The media should be jumping all over this point but they won't. Hope Labour back the good work Andy is doing and hammer it home.
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
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The media should be jumping all over this point but they won't. Hope Labour back the good work Andy is doing and hammer it home.
At times our media don't go far enough
Labour need to raise their game and give the government a kick up the backside
And for every article that says it’s not an issue you can find one that says it is. Depends what you want to believe. In the meantime all we have are case numbers and theories. When cases increase a smart person looks at what’s changed in the meantime.
Based on nothing but my own assumptions I would say they have had pretty much feck all effect.
If only Mr pigeon, if only.
What’s all this about international outbound travel being banned? Meanwhile people who are booked to enter the UK in November can still do so? What’s the point?
And this specific point on travel has only come in the form of tweets and leaks and nothing officially announced in the press conference?
Can anyone clear this up for me? I’m planning to fly out of the UK in the first part of December and back a month later. Is it likely I’ll be affected?
And this specific point on travel has only come in the form of tweets and leaks and nothing officially announced in the press conference?
Can anyone clear this up for me? I’m planning to fly out of the UK in the first part of December and back a month later. Is it likely I’ll be affected?
Could be March or May 2022.
Will barbers be open?
If Boris and cnuts want to make this work, they need to actually enforce it, and not bow down to the back bench cnuts
None of this gyms stay open in defiance or whatever...it needs to be strict as feck with it...otherwise 4 weeks could easily become 4 months of lock down, as I doubt that by the end of the 4 weeks the cases will have started dropping - at best, level off
None of this gyms stay open in defiance or whatever...it needs to be strict as feck with it...otherwise 4 weeks could easily become 4 months of lock down, as I doubt that by the end of the 4 weeks the cases will have started dropping - at best, level off
Nope, Freddy Boswell look for a month.
Booked myself in with Alison for Wednesday
Agree. It’s too soft as it is. Close schools for a few weeks ffs it’s not a huge deal. If this is for the NHS then literally everything needs to be done. All these half measures is the reason the UK/Europe has been in this mess for so long. You need to take tough action for a short period of time.
No. It means things would have been worse without them.
This lockdown won’t end on the 2nd of December. 4 weeks will become 8 weeks. Forget about seeing any family outside your household this Christmas.
So frustrating but just got to get through this and agree with it. It’ll be even longer until I see my parents but yeah, feel free to do a load of property viewings if you fancy a mooch round some strangers gaff.
I know, it’s obvious, yet there will be uproar.
Woke up to see news that the UK has started another round of lock down. Haven't been following the developments there for a few months. Hope you guys overcome this spike.
On a sidenote, have you guys also started using the term "circuit breaker "?
On a sidenote, have you guys also started using the term "circuit breaker "?
Not following you around threads agreeing with you but I agree
And I’m completely staggered by the theories going around that schools and colleges aren’t having a large effect. These studies and graphs that claim to show it hasn’t I can only dismiss as complete garbage.
It is so far beyond reason, common sense, logic and evidence that schools/colleges haven’t caused a major upturn in cases. I actually think it was right for them to open and to remain open but honestly claims it’s not had a big effect is just.. I dunno wow.
I was actually in a college a few weeks back and was alarmed by how little the teens were keeping distance. They were huddled in numerous groups, bunches of half a dozen to a dozen, shouting over each other at basically face level.
Teens mostly live at home with other family members. We also know they are less attentive to cleanliness. Pretty much 95% of the people I’ve seen not wearing masks have been people below 16.
Schools/colleges open and LITERALLY six weeks later cases are surging and we’re heading into lockdown, bars/restaurants opened in fecking July but somehow despite all this the schools are apparently not the main cause. As in what? Seriously what? When did so many people abandon reason for madness?
I got a D in my GCSE Science but I would happily discredit with 100% certainty any article/study that tries to say schools and colleges weren’t a main cause of an upsurge in cases.
I can see why people want schools open and want to believe it’s not a problem. It’s obviously far from ideal to have kids not at school but I think they at least need to consider either closing schools or staggering attendance to limit spread while not completely leaving kids adrift.Not following you around threads agreeing with you but I agree
And I’m completely staggered by the theories going around that schools and colleges aren’t having a large effect. These studies and graphs that claim to show it hasn’t I can only dismiss as complete garbage.
It is so far beyond reason, common sense, logic and evidence that schools/colleges haven’t caused a major upturn in cases. I actually think it was right for them to open and to remain open but honestly claims it’s not had a big effect is just.. I dunno wow.
