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

[Garethw]

My father in law says they are inbred on isle of sheppey

That is very much the rumour mate lots of webbed hands and feet

 

[Pogue Mahone]

My father in law says they are inbred on isle of sheppey

It’s an absolute shit-hole. One of the worst places I’ve ever visited in the UK. Not run-down or dangerous. Just unbelievably bland and ugly.

 

[FootballHQ]

You’re missing the main point, families visiting each other’s houses, gathering in big numbers for family dinners and visiting granny and grandad. Every medical professional I’ve read is dreading January when hospitals are already stretched.

Let's be honest, that's been happening for many months on the quiet, remember VE day? Mass gatherings of neighbours and families and that was full lockdown (well it was near where I lived).

All we can do is hope people are sensible. Majority will, minority won't.

 

[oneniltothearsenal]

This is one of the most comprehensive studies of the effects in the UK. It was subject to a lot of media spin too but one of the key points that featured in the summary here was this:


The anti-lockdown people are focusing on the first part of the sentence (and the evidence supporting it) while ignoring the rest, and it relies on a counter-factual that has no basis in reality.

If lockdowns could be avoided while countries were able to keep the spread of the virus under control through test and trace, social distancing and mask use, then every government in the world would do that. Every government in the world did try to do that. Lockdowns were the "nuclear option". But they were taken because it was demonstrably proven that the virus could not be kept under control, and the consequences of losing control was worse on almost every dimension.

It's not that SAGE are unaware of the consequences of lockdowns; they're the ones commissioning the 200-page reports on it. Nor is it that governments are particularly trigger happy on lockdowns; in most cases they've waited until the last minute in the second wave once more, long after scientific advisers asked them to just accept the reality, in turn making the lockdowns even longer. It's just the case that the alternative is demonstrably much worse.

Most of the negative effects that come with lockdowns also come without lockdowns. It just takes a different form, and so anti-lockdown people recognise that symptom a won't appear therefore consequence a will be prevented, without realising that instead symptom b will appear, unfortunately causing consequence a once more, and sometimes in greater numbers.

If the virus spreads more freely in schools then more children miss out on free school meals because they have to isolate, irrespective of any lockdown. Education will be set back because teachers are not only isolating but permanently removed from the workforce, while schools struggle to recruit new teachers in the midst of a pandemic. Suicide rates go up as anxiety, depression and stress increase. That happens with social isolation but it also happens as those around you are thrust into life-threatening situations. Greatly reducing the former while increasing the latter doesn't lead to fewer unhappy people. Or at least it's a very grim assumption, supported by no data, to take. There are very few areas where just letting covid run wild produces better non-covid health or economic outcomes, short-term or long-term.

Cheers Brwned, that report was exactly what I was hoping for. And the rationale of course makes more sense than cherry-picking the data like the anti-lockdown fanatics.

 

[Garethw]

It’s an absolute shit-hole. One of the worst places I’ve ever visited in the UK. Not run-down or dangerous. Just unbelievably bland and ugly.

100%.
They have massive holiday parks there too. Imagine going to the isle of fecking Shitty for your summer holiday

 

[calodo2003]

Thanksgiving travel has only dropped 10% this year v. last year when looking at transit through airports.

This is fecking appalling. The selfishness of the vast majority of these travelers will only start being felt in a few weeks. I hope it was worth it. Unbelievable.

 

[Stack]

Thanksgiving travel has only dropped 10% this year v. last year when looking at transit through airports.

This is fecking appalling. The selfishness of the vast majority of these travelers will only start being felt in a few weeks. I hope it was worth it. Unbelievable.

Is it selfishness or the fact leadership at the top hasnt educated them enough to fully understand the complete picture?

 

[Brwned]

I couldn't believe just how busy it was when I went out this morning, I've not ventured too far at all in this supposed lockdown and it felt just like a normal monday out and about, truly bizarre. Can't see how this lockdown will have done much at all, and now it's all opening up again? Lovely stuff.

