SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)

This is a random opinion but I think England will legalise cannabis after covid and Brexit is done.

It will be one of the main ways the country aims to boost its economy.
 
F-Red said:
How so? Or is it rhetoric for the north vs the government? No one i see/speak/know from there has that as an opinion.

I agree with your national lockdown point on finances, but a tier three lockdown with support gives the North West a fighting chance, as a mayor for a specific region, his interest will naturally only look at the local issue. It’s impossible to compare to NI as well as the devolved power has much more control over its finances than the local authorities, which were pretty much standing on a toothpick before the pandemic.

It’s also been well covered that Burnham is only after the financial support of tier three lockdown, i don’t think he’s actually opposed to what the measures can do once, i don’t think he has confidence that there will be anything but unemployment once they come out of that tier three status. We need to bear in mind he was the person that has put Greater Manchester into effective tier two measures since August, and equally knows that the government aren’t offering further support for local council to support the management of the pandemic either, aside from what they’re currently getting. Ie. Tier Two financial support, with Tier Three restrictions on business.

I can’t argue with his approach though and he’s right to point out that these tier three approaches need more support than whats on the table. Early into the hotspot phase of the pandemic Blackburn council ended up having to roll out their own track and trace service (at their own expense) because the nationalised system from Serco/Government isn’t adequate enough to attack local outbreaks properly. The circuit breakers are just the end result of the failure of the test/trace system, and government being stubborn with the funding of furlough extensions (despite paying some healthy contractor rates to fix the tracing system).
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Yeah, typo there! I meant blame Westminster, or point the finger of suspicion at the South / London with various folks putting out the idea that "as if Londoners have this thing under control while we're struggling up here", leading to the conspiracies.

I don't disagree with the objective but I think it's a very dangerous strategy. It doesn't need to rely on emphasising the north-south divide and claiming discrimination to achieve that goal, when people in his own party are already pushing for a better financial package for all areas under tier 3 conditions. It doesn't look like either method is particularly effective because the Tories are doing their thing but the potential blowback that comes from his strategy is massive. Yes his first priority is to his area but that doesn't mean he can ignore the potential negative impact he can have on the rest of the country with this strategy. It's far too important to take that line.

And just in his own area, while he's fighting for more financial aid, they've been happy to throw out the line that "even the government says tier 3 won't supress the virus". Stick to that line long enough and you're only going to erode adherence further by the time the political fiasco is over. It's nonsense to say opposition parties should just defer to the government line because "nationality unity", but there's ways to go about things. He's gradually chipping away at people's respect for national needs and encouraging people to put the city front and centre. feck that, IMO. There's more important shit going on.
 
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Bebestation said:
This is a random opinion but I think England will legalise cannabis after covid and Brexit is done.

It will be one of the main ways the country aims to boost its economy.
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:lol: given how this year has gone, anything is possible.

One thing this last few months have highlighted, is just how chained and obsessed with alcohol this country is. Both in economic and social terms.
 
F-Red said:
:lol: given how this year has gone, anything is possible.

One thing this last few months have highlighted, is just how chained and obsessed with alcohol this country is. Both in economic and social terms.
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Yeah and I feel the government know this and its influencing the decisions it makes on Covid - pubs & restaurants open until 10 or completely closed in certain areas etc

I just would be surprised if it didnt recognise the money that cannabis has never mind all the health stuff americans talk about, to the point that they bring it when things start to settle but still finding themselves in a economic rut.
 
Bebestation said:
This is a random opinion but I think England will legalise cannabis after covid and Brexit is done.

It will be one of the main ways the country aims to boost its economy.
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Might just about make this year worth it!
 
711 said:
I think we will hear more about 'long covid' as time goes on. I know a couple of people that were exceptionally fit and yet now can barely manage a few stairs, months after contracting the disease.
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Totally agreed. Deaths are far from the whole story.
 
groovyalbert said:
But 88 deaths. Which is high, granted, but clearly with increased testing we're seeing that the virus is less of a death sentence than first feared.
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But we’re not seeing the same level of deaths yet as in March.

though that could be because we are smarter about it now and try not to dump our sodium oldies from hospital back into care homes etc
 
groovyalbert said:
But 88 deaths. Which is high, granted, but clearly with increased testing we're seeing that the virus is less of a death sentence than first feared.
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We have got better at treating it and the younger demographic being the front of infections at the moment are perhaps making it look better than it is. Overwhelm medical facilities and the death rate will climb significantly.
 
golden_blunder said:
Also, I still dont fancy catching it. Even if I survived, the after affects sound horrendous
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Don’t want to play it down but even vulnerable people can get off very lightly.

