Coronavirus update - NO MORE RESTRICTIONS

[surge]

Re: Coronavirus update

Not going to pretend I know if it's true but internet tells me, Section 12 of the 1872 Licensing Act stipulates that ‘every person found drunk… on any licensed premises shall be liable to a penalty’, which currently stands at £200.

If the problem is that those drinking too much are i) less likely to social distance and less likely to engage in proper standards of hygiene and ii) less likely to know who they came into close contact with so unable to help contact-tracers assess and act on virus spreading, wouldn't it be more appropriate to push pubs and restaurants into enforcing laws that existed before this year?

Edit to make it readable....close the pubs not enforcing measures to protect from virus spreading and keep those making the effort open.

Also, German view of current situation as we move into colder seasons: https://www.mpg.de/15426163/stellung...id-19-epidemie

Every single contribution protects health, society and the economy. The COVID-19 epidemic has also led to deaths in Germany and will cause further deaths. Some patients considered to be recovering still suffer from lasting health damage. At the same time, many economic livelihoods have been threatened or destroyed as a result of the COVID-19 epidemic; many people have suffered from insecurities and restrictions. Rising case numbers, with or without lockdown, would once again entail significant health, social, psychological, and economic costs. This can be prevented. If we manage to keep the number of new cases low, the infection chains can be broken or at least contained.

[surge]

Re: Coronavirus update

https://www.channel4.com/news/great-barrington-declaration-is-not-scientific-or-accurate-says-prof-devi-sridhar

My interpretation of the first part of this is that circuit break is not just about how the virus is acting but how prepared the systems (hospital capacity, testing capacity, tracing effectiveness, mask availability etc.) are in place to respond. If systems are moving towards stress point, the evidence that virus is spreading at a rate where action needs to be taken comes two weeks later when stress on systems has progressed also.

"Where is the evidence?" can be used a political message, and is currently being used by Keir Starmer.

[the other bob wilson]

Re: Coronavirus update

17,500 new cases - the two scientists talked of that figure reaching 50,000 by the middle of this month and it seemed like completely over the top at the time. It's not going to reach 50,000 by this time next week at current growth rates, but but it looks like they're only going to be week or so out.

[Hilts]

Re: Coronavirus update

1003 students in Newcastle Uni positive in past week.

619 at Northumbria Uni.

[Rjk]

Re: Coronavirus update

at least the deaths figure still seems to be remaining low.
the big problem seems to be when it starts to proliferate in hospital wards and elderly care homes. and they seem to be doing a better job of protecting them this time around

[goats]

Re: Coronavirus update

1003 students in Newcastle Uni positive in past week.

619 at Northumbria Uni.

Are they testing all of them up there? Or is that just from the ones showing any symptoms which will be not many.....

[surge]

Re: Coronavirus update

Why Israel decided to go into a second, strict lockdown: https://twitter.com/segal_eran/statu...31721981415428

I will start with a summary of the key take-homes:

1. Don’t open schools with a high number of daily cases and high infection rates (R-naught around 1). This will fuel a further surge, and anyway be ineffective due to many quarantines of kids and teachers

2. Don’t manage the pandemic based on the capacity of your healthcare system. You are bound to reach it. At that point, the outbreak will reach record levels, a high death toll, lockdown will be needed, and it will take very long to bring the numbers down. Act early

3. An outbreak in the younger population will inevitably reach the elderly within weeks

4. An outbreak in some cities will inevitably spread to other cities, due to population mixing. We had localized outbreaks but could not implement differential lockdown due to political reasons, and they eventually spread

5. In a heterogeneous population, lockdowns can have different effects on different groups due to different behaviors of these populations. Two weeks into the lockdown, the outbreak halted in the general population but continues to spread in the Orthodox

Now in detail...

[surge]

Re: Coronavirus update

View from Scotland: https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinio...-burns-2995478

The fact that most deaths have occurred in the over 70s doesn’t mean that younger people have nothing to fear from the virus. They may not die, but the long-term consequences of the infection may make their lives miserable.

Many viruses have long-term consequences. Some common cancers are caused by viral infection in early life. It will be some years before we learn whether or not Covid-19 is associated with an increased risk of cancer.

