Coronavirus

[JohnK]

I'm not sure any other UK Government or political party would have done better, but there has been so much confusion and contradiction. A few weeks ago the Government were pleading with people ( especially the young) to return to pubs, shops and restaurants (Eat out to help out, etc.) in order to 'save' businesses. There have also been pleas to return to using public transport and working in the office. However, more recently the Government seem to be attributing blame to the young for the upsurge in infections!

Some honesty is needed. More socialising, even with social distancing, masks, etc., is clearly going to increase the infection rate. Why don't they, the Government, come clean with people and explain that we're all going to get infected and they are trying to manage the number of people becoming seriously ill, so that it's not everyone (or unmanageable numbers for the NHS) get infected all at once.

Could not agree more which is why I have said all along that we need to just get on with life using common sense and compassion (Those of us that know how at least, the rest will hopefully quickly learn). I would think the reason the government is not spelling it out to us is an attempt to avoid panic and misguided accusations within the general public.

I don`t think all the population will get the virus rather just a very large percentage.

That`s my twopenn`orth good luck folks

[Stagger]

Would any of you grass folks up for breaking the 6 rule???

[Dave_Mole]

"Manage the number of people becoming seriously ill, so that it's not everyone (or unmanageable numbers for the NHS) get infected all at once".

Which was the point of lockdown.
But the problem is the impact on the economy. The issue is balancing the two. We seem to be lurching from one level of"acceptability" to the other at the moment.

[Mossdog]

"Manage the number of people becoming seriously ill, so that it's not everyone (or unmanageable numbers for the NHS) get infected all at once".

Which was the point of lockdown.

But the problem is the impact on the economy. The issue is balancing the two. We seem to be lurching from one level of"acceptability" to the other at the moment.

Agree. It's the fine balancing that's needed. Problem is, the government seems to be overly reactive rather than proactive.

It's like driving a car with either your foot fully down on the accelerator pedal before correctively slamming on the brakes, then back to the accelerator, and so forth.

Maybe there's not enough data and / or instruments of management to plan ahead for a more nuanced 'drive', or maybe the Government and/or Cabinet are too leaderless? It's like the CV policy drive has too many hands grabbing at the steering wheel so we career all over the highway. Having said that, perhaps it's inevitably how democracies work (not that I'm advocating for a dictator, benign or otherwise)!

[Dave_Mole]

It's the fine balancing that's needed.

Indeed.
Some other countries have done better.
Others worse. Some of the worst seem to be those which have "populist" governments with very little grasp on detail. But then, that's not what they were elected on......

[Witton Park]

Agree. It's the fine balancing that's needed. Problem is, the government seems to be overly reactive rather than proactive.

It's like driving a car with either your foot fully down on the accelerator pedal before correctively slamming on the brakes, then back to the accelerator, and so forth.

Maybe there's not enough data and / or instruments of management to plan ahead for a more nuanced 'drive', or maybe the Government and/or Cabinet are too leaderless? It's like the CV policy drive has too many hands grabbing at the steering wheel so we career all over the highway. Having said that, perhaps it's inevitably how democracies work (not that I'm advocating for a dictator, benign or otherwise)!

Some honesty is needed. More socialising, even with social distancing, masks, etc., is clearly going to increase the infection rate.

It is but that also depends on the infection being there and this is where I take issue. Everything is being done on the premise that these positive tests are indeed what we really believe to be positive ie these people are infected and capable of developing illness or passing it on to others that can.

The PCR test is unreliable. It's just a question of how unreliable.

But I'll give you an analogy to ponder.

Imagine the Met Office with it's 200 weather Station sites decided to chase the rainfall. They mobilised them and took them to where they had a good idea there was going to be more rainfall on a given day.

Would the national statistics for our average rainfall continue to hold water and would comparisons with previous months and years have validity?

I get the sense this chasing around the "hot spots" is also creating a problem with the testing. We already have a problem making comparisons with the height of the pandemic as we only know how many were arriving in hospital and how many were dying in March/April, but not how many were positive.

By taking testing units from the areas that they are in but where positive numbers are quite low, and flooding areas where they have detected a higher rate of positive tests, they are chasing the rainfall and of course catch more raindrops.