At the end of the day, regardless of whether this lockdown-lite played a pivotal role in things, the covid cases trend is much, much better than it was a month ago. On the 1st October there was 7-day average of ~12k cases, on the 15th it was 17.5k cases, on the 29th it was 22k cases. So it was at a doubling rate nearly every 4 weeks. We're almost 4 weeks on from then and things have basically held steady rather than doubled again, while things have fallen a lot in some of the previous hotspots. Imagine if it kept that doubling rate and we were on 40k+ cases per day, bringing us close to the previous peak of 1,000 deaths per day.

Just to follow on from this, the US is an unfortunate test case that shows how the doubling rate could have continued in November; it's not some mythical idea. In October they had 1.9m cases. In November they had 4m cases. They are now getting close to that April peak of 2,572 deaths in a single day; this Wednesday they had 2,300. To get to those numbers they're hospitalising 50% more people with covid than they were back in April.

It is entirely possible that the UK would have experienced exactly the same problem without the "lockdown" and the strict regional tiers beforehand. Instead of continuing that rapid growth they've fallen back to where they were at the beginning of October. While it doesn't feel like much of a success that "only" 500 people are dying, the objective of the lockdown was to stop that from reaching 1,000. It has unequivocally done that so it's dangerous to dismiss the impact of it. It wasn't as severe as it was in April, which is both good and bad, but without it there's every reason to expect we'd be in a much worse place.

 

[11101]

I've heard from friends in London they are now using DIY kits even in testing centres? I suppose that's one way to bring the case numbers down. There's no way most people will push the swab far enough up their nose on their own.

 

[SerenityValley]

I've heard from friends in London they are now using DIY kits even in testing centres? I suppose that's one way to bring the case numbers down. There's no way most people will push the swab far enough up their nose on their own.

The nose is easy - it’s the throat I found harder. Touching tonsils or where tonsils have been isn’t easy!

 

[Jippy]

Nice to see public health policy being driven by Tory party politics rather than the science.

Boris Johnson in retreat as Tory revolt over Covid lockdown tiers rocks No 10

Boris Johnson capitulated to Tory MPs last night, announcing that he would reform his new coronavirus crackdown before Christmas after threats by backbenchers to vote down the government’s plans.

In a sign of disarray in Downing Street, the prime minister wrote to MPs, signalling that millions of people who will be hit with the toughest restrictions this week will see them eased on December 19.

He announced that the new rules would be scrapped altogether in February unless MPs want them to continue — putting an end to claims that tough restrictions will continue until Easter.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/...er-covid-lockdown-tiers-rocks-no-10-0xd329jrv

 

[Tibs]

They're a bunch of dickheads

 

[VorZakone]

Will corona ever go away? I'm getting tired of it.

 

[calodo2003]

Is it selfishness or the fact leadership at the top hasnt educated them enough to fully understand the complete picture?

I would say it is 30% government / 70% selfishness. Once we usher the current admin out the door in January, the warnings will increase exponentially in decibels & frequency, but one cannot marginalize how much to blame the populace itself of this country will be for the inevitable spike on the spike of cases / hospitalizations / deaths.

 

[F-Red]

Will corona ever go away? I'm getting tired of it.

Not for some time, but it'll get quieter as we get towards the end of 2021

 

[Sandikan]

Will corona ever go away? I'm getting tired of it.

It's like the absolute ultimate punishment for all those people who wished something else would be discussed aside from Brexit!

 

[hp88]

My Mums friend had to travel to the Isle of Sheppey (Swale) in Kent yesterday to pick something up.

While there with her husband they decided to have a walk around.

She said it was like walking into a different world. Zero mask wearing and no social distancing at all.

They were berated and laughed at for wearing masks when entering a shop.

No wonder things are so bad in that area.

Thanks to idiots like that all of us in Kent will be in Tier 3.

Spent a couple of months down there when we opened a distribution centre there, by far one of the weirdest places I have visited. The fact that they have more prisons than hospitals says it all.

