Chat about Novel Coronavirus - 2019-nCoV - COVID-19

Are other viruses like that?

Sounds pretty complicated to make a test if the results vary so much in response / time to response.

We are not going to give a date for relaxing lockdown before five tests are met – Patel

The tests, previously laid out by Dominic Raab and Gavin Williamson, are: to protect the NHS’s ability to cope with coronavirus cases, to see a consistent fall in the daily death rate, to produce reliable data on infection and death rates, to be confident that testing and PPE are being managed properly, and to not risk a second peak of infections.

We're fucked. Three of the five tests are directly tied to government competency.

There's been an interesting paper related to Lyme disease that shows some people mount a very strong B cell response and rapidly clear the disease where others whose response is slower and not strong will have longer duration of illness/symptoms even after treatment. They're now looking at using the stronger Borrelia specific antibody cells as a potential therapeutic for those whose bodies can't produce them themselves.

May be the same rationale with Covid cases

Anecdotally Streatham Common is the same. But went to collect groceries and Norbury high Street just seemed normal: busy, people chatting, the grocers full of people cheek by jowl. No sense of any distancing apart from a few masks.

Fifth test seems impossible to assess

Priti announces that the has been a reduction in burglary and shoplifting year on year.

Thick as mince.

Meaningless jingoism to try to make it sound like they've got a grip. In reality, I would bet that treating an entire population like children will prove to be unsustainable. "We know best" is only going to build resentment - especially when they've proven themselves to be responsible, to a degree, for the state of the situation.

Re long bike rides. I thought the guidelines were walk for an hour or exercise for half an hour? Isn’t that clear enough without having to interpret what “reasonable walking distance from home” means?

Shoplifting is down only because if the regulars have to queue up they get told to fuck off before they come in the shop. It’s not for want of trying.

I'll join the annecdontal data club but I have a 5km walk I do everyday at a similiar time and today was probably 3x as many people out as I have seen any other day since lockdown, first time I have seen what I assume is mutli-house groups out together and just making it hard to distance as they take up full path width

I did have the impression today that some people were keeping less distance than before, but I'm completely unworried about catching 'it' from someone walking past me. I'm sure it's possible, but it's low-risk.

The main restriction I could see being ignored was when I was observing contraflow cycling (also known as 'cycling voodoo') in Stoke Newington High Street. Six riders in about five minutes, plus two on the footway. The first one almost didn't see me as I was riding towards him.

Thought this was interesting, might also make folk more circumspect about mask wearing:

Coronavirus detected on particles of air pollution
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/24/coronavirus-detected-particles-air-pollution

https://www.apple.com/covid19/mobility (UK)

Also: https://citymapper.com/cmi/london

Re long bike rides. I thought the guidelines were walk for an hour or exercise for half an hour?

No, that was just Gove saying something on a radio show. It's not part of any published guidelines and there's nothing in law. There are no guidelines on exercise duration for England, even in the recent Police guidance that was linked to here.

Wales is different. Dunno about Scotland or NI.

Isn’t that clear enough without having to interpret what “reasonable walking distance from home” means?

That comes from some specific Guidelines linked to the Welsh specific law. There's no specific duration(s) in that law but the guidelines are enough for the Police to enforce. If you go out for a 4-5 hour cycle ride (in Wales) then the Police could decide to give you an FPN, that's a specific example that is considered unreasonable. Repeated offences could land you in further trouble.

I would think google/apple data is better. I doubt citymapper is particularly accurate, people arent going to be using an app to plan journeys, everything is still closed after all. Its going to be people becoming more relaxed to nipping to the shops, going out more frequently on non-essential journeys etc

IMO ofc

Could we open a public shaming thread for all the grumpy old MAMILs who went on an errand today and saw someone behaving uncouthly in public? To save on internetz it could be be merged with the curtain twitcher thread.

There’s a curtain twitcher thread? Sign me up!

The apple data is also Mobility Trends "Change in routing requests since January 13, 2020" so the same as citymapper?

I'm trying to see the thread, but it's a little too far off to the side, and I don't want to open the curtains too much.

Dad jokes thread >>

Now you sound like a grumpy old fart doing public shaming. :)

ah, in which case googles data is the best as it uses location history

Derek Lowe did a good blog on this a couple of days ago here

Nextstrain.org seems to be an amazing tool for tracking mutations

Sounds about right.