[Fellbeast]

We had "spikes" in 4 of the constituencies covered by East Lancashire Healthcare Trust Blackburn, Hyndburn, Burnley and Pendle.
Those date back to July with Blackburn announcing measures on 14th July, after 2 weeks of rising positive tests.

So whether it's 3 weeks, 28 days, or up to 8 weeks, East Lancashire Healthcare Trust should have seen a rise in admissions in August and a rise in deaths by now.

They haven't. So why?

The authorities aren't coming up with an explanation. In fact they aren't even attempting to.

I think, quite understandably, no-one wants to draw any conclusions too quickly. Or give a positive message too early. Like we've discussed before during the peak virus months of March, April and early May, when deaths were very high, the testing being done then was (proportionate to now) very minimal. We were identifying c 5,500 new cases each day on average, with most testing only happening on hospital admission, and were getting 1,000 plus death each day. See here https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/

They've since done a reverse crunching of the numbers based on anti-body testing and what not (yeah I know itself not completely reliable) and deduced that the real number of new cases back then was actually likely to be c 100,000 new cases each day, some 20 times higher than identified at the time. Against that backdrop, the then daily death rate of 1,000 doesn't look quite so grim.

Jump to now though and we're identifying 3,000 odd cases each day. Yeah the actual number will be higher and yeah our testing system is not the greatest, but we are doing a far far higher amount of testing so will be identifying proportionately far more cases. Ergo, deaths being recorded now should be much lower than in March/April/May. But might not stay that way if the 3,000 odd new cases each day figures starts to grow - some have hypothesised that it might be doubling every ten days!

But they can't be sure one way or the other....

If you jump to Spain's numbers, where a similar pattern exists but they are a few weeks ahead of us, their deaths are starting to tick up a bit. Not radically yet but again time will tell https://www.worldometers.info/corona...country/spain/

[Fellbeast]

So, if you follow that logic through, the death rate might have been 1 in 1,000 then and might still be 1 in 1,000 now

[Dave_Mole]

The PCR test is unreliable. It's just a question of how unreliable.

No test is 100%. One of the main issues with PCR is false negatives, so it's likely to under-record than over. Perhaps by 3-5%.

Imagine the Met Office with it's 200 weather Station sites decided to chase the rainfall.

This is a completely false analogy.
Rainfall is not an infectious disease. The point of monitoring rainfall is to observe an overall pattern. The point of PCR tests (in Pillar 1) is to diagnose a disease. Pillars 2-4 are to determine the overall patterning, but have not been given sufficient resources in order to function at an acceptable level.
People can't even get Pillar 1 tests at the moment.

[Witton Park]

I think, quite understandably, no-one wants to draw any conclusions too quickly. Or give a positive message too early. Like we've discussed before during the peak virus months of March, April and early May, when deaths were very high, the testing being done then was (proportionate to now) very minimal. We were identifying c 5,500 new cases each day on average, with most testing only happening on hospital admission, and were getting 1,000 plus death each day. See here https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/

They've since done a reverse crunching of the numbers based on anti-body testing and what not (yeah I know itself not completely reliable) and deduced that the real number of new cases back then was actually likely to be c 100,000 new cases each day, some 20 times higher than identified at the time. Against that backdrop, the then daily death rate of 1,000 doesn't look quite so grim.

Jump to now though and we're identifying 3,000 odd cases each day. Yeah the actual number will be higher and yeah our testing system is not the greatest, but we are doing a far far higher amount of testing so will be identifying proportionately far more cases. Ergo, deaths being recorded now should be much lower than in March/April/May. But might not stay that way if the 3,000 odd new cases each day figures starts to grow - some have hypothesised that it might be doubling every ten days!

But they can't be sure one way or the other....

If you jump to Spain's numbers, where a similar pattern exists but they are a few weeks ahead of us, their deaths are starting to tick up a bit. Not radically yet but again time will tell https://www.worldometers.info/corona...country/spain/

Had you been testing in the public in March, any that you tested would almost certainly have been live positive tests as no one had hardly been exposed enough to have virus fragments.

You have a lice outbreak in school, you will see lots of live lice at the time.

1 month later, you can still find the lice in some of the kids - usually dead ones - undetected unless the parent grooms them out. It's not good enough to simply detect a virus fragment and then act as if it is an active, infectious person.