 

[Wibble]

Nice to see public health policy being driven by Tory party politics rather than the science.

Boris Johnson in retreat as Tory revolt over Covid lockdown tiers rocks No 10


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/...er-covid-lockdown-tiers-rocks-no-10-0xd329jrv

Tories will tory. And why not when they would get returned with an increased majority even if Boris accidentally set the Queen on fire because Labor would get the blame in the press because Corbyn owns a fire extinguisher that he didn't use to put the fire out.

 

[Wibble]

Just to follow on from this, the US is an unfortunate test case that shows how the doubling rate could have continued in November; it's not some mythical idea. In October they had 1.9m cases. In November they had 4m cases. They are now getting close to that April peak of 2,572 deaths in a single day; this Wednesday they had 2,300. To get to those numbers they're hospitalising 50% more people with covid than they were back in April.

It is entirely possible that the UK would have experienced exactly the same problem without the "lockdown" and the strict regional tiers beforehand. Instead of continuing that rapid growth they've fallen back to where they were at the beginning of October. While it doesn't feel like much of a success that "only" 500 people are dying, the objective of the lockdown was to stop that from reaching 1,000. It has unequivocally done that so it's dangerous to dismiss the impact of it. It wasn't as severe as it was in April, which is both good and bad, but without it there's every reason to expect we'd be in a much worse place.

Seem amazing that people don't get that all restrictions can be working even if thi gs are getting worse because they could be getting much worse more quickly.

 

[Tibs]

On the topic of people being against restrictions, and the Tory Tw@ts (their must be a correlation between them and Brexit?)....but, what's the alternative?

I've yet to hear anything, other than LOOK AT SWEEEDUN.

 

[F-Red]

On the topic of people being against restrictions, and the Tory Tw@ts (their must be a correlation between them and Brexit?)....but, what's the alternative?

I've yet to hear anything, other than LOOK AT SWEEEDUN.

 

[Dan_F]

Never gets old.

 

[Wibble]

On the topic of people being against restrictions, and the Tory Tw@ts (their must be a correlation between them and Brexit?)....but, what's the alternative?

I've yet to hear anything, other than LOOK AT SWEEEDUN.

And that went so well

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11...ce-with-its-rogue-coronavirus-policy/12922932

Professor Goldsmith said "It astonishes me. I think they were caught up in their own bullshit."

 

[Brwned]

@Pogue Mahone what do you make of places like the US relaxing school restrictions while the pandemic is clearly not under control?

Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Sunday that he would reopen public elementary schools, abruptly shifting policy in the face of widespread criticism that officials were placing more of a priority on economic activities like indoor dining than the well-being of New York City’s children.

Mr. de Blasio said middle and high schools would remain closed, but also signaled that he would overhaul how the city manages the system during the pandemic, which has forced millions of children in the United States out of schools and is perceived to have done significant damage to their education and mental health.

The mayor said the city would abandon a 3 percent test positivity threshold that it had adopted for closing the school system, the largest in the country, with 1.1 million children. And he said the system would aim to give many parents the option of sending their children to school five days a week, which would effectively end the so-called hybrid learning system for some city schools.

Students can return only if they have already signed up for in-person learning, meaning just about 190,000 children in the grades and schools the city is reopening next week would be eligible. About 335,000 students in total have chosen in-person classes.

Children in pre-K and elementary school can return starting Dec. 7. Mr. de Blasio also announced that students with the most complex disabilities can return on Dec. 10.
“Whatever happens ahead, we want this to be the plan going forward,” Mr. de Blasio said at a news conference. “We know what we didn’t know over the summer, we know what works from actual experience.”

Mr. de Blasio is reopening elementary schools even though the city’s seven-day average test positivity rate on Sunday had climbed to 3.9 percent — well above the former threshold that led him to close the system on Nov. 18 as a second wave of the outbreak threatened the city.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who has often clashed with Mr. de Blasio over the response to the pandemic and has final authority over how schools operate during the crisis, said on Sunday that he supported the mayor’s plan.

