Corona Virus main thread

[Daz Sparks 1,152]

1 minute ago, ricardo said:

Thankfully Chinese law doesn't hold sway over the Pinkun message board.😁

else many on here would behind bars😉

I'm struggling to think of any that wouldn't be Ricardo.

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

14 minutes ago, ricardo said:

Thankfully Chinese law doesn't hold sway over the Pinkun message board.😁

else many on here would behind bars😉

Some prefer leaning on them of course.

[Tetteys Jig 830]

I think at this stage its pretty obvious we will be spending at least January in a nationwide lockdown. I'm in tier 2 Harrogate where we appear to still have low rates but it's only a matter of time before things spread here. Going to do a last meet up with a couple of friends this week for a socially distanced walk followed by pizza and a beer outside before that becomes illegal again...

I quite like my little WFH nest of podcasts, endless Yorkshire tea and Football manager on the 4th monitor so I can hack a few more months of this provided the vaccine rollout is prioritised. Once that's all sorted though, there is no option but to get back to normal life, we can't go on like this forever

[sonyc 5,514]

2 hours ago, Tetteys Jig said:

I think at this stage its pretty obvious we will be spending at least January in a nationwide lockdown. I'm in tier 2 Harrogate where we appear to still have low rates but it's only a matter of time before things spread here. Going to do a last meet up with a couple of friends this week for a socially distanced walk followed by pizza and a beer outside before that becomes illegal again...

I quite like my little WFH nest of podcasts, endless Yorkshire tea and Football manager on the 4th monitor so I can hack a few more months of this provided the vaccine rollout is prioritised. Once that's all sorted though, there is no option but to get back to normal life, we can't go on like this forever

Quite so. Life is going to feel a lot different after months and months of lockdown / quasi-lockdown. Tier 3 here (months now) and Zoe is just starting to show up ticks in numbers again. Reading other posters' thoughts and media stats you can see it all coming back up north unfortunately.  I had hoped that tier 4 might change the dynamic yet when I looked it up it is barely over a week ago that it was introduced! Time is slow when you watch it.

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

Only two in ICU in Cornwall but hospitalisations are up.

[ricardo 7,385]

Gone up a bit round here.

[Essjayess 307]

Stats kind of tell us things and dont tell us things..was looking at todays infections and deaths  from UK  and Italy for example and trying to understand and trying to reason the  differences when comparing both nations..UK has over 40,000  daily new infections...another high...while Italy has just 8,000...yet Italy has recorded 100 more deaths than UK....and has been recording higher death rates than UK consistently for many weeks now while never often reaching UK's high  daily infection rates.

Looking at overall total testings Italy have done testings that equate to around 43% of their population this year, while the UK's testings equate to around 76% of our population...these are equations  and must include persons tested  more than once, but perhaps that is one reason for the differences, im sure there are others of course.

[Van wink 2,994]

1 hour ago, Essjayess said:

Stats kind of tell us things and dont tell us things..was looking at todays infections and deaths  from UK  and Italy for example and trying to understand and trying to reason the  differences when comparing both nations..UK has over 40,000  daily new infections...another high...while Italy has just 8,000...yet Italy has recorded 100 more deaths than UK....and has been recording higher death rates than UK consistently for many weeks now while never often reaching UK's high  daily infection rates.

Looking at overall total testings Italy have done testings that equate to around 43% of their population this year, while the UK's testings equate to around 76% of our population...these are equations  and must include persons tested  more than once, but perhaps that is one reason for the differences, im sure there are others of course.

In fairness we have built quite a significant testing capability now. 

[Van wink 2,994]

More Covid patients in hospital now than at the peak of the first wave.

Edited December 28, 2020 by Van wink

[Daz Sparks 1,152]

8 minutes ago, Van wink said:

More Covid patients in hospital now than at the peak of the first wave.

Very worrying times, I hope the NHS copes before the vaccine starts to have an effect.

[sonyc 5,514]

7 minutes ago, Van wink said:

More Covid patients in hospital now than at the peak of the first wave.

