But it also costs business money for constantly opening and closing. I bet most staff and companies would prefer definite plans
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
Yeah but if everyone is not fully immune what’s the point? 50% is still a huge gamble with people’s health
I think the stats work better than that, particularly with the AZ vaccine where we do know more about what happens beyond the 3/4 week window. We know that not only does dose1 reduce the odds of developing symptomatic covid, it also reduces the odds of being hospitalised - to more or less zero in the trial. In the AZ case the second dose arriving at 8 weeks plus, not only does no harm in terms of the subsequent protection level, it may do some good.
The gamble comes when we look at Pfizer, which may have a similar (or better) efficacy profile timeline. It's a gamble because we don't actually know anything about what happens beyond 4 weeks and we're left hoping/extrapolating to guess that (as with AZ) even if efficacy reduces it still maintains a protective effect - keeping people out of hospital. The other unknown is whether dose 2 still does the same job as it did in the Phase 3 trial if it gets delayed. I think they've opted to wait and see on that one. Damage limitation so that more people live through January/February, and hope that we can rapidly pick up the pieces again March.
And just as with the March lockdown, individual organisations start taking individual action:
https://www.theguardian.com/educati...way-for-at-least-seven-weeks-over-covid-fears
UCL doesn't want its students to return to the campus until the end of February - and they've warned that online only teaching might have to continue through March.
https://www.theguardian.com/educati...way-for-at-least-seven-weeks-over-covid-fears
UCL doesn't want its students to return to the campus until the end of February - and they've warned that online only teaching might have to continue through March.
But from that single statistic that you go on to say "Clearly it does show cases are rising generically but not much more then that"
We all know we are in a terrible situation. That goes without saying.
Unless I got the wrong end of the stick, your comment seems to suggests that things aren't as terrible as they seem.
55k cases, 454 deaths.
When this all eventually ends death toll is going to be well over 100k isn't it? Considering the "best case" outcome was predicted at 20k deaths by Vallance and co back in March that suggests a few mistakes have been made along the way. I always thought things would flatline at around 60k but that was just for the first wave, speeding past that now sadly.
When this all eventually ends death toll is going to be well over 100k isn't it? Considering the "best case" outcome was predicted at 20k deaths by Vallance and co back in March that suggests a few mistakes have been made along the way. I always thought things would flatline at around 60k but that was just for the first wave, speeding past that now sadly.
I think you did get the wrong end of the stick.
I simply commented that that particular statistic is not a very good one. You then went on to infer from that that I was saying therefore the situation isn’t bad.
Except I simply was just saying that that statistic isn’t a great statistic. Not commenting at all on if the situation is terrible. It quite clearly is. And there’s many many better and more relevant statistics that show that. The number of tests returning positive as a % of tests taken is useful insofar as it might indicate a trend, but other then that does nothing because it has too many variables that impact it other than having the virus or not which make it less helpful.
The one major difference that there is a clear scientific consensus on, supported by reliable data collected over a long period, is that kids are less infectious and less likely to get infected than an adult in equivalent circumstances. So comparing adults and children without accounting for that significant difference can only create misleading conclusions. If they weren’t, things would have been much worse than they are, schools or no schools. That is one of the few fortunate things about this virus as many viruses hit the oldest and youngest worst.
The distinction between schools in London and schools everywhere else is the communities they’re coming from and the level and type of virus they’re exposed to. The government have tried to keep schools open at all costs. Closing schools anywhere is a loss to them, so they’re only doing them in the most severe circumstances.
London is in the most severe circumstances because it has a much larger share of the more transmissible strain of the virus, which makes it easier for everyone to get it and everyone to pass it on. So children still get it and pass it less often than adults, but the chances of a child getting it and passing it on in London is substantially higher than in Liverpool. The only way to even that playing field is to have it become the dominant strain all over the country. Which means schools closed in emergencies and much more.
It is not that kids are more likely to get it in London schools, it is that kids are more likely to get it anywhere in London, in large part because their parents and siblings are also more likely to get it and bring it into the household. So higher levels of transmission change the risk calculation. That’s a normal response to that kind of change in circumstances. It isn’t double standards, it’s looking at two different situations through the same lens.
I remember Fauci saying they were looking at 60k deaths in the US..
The US is already at 6 times that..
The UK wont be the only ones getting their projection totally wrong
Another 55k cases today in UK, putting the 7 day total at 47.6% higher than last week, when testing has actually gone down!
