Coronavirus Thread

[Buce]

27 minutes ago, StanSP said:

What's the deal with the World Beating test and trace system then, at the moment?

 

Clearly hasn't been a success. Clearly failed and has been near useless. 

 

Government actually doing anything to try and improve it? The desired outcome of it clearly hasn't been met so what's the deal now?

 

Fixed it for you.

[Guest Fktf]

9 hours ago, dsr-burnley said:

The universities of Brasilia and Princeton (USA) did a combined study that said that Brazil's total death rate from all causes for the months of March, April, May was 22% above the five year average.  (Ours, for comparison, was 43%.)  It may be that Brazil have buried several hundred thousand bodies without recording their deaths, but I suspect not - their press is free enough to find that out and spread the word around the world if it was happening.

 

I'm not ignoring the data from March to May,  All I am saying is just because one thing happens and then another, it doesn't mean the first caused the second.  As you point out in your last sentence, we don't actually know what caused the wave to fade away.  There are several possibilities.  And to assume that a coronavirus cannot possibly fade for reasons unknown is assuming far too much about our knowledge of this disease.

You've set up an impossible debate here. You're quite willing to draw comparisons to select countries and parts of what we saw with Spanish flu to make your point. But people with the opposing view are assuming too much when they draw similar comparisons - even though restrictions that lead to social distancing have long known to be an effective public health tactic for infectious diseases.

 

In science, we work on the opposite assumption of what you're trying to put forward. The transmission looks like any other coronavirus we know about, so assume similar public health tactics will work unless there's good evidence they don't. 

[bovril]

Exactly the same mistake as last time - the longer you wait the longer the lockdown has to be. 

[dsr-burnley]

18 minutes ago, Fktf said:

You've set up an impossible debate here. You're quite willing to draw comparisons to select countries and parts of what we saw with Spanish flu to make your point. But people with the opposing view are assuming too much when they draw similar comparisons - even though restrictions that lead to social distancing have long known to be an effective public health tactic for infectious diseases.

 

In science, we work on the opposite assumption of what you're trying to put forward. The transmission looks like any other coronavirus we know about, so assume similar public health tactics will work unless there's good evidence they don't. 

"similar public health tactics" - similar to what?  I have no idea of any similar coronavirus issue that we are being compared to.

 

I'm not drawing conclusions, apart from the obvious conclusion that they don't really know what they are doing.  I don't think there is sound scientific evidence that lockdown in the style proposed now will make any practical difference.  There is every possibility that the net effect, lives saved versus lives lost, will be negative.  And I reckon that before we go back to a policy which will certainly cost a load of jobs and which will reduce the NHS and other public spending budget for many years to come, we need to be reasonably certain that it will solve the specific problem it's trying to solve.

 

Social distancing, OK.  Masks and 2 metre spacing, OK.  But banning people from seeing their families while allowing working people to go out to work and children to go to school?  Have they any evidence that that makes a significant difference compared with social distancing, masks, allowing work, and allowing people to see their grandchildren?

Edited 31 October 2020 by dsr-burnley

[Blue-fox]

In my opinion, the general public have ****ed it for themselves because they can’t adhere to some relatively simple guidance. 
 

[Pliskin]

47 minutes ago, Mark 'expert' Lawrenson said:

Furlough scheme ends, the country goes into lockdown the day after, the new JSS only pays approximately 66% of closed businesses employees wages.

For those who manage to keep their jobs it’s going to be a winter of hardship on 66% for those poor souls who lose their jobs it’s worse, mass unemployment, it’s a complete disaster on so many levels.

I’ve already been told if we go into lockdown again my job is gone. Just had to sell the car just in case. Currently cycling everywhere 😂.

 

But in all seriousness, it’s shit x 1000 at the moment. 

[Mark 'expert' Lawrenson]

4 minutes ago, Pliskin said:

I’ve already been told if we go into lockdown again my job is gone. Just had to sell the car just in case. Currently cycling everywhere 😂.

 

But in all seriousness, it’s shit x 1000 at the moment. 

