Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[ska invita]

It makes me laugh how there is often indignation about how much MPs are paid, when it's clear to anyone paying attention that many of them really don't need the paltry 70k or whatever it is a year - they're ridiculously independently wealthy already.

How about making MP pay means tested

 

[Pickman's model]

How about making MP pay means tested

How about tying MPs' pay to uc and not paying any of them a penny if they've more than six grand savings

 

[andysays]

How about tying MPs' pay to uc and not paying any of them a penny if they've more than six grand savings

How about tieing MPs themselves to a convenient lamppost and leaving them there to starve?

 

[Pickman's model]

How about tieing MPs themselves to a convenient lamppost and leaving them there to starve?

There are no lampposts, convenient or otherwise, where they're going

But there are plenty of hungry penguins

 

[andysays]

There are no lampposts, convenient or otherwise, where they're going

But there are plenty of hungry penguins

That's more like it.

Let's have no more of these namby pamby proposals about MPs' pay from you in future, stick to the South Atlantic development scheme...

 

[elbows]

I've got familiar with that graph as I've followed it and watched it grow, but I wonder how long until it's retired and replaced with a different one. It's always reflected the testing system as much as how many people actually have the virus - see where what should be a giant spike at the peak has been snapped off like a broken stalagmite by the government's decision to stop testing outside hospitals in March. What that does, however, is set an unrealistically low peak figure for the first wave of just over 5000 cases per day. There must've been many tens of thousands catching the virus every day in March. With the figure approaching 2000 today and a better testing system than in the spring, it can't be long before the official statistics show new cases outstripping the previous official peak.

By the way, France and Spain pretty much already managed to hit similar sorts of numbers for confirmed cases recently as they managed at the first peak. But I doubt anyone confuses this with them having the same number of actual cases as were really present at the first peak.

Since this is a UK thread I will put the graphs for those countries that I have pinched off worldometer inside spoiler tags.

Spoiler

 

[Looby]

I was asked to get a test on the Zoe app. I suspect because I reported a sore throat along with the tight chest I’ve had for months. Still not able to book tests at my local site and they tried to send me 45 mins drive away.
I went to my local site anyway as I knew they’d had problems and there must have been upwards of 20 staff stood waiting for people because no-one can book and they haven’t advertised that you can just turn up.
I have a poorly colleague at home waiting for results of a postal test because she didn’t know. Fucking shambles!

 

[Orang Utan]

what's the Zoe app? I've seen it mentioned on here quite a bit

 

[Looby]

what's the Zoe app? I've seen it mentioned on here quite a bit

It’s a daily symptom reporting app feeding into research by doctors and scientists at Kings I think.
I’ve been using it since March when I was ill although I haven’t reported daily recently. They are selecting people for tests either randomly or because they have particular symptoms.
They want people to report even if they’re feeling well. They also collect data about health and lifestyle and underlying conditions.

 

[prunus]

It’s a daily symptom reporting app feeding into research by doctors and scientists at Kings I think.
I’ve been using it since March when I was ill although I haven’t reported daily recently. They are selecting people for tests either randomly or because they have particular symptoms.

Help slow the spread of #COVID19 and identify at risk cases sooner by self-reporting your symptoms daily, even if you feel well . Download the app
COVID Symptom Study - Help slow the spread of COVID-19

 

[quimcunx]

I was asked to get a test on the Zoe app. I suspect because I reported a sore throat along with the tight chest I’ve had for months. Still not able to book tests at my local site and they tried to send me 45 mins drive away.
I went to my local site anyway as I knew they’d had problems and there must have been upwards of 20 staff stood waiting for people because no-one can book and they haven’t advertised that you can just turn up.
I have a poorly colleague at home waiting for results of a postal test because she didn’t know. Fucking shambles!

I ordered a postal one this morning. They said no walk/drive in centres were available. Then found out there is a local one to me that seems little used. All I have is a little cold. I could have walked there easy enough.

World beating.