Chatting to someone this evening whose elderly father got it in hospital in April, after several months of bad health following a heart attack last year. He was over it in a few days and is right as rain now. Just last week his equally elderly mother had an antibody test and had a very high titre, showing she had got infected too. She never had any symptoms at all.

I tend to be captain doom and gloom in this thread but we do need to remember that the vast majority of people, of all ages, suffer a short-term mild illness followed by a complete recovery.

Not saying I’m in any rush to roll the dice personally but it’s important to have some perspective when you’re feeling anxious.
 
Ananke said:
When you look at the stats back in April, which were around 7,000 cases a day, with a peak of 1,100 deaths a day and compare them to the stats today, 19,000 cases a day to 100-130ish deaths a day in my eyes it's a completely different situation than what we were in. The healthier population are contracting it and not dying. Surely that's a good thing in terms of herd immunity?

Obviously there is the factor of an overworked NHS...:(
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Much less people were being tested back then. For all we know the number of cases back then could have been much higher.

However, I guess we are finding better ways to treat the virus and understanding a bit more. But maybe you are right. Truth is, there are so many variables, it is hard to know what weighting to add to each one
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Don’t want to play it down but even vulnerable people can get off very lightly.

Chatting to someone this evening whose elderly father got it in hospital in April, after several months of bad health following a heart attack last year. He was over it in a few days and is right as rain now. Just last week his equally elderly mother had an antibody test and had a very high titre, showing she had got infected too. She never had any symptoms at all.

I tend to be captain doom and gloom in this thread but we do need to remember that the vast majority of people, of all ages, suffer a short-term mild illness followed by a complete recovery.

Not saying I’m in any rush to roll the dice personally but it’s important to have some perspective when you’re feeling anxious.
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I have quite a few relatives who have had it (all in their 40s or 50s) with no effect other than a few days feeling rough. It’s a weird virus - there are those horrible stories about fit young people being hit with lung fibrosis but, at the same time, it seems fairly harmless for the vast majority under pensionable age.

it’s a public health policy nightmare - do you go with a Bentham type utilitarian statistics-based approach (on the basis of incomplete information) or do you shut down the country and in the process create a potentially worse problem?
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Don’t want to play it down but even vulnerable people can get off very lightly.

Chatting to someone this evening whose elderly father got it in hospital in April, after several months of bad health following a heart attack last year. He was over it in a few days and is right as rain now. Just last week his equally elderly mother had an antibody test and had a very high titre, showing she had got infected too. She never had any symptoms at all.

I tend to be captain doom and gloom in this thread but we do need to remember that the vast majority of people, of all ages, suffer a short-term mild illness followed by a complete recovery.

Not saying I’m in any rush to roll the dice personally but it’s important to have some perspective when you’re feeling anxious.
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I agree. It is more likley to be serious when you are older but even in the 80+ range the fatality rate is "only" 13-20% - likely lower as many care home patients won't have been tested, especially in the early days of the pandemic.

On the other hand younger people need to take the risk of long term health damage more seriously.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Don’t want to play it down but even vulnerable people can get off very lightly.

Chatting to someone this evening whose elderly father got it in hospital in April, after several months of bad health following a heart attack last year. He was over it in a few days and is right as rain now. Just last week his equally elderly mother had an antibody test and had a very high titre, showing she had got infected too. She never had any symptoms at all.

I tend to be captain doom and gloom in this thread but we do need to remember that the vast majority of people, of all ages, suffer a short-term mild illness followed by a complete recovery.

Not saying I’m in any rush to roll the dice personally but it’s important to have some perspective when you’re feeling anxious.
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I do understand that too but it seems like a complete roll of the dice/random as to who and how much it will affect you. Which is what makes it scary for me
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Don’t want to play it down but even vulnerable people can get off very lightly.