I was actually in a college a few weeks back and was alarmed by how little the teens were keeping distance. They were huddled in numerous groups, bunches of half a dozen to a dozen, shouting over each other at basically face level.
Teens mostly live at home with other family members. We also know they are less attentive to cleanliness. Pretty much 95% of the people I’ve seen not wearing masks have been people below 16.
Schools/colleges open and LITERALLY six weeks later cases are surging and we’re heading into lockdown, bars/restaurants opened in fecking July but somehow despite all this the schools are apparently not the main cause. As in what? Seriously what? When did so many people abandon reason for madness?
I got a D in my GCSE Science but I would happily discredit with 100% certainty any article/study that tries to say schools and colleges weren’t a main cause of an upsurge in cases.
Can't share the image, but from PHE pie chart, the following "Sites of multiple outbreaks for the last 4 weeks";Not following you around threads agreeing with you but I agree
And I’m completely staggered by the theories going around that schools and colleges aren’t having a large effect. These studies and graphs that claim to show it hasn’t I can only dismiss as complete garbage.
It is so far beyond reason, common sense, logic and evidence that schools/colleges haven’t caused a major upturn in cases. I actually think it was right for them to open and to remain open but honestly claims it’s not had a big effect is just.. I dunno wow.
I was actually in a college a few weeks back and was alarmed by how little the teens were keeping distance. They were huddled in numerous groups, bunches of half a dozen to a dozen, shouting over each other at basically face level.
Teens mostly live at home with other family members. We also know they are less attentive to cleanliness. Pretty much 95% of the people I’ve seen not wearing masks have been people below 16.
Schools/colleges open and LITERALLY six weeks later cases are surging and we’re heading into lockdown, bars/restaurants opened in fecking July but somehow despite all this the schools are apparently not the main cause. As in what? Seriously what? When did so many people abandon reason for madness?
I got a D in my GCSE Science but I would happily discredit with 100% certainty any article/study that tries to say schools and colleges weren’t a main cause of an upsurge in cases.
Hospitality 4%
Hospitals 4%
Workplace 20%
Care homes 26%
Education 36%
Other 10%
If its a freezing cold day your house is still cold indoors. Moreso if you keep the windows open
Not following you around threads agreeing with you but I agree
And I’m completely staggered by the theories going around that schools and colleges aren’t having a large effect. These studies and graphs that claim to show it hasn’t I can only dismiss as complete garbage.
It is so far beyond reason, common sense, logic and evidence that schools/colleges haven’t caused a major upturn in cases. I actually think it was right for them to open and to remain open but honestly claims it’s not had a big effect is just.. I dunno wow.
I was actually in a college a few weeks back and was alarmed by how little the teens were keeping distance. They were huddled in numerous groups, bunches of half a dozen to a dozen, shouting over each other at basically face level.
Teens mostly live at home with other family members. We also know they are less attentive to cleanliness. Pretty much 95% of the people I’ve seen not wearing masks have been people below 16.
Schools/colleges open and LITERALLY six weeks later cases are surging and we’re heading into lockdown, bars/restaurants opened in fecking July but somehow despite all this the schools are apparently not the main cause. As in what? Seriously what? When did so many people abandon reason for madness?
I got a D in my GCSE Science but I would happily discredit with 100% certainty any article/study that tries to say schools and colleges weren’t a main cause of an upsurge in cases.
Yes I would agree that kids keep their distance less, moderate their voices less, pay less attention to cleanliness and generally speaking are less likely to adhere to rules. Generally speaking, kids also spread lots of viruses, including coronaviruses like the common cold. Common sense would then lead you to believe that kids are spreading it like wildfire. Most people agree up until that point.
However many things exist in the world that are counter-intuitive. Is it possible that all of those things are true, and yet at the same time, kids aren't spreading this virus as much? Yes. Why should we think that kids and adults "magically" respond to the virus differently? Well let's agree on a baseline reality.
Kids are much less likely to be hospitalised or die from covid. We all now accept that at truth, so we accept that in some fundamental ways, the virus impacts different age groups differently. How do we know this? In the UK 4 kids aged 1-14 have died from covid, compared to 5,188 aged 45-64. In the US the hospitalisation rate for kids aged 5-17 is 5x lower than those aged 18-29.
Those are just the facts, they're not misleading charts or faulty theories. Most of us now consider that intuitive knowledge, of course kids don't get infected by it badly. But kids get infected badly by a lot of things, in fact "medically vulnerable" tends to mean very young and very old for most diseases. For example the very young are more vulnerable to flu than you or I. But the very young aren't very vulnerable to this.
