Are you discounting the possibility that it's due to the the rates of COVID infection?
It's easy to say it's due to those in power not wanting to face restrictions themselves. However, you could only claim this if the rates in London were as high as they are in Manchester, Leeds, etc. Which they're not (yet). Let's revisit this in week or two when the rates in London climb higher.
I also notice there are areas with high rates in certain southern cities on the latest map:
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/webappvi...2c5f6912ed7076
Portsmouth, Bath, Bristol, Oxford etc.
Again, it's easy to point the finger at universities and students. I see some unis are moving to online teaching only in response to the recent spike. I'm not sure how much of an effect that will have. I suspect it's not so much about what students are doing in classes, rather what some of them are doing outside classes. Notice I say "some". I'm sure there are lots of very responsible students doing the right thing regarding social distancing. But it only takes a few...
And BTW: bickering amongst ourselves is what we do best.
Are you discounting the possibility that it's due to the the rates of COVID infection?
It's easy to say it's due to those in power not wanting to face restrictions themselves. However, you could only claim this if the rates in London were as high as they are in Manchester, Leeds, etc. Which they're not (yet). Let's revisit this in week or two when the rates in London climb higher.
I also notice there are areas with high rates in certain southern cities on the latest map:
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/webappvi...2c5f6912ed7076
Portsmouth, Bath, Bristol, Oxford etc.
Again, it's easy to point the finger at universities and students. I see some unis are moving to online teaching only in response to the recent spike. I'm not sure how much of an effect that will have. I suspect it's not so much about what students are doing in classes, rather what some of them are doing outside classes. Notice I say "some". I'm sure there are lots of very responsible students doing the right thing regarding social distancing. But it only takes a few...
And BTW: bickering amongst ourselves is what we do best.
Surely the whole point of being a student is to be irresponsible, otherwise you might as well do an OU course from your bedroom rather than incur huge future tax liabilities for shitloads of sex, drugs, booze and joining a band.
I posted this link a week ago.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...453-7/fulltext
It was described as about improving accuracy and reliability, and I agree. There are huge question marks over the accuracy and reliability of testing.
The current rate of operational false-positive swab tests in the UK is unknown; preliminary estimates show it could be somewhere between 0·8% and 4·0%
Of course any issue with testing would be national and not localised and you have asked for thoughts on localised problems.
Is there an issue of case chasing? Find a few cases, track and race, hit the hotspots with your mobile testing teams.
If you do that, and particularly if you are focussing on the student population, and there is a problem with the test, that is going to be amplified.
September is always the start of the respiratory illness season as we move in to Autumn. I don't know if there are historic records for regionalised effects of this. I've only seen national ones which indicate that in a bad Septmeber we can see >20,000 hospital admissions for respiratory conditions.
I'm assuming this is partly weather, partly back to school, back from holidays. That being the case the weather would certainly bring that forward in Scotland and the North.
Finally, the North and Scotland have had strciter lockdown measures. Maybe those measures are more of a problem than a solution?
Richard Taylor
"William Tell could take an apple off your head. Taylor could take out a processed pea."
Sid Waddell
For those prolific posters on this thread, who persist in quoting statistics and proffering correlations, you really should visit this website first.
Last edited by TheGrump; 12-10-2020 at 12:14 PM.
Even I don't know who The Grump is.
I. Bickerstaff