Chatting to someone this evening whose elderly father got it in hospital in April, after several months of bad health following a heart attack last year. He was over it in a few days and is right as rain now. Just last week his equally elderly mother had an antibody test and had a very high titre, showing she had got infected too. She never had any symptoms at all.

I tend to be captain doom and gloom in this thread but we do need to remember that the vast majority of people, of all ages, suffer a short-term mild illness followed by a complete recovery.

Not saying I’m in any rush to roll the dice personally but it’s important to have some perspective when you’re feeling anxious.
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Yeah an 80+ year old neighbour caught it and 11 days later he was out cleaning the road by his house, he has had heart problems as well.
It just seems to be pot luck as to who it will strike badly, or has viral load got something to do with it.
 
groovyalbert said:
But 88 deaths. Which is high, granted, but clearly with increased testing we're seeing that the virus is less of a death sentence than first feared.
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Deaths are now lagging positive tests by about 3/4 weeks (earlier tests and better treatments). If you look at daily positive test numbers in France from back then, they were around the 8/10 thousand mark.

The other part of that equation is that death numbers will rise fast once the virus hits older people (whereas in September a lot of the new cases were in the younger age groups)
 
Dominic Raab on BBC Breakfast now and he doesn’t look well at all. Looks like he’s lost at least a stone.
 
UnrelatedPsuedo said:
As you’ve asked many times,

Germany
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Which would imply that Germany are the exception, when other countries with similar problems, similar riches, different technology bases, different political objectives and different growth trajectories have performed similarly, as far as I can tell.

Aiming to be the best is sensible enough if the things that allowed the best to be that are achievable in a short period of time, or is part of a longer term political criticism, but suggesting that it is a critical failure to not reach that level in a short time period despite being among the best of the rest is a bit...questionable.

What is Germany's contact rate, by the way? The data here doesn't seem to support the idea they've jumped on board.

In Germany, people said they would refuse to hand over names to contact tracers at double the rate of Britons, according to a poll by Imperial College London.
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If Andy Burnham, etc, rejects the move to Tier 3 for Manchester, does that mean it won’t happen, because the Government have said that it’s down to local government to enforce it?
 
Brwned said:
Which would imply that Germany are the exception, when other countries with similar problems, similar riches, different technology bases, different political objectives and different growth trajectories have performed similarly, as far as I can tell.

Aiming to be the best is sensible enough if the things that allowed the best to be that are achievable in a short period of time, or is part of a longer term political criticism, but suggesting that it is a critical failure despite being among the best of the rest is a bit...questionable.
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No. I gave you an example of working. There are many more. But we only need one to discuss why ours is a horror show.

Germany is a half day drive away. They’re a political ally. They run on principally the same system as us. They have no natural advantage and close to identical climates, ability to spend, political clout, the works.

We are not among the best of the rest. What don’t you get? Are you just looking at numbers tested? Because every country that’s getting it right has not entered into a dick swinging contest advertising testing numbers. Total tested is POINTLESS.

Our testing is an absolute unmitigated disaster. Not a single element of it is working.
 
UnrelatedPsuedo said:
No. I gave you an example of working. There are many more. But we only need one to discuss why ours is a horror show.

Germany is a half day drive away. They’re a political ally. They run on principally the same system as us. They have no natural advantage and close to identical climates, ability to spend, political clout, the works.

We are not among the best of the rest. What don’t you get? Are you just looking at numbers tested? Because every country that’s getting it right has not entered into a dick swinging contest advertising testing numbers. Total tested is POINTLESS.

Our testing is an absolute unmitigated disaster. Not a single element of it is working.
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You're basically screaming at the wall here. You responded to this question: which countries have done better [than a 40% contact rate]. That's what he said, and it doesn't have anything to do with tests.

So, same question again, which countries are doing better at getting people to voluntarily give up a high number of contacts, in the tracing part of this test and trace system? What we know is that Taiwan is a benchmark, where they have fewer data protection rules and the government has more power to coerce that information from you. On average they give up 15 contacts. In Spain they get 3, in France they get just under 3, in the US they get just over 1. In the UK, they get 5. Nowhere near the benchmark, but that benchmark is set under different conditions, and better than comparable peers. Even Germany, as per the limited data I've seen.