Bringing children and educators safely back into public schools has been one of the most vexing, high-stakes problems created by the pandemic.

As virus cases have spiked across the country in recent weeks, some cities, like Philadelphia, have delayed plans to reopen schools, and others, including Los Angeles, do not yet have a plan to reopen. Many children throughout the country have not returned to classrooms since March, and it is unclear how many will before a vaccine is distributed.

Starting in the summer, Mr. de Blasio sought to make New York the first big city in the country to fully reopen its public school system. After a series of logistical and political problems forced the mayor to twice delay the start of in-person classes, the city welcomed hundreds of thousands of children back into classrooms about two months ago.
Reopening, despite its many issues, was a major milestone in the city’s long path to recovery — and the closing of the schools less than eight weeks later was a blow.

Still, the number of cases in the school system itself remained very low, so Mr. de Blasio’s decision became a flash point in a broader debate throughout the country and the world over what should be closed during the pandemic. Officials have wrestled with whether to keep classrooms open while forcing indoor dining rooms and bars, which are far more likely to spread the virus, to shut.

Mr. Cuomo, not the mayor, controls regulations regarding indoor dining, bars and gyms. But after the city schools closed, both Mr. Cuomo and Mr. de Blasio had come under intense criticism from some parents, who expressed deep concern about how their children were faring during remote learning.

Mayor Bill de Blasio greeted students as they arrived for the first day of in-person learning in Elmhurst, Queens, in September.

In fact, the timing of Mr. de Blasio’s announcement raised new questions about why he decided to close schools at all just 12 days ago.

Managing the city’s sprawling public school system has clearly been one of the most daunting tasks facing the mayor and his team during the pandemic. But the seemingly haphazard changes to the reopening plan have been frustrating for parents and educators. The mayor himself acknowledged as much on Sunday when asked whether he had any regrets about closing schools again.

“I felt pained — I didn’t want to do that to kids or parents,” he said.

After several tumultuous weeks, Mr. de Blasio’s announcement was generally well-received on Sunday. The powerful teachers union, the United Federation of Teachers, which has often clashed with City Hall over its effort to reopen the system, said it supported the new plan, as long as rigorous virus testing was in place.

The new blueprint represents the city’s second shot at reopening, after the first attempt was plagued by problems and the trigger that Mr. de Blasio’ set for closing schools — a positive rate of 3 percent on all virus tests conducted in the city — was roundly assailed as too low by parents, politicians and public health experts.

Now, instead of using such a metric, the city will increase testing in schools and close those that have multiple confirmed virus cases. The system will also, for now, adopt a model that has become more common across the country and world, offering classroom instruction only to young children and students with disabilities.

Since Mr. de Blasio first announced his plan to reopen schools in July, mounting evidence has shown that elementary schools in particular can be relatively safe, as long as strict safety protocols are followed.

New York’s schools had extremely low test positivity rates during the roughly eight weeks they were open this fall, and there was agreement from the president of the teachers’ union to the mayor’s top public health officials that schools were far safer than had been anticipated. By the time schools closed, the school positivity rate was .28 percent.

I can see the merit to saying children's education is more important to protect than hospitality jobs (although I don't think that's clear-cut at all), but making trade-offs that allow you to just about keep a lid on things is a long way from just bowing to public demand when controlling transmission is already nearly impossible.

While the UK have managed to bring down the R rate significantly without closing schools, that's only possible because it is falling amount the majority of the population. The incidence rate continues to go up for uni students, teenagers and young kids. It's great that it doesn't cause the scale of outbreaks proportional to the amount of people packed indoors for long periods of times, but even without mass outbreaks it continues to push against the prevailing trends. I can't see how that's a reasonable sacrifice when countries are in situations like the US. Especially in the build-up to intergenerational parties.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

@Pogue Mahone what do you make of places like the US relaxing school restrictions while the pandemic is clearly not under control?