 

[sheothebudworths]

This is it - 'capacity' is meaningless while this continues to be run centrally.
Blocking access to testing, while local test centres are left empty of people to test, has fuck all to do with diverting tests/testing to areas in obvious need, while they run out - it's just more slack inefficiency, isn't it?

 

[elbows]

This is it - 'capacity' is meaningless while this continues to be run centrally.
Blocking access to testing, while local test centres are left empty of people to test, has fuck all to do with diverting tests/testing to areas in obvious need, while they run out - it's just more slack inefficiency, isn't it?

Its the new form of hyper-efficiency. Having decided that PHE is inadequate and should be replaced, they've decided to leap ahead of the curve by ensuring that the replacement entity is sufficiently discredited long before it even comes into formal existence. This is how we level up in 2020.

 

[existentialist]

If there is a global shortage problem with this then why not communicate it? Why pretend everything is fine and all normal? If it's not the government's fault why not shout it loud?

Not geopolitical - more human nature. There is a perfectly reasonable logic that says "the fewer tests we do, the fewer positive cases we will show". It's not much use, in practice, in terms of managing infection, but it makes perfect sense if your main priority is looking like you're doing something to a particularly credulous support base, rather than actually achieving anything against a virus which, so far as we know, does not read newspapers.

 

[elbows]

Look at this shit on the front page of the Times. It reminds me of certain attitudes that were doing the rounds in February and March but were heard much less of once a vast amount of death piled up. And it does have aspects which make me wonder what has actually been learnt since at all, how easily people can revert to this sort of attitude.



I mean I'm calling it shit, but there are aspects in there that need not be this shit if it were all framed differently. Nobody actually knows exactly how things will unfold in the months head. But you cannot make policy and do planning based on nothing more than the hope that the shielding will be so much more effective this time around. And there is a difference between the sorts of voluntary social distancing that some older people may be managing right now, and shielding people from infection in care homes and hospitals over winter.

Its also the case that the governments original plan a that they had to abandon involved some shielding for older groups and the rest of society carrying on. There will always be pressure to adopt that sort of strategy if it can possibly be gotten away with, but in March it became clear that it would fall way too far short. If they could possibly get away with that approach this time around then they will, and its really not that hard to cover both eventualities. You just plan for winter as if the angle that article went for is just ludicrous wishful thinking that reflects a temporary change in the demographics due to parties, holidays, going out, going back to work etc, and where notable levels of infection will eventually make their way back to larger numbers in the at risk category. But then, if the hospital data never goes back up to levels that sound the alarm, you just never end up slamming on the emergency brake options of lockdown etc, and you eventually tentatively try going easier on some of the softer, localised forms of brake squeezing.

So happily I do not think someone has to make a straightforward decision about whether to embrace such a possible reality as the one imagined in that article. Otherwise I would be going nuts about dangerous idiots ruining everything. Instead what we have is a situation where policy can adapt somewhat to whatever reality unfolds in the months ahead. Which doesnt mean I think we are well prepared or will actually cope well with all possible scenarios, just that the reality should unfold before our eyes in a way which doesnt leave too much room for doubt about whether we are over or under-reacting.

If I were asked to cover this angle in an article, my main point would be that the most draconian responses should be in response to hospital data, and that yes, if people are only judging the pandemic by daily case numbers they may get the wrong idea about where we are at any particular moment in time. And that in practical terms, the amount of stuff we have reopened and the number of calls to return to the workplace means everything is already in place for the theories in the article to be tested by reality. If they tried to use these concepts to push further, for example by scaling back test & trace regimes and not paying much attention to local outbreaks when they are picked up well before any hospital data there shows disturbing signs, then I would try to resist this as strongly as possible, and at the very least until we had actually experienced some portion of winter. Exceptions to that would probably only sneak into my mind if something unexpected that changed our knowledge and expectations of this virus happened before we even got to winter.

