SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)

[Penna]

Yeah, i know lots of people who have had the swab and it doesn't sound pleasant.


Anyway, good to see the process is so efficient. Not so good to see the UK government website knows more about Italy's procedures than Italy.

I think the Mayor of Rome may possibly have made this decision, because they had huge signs up with the City's crest and the latest mandatory-test countries on it. It didn't suggest that this was a Government directive. I was surprised at the speed at which they'd been able to make the banners, quite honestly. When we checked in at London I asked the BA lady if the testing had started, and she said no, it'll be next week - but Rome had different ideas!

The test was free, you have to fill in a few forms, you take a number, see a doctor who prepares the test and walk to the next chair where someone else takes it. You then wait for 30 minutes maximum. There was only one other couple waiting there, it was a very quick service.

They give you a little slip to say you were tested, and the result. Useful for showing my neighbours who are scared of our village being infiltrated!

 

[Sparky Rhiwabon]

Does pubs and clubs seem like they will close soon? Instead of 10pm? Or will that just continue.

Aren’t they talking about removing the 10pm thing?

 

[Bebestation]

Aren’t they talking about removing the 10pm thing?

I think just in the northern areas last time I read.

It seems unfair and biased. To me they seem like they are reducing the stats on London to try keep the economy going in such an area.


I've heard other mayors in northern areas saying that they wont listen to the government to close down pubs.

This is the type of problem that occurs when you pretend that the problem is occurring only in certain areas of England when in reality its effecting everyone and the whole of england should go to lockdown atleast for things like pubs and clubs.

 

[fergieisold]

A fair few uni of Manchester students in hospital judging by reports today. Not good, but we still have a lot of tired people maybe optimistically promoting no new measures. I can’t think of a worse point of the season to be anything but cautious.

 

[SinNombre]

I read this article on the beeb and this is completely crazy, covid parties

https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-54391143

 

[Dave_MUFC]

Whilst that may be true, in terms of their current positions which countries are significantly better off? Everywhere in Europe we're seeing a resurgence of cases. Nobody has unlocked this, perhaps because, without a vaccine the stark reality is you can't supress or control a virus like this without completely shutting down and causing chaos.

People still keep mentioning Cummings even now. Where I live at least 50% of the people (if not more) will still have no idea who he is because they take no interest in politics. If they're flouting rules it's not because they've seen him doing it, it's because they are either no longer (or for whatever reason were never) scared of the virus and want to get on with their lives and do what they always do. Rightly or wrongly, that's how I believe it is.

New Zealand's course of action seems heavily dependent on suppressing until (and if) there is a vaccine because without, they've just kicked the can down the road. Their PM may be popular now but the tide can soon turn if there's an economic effect, or if there's an outbreak months after the rest of the world has seen the worst of it.

However charismatic you are, I personally don't believe you can convince a majority of people to put their lives on hold indefinitely. All over the world people are tiring of this. It's human nature. Forcing a change like that on people needs a threat behind it. History tells us that. The threat of the virus is now a normal part of life which many, many people are clearly prepared to accept.

You do know that NZ has zero cases, so has now opened up like usual? Bars restaurants, stadiums, theaters etc. Are all going as normal now, as there's no actual virus around to fear, and if any cases come up, they can be traced and quarantined quite easily.

So yes, they had to spend months in lockdown, but now they're reaping the benefits and can live life as normal, no masks etc. And I guess the economy is probably doing better off than the ones around here who have to keep intermittently shutting down and placing restrictions until a vaccine is available.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Apparently as well as the new test coming back negative, they also re-tested the original swab which has now also come back negative. Does that make any sense at all?

I guess that makes false positive on first test result more likely? Her physician will know best. As per article linked above, test validity influenced by clinical picture (i.e. pre test probability)

 

[Sparky Rhiwabon]

I think just in the northern areas last time I read.

It seems unfair and biased. To me they seem like they are reducing the stats on London to try keep the economy going in such an area.


I've heard other mayors in northern areas saying that they wont listen to the government to close down pubs.

This is the type of problem that occurs when you pretend that the problem is occurring only in certain areas of England when in reality its effecting everyone and the whole of england should go to lockdown atleast for things like pubs and clubs.

Yeah, the local lockdowns just seem like a way to effectively lock down the North step by step.