Do we know exactly why that is? Not really, but it might involve things like ACE2 receptors. Do you know anything about ACE2 receptors? No, neither do I. But if it is true that a) ACE2 receptors are where the virus latches on to us, and b) children have fewer of them, then the intuitive assumption is that kids are less likely to get the virus. And so by default, they are less likely to spread it among themselves.
We know roughly how many kids pick up the virus from ONS' study. Young kids pick it up less often than young teenagers, and young teenagers pick it up less often than young adults. Why is that? We don't expect it's because young kids shout less, distance more or wash their hands more often, so you can likely rule out a behavioural explanation. For the most part, they're in equal social settings also. The common sense explanation them comes back to the biology of it.
That doesn't change the fact that young kids do still pick it up, and sending them to school increases the likelihood they will pick it up vs. making them stay at home like the older age groups. We know that reducing social contacts has the biggest impact on controlling the spread. If we closed schools we would reduce the spread further. The question is not whether it would have an impact but how big an impact it would have, and how that weighs up against the negative impacts. And to answer that we need to know how infectious kids are, particularly among themselves.
If you take Northern Ireland's logic for closing schools, they said
- Not clear the role that children play in transmission
- Unclear how much schools may contribute to community transmission
- Remains unclear how infectious children may be.
Worth looking into the detail there. The report here shows that among those aged 0-4 and 5-9, case rates were steady or falling in the last weeks of September, and they had the lowest infection rate of any age group. If they were the source of the spread, they would be outpacing everyone else. That's what you see among those aged 20-29, and to a lesser degree, 10-19. There is a big distinction between young kids and young adults that you can't account for precisely with that data, but that is straightforward to infer.
In spite of that, they can attribute most known clusters to education, followed by workplaces and care homes. Those places are the easiest to find known clusters because they report them to a much, much higher degree than hospitality. But if you were to add up all of the known clusters across any area they have, you would see they only account for a minority of all clusters in that period. 782 incidents were identified in a week when 29,797 cases were identified, i.e. they really struggle to identify the vast majority of clusters.
So from the PHE data we can say conclusively that we don't know where the majority of clusters come from. All we know is that for that very small proportion of clusters they can identify, more of them come from the places that are required to report them and find it easier to report them. The majority are completely unknowable based on that methodology and efficiacy.
I reckon we're going to have to start thinking about the care home problem differently quite soon. Numbers vary on the typical length of time spent in a care home, but for most people it's a few years. Taking 3 months out of those 30 months to isolate with the belief that there's something at the other end is one thing, but taking 12 months out of their 30 months there is a very different equation.
They're facing the most extreme form of isolation in a setting many of them found barely tolerable in the first place, and many of them have illnesses that are particularly compounded by not seeing people they know. People that are struggling to maintain a grasp on reality find themselves losing that anchor of normality and all of a sudden they're in a place they don't recognise, with people they don't know, at a time they can't understand, and everything becomes terrifying. Some studies are reporting that 3 in 4 don't even leave their room now, while there's anecdotal cases of people going mute, people starving themselves and more. These things already happen before contact with the outside world was cut-off, but we know they are directly impected by social contact and physical exercise which are being deliberately restricted. If anyone has experienced those issues developing in a family member, the idea that we're multiplying that scenario by an unknown number will be gut-wrenching.
The obvious problem being that, unlike with children and schools, there's no debate about whether they act as hotbeds for the virus. Even with these restrictions in place we still have examples of entire care homes being infected or 16 people dying from 69 infections in a matter of weeks. We know if it gets into somewhere it can spread a lot, and if it spreads a lot it can kill a lot. The restrictions now aren't preventing it but we have good reason to believe we're limiting it. And obviously preventing deaths is a good thing, on the whole.
But on some level I think it's cruel to force care home patients to live the majority of their last days in their alone, depressed and without any say in the matter. Couldn't you have some care homes where people choose to take more risks, and they all live in that dystopian bubble? Otherwise we're forcing them to live through unimaginable pain. If I could, I wouldn't agree to that condition, and I imagine many of us can point to an elderly family member that would stay the same. We often do things in older age that increase our quality of life even to the detriment of our health. In any case, that condition was agreed - without their consent - when the time period was much, much shorter. At the very least isn't it worth asking the question again?
