The big Coronavirus thread

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  • briantrumpet
    briantrumpet Posts: 17,863

    It's disgraceful, but... the best possible explanation for the lateral flow positives that weren't confirmed.

    Indeed. At least it has a simple solution, rather than being a worrying mystery.
  • bm5
    bm5 Posts: 530
    Agree it was best cause but ridiculous that it took so long to work that out.
  • Pross
    Pross Posts: 40,490
    Just had a text from test & trace to say the result of the PCR test I took on 28th September may have had an issue with the result. I was pretty sure it was just a cold the day after I took the test as I started getting more traditional cold symptoms and I have done a pre-flight LFT and 2 day PCR since with negative results but I still have a cough nearly 3 weeks later so who knows.
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 72,612
    edited October 2021
    Ignore.
  • briantrumpet
    briantrumpet Posts: 17,863
    Fascinating covid map at the moment. It's going nuts pretty much everywhere (it's really spreading like wildfire through schools, and then to their families), except London's looking nothing like the rest of the country at the moment. Weird.

    https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/interactive-map/cases

    I'm jolly glad my school has a two-week half term now.
  • kingstonian
    kingstonian Posts: 2,847
    edited October 2021

    Fascinating covid map at the moment. It's going nuts pretty much everywhere (it's really spreading like wildfire through schools, and then to their families), except London's looking nothing like the rest of the country at the moment. Weird.

    https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/interactive-map/cases

    I'm jolly glad my school has a two-week half term now.

    I’ve been looking at it daily for the past 2-3 weeks. The dark purple wave (ie higher rates of infection per 100k of population) has been slowly but steadily descending downwards from Scotland through the North East and West, then Midlands. London is coming.
  • briantrumpet
    briantrumpet Posts: 17,863
    It does look like a very big gamble at this point, as hospitalisations and deaths move upwards.



    And whilst in Devon it's raced past 400/100k, it's less than 10/100k for great chunks of my bit of (masked and pass sanitaire) France...



  • john80
    john80 Posts: 2,965
    Rates are going to be high for a while as life has to go on. I was at an engineering meeting and rig hall visit last week and one of the guys tested positive a couple of days later but most likely got this from his personal life prior. The point really is everyone there was vaccinated and we moved the job forward much better than teams. Schools are now a do what you like environment particularly in primary schools so it was always going to go mental. When we are looking at tens of deaths a day is this mainly the vulnerable and unvaccinated?
  • tailwindhome
    tailwindhome Posts: 18,932
    The theory seems to be, because we vaccinated quickest, using AZ, that we've reached the point AZ starts to wane soonest and that, combined with having the slackest restrictions, means we see an increase in hospitalizations & deaths.

    The remedy is cracking on with boosters (before we have to reimpose restrictions)
    “New York has the haircuts, London has the trousers, but Belfast has the reason!
  • jimmyjams
    jimmyjams Posts: 709


    And whilst in Devon it's raced past 400/100k, it's less than 10/100k for great chunks of my bit of (masked and pass sanitaire) France...



    That's a very detailed map. Which in turn can be misleading.

    There is dark blue shading, indicating an incidence rate of at least 1000 per 100,000 (i.e. at least 1 in 100), for a region about halfway between Gap and Briancon. So a rate which doesn't sound at all good.

    However there is very little there – it is the region around Orcieres, with probably just a population of about 600. So the dark blue shading might only mean 7 people there have Covid, in an area of 100 sq kms. Not so bad afterall.
  • briantrumpet
    briantrumpet Posts: 17,863
    jimmyjams said:


    And whilst in Devon it's raced past 400/100k, it's less than 10/100k for great chunks of my bit of (masked and pass sanitaire) France...



    That's a very detailed map. Which in turn can be misleading.

    There is dark blue shading, indicating an incidence rate of at least 1000 per 100,000 (i.e. at least 1 in 100), for a region about halfway between Gap and Briancon. So a rate which doesn't sound at all good.

    However there is very little there – it is the region around Orcieres, with probably just a population of about 600. So the dark blue shading might only mean 7 people there have Covid, in an area of 100 sq kms. Not so bad afterall.