 

[DavidDeSchmikes]

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

 

[Pogue Mahone]

MPs were also shown early research by Public Health England suggesting that bars, pubs and restaurants accounted for 41% of cases in which two or more under-30s had visited the same venue in the week before testing positive. This fell to a quarter of infections across all age groups, the MPs were told.

Link

Shows there is at least some evidence for closing restaurants/pubs.

 

[jymufc20]

Just on our way from the airport now - the airline said nothing about it, but we were told by the border police to go get a test, which we did. Results came in half an hour (both negative).

I wouldn’t recommend the nasal swab unless you like having something shoved up as far as your eye socket (twice).

Edit - the police checked your result before you were allowed to leave, they were making sure no-one slipped in and out without the test.

I did the nasal swab on myself only put it as far up my nostril as was comfortable (not very far) and it worked as far as I know and came back negative.

 

[Sparky_Hughes]

My grandma (85 years old) is in hospital the middle of chemo and yesterday tested positive for covid after running a temperature. Today she tested negative. No idea what's going on.

How accurate are these tests? Is a false positive or false negative more likely?

Best wishes to your gran mate, hope she is doing ok.

 

[Penna]

I did the nasal swab on myself only put it as far up my nostril as was comfortable (not very far) and it worked as far as I know and came back negative.

I think if you have to self-test it would be impossible to do it any other way! Your reflexes would stop you.

 

[fergieisold]

Link

Shows there is at least some evidence for closing restaurants/pubs.

I saw the tweet about this and the sample size looked tiny. 408 people in total and the ‘pub’ category was lumped into pretty much every type of social activity. Worrying if that’s what’s guiding policy. Not saying pubs might not be a problem but with 10-20k cases per day now surely they can come up with something a bit more robust.

 

[Traub]

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

Damn must be nice to live in a rich country right about now.

 

[F-Red]

Link

Shows there is at least some evidence for closing restaurants/pubs.

Would be keen to see the PHE data on this when they announce it. If it's anywhere near 41% of cases, it'll represent a titanic size swing in the data (Purple & Yellow as Food/Restaurant/Other) from the prior weeks.

It's no surprise though as Chris Whitty said back in August, if schools and workplaces are to remain open and the R rate is under control, then everything else must shut. The government, if they are to pursue that approach, need to address the support package in line with their evidence.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Would be keen to see the PHE data on this when they announce it. If it's anywhere near 41% of cases, it'll represent a titanic size swing in the data (Purple & Yellow as Food/Restaurant/Other) from the prior weeks.

It's no surprise though as Chris Whitty said back in August, if schools and workplaces are to remain open and the R rate is under control, then everything else must shut. The government, if they are to pursue that approach, need to address the support package in line with their evidence.

The reason they’re not picking up cases in pubs/restaurants seems to be because the tracing system is so poor. In workplaces and institutions it’s easy to identify and test all close contacts but they seem to be really bad about doing the same “out in the field”.

This new report (which I would also like to see) takes a different approach and tracks back the movements of cases and sees if there’s an overlap in their movements. Be interesting to see the detail but it was always likely that we would have a much higher rate of cases being linked to very controlled environments than we would from people milling around from pub to restaurant to pub (and on to a house party) on a Friday/Saturday night.

 

[711]

The reason they’re not picking up cases in pubs/restaurants seems to be because the tracing system is so poor. In workplaces and institutions it’s easy to identify and test all close contacts but they seem to be really bad about doing the same “out in the field”.

This new report (which I would also like to see) takes a different approach and tracks back the movements of cases and sees if there’s an overlap in their movements. Be interesting to see the detail but it was always likely that we would have a much higher rate of cases being linked to very controlled environments than we would from people milling around from pub to restaurant to pub (and on to a house party) on a Friday/Saturday night.

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavi...e-alert-about-an-outbreak-in-a-venue-12099651

According to this after two weeks of the uk covid app only one person in the country has ever been sent an alert.

I honestly believe measures like this will make a difference, but they have to work first.

 

[Bosws87]

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavi...e-alert-about-an-outbreak-in-a-venue-12099651

According to this after two weeks of the uk covid app only one person in the country has ever been sent an alert.

I honestly believe measures like this will make a difference, but they have to work first.

through contact in hospitality not just told a single person to isolate through the whole app. It’s pretty clear from the outside it’s schools and universities driving this but they can’t be seen to go back on education so the next target has to be hospitality it’s the only one that’s actually enforceable as the house hold meeting is impossible to police.