Really sorry to hear that, people will be tightening their belts in all kinds of ways, the economy is bad now, wait till another month of lockdown.

I cycle myself when I can, although wouldn’t fancy it today! 

Fingers crossed for you and everyone else who has to worry about jobs, rent, mortgage etc (including myself) 

[FoxesDeb]

9 hours ago, dsr-burnley said:

I don't think there is an exact unequivocal definition of what is lockdown and what isn't.  By and large, if I am not legally able to enter my next door neighbour's house, I call that lockdown.  Sweden gave consistent and constant guidelines so their people knew where they were.  They also gave a lot more consideration to the old than the UK did' as far as our politicians go, it seems that they don't care what the old people die of as long as it isn't coronavirus.

So people can go shopping, go out for a drink and a meal, go abroad on holiday and go out to work but you call that a lockdown? We'll have to differ on that one then, it's far from a lockdown imo. With restrictions, yes, but locked down? That doesn't sound like the definition of it to me. 

 

Sweden differs in that the majority of the population seemed happier to follow the advice rather than instantly looking for ways to bend the rules like we saw here. From what I remember, they also let it run through their care homes too. 

[SpacedX]

14 minutes ago, Pliskin said:

I’ve already been told if we go into lockdown again my job is gone. Just had to sell the car just in case. Currently cycling everywhere 😂.

 

But in all seriousness, it’s shit x 1000 at the moment. 

I'm sorry to hear that. 

[Leicester_Loyal]

12 minutes ago, Blue-fox said:

In my opinion, the general public have ****ed it for themselves because they can’t adhere to some relatively simple guidance. 
 

If we all followed the rules all of the time, we'd still have an R rate that is close to or above one, purely because of universities and schools going back, as well as key work places being open. Even when everything was closed, wasn't the R rate about 0.7?

 

I was very critical of people not following the rules at first on here, because I agreed that we needed to have a lockdown in order to prepare the NHS, increase capacity, put the track and trace system and organise the country ready for the battle ahead, but it appears the Government have failed to achieve those goals.

 

However, we do have a lot of tests a day, the testing capacity here is a huge number, so credit to them for sorting that out.

[dsr-burnley]

8 minutes ago, FoxesDeb said:

So people can go shopping, go out for a drink and a meal, go abroad on holiday and go out to work but you call that a lockdown? We'll have to differ on that one then, it's far from a lockdown imo. With restrictions, yes, but locked down? That doesn't sound like the definition of it to me. 

 

Sweden differs in that the majority of the population seemed happier to follow the advice rather than instantly looking for ways to bend the rules like we saw here. From what I remember, they also let it run through their care homes too. 

For people at work, it isn't a lockdown.  For retired people, it is.  Their entire social life has gone, they can go out for a meal alone but can't meet anyone, they can go shopping alone and come home and eat their dinner alone.  They might have a bubble with a child if that child isn't in a bubble with his or her own children, another parent, or an in-law.

 

Sweden made the same mess as we did with nursing homes.  They aren't perfect.  If they had kept the nursing homes secure and halved the death toll, it would be a lot easier to propose them as a possible model.  

 

Of course, protecting the old people in nursing homes has the same negative effect as protecting the elderly in general.  It means that the one thing they have to look forward to is taken away and they have nothing to look forward to at all.  20,000 people, about 5% of the old folks' home population, died of coronavirus; another 12%, based on normal situations, have died in the last 6 months without coronavirus and probably without family, and the remaining 83% have had a pretty miserable existence.  It's a dilemma.

[Corky]

In my area we've had three huge outbreaks in factories. They all remained open.

 

Yet high street shops and bars that would have nowhere near the level of infection or spread will have to shut.

 

Schools, universities and factories (as well as the crap living conditions the workers have) are huge breeding and spreading grounds for this virus but will remain open and working. 

 

Shutting high streets, gyms, bars whilst keeping other things open where you can actually pinpoint a severe outbreak isn't right, for me. 

[Nod.E]

3 hours ago, st albans fox said:

Strange post ....... not really surprised though noddy ...... I imagine people can still have empathy for other human beings irrelevant of their politics .....