In Germany, people said they would refuse to hand over names to contact tracers at double the rate of Britons, according to a poll by Imperial College London.
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But I haven't followed it that closely, hence why I asked him who he was using as a benchmark for what the appropriate standard is, and who meets said standard. That's what I "don't get". Maybe if you spent more time reading what people said rather than shouting at a screen you'd find it a bit easier to understand people.

Fluctuation0161 said:
Many. Germany. South Korea. Start with them and then work through the Atlas.

A shorter answer would be what countries have done worse. We have the highest death rate in Europe for a reason.
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They have done better at containing the virus, sure. But this is about your 40% figure contact rate quoted. What's the list of these many countries, and where's the evidence? I'm pretty sure the list of countries that have done better is not longer than the list that have done worse, in that specific issue, and the ones who have done better have the legislation in place to do so. Most people in Europe are fine with that concession, even in these times. Korea allow their privacy to be invaded in a way they themselves don't even like, but accept after the measures were forced through from MERS. They wouldn't have volunteered to do it now, in the way most of Europe would not volunteer to do it now, even with the health benefits.
 
Brwned said:
You're basically screaming at the wall here. You responded to this question: which countries have done better [than a 40% contact rate]. That's what he said, and it doesn't have anything to do with tests.

So, same question again, which countries are doing better at getting people to voluntarily give up a high number of contacts, in the tracing part of this test and trace system? What we know is that Taiwan is a benchmark, where they have fewer data protection rules and the government has more power to coerce that information from you. On average they give up 15 contacts. In Spain they get 3, in France they get just under 3, in the US they get just over 1. In the UK, they get 5. Nowhere near the benchmark, but that benchmark is set under different conditions, and better than comparable peers. Even Germany, as per the limited data I've seen.



But I haven't followed it that closely, hence why I asked him who he was using as a benchmark for what the appropriate standard is, and who meets said standard. That's what I "don't get". Maybe if you spent more time reading what people said rather than shouting at a screen you'd find it a bit easier to understand people.



They have done better at containing the virus, sure. But this is about your 40% figure contact rate quoted. What's the list of these many countries, and where's the evidence? I'm pretty sure the list of countries that have done better is not longer than the list that have done worse, in that specific issue, and the ones who have done better have the legislation in place to do so. Most people in Europe are fine with that concession, even in these times. Korea allow their privacy to be invaded in a way they themselves don't even like, but accept after the measures were forced through from MERS. They wouldn't have volunteered to do it now, in the way most of Europe would not volunteer to do it now, even with the health benefits.
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Ironically, you don't need to look outside the country for 98%+ contact rates. Just look at instance where local public health officials are doing the contacting, rather than Serco running an expensive and incompotent national service.

https://www.theguardian.com/society...covid-rates-launch-own-test-and-trace-systems

And this is before we even delve into the UK covid app debacle. Compare that with other countries too.

I genuinely don't understand why you feel the need to defend the UK's catastrophically poor response to Covid. It fails by every metric.

Unless you can share some metrics where we are "World beating"?
 
Fluctuation0161 said:
Ironically, you don't need to look outside the country for 98%+ contact rates. Just look at instance where local public health officials are doing the contacting, rather than Serco running an expensive and incompotent national service.

https://www.theguardian.com/society...covid-rates-launch-own-test-and-trace-systems

And this is before we even delve into the UK covid app debacle. Compare that with other countries too.

I genuinely don't understand why you feel the need to defend the UK's catastrophically poor response to Covid. It fails by every metric.

Unless you can share some metrics where we are "World beating"?
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The only thing we are world-beating at is sheer incompetence.
 
Fluctuation0161 said:
Ironically, you don't need to look outside the country for 98%+ contact rates. Just look at instance where local public health officials are doing the contacting, rather than Serco running an expensive and incompotent national service.

https://www.theguardian.com/society...covid-rates-launch-own-test-and-trace-systems

And this is before we even delve into the UK covid app debacle. Compare that with other countries too.

I genuinely don't understand why you feel the need to defend the UK's catastrophically poor response to Covid. It fails by every metric.

