Coronavirus in football

Wales and Scotland will now play BCD from Boxing day. England surely will follow soon.

Yep it’s coming. The next game I have tickets for is Wolves, I’d be very surprised if it’s still possible by then. I think we’re ending up in a sizeable lock down, let alone having big crowds at events.
 
Wales and Scotland will now play BCD from Boxing day. England surely will follow soon.
This won´t happen unless the UK government applies some rules.
Until then It will be played in front of people, but they might enforce rapid testing, masks ect ect before they shut the whole thing down.

I just find staggering that people going to the stadium arent wearing masks to begin with.
 
I just find staggering that people going to the stadium arent wearing masks to begin with.

When the Tory party leader says “Let the bodies pile high”, as Patel and Rees Mogg lurk in the background with leering grins at the suffering unfurling it’s not really that much of a surprise.

The current government openly want to privatise health care - thus they want the NHS to fail.
 
I am sorry to hear there is a place in the world that after almost 2 years of covid, they still have to live like that. Sounds like your Baveria handled covid really poorly and people live in fear. they will really struggle to get out of it.

I have been to Texas, Florida and no one wears masks since almost a year ago, stadiums, events like in the UK are completely sold out. That is success because people love it and they learned to live with cases and treatments, they have the lowest vaccination rate in the USA and they are not worry about covid anymore.

Your Baveria sounds alot like New York or California. People are moving out of those states in masses to live in the states i mentioned. Even though they have the highest percentaje of vaccination rate, they have severe covid cases even under your Baverias type restrictions, people live in fear, it is a mess, It is ridiculous at this point.

Back to the Premier League, in my opinion it is a success when you have full stadiums and almost no one wears masks anymore unlike Spain fo example, that is normal life and should be aplauded.

Like i said, hats off to the Premier League.
Yeah, everyone should take inspiration from places where they treat guns as toys for adults.
 
Quality control
One day somebody will come up with an unheard idea not to check people for vaccination (which doesn't mean much) but for a negative test (which actually means something).
 
One day somebody will come up with an unheard idea not to check people for vaccination (which doesn't mean much) but for a negative test (which actually means something).

How do you ensure that everyone is showing their own test result? And not just using someone else's phone, or showing their result etc?
Plus ensure that it's as recent as possible - ie the day before may have been negative, but "today" might have turned.

ID checks AND making people take the test (and wait for the result) outside the ground?
 
One day somebody will come up with an unheard idea not to check people for vaccination (which doesn't mean much) but for a negative test (which actually means something).

A negative lateral flow test on a symptom free person is about 58% reliable for Delta. Same or less for Omicron. Basically worth very little for containing a virus as infectious as Omicron.

The Xmas programme will be played behind closed doors or not at all. That's nailed on.

That said if it becomes apparent that Omicrom isn't very dangerous then it won't last long.
 
A negative lateral flow test on a symptom free person is about 58% reliable for Delta. Same or less for Omicron. Basically worth very little for containing a virus as infectious as Omicron.

The Xmas programme will be played behind closed doors or not at all. That's nailed on.

That said if it becomes apparent that Omicrom isn't very dangerous then it won't last long.

Is it nailed on? There's no extra restrictions before Christmas so Boxing day games look set to go ahead with full crowds.
 
How do you ensure that everyone is showing their own test result? And not just using someone else's phone, or showing their result etc?
Plus ensure that it's as recent as possible - ie the day before may have been negative, but "today" might have turned.

ID checks AND making people take the test (and wait for the result) outside the ground?

Whilst there are issues
It's still better than checking for vaccination right?

The best they can do unless they can have a quick turn around PCR service, is to have people take a PCR test the day before (and not a home one) for which the result could be accessed via the app.
 
One day somebody will come up with an unheard idea not to check people for vaccination (which doesn't mean much) but for a negative test (which actually means something).
Checking for vaccination means allowing only the most protected people can mingle in hotspots which means fewer people end up at hospital. That is the entire point.
 