The irony is lost on you that the conservatives have been underfunding and privatising the NHS for years.

[Buce]

23 minutes ago, Leicester_Loyal said:

If we all followed the rules all of the time, we'd still have an R rate that is close to or above one, purely because of universities and schools going back, as well as key work places being open. Even when everything was closed, wasn't the R rate about 0.7?

 

I was very critical of people not following the rules at first on here, because I agreed that we needed to have a lockdown in order to prepare the NHS, increase capacity, put the track and trace system and organise the country ready for the battle ahead, but it appears the Government have failed to achieve those goals.

 

However, we do have a lot of tests a day, the testing capacity here is a huge number, so credit to them for sorting that out.

 

Mrs Buce works in a care home; the staff are tested once a week (on Wednesday) and get the results the following Monday, which means anyone who tests positive is working for five days while contagious. There has already been 10 deaths of residents during the last couple of weeks, with a dozen more on 'end of life' care.

 

There is no credit deserved.

Edited 31 October 2020 by Buce

[The Horse's Mouth]

1 hour ago, Cardiff_Fox said:

It’s to protect the existing health service. If beds are full, then the risk heightens for outside of the bracket you describe 

Theyre literallt always full this time.of year, its what happens when you severely underfund the NHS

[SpacedX]

2 minutes ago, Corky said:

In my area we've had three huge outbreaks in factories. They all remained open.

 

Yet high street shops and bars that would have nowhere near the level of infection or spread will have to shut.

 

Schools, universities and factories (as well as the crap living conditions the workers have) are huge breeding and spreading grounds for this virus but will remain open and working. 

 

Shutting high streets, gyms, bars whilst keeping other things open where you can actually pinpoint a severe outbreak isn't right, for me. 

Do you think that these "huge outbreaks" originated in the factories and campuses or do you think that it could possibly have simply been introduced to those environments on a Monday morning from elsewhere? Have a think about it - or do we have to revisit Gary Neville's ludicrous pie chart posted on this thread a few weeks ago?

 

Great idea - close our schools and our educational institutions but keep Gala Bingo, Starbucks and Wetherspoons open

[CosbehFox]

52 minutes ago, Leicester_Loyal said:

They’ve had 7 bloody months to increase hospital capacities?! Surely they should be using these temporary hospitals as normal wards or COVID wards in order to separate them while increasing capacity. 
 

All this shows is that we’ll be going in and out of lockdown until we find a vaccine, these lot are useless. Just bloody pay billions for the Germany track and trace system which everyone raves about. 
 

I genuinely sympathise with anyone losing their job or business too, they’re being royally shafted with all this. 
 

PS. This wasn’t aimed specifically at you Cardiff so apologies if it feels that way 

Speaking to a NHS middle manager about three months ago,  there is a complete lack of staff to man those temporary hospitals. And if they do come in use, it will be predominantly staff in training or ‘by definition’ not qualify to treat such illnesses. 
 

In most cases now the hospitals are split off. Parafox went into detail on here a while about how there have two incoming entrances. Hence the impression A & E is super quiet. From what I can work out the hospitals have worked incredibly hard in preparation for

a second wave - logistically anyway. 
 

The track and trace is a disaster. As I learnt with my own negative result, taking four days. I thankfully didn’t go anywhere such as a restaurant in the two days before symptoms (they define that as the cut out period for contact) but if I had and was positive....that was effectively six days where people I could have potential infected were ‘roaming’ free

[FoxesDeb]

4 minutes ago, dsr-burnley said:

For people at work, it isn't a lockdown.  For retired people, it is.  Their entire social life has gone, they can go out for a meal alone but can't meet anyone, they can go shopping alone and come home and eat their dinner alone.  They might have a bubble with a child if that child isn't in a bubble with his or her own children, another parent, or an in-law.

 

Sweden made the same mess as we did with nursing homes.  They aren't perfect.  If they had kept the nursing homes secure and halved the death toll, it would be a lot easier to propose them as a possible model.  