They're facing the most extreme form of isolation in a setting many of them found barely tolerable in the first place, and many of them have illnesses that are particularly compounded by not seeing people they know. People that are struggling to maintain a grasp on reality find themselves losing that anchor of normality and all of a sudden they're in a place they don't recognise, with people they don't know, at a time they can't understand, and everything becomes terrifying. Some studies are reporting that 3 in 4 don't even leave their room now, while there's anecdotal cases of people going mute, people starving themselves and more. These things already happen before contact with the outside world was cut-off, but we know they are directly impected by social contact and physical exercise which are being deliberately restricted. If anyone has experienced those issues developing in a family member, the idea that we're multiplying that scenario by an unknown number will be gut-wrenching.
The obvious problem being that, unlike with children and schools, there's no debate about whether they act as hotbeds for the virus. Even with these restrictions in place we still have examples of entire care homes being infected or 16 people dying from 69 infections in a matter of weeks. We know if it gets into somewhere it can spread a lot, and if it spreads a lot it can kill a lot. The restrictions now aren't preventing it but we have good reason to believe we're limiting it. And obviously preventing deaths is a good thing, on the whole.
But on some level I think it's cruel to force care home patients to live the majority of their last days in their alone, depressed and without any say in the matter. Couldn't you have some care homes where people choose to take more risks, and they all live in that dystopian bubble? Otherwise we're forcing them to live through unimaginable pain. If I could, I wouldn't agree to that condition, and I imagine many of us can point to an elderly family member that would stay the same. We often do things in older age that increase our quality of life even to the detriment of our health. In any case, that condition was agreed - without their consent - when the time period was much, much shorter. At the very least isn't it worth asking the question again?
The thing is its easy to trace to a school, because attendance is compulsory and every child is accounted for. But for stuff like pubs, restaurants, shops, there is very little anyone can do to effectively trace outbreaks or infections. Loads of people don't have the app and it relies on someone calling every place they were at after a positive test, and then that place calling everyone else who went there.
Can you share the link for it?
Do people wear masks at pubs / schools / uni’s?
I’m sure they do work - or at least slow the spread.
Funnily enough, I've just read an article on the BBC where the wife of a man with dementia wants people like herself to be designated as key workers. I've worked in care homes with residents who have advanced dementia, and there were quite a few spouses of those people who came every single day and basically did everything for them.
One in particular always stays in my memory - his wife was an absolutely wonderful lady in her 80s, he was still physically mobile although he couldn't speak in any meaningful way and had no sense of self. She was devoted to him, and said there was no joy in being at home where there was nothing to do without him there. He responded to her, he was happy and settled when she was there.
It's also the case that in many cases wives and husbands have cared for these folk at home for many years before they had to make the decision to move them into a care home. It's more than cruel to say "You can't even see your partner of 50 years now, let alone care for them".
I know this is anecdotal, but when we were back in the UK in September I walked past a care home and there was an old man standing outside with his old dog, with his wife looking at him from the other side of the window. It was a cold, rainy day. Half an hour later I walked past again, and he was still there. It was heartbreaking, really. It upset me to see it.
The scientific advice for the NI circuit breaker was that extending face mask use to outdoor areas would have a very low impact, making it required in more indoor areas like schools of offices would have a low to moderate impact, and the same for the current measures in retail and hospitality. They all stack on top of each other and using their rough guidelines, it could reduce the R rate by 0.4. As it is, just requiring it in shops could reduce it by 0.2. So when the rate rate is 1.4 now, it would have been 1.6 then. That sounds small but it is a significant reduction in the speed of transmission. But all of these estimates on the R rate are very loose, we can say for certain masks reduce it by more than 0, but beyond that its educated guesses based on loose evidence.
Along with that, this makes assumptions about adherence and about proper use. We know people using masks improperly can increase their risk of catching the virus themselves, but om balance still decreases the risk if passing it on. We also know that people's reported mask usage dropped dramatically in over the summer and into September, and has consistently been worse than most countries in a similarly dangerous position.
But the main point like you say is that it only reduces community transmission, it doesn't prevent it. All of these measures and behaviours stack on top of each other and make an incremental difference. There is no single explanation for any rise or any decline.
Yeah making them a key worker could be a good simple solution! Certainly the work they do is harder than some others classified as key workers, and as their work relates to the worst hit segment of the population, it should be deemed especially important too. But we don't place that much value on older generations in our society, at the moment. I'm sure that'll change sometime when we realise most people are "old" people in the most developed countries, and that's only increasing.
It is really tragic.