Checking for vaccination means allowing only the most protected people can mingle in hotspots which means fewer people end up at hospital. That is the entire point.

It obviously isn't because they let unvaccinated people in if they test negative, so it is not the entire point is it?
When the vaccines were first rolled out one of the theories was it would reduce transmissions rates, it has not.

If you only let vaccinated people attend events fair enough, still won't stop transmission tough, but that is not what is happening. You'll also have to ensure everyone who is staffing anywhere is also vaccinated

One of the other flaws here is that you become far too relaxed about new variants, which have not been tested against the vaccines... it's actually safer to test everyone, vaccinated or not.
 
A negative lateral flow test on a symptom free person is about 58% reliable for Delta. Same or less for Omicron. Basically worth very little for containing a virus as infectious as Omicron.

The Xmas programme will be played behind closed doors or not at all. That's nailed on.

That said if it becomes apparent that Omicrom isn't very dangerous then it won't last long.

Source?
 
When the Tory party leader says “Let the bodies pile high”, as Patel and Rees Mogg lurk in the background with leering grins at the suffering unfurling it’s not really that much of a surprise.

The current government openly want to privatise health care - thus they want the NHS to fail.
We have the same problem here in Iceland our financial minister has underfunded our hospitals for years.
 
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A negative lateral flow test on a symptom free person is about 58% reliable for Delta. Same or less for Omicron. Basically worth very little for containing a virus as infectious as Omicron.

The Xmas programme will be played behind closed doors or not at all. That's nailed on.

That said if it becomes apparent that Omicrom isn't very dangerous then it won't last long.
It’s still 58% more reliable than the vaccine proof.
 
Checking for vaccination means allowing only the most protected people can mingle in hotspots which means fewer people end up at hospital. That is the entire point.
If you don't have it then you can't pass it on. The end line will always be the test. The vaccine or certificate of recovery means feck all as I've learned twice already myself.
 
Is it nailed on? There's no extra restrictions before Christmas so Boxing day games look set to go ahead with full crowds.

That won't hold. Boris is just trying to look reluctant.
 
https://pharmaceutical-journal.com/article/feature/how-reliable-are-lateral-flow-covid-19-tests


A Cochrane review, published on 24 March 2021, investigated whether commercially available, rapid point‐of‐care antigen (lateral flow) and molecular tests were accurate enough to diagnose COVID‐19 infection reliably, and to find out if accuracy differed in people with and without symptoms.

The reviewers included 64 studies published up to September 2020, which investigated 16 different antigen tests and five different molecular tests.

They found that in people with confirmed COVID‐19, antigen tests correctly identified COVID‐19 infection in an average of 72% (ranging from 34% to 88%) of people with symptoms, compared with 58% of people without symptoms. In addition, they found that the tests were most accurate when used in the first week after symptoms developed.
 
https://pharmaceutical-journal.com/article/feature/how-reliable-are-lateral-flow-covid-19-tests


A Cochrane review, published on 24 March 2021, investigated whether commercially available, rapid point‐of‐care antigen (lateral flow) and molecular tests were accurate enough to diagnose COVID‐19 infection reliably, and to find out if accuracy differed in people with and without symptoms.

The reviewers included 64 studies published up to September 2020, which investigated 16 different antigen tests and five different molecular tests.

They found that in people with confirmed COVID‐19, antigen tests correctly identified COVID‐19 infection in an average of 72% (ranging from 34% to 88%) of people with symptoms, compared with 58% of people without symptoms. In addition, they found that the tests were most accurate when used in the first week after symptoms developed.

I thought more recent studies had put it as being more accurate than that? Either way, I suppose you don't know which studies are correct if any, best to assume it's the lowest value unless you've a good reason not to perhaps.
 
I thought more recent studies had put it as being more accurate than that? Either way, I suppose you don't know which studies are correct if any, best to assume it's the lowest value unless you've a good reason not to perhaps.