Yes, I saw that on the BBC news tonight plus all the Twitter talk of a tier 5 last night. The Mirror is excellent with its daily tabular report of towns and broad forecasts. It's spreading northwards. 

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/area-move-tier-4-latest-23228749?utm_source=linkCopy&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar

Whitty did say the winter would be tough.

[Van wink 2,994]

21 minutes ago, Daz Sparks said:

Very worrying times, I hope the NHS copes before the vaccine starts to have an effect.

Yeh, but when you see hospitals in South Wales making public appeals for qualified people to go in urgently and assist staff in turning Covid patients it suggests breaking point is near. 

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

2 hours ago, Van wink said:

Yeh, but when you see hospitals in South Wales making public appeals for qualified people to go in urgently and assist staff in turning Covid patients it suggests breaking point is near. 

The Nightingale Hospitals are being closed down and equipment removed because there is not enough staff to use them.

They knew the second wave would come, it always does and it would be in winter. They are now just pinning everything on the vaccine.

[Van wink 2,994]

8 hours ago, keelansgrandad said:

The Nightingale Hospitals are being closed down and equipment removed because there is not enough staff to use them.

They knew the second wave would come, it always does and it would be in winter. They are now just pinning everything on the vaccine.

Yes indeed, most of us knew that there would be a second wave, quite likely worse than the first, it’s the way pandemics behave. We have yet again been far to slow to act to keep the numbers of infections in the community at a manageable level. I’m pretty sure the vaccine will be our saviour but at what cost in the intervening time?

[Van wink 2,994]

 

[Well b back 3,203]

Don’t shoot the messenger

National coronavirus restrictions are needed in England to prevent a "catastrophe" at the start of 2021, a scientist who advises the government has said.

Prof Andrew Hayward, a member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I think we are entering a very dangerous new phase of the pandemic and we're going to need decisive, early, national action to prevent a catastrophe in January and February. 

"A 50% increase in transmissibility means that the previous levels of restrictions that worked before won't work now, and so tier four restrictions are likely to be necessary or even higher than that. 

"I think we're really looking at a situation where we're moving into near lockdown, but we've got to learn the lessons from the first lockdown."

He added the rise in cases was "very largely driven" by the new, more infectious variant of coronavirus.

 

[sonyc 5,514]

Very concerning here that even in some rural areas (villages) of Yorkshire, case numbers are 470/100,000 and that is before Xmas numbers have been factored in.

[Well b back 3,203]

1 minute ago, sonyc said:

Very concerning here that even in some rural areas (villages) of Yorkshire, case numbers are 470/100,000 and that is before Xmas numbers have been factored in.

We were doing amazingly well in the Midlands, but can see that up tick and Christmas positives won’t start until Friday. The flu season ( apparently ) starts next week, but hopefully that will prove to be mild, compared to previous years.

[Barbe bleu 823]

40 minutes ago, Well b back said:

We were doing amazingly well in the Midlands, but can see that up tick and Christmas positives won’t start until Friday. The flu season ( apparently ) starts next week, but hopefully that will prove to be mild, compared to previous years.

I looked up the flu surveillance details. Incredibly low compared to recent years.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-flu-and-covid-19-surveillance-reports

This is the lowest point but equally it only gets better from here.

[Well b back 3,203]

15 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

I looked up the flu surveillance details. Incredibly low compared to recent years.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-flu-and-covid-19-surveillance-reports

This is the lowest point but equally it only gets better from here.

Indeed some countries reporting virtually none that would have normally been hit by now, but in fairness could just be a mild year rather than COVID. Our real flu season ( apparently ) normally starts big after Christmas ( COVID has taught us why lol )

[Upo 91]

5 hours ago, Van wink said:

Yes indeed, most of us knew that there would be a second wave, quite likely worse than the first, it’s the way pandemics behave. We have yet again been far to slow to act to keep the numbers of infections in the community at a manageable level. I’m pretty sure the vaccine will be our saviour but at what cost in the intervening time?