    Yes, indeed. Some fairly large communes have tiny populations.
  • Ben6899
    Ben6899 Posts: 9,686
    Had my booster and flu jabs on Friday - was like the scene in Ace Ventura when he ends up with a spear in each thigh.
    Ben

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  • Pross
    Pross Posts: 40,490
    I read through the article and it doesn't seem to cover the "here's why". Lots of words, many of them repetitive but all it really mentions is that fewer under 17s have been vaccinated and that the UK was quicker to relax its restrictions then elsewhere in Europe (which I'm not sure is completely true). Pretty poor article really.
  • That doesn't provide any reasons why, its just clickbait and some ramblings of a Pfizer exec...
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 72,612
    Pross said:

    I read through the article and it doesn't seem to cover the "here's why". Lots of words, many of them repetitive but all it really mentions is that fewer under 17s have been vaccinated and that the UK was quicker to relax its restrictions then elsewhere in Europe (which I'm not sure is completely true). Pretty poor article really.
    If it's not that, then what is it?
  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 27,638
    Pross said:

    I read through the article and it doesn't seem to cover the "here's why". Lots of words, many of them repetitive but all it really mentions is that fewer under 17s have been vaccinated and that the UK was quicker to relax its restrictions then elsewhere in Europe (which I'm not sure is completely true). Pretty poor article really.
    There's a John Burn-Murdoch thread on Twitter that covers it in some detail. In summary: way more relaxation of restrictions than rest of Europe + early to vaccinate means early waning of vaccine efficacy. In short, we should get those boosters and U18 jabs done yesterday and maybe dial back on the mass events with no mitigation.
    1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
    Pinnacle Monzonite

    Part of the anti-growth coalition
  • briantrumpet
    briantrumpet Posts: 17,863
    Pross said:

    I read through the article and it doesn't seem to cover the "here's why". Lots of words, many of them repetitive but all it really mentions is that fewer under 17s have been vaccinated and that the UK was quicker to relax its restrictions then elsewhere in Europe (which I'm not sure is completely true). Pretty poor article really.

    I'm still not entirely sure whether the spread among schoolchildren is itself a deliberate 'health policy/gamble', a kowtowing to the 'pro-freedom' Tory loons, or just th result of a dysfunctional government. It wouldn't have been unreasonable to keep mask mandates until a decent proportion of 12-15yo's had been vaccinated, even if the government didn't have the guts to impose a vaccine passport.

    But overall, it feels like pragmatism has given way to ideology.
  • Pross
    Pross Posts: 40,490

    Pross said:

    I read through the article and it doesn't seem to cover the "here's why". Lots of words, many of them repetitive but all it really mentions is that fewer under 17s have been vaccinated and that the UK was quicker to relax its restrictions then elsewhere in Europe (which I'm not sure is completely true). Pretty poor article really.
    If it's not that, then what is it?
    It probably is that but that's hardly investigative journalism at its finest is it? More a case of stating the obvious but my point was more it doesn't even try to claim that is the reason, just mentions it almost as an aside. I'd be interested to see rates of testing as it feels like we've gone from being really poor at testing when it would have been beneficial (if linked to tracing) to now almost an overkill of testing. There's a chance that there's an element of not finding if you don't look with asymptomatic testings, a bit like when it comes to doping in cycling or athletics v football or tennis.
  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 27,638
    edited October 2021

    Pross said:

    I read through the article and it doesn't seem to cover the "here's why". Lots of words, many of them repetitive but all it really mentions is that fewer under 17s have been vaccinated and that the UK was quicker to relax its restrictions then elsewhere in Europe (which I'm not sure is completely true). Pretty poor article really.

    I'm still not entirely sure whether the spread among schoolchildren is itself a deliberate 'health policy/gamble', a kowtowing to the 'pro-freedom' Tory loons, or just th result of a dysfunctional government. It wouldn't have been unreasonable to keep mask mandates until a decent proportion of 12-15yo's had been vaccinated, even if the government didn't have the guts to impose a vaccine passport.

    But overall, it feels like pragmatism has given way to ideology.
    Or D : all of the above.
    1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
    Pinnacle Monzonite

    Part of the anti-growth coalition
  • Pross
    Pross Posts: 40,490
    rjsterry said:

    Pross said:

    I read through the article and it doesn't seem to cover the "here's why". Lots of words, many of them repetitive but all it really mentions is that fewer under 17s have been vaccinated and that the UK was quicker to relax its restrictions then elsewhere in Europe (which I'm not sure is completely true). Pretty poor article really.
    There's a John Burn-Murdoch thread on Twitter that covers it in some detail. In summary: way more relaxation of restrictions than rest of Europe + early to vaccinate means early waning of vaccine efficacy. In short, we should get those boosters and U18 jabs done yesterday and maybe dial back on the mass events with no mitigation.
    Makes far more sense than the rubbish in that Bloomberg article - clickbait as DHL said.
  • Pross said:

    I read through the article and it doesn't seem to cover the "here's why". Lots of words, many of them repetitive but all it really mentions is that fewer under 17s have been vaccinated and that the UK was quicker to relax its restrictions then elsewhere in Europe (which I'm not sure is completely true). Pretty poor article really.