 

[elbows]

Also Woolhouse is the cunt from this story in April:

Edinburgh coronavirus advisor ignores advice and self-isolates in holiday home

The Scottish Government coronavirus advisor ignored Nicola Sturgeon's advice to ease pressure on remote islands

www.edinburghlive.co.uk

 

[elbows]

I suppose that sort of article also pisses me off and gets me going because I take it to mean they are currently quite satisfied with the current level of hospital admissions etc. Well I'm not. For the last 7 days for which I have data, 392 hospital admissions showed up for England. Thats a far cry from the peak 7 day total that was higher than 19000 on a couple of occasions in early April, but I suppose my 'problem' is that I dont really have a lower limit where I end up thinking 'well thats ok then'. But at the same time, I realise that the balance of harm would not be correct if, for example, we were proposing to have a full on national lockdown in order to keep 400 people a week out of hospital. And I also doubt that it would be possible to have a sensible and appropriate discussion where we could figure out where that threshold should be set. But it clearly needs to be much lower than where it ended up in reality last time after a policy of under reaction was followed for too long, accompanied by the usual goofs telling us to relax and finding various ways to downplay the situation until that approach blew up.

 

[MrSki]

Its the new form of hyper-efficiency. Having decided that PHE is inadequate and should be replaced, they've decided to leap ahead of the curve by ensuring that the replacement entity is sufficiently discredited long before it even comes into formal existence. This is how we level up in 2020.

And put the person who fucked up the track and trace in charge just for the irony. If you sent this script to a publisher they would tell you where to go. I can't believe how this shit is not being reported. Matt Hancock saying to Kay Burley that we need experts in certain roles as a justification for Tony Abbott but no one seems to give a shit the Dido has no expertise & certainly not in anything to do with heath.
She has a track record of fucking up but bung her a load of cash anyhow. The UK media is fucked. This should be questioned everywhere.
What experience or qualifications does Dido Harding have for any health post apart from being married to someone who wants to scrap the NHS.
I cannot believe this is actually happening & those who could question it don;t. Sorry but I am loosing the plot over this shit.

 

[CH1]

I can't see why you are so angry. It seems logical that many people are infected with Coronavirus - and many do not get sick. At least so far. Wasn't this the argument months ago about Sweden and how much lockdown is required? The so-called herd immunity which hasn't been heard of now for months.

Currently Sweden has 5835 deaths on a poplation of 10 million. 0.058%
We have 41537 (adjusted down recently) in a population of 66 million. 0.063%

The British press and TV had been baying for the Swedish government scientific adviser to be sacked a while back.
God knows why - when we are doing slightly worse than Sweden on current death figures.

The whole covid thing is very paranoia inducing. I don't agree with P Corbyn that it doesn't exist, but I am not pleased to have my medical services withdrawn. My issues are at least not fatal. If I had cancer I would be devastated.

 

[elbows]

but I am not pleased to have my medical services withdrawn. My issues are at least not fatal. If I had cancer I would be devastated.

Its a complex subject because there were well over 60,000 UK excess deaths and some of them were down to lack of treatment for other conditions.

But the amount of covid deaths that were caused by infections picked up in hospitals was also rather high. And some of the people most in need of treatment were also vulnerable to Covid-19s worst effects.

“We know that patients with cancer have higher mortality rates from COVID-19 compared with the general population, with the most recent studies indicating a mortality rate of 13% in the cancer population,” Arielle Elkrief, MD, oncology fellow at McGill University Health Centre, said during the presentation. “This is important because patients with cancer have high contact with the health care system due to frequent treatments, surveillance visits and hospitalizations for cancer-related complications.”

Hospital-acquired COVID-19 linked to increased mortality among patients with cancer

Nosocomial transmission of COVID-19 occurred at high rates among patients with cancer and appeared associated with increased mortality in this population, according to study results presented at AACR Virtual Meeting: COVID-19 and Cancer.The results reinforced the importance of treating patients...

www.healio.com

What would be required to save the most people from all categories on this front would be to have a health service that was able to effectively segregate covid and non-covid patients and treatment locations. They could not manage that the first time round, nor could they manage to stop hospital infections from spreading to care homes and killing large numbers.