I work in a care home and it's been extremely difficult for a lot of the residents. So many people with dementia only recognise close family like spouses or children and I'm sure are wondering why they have been abandoned. We do our best to occupy their time and entertain them but it can be very challenging at times. We have gone into complete lockdown these past few weeks, as we were in tier 3, and we have even stopped window visits due to some relatives passing things through to their loved ones or holding their hands.
I work on the residential dementia floor and our one glimmer of hope is that we had an outbreak in June and, as a result, half the residents and staff have had it. It was absolutely horrendous trying to care for a dozen people with dementia who were confined to their rooms and barrier nursed in the first wave. I really don't want to go through that again. The good news is that our infection control measures stopped it spreading to the other floors but once it gets among a population it is unbelievably infectious.
It's going to be a long, hard winter.
I work on the residential dementia floor and our one glimmer of hope is that we had an outbreak in June and, as a result, half the residents and staff have had it. It was absolutely horrendous trying to care for a dozen people with dementia who were confined to their rooms and barrier nursed in the first wave. I really don't want to go through that again. The good news is that our infection control measures stopped it spreading to the other floors but once it gets among a population it is unbelievably infectious.
It's going to be a long, hard winter.
It is very hard to see. My mother in law cared for her husband who had a stroke for 8 years before he went into a home a few years back. He can’t walk or talk but responds to her and she used to always be at the home practically doing everything the nurses would do anyway. She hasn’t be able to be with him since March and hasn’t even been able to see him through the window since May. All the care staff are amazing, they’re real superstars.
I agree with all that you wrote, but, for the majority of us, the decision was taken against our consent and the nature of this thing is such that you are not free to make a decision yourself as you can infect others. Yes, you can bring up the numbers that the public generally wants lockdowns, but this depends on where you live. Where I live, the public is absolutely against lockdowns.
Same for care homes, unless you have a home where absolutely all the residents and their families and the employees and their families agree to take more risks, you cannot do it.
What I am trying to say, I guess, is that they are victims of what is a thoroughly shit situation but I do not think anything can be done-
Oh yeah agreed on that. That's why I suggested a kind of bubble thing as a loose but indicative example. If 50% of people in care homes wanted more freedom, and 50% wanted to stay locked down because no amount of freedom would make them increase their risk of death, then I think the reasonable position would be to just lock everything down. It's a difficult moral and ethical question to wrestle with but I imagine most would say people's desire not to die bevause of other's choices is more important than their desire to be free. I'm sure that principle is built into many of our laws.
But as they exist in these bubbles already, separate from society in almost all senses, it doesn't have the same problem as the wider societal one. We can't put society into bubbles, it's practically impossible, but it is practically possible to do it in care homes at a regional level. People who vote for freedom can move to this other bubble where fewer precautions are taken and more deaths take place, and that's just the terms they agree to. The others stay in the same bubble they exist in already. It's not easy but unlike society at large I don't think it's impossible.
The big roadblock would be the fact many people in care homes have mental difficulties, so getting them to vote would be either impossible or morally dubious, as would the alternative of letting their legal guardian vote. And the wider moral questions. I'm not suggesting it as a solution itself, just as a different way to think about the problem. Because the problem is now different and the moral questions are different too.
I don’t know what the solution is in care homes, it’s quite scary to read the story above of relatives ignoring the screens. I’ve only seen my Nan twice this year (I live about five hours away), but there’s no way I’d have risked giving her a hug - let alone if she’d have lived in a care home and risked infecting others.
My grandad passed away in his sleep in April (non Covid related) and looking back now, although it was shit at the time, I’m really glad he didn’t go into a care home or end up on a ventilator.
My grandad passed away in his sleep in April (non Covid related) and looking back now, although it was shit at the time, I’m really glad he didn’t go into a care home or end up on a ventilator.
@acnumber9 I think this is the best explanation for why there has been a rise, from someone who understands epidemiology in a way we never could. There's a tendency to look for a particular pattern at a particular place at a particular moment in time that explains why something has happened. But the trends are more general and the timing and locations are more random than we want to believe. Randomness in this situation is unfair and unsettling so we look to identify order in situations where there really isn't much.
Bless you for the good work you do, I know how hard it is. I can't imagine what it's like now, I haven't worked in care homes for over 10 years and it was challenging enough then in the dementia care homes.
The really sad thing is that people in care homes generally don't have much of their lives left to live. To lose a year of contact with your loved ones because of Covid is terrible, but then, the alternative is even worse.