Unless you can share some metrics where we are "World beating"?
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You will find local areas in countries that outperform others, for a myriad of reasons, in the same way you will find "catastrophically poor" rates in almost all similar countries at a national level, for a different myriad of reasons. If it was so easy to scale up that performance level to an entire country, you'd see it almost everywhere you look, because they haven't all used the same rip off private companies. So let's stick with your original claim, rather than moving the goalposts. How many countries have done better on the specific metric you've cited, and where's the evidence?

I would be shocked if any of the UK's response was world beating. I do think their initial financial response was among the best, and markedly better than obvious peers, but whether that was the right decision in the long run is hard to know at this stage. There have been plenty of shocking failures on the public health front. I just don't see any evidence for the current fashionable criticism. I think it's more likely you were conned into believing that test and trace could perform miracles it couldn't, and there is increasing evidence from previous leading lights like Czech Republic that seem to indicate the success of the test and trace system is entirely contingent on the virus being managed at low levels. It cannot cause that, nor overturn it. Czech Republic's system went from "world-beating" to "embarrassing" very quickly, despite no changes to the actual system. That's quite hard to reconcile with the current criticism leveraged at the UK system.

It seems far more useful to me to recognise the limitations of the test and trace system, by putting it in an international context and comparing the performance, than by holding it to an impossible standard and then repeatedly claiming it's "an unmitigated disaster". Because then it allows national attention to refocus on actual practical measures, rather than consistently hanging on to this idea of the holy grail. People are using it as a get out of jail free card. If only these Serco bastards could do their jobs, I could do my job. And it's another excuse to stoke up the north-south divide. If only the national government did this one thing, we could succeed in stopping the virus with our own additional measures. Bullshit.

And yes, it is galling they paid a fortune to a company that has done a mediocre job, when we could have invested a lot less for our own organisation to do a mediocre job. But the idea that they could do an acceptable job, as per your standards, seems to be pure fantasy. And it might have been fantasy created by the government but that isn't an excuse to keep believing it now, in the absence of credible evidence. Rather than picking holes, what have you seen that contradicts this?

Brwned said:
What we know is that Taiwan is a benchmark, where they have fewer data protection rules and the government has more power to coerce that information from you. On average they give up 15 contacts. In Spain they get 3, in France they get just under 3, in the US they get just over 1. In the UK, they get 5. Nowhere near the benchmark, but that benchmark is set under different conditions, and better than comparable peers. Even Germany, as per the limited data I've seen.
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Brwned said:
You will find local areas in countries that outperform others, for a myriad of reasons, in the same way you will find "catastrophically poor" rates in almost all similar countries at a national level, for a different myriad of reasons. If it was so easy to scale up that performance level to an entire country, you'd see it almost everywhere you look, because they haven't all used the same rip off private companies. So let's stick with your original claim, rather than moving the goalposts. How many countries have done better on the specific metric you've cited, and where's the evidence?

I would be shocked if any of the UK's response was world beating. I do think their initial financial response was among the best, and markedly better than obvious peers, but whether that was the right decision in the long run is hard to know at this stage. There have been plenty of shocking failures on the public health front. I just don't see any evidence for the current fashionable criticism. I think it's more likely you were conned into believing that test and trace could perform miracles it couldn't, and there is increasing evidence from previous leading lights like Czech Republic that seem to indicate the success of the test and trace system is entirely contingent on the virus being managed at low levels. It cannot cause that, nor overturn it. Czech Republic's system went from "world-beating" to "embarrassing" very quickly, despite no changes to the actual system. That's quite hard to reconcile with the current criticism leveraged at the UK system.

It seems far more useful to me to recognise the limitations of the test and trace system, by putting it in an international context and comparing the performance, than by holding it to an impossible standard and then repeatedly claiming it's "an unmitigated disaster". Because then it allows national attention to refocus on actual practical measures, rather than consistently hanging on to this idea of the holy grail. People are using it as a get out of jail free card. If only these Serco bastards could do their jobs, I could do my job. And it's another excuse to stoke up the north-south divide. If only the national government did this one thing, we could succeed in stopping the virus with our own additional measures. Bullshit.