In the meantime, studies have shown that some infected patients develop long-term illness. The virus causes inflammation of the blood vessels. The heart, lungs, kidneys and liver can be damaged. Symptoms can include persistent fever, chronic fatigue, breathing difficulties, irregular heart beats, intestinal problems, brain damage, hallucinations and memory loss.

It seems that most people with these chronic symptoms were previously healthy and many are significantly younger than 60....

Am I being too simple to compare those calling for younger people to catch covid to a new drugs trial? Stage 3 of trialing new treatment, stage designed to look at longer term impact, testing hundreds to thousands of patients takes 1 to 4 years according to this site: https://www.clinicaltrialsandme.com/...ials-take.html

Big decisions to be made and hopefully better communication going forward.

[Rjk]

Re: Coronavirus update

https://twitter.com/Bill_Esterson/status/1314644083122503680?s=19

[Rjk]

Re: Coronavirus update

https://twitter.com/Bill_Esterson/st...122503680?s=19

have a read of that thread. it should be an absolute scandal

[the other bob wilson]

Re: Coronavirus update

have a read of that thread. it should be an absolute scandal

The so called lives v money debate at the heart of the issue of how to tackle the virus was never that for significant portions of the membership of the Governing party in the UK - disgraceful.

[lisvaneblue]

Re: Coronavirus update

1003 students in Newcastle Uni positive in past week.

619 at Northumbria Uni.

No doubt students are likely to spread it. With that in mind I get exasperated at the differential approaches of the Wales Government and feel that politics are being played out.

Llanelli, a hot spot with a population of 35,000, situated in Carmarthenshire total population 190,000. So Llanelli in lockdown, whilst the rest of the borough is in the clear, can travel freely, ( even through lockdown area as long as they don't stop) holiday abroad etc. Drakeford is from Carmarthen incidentally.

Bangor a university city with a population of 16,000 plus 10,000 students. Some wards have been put in lockdown. So much of the population can carry on as normal. Very selective lockdown just affecting small hotspots.

Cardiff and Vale population 500,000 plus 50,000 students and undergraduates. Total lockdown, huge impact on everyone. Within the area there must be many wards that have a low incidence of the virus and could be free of lockdown.

Who on earth is being allowed to make these decisions unchallenged when they impact on so many peoples lives and mental state

[Jordi Culé]

Re: Coronavirus update

have a read of that thread. it should be an absolute scandal

It should be but along with other dubious contracts awarded for testing, appointments made to people with little expertise and piss poor achievement and management qualities I think most people are just blasé about incidents like this and sort of expect it from this current government.

It’s the most corrupt UK government in my lifetime and I’ll go as far to say as ever.

Covid19 is turning into a decent money spinner for Boris, Cummings and Gove’s butties. All paid for by us.

[lisvaneblue]

Re: Coronavirus update

[QUOTE=Jordi Culé;5124604]It should be but along with other dubious contracts awarded for testing, appointments made to people with little expertise and piss poor achievement and management qualities I think most people are just blasé about incidents like this and sort of expect it from this current government.

It’s the most corrupt UK government in my lifetime and I’ll go as far to say as ever.

I think this is false news. I used to manage a lot of contracts in the good old days when I had to work for a living, so I looked up tenders on OJEC, the official journal, that lists pending tenders. I didn't search specifically for the Knowsley contract but there were over 500 UK tenders for clothing and PPE listed. So I believe the process of procurement is being done openly and on official EU lines

[surge]

Re: Coronavirus update

https://www.ft.com/content/0143a8b8-...4-f152bb9df2d7

Lockdown sceptics v zero-Covid: who’s got it right?
Unsurprisingly, neither side has all the answers. For those, we should look to Germany

One of the replies to the tweet with the article said that Scotland has gone with stricter, quicker measures and has better track-and-trace yet still worse outcomes both economic and in deaths than Sweden. Another replied that Sweden's economy hasn't been saved, had shrank more drastically than its neighbours in the second quarter, while deaths are ten times higher than some neighbouring countries.

The best thing to have done would be not to cut services to the bone with several years of austerity, not get so distracted by brexit, extend transition period due to significantly difficult circumstances, make more the of time bought with lockdown earlier in the year to prepare for schools re-opening/colder months which we knew would put services under greater levels of stress and public would be fatigued...

Not sure what the best move is now. Vaccine is likely to be available before UK is ready to act like Germany.