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

Is there some thinking that you need to unlock at a less than optimum point now and drag forward some covid cases otherwise you risk a really bad winter with covid and flu.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jun/28/ministers-set-to-end-automatic-isolation-for-pupils-in-england

Don't think I need to say anything as the article title is enough.

Yes, there is very much that thinking happening at strategic levels.

Don't think I need to say anything as the article title is enough.

I'd recommend reading it as it's a bit more nuanced than just the info in the title.

The end to automatic isolation in England would be from September onwards for a start. And that's after the July 19th date that people are being led to believe will be the end of all Covid related restrictions (which simply isn't the case).

Of course, the Government are stalling on one of the most useful things they could do, right now (and could have done over a year ago), which is improve ventilation in schools, but there's obviously no juicy contracts for MPs/friends/family in that.

There are also huge differences between primary and secondary/tertiary education systems.

Primaries naturally lend themselves to individual class bubbles as there's often very little mixing outside those (siblings aside) and schools with multi-form years can still be segregated reasonably well with a bit of planning.

Secondary/tertiary all that goes to pot. You get children mixing with the whole year due to subject choice differences, streaming, etc plus a lot more movement around the school premises. Hence the 200 pupil bubbles. That's why the secondary/tertiary model moved to testing (and specifically lateral flow testing). However many people realised that reporting a positive test meant a pain in the arse for the whole family so they simply didn't bother (especially if asymptomatic). Testing taking place at school is less error prone but far more expensive and time consuming from a schools point of view.

I know it's not binary effective/ineffective (and this is a gross simplification) but 5% of 50mm adults double jabbed is still a lot of people (2.5mm) and if 1% (25,000) of those require hospitalisation then the NHS is in for a really big shitty 3rd wave.

Well no, by your numbers its 5% of those double jabbed could catch Covid, not will- I don't have a verifiable number on that "could" probability but it won't be 100%. As more people get jabbed the probability decreases, too.

https://twitter.com/IanDunt/status/1409776068035239939?s=19

It was my 20th anniversary of being with ms_mashton this weekend. We celebrated by staying in the Shard Shangri-La hotel (#golfclubmofos). On Sunday we walked along the river from Tower Bridge to Tate Britain, which was lovely. I really enjoyed just being in London and amongst modest groups of people, checking out all the fascinating things that exist on that stretch of waterfront. (North bank from Tower to Blackfriars then South bank to Lambeth).

I had forgotten about the COVID memorial wall outside St Thomas', opposite the Houses of Parliament.

It hit me like a punch to the stomach. It is absolutely, inutterably horrific. The scale of tragedy, of loss, of useless, needless, avoidable suffering and death. I was close to tears and also so, so angry.

I would dearly love for anyone who still supports Boris and his coterie of psycopathic clowns to take the walk that we did. And to just ponder it. Ponder why our leaders are incapable of change, of growing, learning, developing and empathising. To ponder what effect that has had on milllions of lives, of futures and of memories lost.

I would live in lockdown for another five years to save the lives of those that died due to shambolic, cowardly and self-interested decision avoidance. I expect most people would.

We celebrated by staying in the Shard Shangri-La hotel

I would live in lockdown for another five years to save the lives of those that died

but only one for the plebs, right?

apparently COVID can discern whether or not you have a membership to a country club.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/working-in-england-if-you-are-a-senior-executive-bringing-significant-economic-benefit-to-the-uk

I would live in lockdown for another five years to save the lives of those that died due to shambolic, cowardly and self-interested decision avoidance. I expect most people would.

But are you of the thinking that we should not be in a lockdown right now with cases rising as they are?

If you think we should be locked down, in hindsight, do you see your hotel stay as a error on your part, or a failure of GOV for letting you do it?

No I don't think we should be locked down now any more than we are.

The evidence from Burnley and Bedford is that the link between cases and deaths MAY have been broken. If this bears out not to be true then I would be in favour of another lockdown.

WRT "those" graphs, up there ↑, not enough signal Vs noise yet to tell if the link has been broken at a national scale.

If you'd asked me three weeks ago, I would have said yes.

Although I do appreciate your attempt to catch me out in a hypocrisy, and wish you luck in the future.

By all accounts Hancock (while being a useless lying twat) was pretty cautious regarding unlocking. Javid - not so much. All the recent cabinet appearances have been seeding the idea of living with the virus.
While I think eventually we will have to accept a level of hospitalisation/death they are taking a pretty big gamble with the effects of long covid etc on the youth by unlocking when it's really starting to spread fast again. Not to mention giving more opportunity for further variants to emerge.

Javid reminds me a little bit too much of the new manager coming in with a great soundbite plan to please the crowd. The eagle has landed! New management! All will be well!!!

In the end though, they just are only there for their own agenda which the assembled excited "new boss" crowd finds out a few months later to their detriment.

Negative big boy test, fuck you Covid, glad it means I've not infected work or ruined my mate's bikepacking trip but look forward to seeing if I pick it up from my wife in the meantime. It's fun how she's got a shitty immune system, and met her friend as one of the only things she's left the house for with a reduced immune system, and despite being mostly outside, masked and distanced, managed to pass it about and I've spent most of the last year working reasonably close to a bunch of careless public with some carelessness myself at times and got away with it.

NL have implemented a 'Test for entry' system for nightclubs etc, last weekend was the first weekend and it was completely overwhelmed / may have been hacked. Lots of people were left without results, so what did they do?

Just gave them negative results as 'compensation'...

Yey!

Is she on the mend?

She still feels crap, I'm invincible.

Cases graph looking like it's heading vertical, but deaths don't seem to be up at anything like the same rate; as per the gov.uk dashboard, the 7-day increase for both is ~70% and ~12% respectively.

My partner has been working in close proximity to someone who tested positive today. She has to self isolate. She's taken a test, results tomorrow. I just took a rapid test. Negative

Do I need to self isolate too? I don't think I do? Unless she tests positive?

Precisely.

Cool, ta

You don't need to isolate unless she tests positive or develops symptoms and is awaiting a test result (might have changed again though!)