And yes, it is galling they paid a fortune to a company that has done a mediocre job, when we could have invested a lot less for our own organisation to do a mediocre job. But the idea that they could do an acceptable job, as per your standards, seems to be pure fantasy. And it might have been fantasy created by the government but that isn't an excuse to keep believing it now, in the absence of credible evidence. Rather than picking holes, what have you seen that contradicts this?
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Not for the first time I’ve thought that the obsession with data protection at all costs in the EU causes more problems than it solves. Although never thought it would literally costs lives before the end of 2020. Although possibly a discussion for a different thread!
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Not for the first time I’ve thought that the obsession with data protection at all costs in the EU causes more problems than it solves. Although never thought it would literally costs lives before the end of 2020. Although possibly a discussion for a different thread!
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Yeah, I've not given a lot of thought to it myself but it's definitely a contributing factor in the contact tracing process. As much because of the legal requirements as it is because of general attitudes to data privacy, and what it's worth sacrificing for. I've got a survey running that briefly touches on the subject and it seems to me that attitudes are simultaneously resolute, and largely inconsistent.

Not only have the vast majority of folks (75%+) not signed up to a contact tracing app in the UK and US*, but only 1 in 4 intend to get it at some point. Less than 1/2 would support a government mandate to use it and only 1 in 3 would use one of their employers asked them to. So it's pretty firm across the board, people don't want it, and while that's tempered by how personally worried people are about the virus, even among those who are "extremely worried" about their family catching it, only a minority would consider getting it.

And the biggest barriers to getting it are concerns about data privacy: data breaches, Apple and Google using it to target ads at them, location data collection not really being "private", the government using it to monitor and control the population. It's none of that practical stuff about battery usage, being legally responsible to self-isolate or being required to give their friends' details - they're still concerns for a majority, but comparatively smaller.

It will be an inflection point for data privacy discussions because it's clear that the data here is materially useful on an issue that most people consider very important, and the practical barriers to providing that data are relatively tiny, but huge numbers are opting out. That can't be ignored.

Then again, this is why big companies have created these impossible contracts-within-contracts and used all kinds of techniques to compel us to give up data we object to. That's not news to them.

Worth giving this book a read for the much darker side to that story, though. There is good reason for society to be worried about how these impossibly big organisations use these violations of privacy against us, and where it could lead. There's a lot of jargon and it's a bit too dense, and because it's a polemic it does over-reach a bit, but it's an incredibly thorough piece of work on something that likely will play a definitive role in the future of modern society.

*only available in a few states for now, if we're talking about contact tracing app failures
 
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The lack of understanding of technology is half the battle, the amount of people that won't download the NHS App as its "tracking" them.

If they actually looked into it and could understand how it works or even comb through the source code they might be less sceptical.
 
Brwned said:
You will find local areas in countries that outperform others, for a myriad of reasons, in the same way you will find "catastrophically poor" rates in almost all similar countries at a national level, for a different myriad of reasons. If it was so easy to scale up that performance level to an entire country, you'd see it almost everywhere you look, because they haven't all used the same rip off private companies. So let's stick with your original claim, rather than moving the goalposts. How many countries have done better on the specific metric you've cited, and where's the evidence?

I would be shocked if any of the UK's response was world beating. I do think their initial financial response was among the best, and markedly better than obvious peers, but whether that was the right decision in the long run is hard to know at this stage. There have been plenty of shocking failures on the public health front. I just don't see any evidence for the current fashionable criticism. I think it's more likely you were conned into believing that test and trace could perform miracles it couldn't, and there is increasing evidence from previous leading lights like Czech Republic that seem to indicate the success of the test and trace system is entirely contingent on the virus being managed at low levels. It cannot cause that, nor overturn it. Czech Republic's system went from "world-beating" to "embarrassing" very quickly, despite no changes to the actual system. That's quite hard to reconcile with the current criticism leveraged at the UK system.

It seems far more useful to me to recognise the limitations of the test and trace system, by putting it in an international context and comparing the performance, than by holding it to an impossible standard and then repeatedly claiming it's "an unmitigated disaster". Because then it allows national attention to refocus on actual practical measures, rather than consistently hanging on to this idea of the holy grail. People are using it as a get out of jail free card. If only these Serco bastards could do their jobs, I could do my job. And it's another excuse to stoke up the north-south divide. If only the national government did this one thing, we could succeed in stopping the virus with our own additional measures. Bullshit.