And these are also some of the scenarios that make a mockery of attempts to turn stories about the younger, working population being the ones testing positive these days into a positive story and a reason not to worry. Because there is no magic separation between these younger people and the rest of society, whether that be older people, people in care homes, NHS patients or whoever.

 

[MrSki]

Do fuck off you twat. at CH1 My brother died of cancer in late April. Even under the lockdown his treatment was pretty good. Go and volunteer in a covid ward & not bother with PPE and see how you get on.

Are you in anyway qualified to judge what is the best stance for the NHS to take?

I hope for your sake that none of your loved ones die but you do come across as a bit of a covid denier.

If you need the medical services they still exist. Sweden is a bit different from the UK in population density & general standard of living. I have not heard it reported of any Swedes dying of starvation recently. Have you?

 

[MrSki]

I apologise to CH1 I am a bit pissed & maybe took your post the wrong way. It is possible that you are not a compete cunt.

 

[elbows]

As for paranoia, nah, speak for yourself.

I was paranoid about pandemics in 2005, so I decided to learn about them at that time. And then fear gave way to knowledge. And then I got to test the knowledge in the 2009 swine flu pandemic, which was a very mild pandemic by many measures, and so was met by a very different response on every level by people and authorities. And then I got to see the situation unfolding in 2020, and all this prior knowledge came in handy in various ways.

And then I augmented my sense of how bad this pandemic was by looking at the number of deaths from all causes per day for every day since 1st January 1970. And I saw that during the first peak of this pandemic, the number of deaths every day reached the sort of levels where there were twice as many deaths per day as normal, levels that only the worst influenza epidemics and pandemics of the last 50 years could rival a few times. And that was with the lockdown etc, I have no way to actually know what the numbers would have reached if we had carried on with the original plan instead of having a type of lockdown. There are some questions. Sweden tends to create as many questions as it answers. What happens over winter or with any subsequent waves or lack of waves will give some clues as to the full potential of the virus. All the same, if its like every other bit of medical science, virus research area I've ever read about, we will still be left with plenty of big unknowns about some aspects no matter what happens. Full human understanding of viruses and associated diseases, epidemics etc is elusive, our knowledge is still rather basic in many ways and its a struggle to really get a deep grip on some of the big questions, even in a pandemic where there is more pressure than ever to solve various long-term virus riddles.

What we have already seen in terms of numbers of hospitalisations and deaths, here and around the world, really should be enough for people to understand that a real response was required. And it isnt actually possible to have the perfect response that has no unwanted side-effects. In the fullness of time we should get a more nuanced picture of what measures would have been sufficient, but we already know that trivial measures would not have been enough. But doing nothing or very little and trying to keep stuff going as normal wasnt really an option, even if we had tried for longer to follow that approach, the rate of hospitalisations would soon have reached levels that forced strong action, we'd just have been even later with lockdown than we were.

If you want a healthcare system that still keeps delivering services to most patients through all stages of a bad pandemic, then as a starting point what you need is a healthcare system with masses of spare capacity during normal times, plenty of slack that is then available when you need to do all sorts of things differently for a while during bad phases of a pandemic. And things still wouldnt be quite normal even with all that lovely capacity, but they could have served people, including the people who work for the NHS, much better if our NHS was in that state in the first place.

 

[Spandex]

I can't see why you are so angry. It seems logical that many people are infected with Coronavirus - and many do not get sick. At least so far. Wasn't this the argument months ago about Sweden and how much lockdown is required? The so-called herd immunity which hasn't been heard of now for months.

Currently Sweden has 5835 deaths on a poplation of 10 million. 0.058%
We have 41537 (adjusted down recently) in a population of 66 million. 0.063%

The British press and TV had been baying for the Swedish government scientific adviser to be sacked a while back.
God knows why - when we are doing slightly worse than Sweden on current death figures.

The whole covid thing is very paranoia inducing. I don't agree with P Corbyn that it doesn't exist, but I am not pleased to have my medical services withdrawn. My issues are at least not fatal. If I had cancer I would be devastated.