 

[golden_blunder]

Zlatan Ibrahimovic could miss the Milan derby next week after AC Milan revealed that the veteran Swede had again tested positive for coronavirus.

saw this on today’s press headlines. 2 points;

1. reinfection didn’t take long if it’s not an error
2. COVID is a brave boy squaring up to Zlatan twice

 

[F-Red]

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavi...e-alert-about-an-outbreak-in-a-venue-12099651

According to this after two weeks of the uk covid app only one person in the country has ever been sent an alert.

One person in the country or one person from that venue?

 

[711]

One person in the country or one person from that venue?

You could read it either way but I don't see it would be deemed newsworthy unless it meant the country. As Bos says, from using the app to enter venues. Speaking from sunny Lancashire a lot of venues have closed due to staff being infected in that time, there should have been hundreds, if not thousands, of alerts.

 

[tombombadil]

An interesting read about educational settings and super spreader events

A study of more than a half-million people in India who were exposed to the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 suggests that the virus’ continued spread is driven by only a small percentage of those who become infected.

Furthermore, children and young adults were found to be potentially much more important to transmitting the virus — especially within households — than previous studies have identified, according to a paper by researchers from the United States and India published Sept. 30 in the journal Science.

Researchers from the Princeton Environmental Institute (PEI), Johns Hopkins University and the University of California, Berkeley, worked with public health officials in the southeast Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh to track the infection pathways and mortality rate of 575,071 individuals who were exposed to 84,965 confirmed cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2. It is the largest contact tracing study — which is the process of identifying people who came into contact with an infected person — conducted in the world for any disease.

Largest COVID-19 contact tracing study to date finds children key to spread, evidence of superspreaders

 

[Pogue Mahone]

An interesting read about educational settings and super spreader events


Largest COVID-19 contact tracing study to date finds children key to spread, evidence of superspreaders

Big numbers so likely to be reliable data. I always find the attack rate stuff fascinating. You can live with somebody who is acutely unwell with covid and still have a 91% chance of not getting infected. Puts those white knuckle trips to the supermarket back in March/April in perspective!

 

[DanClancy]

It’s blatantly obvious. Countries like Italy are still plenty warm enough too. Obviously all those other things have an impact too but not to this degree. It baffles me that apparently closing schools is completely off the table.

Is it not blatantly obvious why they won't be closing the schools?

 

[DanClancy]

A fair few uni of Manchester students in hospital judging by reports today. Not good, but we still have a lot of tired people maybe optimistically promoting no new measures. I can’t think of a worse point of the season to be anything but cautious.

Saw that in the evening news, didn't see it anywhere else? Its a joke of a paper and would take anything in it with a pinch of salt.

 

[acnumber9]

Is it not blatantly obvious why they won't be closing the schools?

Because they like to pretend to care about kids futures?

 

[tombombadil]

Big numbers so likely to be reliable data. I always find the attack rate stuff fascinating. You can live with somebody who is acutely unwell with covid and still have a 91% chance of not getting infected. Puts those white knuckle trips to the supermarket back in March/April in perspective!

Yeah. In some countries, there were cases where workers were sharing the same 10 person dorm room for months and did not get infected. The whole thing is just counter intuitive. We really still have so much to learn about it

 

[redshaw]

While children may not expel the virus as much or carry it in large numbers according to some data, they could be an important link still.

The schools will be a hub or swap meet of the area, it might be small transfers but what happens is one child passes it to another, they go home and like most have very close contact with their parent(s), then the parent will expel the virus more effectively to their adult friends and family by just being in their presence.

Some of the adults become super spreaders and start off a chain of them.

 

[Penna]

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavi...e-alert-about-an-outbreak-in-a-venue-12099651

According to this after two weeks of the uk covid app only one person in the country has ever been sent an alert.

I honestly believe measures like this will make a difference, but they have to work first.

While we were back in the UK I went out to a pub twice for lunch and to three different cafes. All of them took contact details, the pub was very organised about it.

 

[OneUnited24]

saw this on today’s press headlines. 2 points;

1. reinfection didn’t take long if it’s not an error
2. COVID is a brave boy squaring up to Zlatan twice

I’m hearing more and more cases of reinfection. Scary stuff.

side story given the number of cases with footballers catching this and with cases on the rise surely it’s only a Matter of time until sport is called off again. Probably said in hope more than anything else!

