The big Coronavirus thread

rick_chasey

briantrumpet

rick_chasey said:

Pross

rick_chasey said:

To be fair the reason the graph looks so bad is because the numbers are relatively small. 76 per million doesn't feel bad considering the amount of infections at the moment. We need a graph showing hospitalisation over the duration of the pandemic for context.

briantrumpet

Pross said:

rick_chasey said:

To be fair the reason the graph looks so bad is because the numbers are relatively small. 76 per million doesn't feel bad considering the amount of infections at the moment. We need a graph showing hospitalisation over the duration of the pandemic for context.

That was partly implied by my gnomic reply. RC's picked a metric that makes the UK look bad, but zoom out, and you see that weekly numbers are declining from a not-as-bad figure as previously, despite an infection rate which is close to the worst we had before, from a more deadly variant. In other words, the vaccines are working, even if people are getting blasé and careless.

jimmyjams

briantrumpet said:

rick_chasey said:

By the two diagrams you present, it seems about 1 in 7 hospitalisations in the UK end up in ICU, but nearly all hospitalisations in France end up in ICU, and just over half in Italy.
I would say such a discrepancy is due to how things are measured, how severity is judged, how many ICU beds are available, how much hospital capacity there is generally, etc. etc.
Therefore the ICU diagram probably doesn't really tell us much.

Do you have similar diagram for current death rates? I think per million, Rumania and Bulgaria may currently be higher than the UK, maybe the ex-Russian Baltic states too, but probably nowhere else in Europe of any size or population.

rick_chasey

It does seem odd that the hospitalisation rate is so much higher.

Pross

Another interesting bit of context would be rates of hospitalisation per million for non-Covid related treatment. My hunch is that we will be high on that too because we have pretty poor health compared to similar countries and a system where it is relatively easy to get hospital attention compared to terrible treatment in the community.

surrey_commuter

rick_chasey said:

It does seem odd that the hospitalisation rate is so much higher.

Despite Boris’s boasts we are now starting to lag significantly behind on double jabs. Portugal are bottom of your chart and are at 84% as opposed to our 67%.

In my sample size of one people who refuse the jab do not bother with precautions

First.Aspect

surrey_commuter said:

rick_chasey said:

It does seem odd that the hospitalisation rate is so much higher.

Despite Boris’s boasts we are now starting to lag significantly behind on double jabs. Portugal are bottom of your chart and are at 84% as opposed to our 67%.

In my sample size of one people who refuse the jab do not bother with precautions

That'll be whole population Vs adult population. No comparable figures.

rick_chasey

kingstongraham

First.Aspect said:

surrey_commuter said:

rick_chasey said:

It does seem odd that the hospitalisation rate is so much higher.

Despite Boris’s boasts we are now starting to lag significantly behind on double jabs. Portugal are bottom of your chart and are at 84% as opposed to our 67%.

In my sample size of one people who refuse the jab do not bother with precautions

That'll be whole population Vs adult population. No comparable figures.

No, Portugal has vaccinated 84% of whole population. It's almost all of the adults. Under 12s not vaccinated.

kingstongraham

.

jimmyjams

rick_chasey said:

Any chance of a similar chart but latest weekly rate rather than total rate over the whole pandemic?

Pross

So those of you who have flown recently, when do they check your test results and locator form? Is it at the boarding gate? Assumed it would be at check in but we did that online and are now through security

rick_chasey

Pross said:

So those of you who have flown recently, when do they check your test results and locator form? Is it at the boarding gate? Assumed it would be at check in but we did that online and are now through security

At the gate if at all.

When you land back in the UK your passenger locator form (or "PLF" as the woman at the airport kept shouting at people) is linked to your passport so if you haven't submitted it digitally you won't be able to get through the automated passport gates.


The officiousness of the paperwork checks is linked to the airline, not the airport.

sungod

Pross said:

So those of you who have flown recently, when do they check your test results and locator form? Is it at the boarding gate? Assumed it would be at check in but we did that online and are now through security

depends on carrier and individual flight...

ba outbound from uk will often give the option to upload documents in the 72 hours pre-departure, this is done via mmb (manage my booking), but it's not offered on all flights

you can just turn up at check-in and they'll do it there, if you've prepared for it there'll be no significant delay

inbound to uk is more of a lottery...

ba suggest uploading to verify (a non-ba app used by a few carriers), but it can fail to accept valid documents, and whether the check-in staff at the airport will accept it, or even have heard of it, is another matter, again be prepared for the check-in agent to do it manually

most check-ins will accept electronic copies and the vaccination records in the nhs app, but some may demand paper even when it's not required by the destination country

check-in agents use info coming from timatic for the rules, the iata site provides access to this... https://www.iatatravelcentre.com/international-travel-document-news/1580226297.htm

Pross

Cheers both. Flying with easyJet, I've got hard copies and digital copies of everything except our fit to fly test results which I have digitally only. Will make sure we get our PLF for the return done as soon as we can.

rick_chasey

EasyJet seem pretty chill....

kingstonian

The posts above relating to hospitalisation rates made me wonder about rates of testing in different countries. Has anyone seen stats of numbers of tests being conducted daily, either as absolute numbers or tests per million population etc? I’ve tried to find some with no joy.