These are the current figures afaik. But as the article says, a LFT is 70+% accurate if you have symptoms which is the figure usually quoted. But Omicron is so infectious that by the time you have symptoms (if you ever do) you have already passed it on. So you can't really get R below 1 using LFTs

On the other hand we still don't know how ill it actually makes you. All this could turn out to be a massive over reaction. Or not.

The good thing about LFTs is that they don't give false positives. If it says you've got it, you've got it.
 
That won't hold. Boris is just trying to look reluctant.

Yeah there seem to be a few too many media sources talking about a step 2 level lockdown from the 27th now.
Boxing day could be it for attending games for a month.
 
Yeah there seem to be a few too many media sources talking about a step 2 level lockdown from the 27th now.
Boxing day could be it for attending games for a month.

I doubt even that. They will announce it before Xmas. It's completely illogical otherwise and the politicians will get crucified if it goes wrong.
 
I doubt even that. They will announce it before Xmas. It's completely illogical otherwise and the politicians will get crucified if it goes wrong.

They want to start it on the 27th.
Which would have to mean its announced this week as you can't see even Boris announcing it and spoiling his own Christmas and Boxing day.
 
They want to start it on the 27th.
Which would have to mean its announced this week as you can't see even Boris announcing it and spoiling his own Christmas and Boxing day.

I agree they will announce a lot of stuff for 27th. But letting Boxing Day matches go ahead with crowds would pour so much petrol on everything I can't see even Boris being that irresponsible. If Omicron turned out to have half the hospitalisation rate of Delta it might blow up the NHS.
 
https://pharmaceutical-journal.com/article/feature/how-reliable-are-lateral-flow-covid-19-tests


A Cochrane review, published on 24 March 2021, investigated whether commercially available, rapid point‐of‐care antigen (lateral flow) and molecular tests were accurate enough to diagnose COVID‐19 infection reliably, and to find out if accuracy differed in people with and without symptoms.

The reviewers included 64 studies published up to September 2020, which investigated 16 different antigen tests and five different molecular tests.

They found that in people with confirmed COVID‐19, antigen tests correctly identified COVID‐19 infection in an average of 72% (ranging from 34% to 88%) of people with symptoms, compared with 58% of people without symptoms. In addition, they found that the tests were most accurate when used in the first week after symptoms developed.
I thought more recent studies had put it as being more accurate than that? Either way, I suppose you don't know which studies are correct if any, best to assume it's the lowest value unless you've a good reason not to perhaps.
These are the current figures afaik. But as the article says, a LFT is 70+% accurate if you have symptoms which is the figure usually quoted. But Omicron is so infectious that by the time you have symptoms (if you ever do) you have already passed it on. So you can't really get R below 1 using LFTs

On the other hand we still don't know how ill it actually makes you. All this could turn out to be a massive over reaction. Or not.

The good thing about LFTs is that they don't give false positives. If it says you've got it, you've got it.

So who knows? I think I’d still trust them personally.

That’s the worst thing about COVID, it takes so long to show up that by the time you need to isolate you may have already passed it on to some people. Thankfully vaccines would help dissipate the chance of you passing it on as it affects the host less (correct me if I’m wrong please)

Article from the BBC from Oct 2021

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-58899612

Rapid results
When the researchers used a new formula for calculating the rapid test's accuracy, they found LFTs were more than 80% effective at detecting any level of Covid-19 infection and likely to be more than 90% effective at detecting who is most infectious when they use the test.
This is much higher than previously thought, they say.

Prof Michael Mina, from Harvard School of Public Health, also part of the research team, said the LFTs could "catch nearly everyone who is currently a serious risk to public health" when viral loads are at their peak.


"It is most likely that if someone's LFT is negative but their PCR is positive, then this is because they are not at peak transmissible stage," he said.
The rapid tests are widely used in schools, workplaces and for allowing entry to large events to test those with no symptoms.
 
When the researchers used a new formula for calculating the rapid test's accuracy, they found LFTs were more than 80% effective at detecting any level of Covid-19 infection and likely to be more than 90% effective at detecting who is most infectious when they use the test.

Are they talking about positives or negatives though? LFTs are very accurate for positives but bad on negatives.