And yes, it is galling they paid a fortune to a company that has done a mediocre job, when we could have invested a lot less for our own organisation to do a mediocre job. But the idea that they could do an acceptable job, as per your standards, seems to be pure fantasy. And it might have been fantasy created by the government but that isn't an excuse to keep believing it now, in the absence of credible evidence. Rather than picking holes, what have you seen that contradicts this?
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The government set a target of 80% contact rate and our scientists said we need to achieve that 80% for it to be effective. That should be the minimum benchmark.

You say we could have paid our own
organisation to do a "mediocre job". Yet I've given you evidence of public health achieving 98% contact rate vs Serco at 40%. If both 98% and 40% are defined as mediocre by you then I don't know where to start. The decision to use Serco was a massive £12bn mistake.

If there are large variations in local area for a "myriad of reasons", then maybe the project should be managed locally by health organisations that understand the area?
 
@Brwned

Our testing is shot. I got my result back today. 5 days. Result? Inconclusive.

I have been isolating with my partner for those 5 days.

My last outing was to a pub on Saturday. All four of us checked in using the App.

I advised my two friends. One is a builder and can’t work from home. But he rode to work this week instead of taking the tube, wore a mask at work and advised the other two people on site of his situation. His partner worked from home this week.

The App hasn’t alerted any of them that they’ve spent time with someone that has logged two of three symptoms. I can’t log an inconclusive test result for some reason.

This is 5 days. We’re all like minded and affluent individuals so I don’t think the impact is too bad. But what if all four of us had a job that meant we had to work with others?

This is not anecdotal evidence. This is evidencing example. There are countless stories like this.

You seem to be fixated on the numbers and percentages and who’s doing better.

The absolute core fundamentals of our system are broken. There are no examples of this System working for the majority. Fcuk loads of people are dead. The devil does not need an advocate here.

I’m not shouting at a wall, I’m pissed off. Everyone should be. The people we trust to look after society have failed us. Looking for cracks of daylight as we continue to be covered in an ever increasing pile of rubble is not helpful to anyone.

You’re suggesting that we support and buy into a narrative that is ‘Some are doing worse, few are doing better’.

Fcuk. That.
 
UnrelatedPsuedo said:
@Brwned

Our testing is shot. I got my result back today. 5 days. Result? Inconclusive.

I have been isolating with my partner for those 5 days.

My last outing was to a pub on Saturday. All four of us checked in using the App.

I advised my two friends. One is a builder and can’t work from home. But he rode to work this week instead of taking the tube, wore a mask at work and advised the other two people on site of his situation. His partner worked from home this week.

The App hasn’t alerted any of them that they’ve spent time with someone that has logged two of three symptoms. I can’t log an inconclusive test result for some reason.

This is 5 days. We’re all like minded and affluent individuals so I don’t think the impact is too bad. But what if all four of us had a job that meant we had to work with others?

This is not anecdotal evidence. This is evidencing example. There are countless stories like this.

You seem to be fixated on the numbers and percentages and who’s doing better.

The absolute core fundamentals of our system are broken. There are no examples of this System working for the majority. Fcuk loads of people are dead. The devil does not need an advocate here.

I’m not shouting at a wall, I’m pissed off. Everyone should be. The people we trust to look after society have failed us. Looking for cracks of daylight as we continue to be covered in an ever increasing pile of rubble is not helpful to anyone.

You’re suggesting that we support and buy into a narrative that is ‘Some are doing worse, few are doing better’.

Fcuk. That.
Click to expand...
@Brwned
I can validate that. My office colleague tested positive 6 days ago.

He spoke to test and trace 6 days ago but no one I work with has been contacted by them yet. Luckily we have all self isolated because our colleague told us.

I had symptoms but luckily I tested negative, so guess it was a cold or flu in my case.
 
132 dead yesterday. Over 500 total this week. All ICUs across the country are full, in some areas if you have heart attack you are dead as they won't even attempt to help you anymore as they don't have ambulances.
 
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