I can see the merit to saying children's education is more important to protect than hospitality jobs (although I don't think that's clear-cut at all), but making trade-offs that allow you to just about keep a lid on things is a long way from just bowing to public demand when controlling transmission is already nearly impossible.

While the UK have managed to bring down the R rate significantly without closing schools, that's only possible because it is falling amount the majority of the population. The incidence rate continues to go up for uni students, teenagers and young kids. It's great that it doesn't cause the scale of outbreaks proportional to the amount of people packed indoors for long periods of times, but even without mass outbreaks it continues to push against the prevailing trends. I can't see how that's a reasonable sacrifice when countries are in situations like the US. Especially in the build-up to intergenerational parties.

The US definition of “schools” is so broad it’s hard to give a one size fits all opinion. In general, though, I agree with prioritising keeping schools (with UK meaning of the word) open over keeping pubs/restaurants open. Of course this has to involve appropriate financial safety nets for employers/employees in that industry.

 

[Jimble]

My Mums friend had to travel to the Isle of Sheppey (Swale) in Kent yesterday to pick something up.

While there with her husband they decided to have a walk around.

She said it was like walking into a different world. Zero mask wearing and no social distancing at all.

They were berated and laughed at for wearing masks when entering a shop.

No wonder things are so bad in that area.

Thanks to idiots like that all of us in Kent will be in Tier 3.

I'm in maidstone, and if I pop to any of the little shops, nobody is wearing one. They all look at me as some sort of freak for wearing one. Then there's the people that can't wear one because they have breathing issues, but are queuing up for fags

 

[Jimble]

My father in law says they are inbred on isle of sheppey

blow up the bridges

 

[lynchie]

@Pogue Mahone what do you make of places like the US relaxing school restrictions while the pandemic is clearly not under control?



I can see the merit to saying children's education is more important to protect than hospitality jobs (although I don't think that's clear-cut at all), but making trade-offs that allow you to just about keep a lid on things is a long way from just bowing to public demand when controlling transmission is already nearly impossible.

While the UK have managed to bring down the R rate significantly without closing schools, that's only possible because it is falling amount the majority of the population. The incidence rate continues to go up for uni students, teenagers and young kids. It's great that it doesn't cause the scale of outbreaks proportional to the amount of people packed indoors for long periods of times, but even without mass outbreaks it continues to push against the prevailing trends. I can't see how that's a reasonable sacrifice when countries are in situations like the US. Especially in the build-up to intergenerational parties.

That's a weird reading of the Imperial data - primary kids are lower than 2 rounds ago after a dip that could have just been sampling error (massive error bars). 18-24 are dropping. Only the secondary school incidence rate is marginally increasing.

Given the Ofsted findings on the impacts of school closures during the initial lockdown, and the fact that, if they wanted to, the government could mitigate all the losses of hospitality businesses during closures, keeping schools open in the UK is reasonable.

What they should do in the US isn't clear to me at all. They've essentially got a wildfire going on, and no cohesive plan to bring it under control. Bits and pieces, like just banning indoor dining, are barely going to make a dent. They basically need a full lockdown, and yes, that probably should include schools in the worst hit states, or at least secondary schools, initially.

 

[Brwned]

That's a weird reading of the Imperial data - primary kids are lower than 2 rounds ago after a dip that could have just been sampling error (massive error bars). 18-24 are dropping. Only the secondary school incidence rate is marginally increasing.

Given the Ofsted findings on the impacts of school closures during the initial lockdown, and the fact that, if they wanted to, the government could mitigate all the losses of hospitality businesses during closures, keeping schools open in the UK is reasonable.

What they should do in the US isn't clear to me at all. They've essentially got a wildfire going on, and no cohesive plan to bring it under control. Bits and pieces, like just banning indoor dining, are barely going to make a dent. They basically need a full lockdown, and yes, that probably should include schools in the worst hit states, or at least secondary schools, initially.

