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Coronavirus - the new strain XVIII

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puddlesplasher said:
Surely it makes sense that we are getting more positives because we are doing way more testing. If that’s the case we must be getting a lot more people showing negative but that doesn’t sell in the media. Just trying to put forward a more positive way of looking at it.
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I guess that is one way to look at it, current testing rates (between 500-900k tests/day rolling average over the last month) is twice that of the testing capacity at the peak of the Jan 2021 wave, and almost three times that at Oct/Nov 2020 wave.

All for being conservative (with a small C) and following the science but its something to bare in mind, in the past months the testing capacity has been well over 1M/Day.
 
Positive cases divided by the number of tests (positivity) is the check. Testing has been level at best while positives have doubled. There might have been an argument to say that it was heavily localised and surge testing flushed out the cases but that's no longer reasonable.
 
Shouldn't vanilla test positives and the positivity rate be diminishing as a good measure of where we are?

In a situation where we hope or expect vaccinations have a positive impact ISTM that it's essential that test positives become much less important. If that doesn't happen maybe we are on the wrong track.

If we are on the right track, better measures of where we are must move on to measures of the serious impacts of a positive such as (in some form of priority order):
  • passing the virus onto someone else;
  • experiencing more than mild temporary symptoms;
  • experiencing long-term health impact;
  • being admitted to hospital; and
  • death.
Serious impacts won't go to zero any time soon. However, surely a successful approach to this situation must be to first of all ensure that reported vanilla case rate is no longer a big issue; then move on to minimizing the remaining impacts; and deal in the same way with variants that come along.
 
Bjork67 said:
Quite a few big sporting events coming up, I do hope people do know what they are potentially doing.
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Very worrying scenes at Edgbaston, hardly a mask in sight and a 70% capacity crowd. The plans were made prior to Delta and there's been no extra mitigation. The crowd at Lords was a much more responsible affair.
 
They have done some test events & I seem to recall that no infections were traced back to the crowded beaches of last year. Hoping for the best.
 
Hancock still lying:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57424534
Hancock says there was never a national shortage of PPE because of the actions the government took
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Two of my sisters are GPs and they had great difficulty sourcing PPE during March/April/May last year. They couldn’t get any NHS issue supplies and bought some online privately. Even then they had to ration its use for patients with Covid symptoms and the elderly.
 
Hancock contradicting himself at the same session:

James Davies asks the health secretary why there was a delay in implementing Sage advice on masks and face coverings.

"There was rigorous international debate on use of masks," says Hancock.

"It comes down to disagreements about the most likely route of personal transmission."

There were also practical considerations at the time, he says, due to concerns over PPE shortages in hospitals.

"We now have huge stockpiles of PPE - but it was a problem at the time."
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It would be help if someone on the committee challenged this against the prior lie.
 
Usual barrage of disarmingly naive, easily disproved lies from Hancock, but this is more damning and rings very true:

https://twitter.com/tomhfh/status/1402929308843261953?s=21

Britain piled the corpses sky high out of fear that someone might get something for nothing. This is ultimately why they're going to get away with all this: they do have a democratic mandate for it. It's been their main election offer since 2010 at least.
 
Here's the weekly surveillance report. 131 incidents (out of 297 total) in educational setting this week

Overall case rates increased in week 22. Case rates increased in most age groups, and in all ethnic groups and regions.

Overall Pillar 1 and Pillar 2 positivity increased compared to the previous week, most notably in younger age groups and in individuals reporting symptoms.

The number of reported acute respiratory incidents in the past week increased comparedto the previous week. SARS-CoV-2 was identified in the majority of these.

COVID-19 hospitalisations increased slightly in week 22.

https://assets.publishing.service.g...992620/Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w23.pdf
 
zarniwoop said:
Hancock still lying:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57424534


Two of my sisters are GPs and they had great difficulty sourcing PPE during March/April/May last year. They couldn’t get any NHS issue supplies and bought some online privately. Even then they had to ration its use for patients with Covid symptoms and the elderly.
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Hancock is talking absolute rubbish. Front line staff were very short of essential PPE items last spring (good masks especially, but not only). The death toll among NHS nurses, doctors and other workers is unfortunately there to prove it. Hancock should be fired then sued.
 
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