    I'm still not entirely sure whether the spread among schoolchildren is itself a deliberate 'health policy/gamble', a kowtowing to the 'pro-freedom' Tory loons, or just th result of a dysfunctional government. It wouldn't have been unreasonable to keep mask mandates until a decent proportion of 12-15yo's had been vaccinated, even if the government didn't have the guts to impose a vaccine passport.

    But overall, it feels like pragmatism has given way to ideology.
    Yep, BJ telling everyone to wear a mask while no-longer mandating and never wearing one is not helpful. Still, its only infecting the 10-15s in any great numbers and they don't appear to get that ill from it.
    I mean, What's 1k hospitalisations a day and 7k hospital beds compared to asking kids to wear masks for a few weeks until they get stabbed with a gates serum?
  • briantrumpet
    briantrumpet Posts: 17,863
    Pross said:

    Pross said:

    I read through the article and it doesn't seem to cover the "here's why". Lots of words, many of them repetitive but all it really mentions is that fewer under 17s have been vaccinated and that the UK was quicker to relax its restrictions then elsewhere in Europe (which I'm not sure is completely true). Pretty poor article really.
    If it's not that, then what is it?
    It probably is that but that's hardly investigative journalism at its finest is it? More a case of stating the obvious but my point was more it doesn't even try to claim that is the reason, just mentions it almost as an aside. I'd be interested to see rates of testing as it feels like we've gone from being really poor at testing when it would have been beneficial (if linked to tracing) to now almost an overkill of testing. There's a chance that there's an element of not finding if you don't look with asymptomatic testings, a bit like when it comes to doping in cycling or athletics v football or tennis.

    From the coalface: a shedload of LFTs being done in schools at the moment, followed up by PCRs for positives. Having been fairly sceptical about the LFTs early on, I think they are proving their worth now: they are picking up loads on asymptomatic infections.
  • briantrumpet
    briantrumpet Posts: 17,863
    Also, an interesting article here about LFTs & PCRTs

    https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/commentisfree/2021/oct/17/whats-the-value-of-a-confirmatory-pcr-test-covid

    Imagine a (rather strange) legal case with the prosecution alleging that you harbour the virus. In court, it is becoming common to quote a “likelihood ratio” provided by forensic evidence — the relative support for the prosecution versus the defence.

    First, the positive LFD is presented by the prosecution. If the virus were present, a recent study estimates around an 80% chance of a positive LFD – higher if you were infectious. Alternatively, if the defence is correct, there is a less than one in 1,000 chance of a false positive LFD. The likelihood ratio is therefore at least 800 (0.8/0.001). As a comparison, the curvature of the spine found on the skeleton in a Leicester car park contributed an estimated likelihood ratio of 200 in favour of the remains being those of Richard III.

    The defence retorts with the negative PCR test. If you were infected, the PCR test might miss it around one in 20 times. If there were no virus, then that test is almost certain to be negative. Here, the likelihood ratio is around one in 20.

    Combining these two conflicting pieces of evidence gives an overall likelihood ratio of about 40 (800 divided by 20). In a court, that might be reported as “moderate evidence” in favour of you having an infection.

    As viral prevalence changes, then the probability of infection following conflicting test results also changes. At the current infection rate in England of one in 60 people, and with labs working well, out of 100 people with a positive LFD followed by a negative PCR, around 40 would actually have the virus and be falsely reassured.

    The negative PCR does not outweigh the positive LFD.
  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 27,638
    To the surprise of absolutely f***ing no-one.
    1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
    Pinnacle Monzonite

    Part of the anti-growth coalition
  • pblakeney
    pblakeney Posts: 25,749
    Key question was not asked.
    Where were BJ & Carrie going during lockdown that they needed childcare?
    The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
    I am not sure. You have no chance.
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  • I thought he changed the rules so that people with young babies had a lot moe freedom
  • briantrumpet
    briantrumpet Posts: 17,863

    I thought he changed the rules so that people with young babies had a lot moe freedom

    But I thought he already had the freedom to have affairs when he had young babies...
  • john80
    john80 Posts: 2,965
    Given this gathering seems to have involved one person does anyone actually give a shit. Half the posters on this forum will have done a lot worse. It hardly a rave.