 

[Brwned]

Would be keen to see the PHE data on this when they announce it. If it's anywhere near 41% of cases, it'll represent a titanic size swing in the data (Purple & Yellow as Food/Restaurant/Other) from the prior weeks.

It's no surprise though as Chris Whitty said back in August, if schools and workplaces are to remain open and the R rate is under control, then everything else must shut. The government, if they are to pursue that approach, need to address the support package in line with their evidence.

It wouldn't be a titanic swing. That chart tells us the % of traceable cases which, as @massi83 pointed out, in countries where the have a better handle on the virus and more cooperation from the public like Finland, the traceable cases amount to 30%. So without knowing the number here, that would mean 40% of known cases represents just 12% of all cases being traced back to school. We don't know how many cases have come from pubs that haven't been traced back by that one method, and the flaws of the method have been established in other reporting.

Is it not blatantly obvious why they won't be closing the schools?

Not really. They're closing schools in New York now, for example. It's clear why it isn't preferable but it isn't clear why it's off the table, given there's good reason to suspect it is a critical factor in a situation they're now describing as almost becoming uncontrollable.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

saw this on today’s press headlines. 2 points;

1. reinfection didn’t take long if it’s not an error
2. COVID is a brave boy squaring up to Zlatan twice

He tested positive so recently I’m willing to bet this is just some viral debris from the previous infection being shedded. To be really certain about reinfection you’d want to see sequencing of the virus to prove it’s a different virus to the one that first infected him.

 

[MikeUpNorth]

Best wishes to your gran mate, hope she is doing ok.

Thanks. She's in surprisingly good spirits given it all!

 

[Pogue Mahone]

I’m hearing more and more cases of reinfection. Scary stuff.

side story given the number of cases with footballers catching this and with cases on the rise surely it’s only a Matter of time until sport is called off again. Probably said in hope more than anything else!

Yeah, shit is getting real in professional football. They kept infections down while they were down in the rest of society but now it’s on the up and up generally we’re seeing more and more cases with footballers.

Which really just proves how impossible it is to let the virus rip through society while shielding certain cohorts. If we can’t keep wealthy, privileged footballers in a bubble how the hell do we do it for vulnerable members of the general public?

 

[fergieisold]

Saw that in the evening news, didn't see it anywhere else? Its a joke of a paper and would take anything in it with a pinch of salt.

not seen it anywhere other than the paper. Wouldn’t surprise me 2-3k infections likely to lead to a handful?

 

[711]

While we were back in the UK I went out to a pub twice for lunch and to three different cafes. All of them took contact details, the pub was very organised about it.

Same here, and when they took people's details in writing the track and trace people would contact them if necessary, but since most people have been scanning in with the app only one person using the app in the country has ever been contacted, allegedly. Even when, to my personal knowledge, a bar has closed down due to covid. We need to carry on of course, it's the way forward, once it works.

 

[Bosws87]

Same here, and when they took people's details in writing the track and trace people would contact them if necessary, but since most people have been scanning in with the app only one person using the app in the country has ever been contacted, allegedly. Even when, to my personal knowledge, a bar has closed down due to covid. We need to carry on of course, it's the way forward, once it works.

One person contacted where they picked it up in HOSPITALITY, loads of people have been contacted by the actual app i have friends who have been told to self isolate by the app.

The media are trying to say hospitality isn't the driving force, 12million app users 1 single case from hospitality.

 

[Sparky_Hughes]

Thanks. She's in surprisingly good spirits given it all!

Bless her, these old uns are a different breed! Tougher than Id ever be!

 

[711]

One person contacted where they picked it up in HOSPITALITY, loads of people have been contacted by the actual app i have friends who have been told to self isolate by the app.

The media are trying to say hospitality isn't the driving force, 12million app users 1 single case from hospitality.

If a bar closes down because the staff have covid wouldn't you expect the customers who had scanned in and stopped there all evening (a social club in my case) to be contacted? Quite a few places have closed temporarily for the same reason, plus all the ones that must have had staff and customers that registered a positive test on the app, as you're supposed to.

Did you mean to say the media are trying to say hospitality is the driving force by any chance? In any case personally I wouldn't say it is the driving force as such, just one of many.