I was reminded about how, in May, Boris laid out his plan to reopen the UK, saying schools would only open if the r was at 0.5! We’re between 1.1 and 1.3 with a more contagious strain of the virus running uncontrolled. But no let’s keep them open.
I was reminded about how, in May, Boris laid out his plan to reopen the UK, saying schools would only open if the r was at 0.5! We’re between 1.1 and 1.3 with a more contagious strain of the virus running uncontrolled. But no let’s keep them open.
I think my only sticking point to this is why were some Boroughs in London excluded from the list initially, then the government flip flopped. (Extremely well planned and scientific clearly)
The other is why are some regions outside of London with the highest cases per 100k not having schools closed.
It's simple, they're not taking the advice of their advisors at this point. If they've decided the risk to education is worse than the risk to health then fine but they'll have to politically own the impacts to covid spread because of their decision.
No moaning in a couple of weeks It's worse so now we have to act.
No moaning in a couple of weeks It's worse so now we have to act.
You have to question whats behind this governments, highly questionable reasoning. The decision to empty hospitals of the elderly, sending untested patients back to care homes ,the eat out to help out (the virus), pushing to get children back into schools before the September break, attempting to push people back into the office and finally the fiasco over the tier system and Christmas.
I could see the reasoning behind getting as many people as possible partially immunised this if there was a vaccine shortage. But this doesn't appear to be the case with the Oxford/Based on their track record, it sounds like another government half measure.
My genuine concern is that this government, are yet again, looking at this from an economic perspective, seeing if they can get away with partial immunisation and save the treasury a huge amount of money. It's a huge gamble with peoples lives. Perhaps I'm being cynical, however based on their record, this government couldn't win a bet in a one horse race.
I can see the cynicism, but I believe the move on dosage from the JCVI (not the government remember) is to reduce the strain on hospitals which they are seeing currently with the new variant. Vaccinating more quicker with one dose, will reduce the chances of hospitalisation, or at the very least intensive care requirement, and in turn ease the burden the south are currently seeing on ICU.
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Italy's numbers seem to be going the right way (fingers crossed). The extended national lockdown we've had since 24th December has hopefully made a difference. We've had a complete national lockdown on 24-27 December, 31 December to today and then again we'll all be in the red zone on 5 & 6 January (because Epiphany is celebrated here). In between, the country has had some slight relaxations.
Conte wants to open the schools on 7th Jan, which is when the kids would normally return. We'll find out in a couple of days what the measures will be from 8-15 January.
Conte wants to open the schools on 7th Jan, which is when the kids would normally return. We'll find out in a couple of days what the measures will be from 8-15 January.
I don't see why opening schools would be a good idea in Liverpool and a bad one in London.
There should be a single national policy about schools and children who are a very specific population group Covid-wise.
The lack of clarity, simplicity, consistency and homogeneity destroys the trust the population places in politicians.
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I don't think the lines are that clearly drawn. Closing schools is a bad idea in Liverpool and a bad one in London. Opening schools is a bad idea in Liverpool and a bad one in London. They're choosing between two bad choices and in that context, their national policy is for schools to be open wherever possible. Education is a priority that comes ahead of many parts of the economy and social connections. It's one of the few things they've been consistent on for months.
Their understanding of virus transmission right now is that the strain of the virus that transmits 50% quicker is now the dominant strain in London, but not in Liverpool. So "wherever possible" includes Liverpool, but doesn't include London. The current public health recommendations are that "tier 4" restrictions are not enough to hold back transmission of this worse strain, more needs to be done, and quite possibly those areas will be going back to exactly what we went through in March. But that is a last resort that they will only apply in the areas where that worse strain is very prevalent.
They still "hope" that tier 4 restrictions will be enough to hold back transmission with schools open, because their understanding of the data from the last lockdown is almost all areas that were in tier 4 and didn't have that strain did actually see transmission fall to acceptable levels. But that may just be selective misreading in the data, and if they get that wrong they'll just impose more restrictions on the other regions not long after. Personally I'm not sure why people are asking for that to happen. Some people seem to think if schools close then maybe we won't have to cut back on some of the other stuff that us adults like to do. If schools are closed for a significant period it means things are really bad and there will be more restrictions for all of us.
There are obviously pros and cons to a regional strategy but it was what the majority of the public wanted after the first national lockdown. Area x shouldn't be "punished" because of the "bad behaviour" of area y is a very popular view at the moment, particularly in conservative media. I agree with you that disadvantaging children's education in one area for a significant period of time while allowing others' to get on as normal comes with specific challenges that raise some difficult questions.