Also you have to careful of one study compared to the results of several studies. Truth is PCR tests are way more robust for negatives and that's the accepted position otherwise we wouldn't need PCRs.
 
Are they talking about positives or negatives though? LFTs are very accurate for positives but bad on negatives.

Also you have to careful of one study compared to the results of several studies. Truth is PCR tests are way more robust for negatives and that's the accepted position otherwise we wouldn't need PCRs.
Says any level of infection so from 0-Infected. Surely?

PCR’s are much better of course but they take too long to come through and if people need to go to work every day can’t afford to wait for PCR results as they take a day or two.
 
Says any level of infection so from 0-Infected. Surely?

The BBC article is talking about the reliability of LFT positives. Which is true. What they aren't saying is that they are much more unreliable for negatives. Check out FT from 2 days ago. None of this is new. They are still very useful but not as a method of screening a football crowd.

https://www.ft.com/content/cbd0fb0a-8c41-4b9b-aa4c-0afa10619383

But rapid lateral flow tests have always been imperfect, detecting an average of 72 per cent of symptomatic cases, and 58 per cent of asymptomatic ones, according to a meta-analysis of studies by the medical database the Cochrane Library. Tim Peto, a professor of medicine at Oxford, who has worked on validating tests’ accuracy, said the scientific community had “very poor methods” of telling if people were infectious. “The LFTs are the best of a bad lot,” he said.
 
I have been to Texas, Florida and no one wears masks since almost a year ago, stadiums, events like in the UK are completely sold out. That is success because people love it and they learned to live with cases and treatments, they have the lowest vaccination rate in the USA and they are not worry about covid anymore.
And yet still dying from it. Who knew?
 
a negative test (which actually means something).

If only we had known this year's ago and didn't waste all that money vaccinating against polio, smallpox, measures, mumps, rubella etc etc. I bet those scientists and medics feel pretty stupid now that Tom's has set them right.

And you do know that rapid antigen tests have up to a 50% false negative rate don't you?
 
I am sorry to hear there is a place in the world that after almost 2 years of covid, they still have to live like that. Sounds like your Baveria handled covid really poorly and people live in fear. they will really struggle to get out of it.

I have been to Texas, Florida and no one wears masks since almost a year ago, stadiums, events like in the UK are completely sold out. That is success because people love it and they learned to live with cases and treatments, they have the lowest vaccination rate in the USA and they are not worry about covid anymore.

Your Baveria sounds alot like New York or California. People are moving out of those states in masses to live in the states i mentioned. Even though they have the highest percentaje of vaccination rate, they have severe covid cases even under your Baverias type restrictions, people live in fear, it is a mess, It is ridiculous at this point.

Back to the Premier League, in my opinion it is a success when you have full stadiums and almost no one wears masks anymore unlike Spain fo example, that is normal life and should be aplauded.

Like i said, hats off to the Premier League.

By learn to live with it I assume you mean learn to die with it?
 
Fans are forced to vaccinate to enter stadiums, while players are only encouraged to do so. And there lies the core of the problem. While everyone definitely should do their best to get vaccinated, unvaccinated fans haven’t caused games to be called off. On the other hand, unvaccinated players very much have.
 
Fans are forced to vaccinate to enter stadiums, while players are only encouraged to do so. And there lies the core of the problem. While everyone definitely should do their best to get vaccinated, unvaccinated fans haven’t caused games to be called off. On the other hand, unvaccinated players very much have.

I'm all for getting as many people vaccinated as possible. But the difference in this example is that fans are customers and players are employees and I assume you can't take a lot of action against your employees, unless the government makes covid-specific adjustments to labor law.

Every country has its own law of course, but for example the only reason Bayern were able to dock the unvaccinated players' wages, wasn't just simply because they weren't vaccinated, they could only do that during quarantines that players had to undergo specifically, because they weren't vaccinated (if they were vaccinated they could have avoided them with negative tests).
 
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Omicron is reaching France, started with Bordeaux, now at least 2 PSG players are postive.