Picking the UK - still the sixth worst affected country in the world in terms of deaths/million - as a comparator will make most countries responses look good. Sweden, however, is up there on the league table of death, in 11th place - just behind the US. In fact Sweden's 577 deaths per million is quite close to the US's 580 deaths per million. Do you think Trump's strategy is one worth looking at too? A fair comparison is with its neighbouring Norway - 84th worst affected country with 49 deaths per million. That doesn't make the Swedish approach look so clever.

As for medical services being withdrawn: I don't know what you're talking about. My partner's dad's cancer treatment is continuing sucessfully with just a slight delay in March/April. When I had an ear infection during lockdown I filled out an online form, the doctor called me within an hour and then asked me to come straight up to the surgery so they could look in my ear. It was quicker than normal. I'm sure there's some disaster stories if you look for them, but in general medical care is carrying on, just in a slightly different way.

 

[Orang Utan]

Not much going on in mental health services, mind

 

[farmerbarleymow]

As for medical services being withdrawn: I don't know what you're talking about. My partner's dad's cancer treatment is continuing sucessfully with just a slight delay in March/April. When I had an ear infection during lockdown I filled out an online form, the doctor called me within an hour and then asked me to come straight up to the surgery so they could look in my ear. It was quicker than normal. I'm sure there's some disaster stories if you look for them, but in general medical care is carrying on, just in a slightly different way.

Not for elective surgery though - a large number of people waiting for that couldn't have it done.

 

[Cloo]

I'm expecting big breakouts in charedi orthodox Jewish communities in the next month as there is not a chance they won't gather for New Year and Yom Kippur. Apparently things are already really fucked in Israel, which was doing quite well but now has the largest new infections per million in the world, apparently, in part because the ultra orthodox insist on gettting together in vast numbers for things like their head rabbi's grandson's wedding.

 

[elbows]

Articles like this one are a bit annoying to me because if you are going to go on about false positives, you should really go on about false negatives too.

Coronavirus: Tests 'could be picking up dead virus'

Scientists say a positive coronavirus result does not guarantee that someone is infectious.

www.bbc.co.uk

Also contains this bit of analysis from Nick Triggle:

There is a growing sense within the public health community that the UK is in a strong position - and certainly a return to the high levels of infection seen in the spring should be avoided.

But there is also extreme caution and an understandable desire for complacency not to creep in.

I actually do not mind such a growing sense as that, just so long as the bit about extreme caution and complacency creep is heeded properly at all times.

I would like to better understand where this 'growing sense' comes from. Is it just down to timing, that they were expecting case numbers to creep upwards or even explode in a manner that doesnt seem to have happened so far? If so then thats an understandable feeling but I would be waiting another month or two at least before indulging in it myself. Especially since there seems to be a natural inclination to tend towards such a sense of optimism unless those thoughts are stopped in their tracks by an insurmountable wall of horror. And this was always likely to be a period where optimism could flourish, to some extent at least. Because people seem to be highly tuned to our current picture at any moment in time, eg attitudes of some healthcare professions starts to shift once they've not seen high level of admissions for a while. Such phenomenon do bother me a bit because I saw signs that such thinking was involved in our failure to be ready to thwart the first wave, and I am not convinced that all the right lessons have actually been learnt from that yet. But I dont want to make the opposite mistake either, and so I am ready to change my tune if data over the next 4-6 weeks continues to point at a less nerve-wracking picture.

 

[nagapie]

I ordered a postal one this morning. They said no walk/drive in centres were available. Then found out there is a local one to me that seems little used. All I have is a little cold. I could have walked there easy enough.

World beating.

Please pm me the details of this one. I tried to book a drive through and couldn't.

 

[nagapie]

Not much going on in mental health services, mind

Or much for my little one. What has really bothered me is how the NHS has been so slow to resume services in this quieter time of Covid. Everyone else is at work, many NHS teams are still saying they can't do in person appointments. It's pretty rubbish.