Checking the UGove map for infections shows that my area has gone up from 132/100,00 to 205/100,000 to 499/100,000 in the last 3 days. It was going down but has now started to rise quickly.
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/interactive-map
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/interactive-map
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I inferred that you might be suggesting that things were not as bad Thats a massive leap from isn't bad.
It's the absolute certainty of your conclusion based on incomplete data that I have an issue with.
Just found out my partner did a c-section on a patient who later tested positive for covid. She had to self isolate and whilst I don’t, I have no idea how to act in the house. Do I just stay away from her, sleep in different rooms etc?
10-15 staff members taken out in one go apparently
10-15 staff members taken out in one go apparently
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I dont think the r rate will ever go down if schools are open
That won't have been the reason for their decision. If they don't enter a full lockdown it'll be entirely due to economic ideology. The idea that the government could suggest people work from home or not go to school when they have the power to legally enforce both those things for the public good is an idea of diminished public capacity which comes from four decades of neoliberalist free market politics. Which is also why the US, UK, and any countries closest to their economic model in the developed world seemed to do disproportionately bad.
There's a political danger now that there wasn't before. With multiple vaccine choices around the corner, any government which fecks this up can legitimately be accused of purposefully damaging the public's health. That wasn't entirely the case in March but it is now.
Do you have access to a Google machine?
Unfortunately most of the country will be over 600 in the next week or so . My area in Liverpool us at 210 but parts of the city are already at 500. January is going to be pretty awful for UK . We will have a complete lockdown soon and then things should get better in Feb
it was just me venting more than anything!Thanks for your time. I was not aware of the fact that Liverpool and London have not the same dominant strain of the virus.
I wouldn't have a problem with it if the said they were prioritising Primary schools because online learning is too limited for the younger ones. I'm more dubious about them allowing Secondary to continue - especially fulltime on-site - the autumn term contained a massive missed opportunity to improve online resources and complete the roll out of laptops/data hotspots where needed. That makes me suspect they hadn't even thought about it, crossing their fingers and hoping for the best isn't the same as prioritising it.
The continuing hesitation over advice to Universities and Colleges is even worse as it has less actual educational necessity behind it, and a lot of extra potential for spreading problems around the country.
Then finally we get the question of, "so what do we sacrifice to keep the schools open?" and we get the easy bits, the pubs, the restaurants, the gyms, the non-essential shops. But take a look at Tier4 rules - those aren't the March/April lockdown rules. Places of worship stay open, so do face to face support groups, and there are a whole bunch of other things there that we realised were essential whether for mental health reasons or sheer practicality - like house moves etc, that are listed there. The default "stay home" now only really applies to certain aspects of certain people's social lives and some businesses - who can't workaround the rules.
So basically I hear the "we've prioritised schools" - but I don't see the evidence that we've done enough elsewhere to match how we acted in March/April (against a less transmissible strain) let alone match that improvement and keep schools open. Especially not now as we head into winter, and we don't have the immense advantage that the "chance to say hello and hand the shopping over in the front garden" spring weather gave us.
Incidentally Manchester's numbers suggest that the new strain accounted for 25% of cases before Christmas. The regions are porous and the mutation is in community transmission across a lot of the country.
Is your partner getting vaccinated soon? An obstetrician friend of mine is livid that she seems to be one of the last specialities in the queue. All her patients are in the 18-44 age group with the highest incidence of cases and one thing you can never do at a two metre distance is deliver a baby!
She also said they’ve had a bunch of new mums re-admitted to hospital shortly after discharge, after contracting covid at home. In most of these cases the baby was also testing positive.
Went in an hour earlier on Thursday just to catch up with some death certificates that had unfortunately been racking up during the week. Yes, it is as morbid as it sounds.
When you write in a death certificate, you also write in a "receipt" that stays within the book (as you tear out the actual death certificate), which also includes the causes of death.
I had a quick look through the many, many, many receipts that were there and the vast majority of them were 1a - COVID 19.
Bollocks to those who still think that doctors put down shit like: 1a Myocardial Infaction/(Heart attack), 1b COVID; or 1a Subarachnoid Haemorrhage (Brain bleed) 1b. COVID.
That shit doesn't happen and I can't believe people still think it happens. The only times I've put COVID in the death certificate when it wasn't the primary reason for the cause of death is when a patient is in the process of getting over the oxygenation failure from COVID and then pick up a hospital acquired pneumonia which worsens their condition again. In that case it would be 1a - Bacterial Pneumonia, 1b COVID.
