his back benches would never forgive him for it. But some kind of refinement of the hastily cobbled together new tier system. A recognition that tier 2 areas bounding the tier 4 areas have seen cases double or triple in a week. An attempt to stop this overspill from the new strain hotspots engulfing the whole country. Something. Anything.

But no. He's dealing with the French to sort out trade over closed border, nothing to announce, but it'll all be fine. The restrictions will be kept under non-specific review. Whitty chips in that new restrictions will be needed later. Otherwise, carry on as you are and try not to catch it and die.

And waving the 500,000 vaccinations figure about as a shiny thing to distract us. Sure, it's a Big Number, but that many people half vaccinated in 2 weeks is nowhere near up to speed, even if it is early days.

It's watching him fuck it up yet again that's so fucking enraging. Locking down too late the first time was a deadly mistake. Locking down too late the second time was criminally negligent. Ending the second lockdown too soon was yet another disastrous blunder. And now he's locking down too late a third fucking time. This new more transmitable strain of the virus will have run right across the country by the time Christmas has passed and he grudgingly accepts the need to lock down again. More dead. More hospitals overwhelmed. More lives ruined. And the longer he puts it off the harder it'll be to pull things back to some kind of normality. Yet a-fucking-gain :mad:
 
weltweit said:
elbows that is an optimistic thought, I suppose it is also possible, but I am also wondering what will the new rules of engagement be? Will it be 5 minutes at 2m with an infected person for example? Or no minutes at all?
Click to expand...

I've said all along not to mistake arbitrary rules that are chosen for a multitude of reasons, with how the virus actually behaves or your own risk of catching it in any partiular setting when mixing with people.

Theres not much point me predicting how strongly the government will tighten things in terms of details. I can sometimes predict roughly when they will be forced to do something, and how big a response is required. But since the government repeatedly under reacts and then are later forced to press the brakes harder as a result, a familiar pattern emerges that I think plenty of people understand the rhythm of these days, so they dont need me to see which way the wind blows.

Broadly speaking the response to the new strain is not a different beast from the sort of picture we might have expected in this pandemic winter anyway. If all of its potential implications are revealed to be true and significant, then the results are much the same as if we'd had a winter plan and measures that werent up to the winter burden, and needed to be constantly strengthened as a result.

Whatever difference the new strain makes in practical terms on the ground, in communication terms it has closed a perception gap between the delusional, bizarre version of pandemic winter that some have tried to foster in the buildup to this season, and what was always possibly going to be necessary to keep the hospital levels within operational limits over winter. Numerous u-turns ahead may be blamed on thsi strain, but regardless of whether it is fair or unfair to do so, ie how much difference the strain is actually making to the wave, I suspect some of these u-turns would have happened even without this strain.
 
cupid_stunt said:
What a difference a day makes, the map has been updated to the sample date of 16th Dec., Cornwall now up 244% in 7 days, Isle of Wight up 394%. :bigeyes:
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I follow my little area on the map. It's always 5 days behind (unless you have a link to a more up to date one?). The trouble with low numbers, is the percentage increases can be huge, and because it's a 7 day figure it gets more confused. Today it shows the 16 December figure, 7 cases, up 133% from 4 a week ago. Worrying, except that yesterday it showed 8 cases, which was an increase on 6 cases. 7 days before that. Or am I reading the figures wrong?
 
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