 

While I agree with the sentiment of you reasoning here, it's best start from the correct premises:

Each new wave is the result of a deliberate political decision to allow the spread of the infection. Nothing about it is how pandemics are supposed to behave. Proper epidemiological modeling depends on all inputs, including countermeasures. If you exclude countermeasures as irrelevant (fatalism) from the get go, you're no longer applying science but ideology.

If you choose not to suppress covid-19, by definition you have to keep mitigating it or the spread goes inevitably from "controlled" to "oh boy nobody saw THIS coming". Power makes influential people's prophecies self-fulfilling.

The uniting factor between countries that have succeeded in suppression is... the decision to suppress it. Where there is a will there is a way.

Edit. Accidentally put Vietnam twice instead of NZ...but you get it.

Edited December 29, 2020 by Upo

[Barbe bleu 823]

29 minutes ago, Well b back said:

Indeed some countries reporting virtually none that would have normally been hit by now, but in fairness could just be a mild year rather than COVID. Our real flu season ( apparently ) normally starts big after Christmas ( COVID has taught us why lol )

would have to be an incredibly mild or late year, you can barely make out this season's line.

[Barbe bleu 823]

6 minutes ago, Upo said:

 

While I agree with the sentiment of you reasoning here, it's best start from the correct premises:

Each new wave is the result of a deliberate political decision to allow the spread of the infection. 

 

Do you see no role for the seasons in this at all? That is the point i think VW is making, it went away in summer and it came back in winter just as all respiratory diseases do.

 

[Rock The Boat 1,330]

5 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

Do you see no role for the seasons in this at all? That is the point i think VW is making, it went away in summer and it came back in winter just as all respiratory diseases do.

 

And I was alone in saying we should have allowed more infections to happen in the summer when hospital capacity was low in order to relieve pressure on beds in the coming winter. Had we flowed this course of action we might now all be in lower tiers. 

[Well b back 3,203]

19 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

would have to be an incredibly mild or late year, you can barely make out this season's line.

Indeed

It will be interesting to see wether we keep it going next year. Will we see people distancing slightly in queues, will we carry on with masks, will there be queues at the wash basins at FCR after people have been to the toilet and will people stay indoors when they are ill, rather than go to work ( a culture that will need to change ).

[sonyc 5,514]

I think a full lockdown must be a consideration right now given the latest reports of oxygen supplies getting short, volunteers being asked to come to hospitals to 'turn' patients and the scared noises coming from medics.

If there is ever a time when national leadership is needed urgently it is right now. We must have learned from the US experience of Thanksgiving when rates surged in the following weeks. At what stage will we hear about this? The signs are very much here and the warnings known before Xmas.

 

[Well b back 3,203]

1 minute ago, sonyc said:

I think a full lockdown must be a consideration right now given the latest reports of oxygen supplies getting short, volunteers being asked to come to hospitals to 'turn' patients and the scared noises coming from medics.

If there is ever a time when national leadership is needed urgently it is right now. We must have learned from the US experience of Thanksgiving when rates surged in the following weeks. At what stage will we hear about this? The signs are very much here and the warnings known before Xmas.

 

Apparently Johnson is chairing a meeting this evening. Assuming bad news he will leak whatever is going to happen to the press, and send out his soldiers to deliver the bad news, then go into hiding until the Oxford vaccine is released.

[sonyc 5,514]

2 minutes ago, Well b back said:

Apparently Johnson is chairing a meeting this evening. Assuming bad news he will leak whatever is going to happen to the press, and send out his soldiers to deliver the bad news, then go into hiding until the Oxford vaccine is released.

Just about everything seems to be leaked these days? It's a curious development that seems to have become the norm. 

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

3 minutes ago, Well b back said:

Apparently Johnson is chairing a meeting this evening. Assuming bad news he will leak whatever is going to happen to the press, and send out his soldiers to deliver the bad news, then go into hiding until the Oxford vaccine is released.

That is his usual MO. Although I think a lockdown is necessary until this variant is mapped.

[Well b back 3,203]

2 minutes ago, keelansgrandad said:

That is his usual MO. Although I think a lockdown is necessary until this variant is mapped.

Agreed, surely he has no choice now, but should have done it before Christmas, the horse has bolted again.