Anywho our hospital is changing to a 7 day working week from now on as it's too unsafe in "out of hours" like weekends and after 5pm when ward teams head home.
So for the foreseeable future, everyday will be 12 hour shifts with the occasional day off or two so we still keep within the rough range of hours of our contracts.
This is despite practically everyone exceeding the hours of our contract anyway. Think the earliest I've left work over the last few weeks is 17:45.
We'll hit a 1000 deaths per day sometime this week.
When you write in a death certificate, you also write in a "receipt" that stays within the book (as you tear out the actual death certificate), which also includes the causes of death.
I had a quick look through the many, many, many receipts that were there and the vast majority of them were 1a - COVID 19.
Bollocks to those who still think that doctors put down shit like: 1a Myocardial Infaction/(Heart attack), 1b COVID; or 1a Subarachnoid Haemorrhage (Brain bleed) 1b. COVID.
That shit doesn't happen and I can't believe people still think it happens. The only times I've put COVID in the death certificate when it wasn't the primary reason for the cause of death is when a patient is in the process of getting over the oxygenation failure from COVID and then pick up a hospital acquired pneumonia which worsens their condition again. In that case it would be 1a - Bacterial Pneumonia, 1b COVID.
Anywho our hospital is changing to a 7 day working week from now on as it's too unsafe in "out of hours" like weekends and after 5pm when ward teams head home.
So for the foreseeable future, everyday will be 12 hour shifts with the occasional day off or two so we still keep within the rough range of hours of our contracts.
This is despite practically everyone exceeding the hours of our contract anyway. Think the earliest I've left work over the last few weeks is 17:45.
We'll hit a 1000 deaths per day sometime this week.
Sounds brutal. Hang in there. One day this will all be a series of amazing anecdotes to impress your grandkids/hot young med students/whoever.
I'm also pissed about this new vaccination change. I was due my second vaccine dose this Thursday.
I understand that you want more people vaccinated but I didn't accept to be part of a clinical trial to see the effectiveness of the vaccine by waiting 12 weeks between doses. Pfizier has rightly condemned this as well as their "~90% effectiveness" is based on a 3 week gap between doses.
I felt like absolute death after my first dose, and I wouldn't have had it so early if I knew this was the case as I had COVID a second time in October which meant I was probably still deemed immune by the time I received the first dose. I genuinely would have declined it if I knew they'd mess around with the schedule like this. This was not what we agreed when we accepted to take the vaccine as early as we did.
I understand that you want more people vaccinated but I didn't accept to be part of a clinical trial to see the effectiveness of the vaccine by waiting 12 weeks between doses. Pfizier has rightly condemned this as well as their "~90% effectiveness" is based on a 3 week gap between doses.
I felt like absolute death after my first dose, and I wouldn't have had it so early if I knew this was the case as I had COVID a second time in October which meant I was probably still deemed immune by the time I received the first dose. I genuinely would have declined it if I knew they'd mess around with the schedule like this. This was not what we agreed when we accepted to take the vaccine as early as we did.
If you’ve already had covid a couple of times then the first dose probably acted as a booster (hence you felt so shit) I’d be furious at being denied the licensed regime in your shoes but I’m sure you’re reassuring yourself that the studies excluded anyone with documented prior infection, so you would have been a bit of an experimental case regardless.
Also, doesn't look good when they've already flipflopped on calls. Weren't going to close certain boroughs but now have, funny enough some of the ones included are the ones that they threatened before christmas. (So very scientific)
Very little information on Uni's so far, which means come Jan 11th ( might be wrong on that date) you're very likely to see millions of Uni students buzzing back to halls.
She’s heard nothing whatsoever about getting a vaccine. Her hospital only received the vaccine (Pfeizer obviously) on 23rd December. They all had to fill in a form saying they wanted it and including their risk factors and she hasn’t heard anything since.
She doesn’t have any risk factors - unless her black ethnicity counts, I’m not well informed enough to say - and hasn’t heard anything since.
Edit: this post really is awfully constructed grammatically
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Seems to be a bit of a postcode lottery going on right now, for HCWs and patients. Hopefully get sorted soon now the Oxford vaccine is coming online.
Definitely. My mate who works 20 miles down the road as a podiatrist already has it.
I've asked the same questions myself. During the initial lockdown and even until today.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/03/swedish-model-failed-covid-19
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/03/swedish-model-failed-covid-19
We definitely need a lockdown now we have to try and keep control of the virus so that we can vaccinate enough people to get some degree of herd immunity by Easter.