Pross

rick_chasey said:

EasyJet seem pretty chill....

Yeah, having done the pre-flight testing all they asked to see was either a test result or the NHS vaccination certificate. All very quick and easy in the end.

Was amazed how easy it was at the other end too. After realising I'd gone in the EU passport lane out of habit and crossing under the tape it was a quick self-scan passport and getting it stamped (which I think was optional). We were in our taxi with 10-15 minutes of leaving the plane and most of that was the walk to passport control.

briantrumpet

Pross said:

rick_chasey said:

EasyJet seem pretty chill....

Yeah, having done the pre-flight testing all they asked to see was either a test result or the NHS vaccination certificate. All very quick and easy in the end.

Was amazed how easy it was at the other end too. After realising I'd gone in the EU passport lane out of habit and crossing under the tape it was a quick self-scan passport and getting it stamped (which I think was optional). We were in our taxi with 10-15 minutes of leaving the plane and most of that was the walk to passport control.

I'll be using them to escape the 1970s UK Christmas, so that all sounds good.

rick_chasey

Can recommend avoiding KLM who are super officious and like to rub Brexit in ya face if you have a Brit passport.

pblakeney

rick_chasey said:

Can recommend avoiding KLM who are super officious and like to rub Brexit in ya face if you have a Brit passport.

Thanks!
They are one option for my planned trip in July.

briantrumpet

I was interested to read this, directly after having been told of a teacher colleague of a friend who did two LFTs that were positive, but the PCR test came back negative, just this last week. By the time the negative PCR came back on Thursday, she was feeling grotty, so stayed away from school, despite being told be her line manager that the PCR test took precedence. A second PCR test came back positive, so she had made the right call to believe the LFTs.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/09/negative-pcr-test-covid-symptoms-self-isolate

It's harder now to separate covid symptoms apart from cold symptoms, especially if you've been double-vaccinated, as they are:

Headache
Runny nose
Sneezing
Sore throat
Loss of smell

The previous ‘traditional’ symptoms as still outlined on the government website, such as anosmia (loss of smell), shortness of breath and fever rank way down the list, at 5, 29 and 12 respectively. A persistent cough now ranks at number 8 if you’ve had two vaccine doses, so is no longer the top indicator of having COVID.

Curiously, we noticed that people who had been vaccinated and then tested positive for COVID-19 were more likely to report sneezing as a symptom compared with those without a jab.

If you’ve been vaccinated and start sneezing a lot without an explanation, you should get a COVID test, especially if you are living or working around people who are at greater risk from the disease.

Really helpful read here:

https://covid.joinzoe.com/post/new-top-5-covid-symptoms

rjsterry

briantrumpet said:

I was interested to read this, directly after having been told of a teacher colleague of a friend who did two LFTs that were positive, but the PCR test came back negative, just this last week. By the time the negative PCR came back on Thursday, she was feeling grotty, so stayed away from school, despite being told be her line manager that the PCR test took precedence. A second PCR test came back positive, so she had made the right call to believe the LFTs.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/09/negative-pcr-test-covid-symptoms-self-isolate

It's harder now to separate covid symptoms apart from cold symptoms, especially if you've been double-vaccinated, as they are:

Headache
Runny nose
Sneezing
Sore throat
Loss of smell

The previous ‘traditional’ symptoms as still outlined on the government website, such as anosmia (loss of smell), shortness of breath and fever rank way down the list, at 5, 29 and 12 respectively. A persistent cough now ranks at number 8 if you’ve had two vaccine doses, so is no longer the top indicator of having COVID.

Curiously, we noticed that people who had been vaccinated and then tested positive for COVID-19 were more likely to report sneezing as a symptom compared with those without a jab.

If you’ve been vaccinated and start sneezing a lot without an explanation, you should get a COVID test, especially if you are living or working around people who are at greater risk from the disease.

Really helpful read here:

https://covid.joinzoe.com/post/new-top-5-covid-symptoms

As a, ahem, 'frequent sneezer' that's going to be tricky to spot. I guess loss of smell is the standout one.

rick_chasey

I guess we are all to blame

briantrumpet

rick_chasey said:

I guess we are all to blame

No, Raab isn't, as he wasn't working from home.

OK, so he wasn't working at all, but that's just a minor detail...

kingstongraham

Surely it was a great success. This is from the prime minister's speech : "very few countries could have pulled off the Kabul airlift – an astonishing feat by our brave armed forces"

By the way, look at this transcript. https://www.conservatives.com/news/prime-minister-boris-johnson-speech-conference-2021

rick_chasey

https://twitter.com/thejeremyvine/status/1447155446247219203?s=21

I’m increasingly of the view vaccinations should be mandatory unless a legitimate medical reason for otherwise.

rick_chasey

Someone asked for this

So presumably this is due to lower vaccination rates?