 

Of course, protecting the old people in nursing homes has the same negative effect as protecting the elderly in general.  It means that the one thing they have to look forward to is taken away and they have nothing to look forward to at all.  20,000 people, about 5% of the old folks' home population, died of coronavirus; another 12%, based on normal situations, have died in the last 6 months without coronavirus and probably without family, and the remaining 83% have had a pretty miserable existence.  It's a dilemma.

You are talking about Tier 3 only surely, which is fairly recent. Everyone else has been free to meet up, go out, go shopping until the new local restrictions came into force haven't they? and unless they are in Tier 3, they still are. I'm not going to argue, I just really don't see any semblance to what I would refer to as a 'lockdown' since earlier this year. 

[Leicester_Loyal]

7 minutes ago, Buce said:

 

Mrs Buce works in a care home; the staff are tested once a week (on Wednesday) and get the results the following Monday, which means anyone who tests positive is working for five days while contageous. There has already been 10 deaths of residents during the last couple of weeks, with a dozen more on 'end of life' care.

 

There is no credit deserved.

That is shocking mate!

[CosbehFox]

32 minutes ago, Blue-fox said:

In my opinion, the general public have ****ed it for themselves because they can’t adhere to some relatively simple guidance. 
 

We can say this time and time again. But it’s the same across Europe and the US. The ‘Western’ world social pattern has developed in a way that we need contact more than ever. 

[Corky]

10 minutes ago, Line-X said:

Do you think that these "huge outbreaks" originated in the factories and campuses or do you think that it could possibly have simply been introduced to those environments on a Monday morning from elsewhere? Have a think about it - or do we have to revisit Gary Neville's ludicrous pie chart posted on this thread a few weeks ago?

 

Great idea - close our schools and our educational institutions but keep Gala Bingo, Starbucks and Wetherspoons open

I'd imagine the outbreak originated somewhere near the factory. A lot of the workers apparently live together in crap, cramped conditions, probably on different shifts, and were able to still attend work when contagious. It appears that testing was slow after the original cases and that led to a significant, quick increase.

 

I know that the increase in my area was down to the university returning- we had a real spike in cases plus house parties attended by around 100 people a couple of times. Other areas have seen very little increase in cases.

 

I don't believe schools should shut and shops remain open- I think for a lockdown to be effective we need to shut everything or slightly modify what we are currently doing. I suppose we'll see in a few weeks what difference it has made but the chance to extend half-term by a week and have a break then was a much better time to stop and evaluate.

 

I think, as soon as restrictions are lifted, we'll go back to people meeting up again. The Test and Trace set-up seems appalling which is not helping.

[Super_horns]

I do feel until a vaccine is found we will be going around in circles.

 

Lockdown, out of lockdown, cases go up, more lockdown needed and so on.

 

Where do people think the main cause of this current outbreak has come from?

 

Schools

Uni

Pubs

People just gathering generally.

 

Trouble is you cannot really close them all and well if people aren't adhering now to the guidelines they probably never will.  

[SpacedX]

2 minutes ago, Corky said:

The Test and Trace set-up seems appalling which is not helping.

I do agree. 

 

 

[CosbehFox]

12 minutes ago, The Horse's Mouth said:

Theyre literallt always full this time.of year, its what happens when you severely underfund the NHS

Not to the extent of ICU beds though. 
 

Agreed on the underfunding totally. 

[Nalis]

19 minutes ago, Line-X said:

Do you think that these "huge outbreaks" originated in the factories and campuses or do you think that it could possibly have simply been introduced to those environments on a Monday morning from elsewhere? Have a think about it - or do we have to revisit Gary Neville's ludicrous pie chart posted on this thread a few weeks ago?

 

Great idea - close our schools and our educational institutions but keep Gala Bingo, Starbucks and Wetherspoons open

1 - If we are looking at tracing back sources then how far back do we go? Lets say they were in a pub where did they get it before that (and so on and so forth)? Maybe we just stop at the pubs and restaurants as its a better soundbite eh?

 

2 - Where exactly has the quoted post says the bit in bold?

Edited 31 October 2020 by Nalis