Oh you're right, I misdescribed the data, I was talking about the relative risk of catching the virus going up for the young folks while going down for the others. This table, essentially.

Whatever way you want to look at it, the decline in infection rates is slowed down by school-age kids and uni students. While every other age group has either held steady or fallen, they have registered significant relative increases. They are relatively more likely to be infected in late November than the average person than they were in late October. When you remove those other aspects of society, the rates fall quicker for others than they do for kids. And they were already more likely to be infected at the start of it. We know why that is.

I agree even in that context, it is reasonable to keep schools open and prioritise them ahead of sectors of the economy. I don't think it is a clear-cut decision but I would probably make the same decision under those circumstances. I was just pointing out that the epidemiological costs are there to see.

 

[entropy]

He is reopening schools two weeks before the winter break. And this is in the middle of a surge in cases similar to what they had back in April. It’s so fecking stupid and unnecessary.

 

[Wibble]

Australia had zero cases of community transmission today. Hopefully this means that South Australia has their outbreak sorted out.

 

[Lay]

Son got told to stay home today. 55 adults
Isolating from his school meant they reduced school hours from 9-12. They then said if you choose to keep your child home, that it’s fine. So we did what we were going to do anyway.

I don’t think they’ll be back before the Christmas holidays

 

[Lj82]

Australia had zero cases of community transmission today. Hopefully this means that South Australia has their outbreak sorted out.

We had two weeks of zero local transmission cases here in Singapore and were just about to break out in celebration before cases broke out again (albeit still quite low). It is quite likely that there is still transmission, just asymptomatic and undetected (yet).

 

[LARulz]

This may not be a popular thing to say but I am disappointed in Starmmer for abstaining. Either back it or don't. Personally, I don't think he should until the government has provided the full evidence.

I am pro vaccine and wanting to do what is right and get this under control, but provide the full evidence of the total costs and benefits of these tiers/lockdowns - it's not just COVID, but all the other things that get impacted by it.

Starmmer, like all the rebel back bencher's are rightly saying (felt dirty to praise them), should say to Boris that he will throw his weight behind the tiers/lockdowns IF he releases all the evidence and that shows it is the best course of action across the board

In times of crisis, you need strong opposition to hold the governing party to account to make sure they are making the right decisions as much as possible. Labour have been anything but strong

 

[Brwned]

This may not be a popular thing to say but I am disappointed in Starmmer for abstaining. Either back it or don't. Personally, I don't think he should until the government has provided the full evidence.

I am pro vaccine and wanting to do what is right and get this under control, but provide the full evidence of the total costs and benefits of these tiers/lockdowns - it's not just COVID, but all the other things that get impacted by it.

Starmmer, like all the rebel back bencher's are rightly saying (felt dirty to praise them), should say to Boris that he will throw his weight behind the tiers/lockdowns IF he releases all the evidence and that shows it is the best course of action across the board

In times of crisis, you need strong opposition to hold the governing party to account to make sure they are making the right decisions as much as possible. Labour have been anything but strong

There is no such thing as concrete evidence on these decisions, there's lots of incomplete evidence saying different things from different perspectives that require you to make a judgement call that might be wrong. Providing the wealth of evidence just gives more ammunition for both sides of the argument to cherry pick for slogans. It doesn't validate or invalidate the judgments made because it doesn't have that power. It's the nature of crisis management grounded in new and complicated problems.

The best evidence on the subject has been made available by SAGE not just to politicians but to the public. All available here. There's more evidence in there than those backbenchers are ever going to read, and it's more nuanced than they are able to process. Lots about the health effects but plenty about the economic and social effects too. A lot of their questions about the total impact would be answered here, but you, I and they will never read it all. Which means we end up relying on expert assessments of fuzzy evidence which provides politicians with multiple pathways and no obvious choices. They know that which is why the requests of evidence are just political moves to create misleading headlines.

 

[F-Red]

This may not be a popular thing to say but I am disappointed in Starmmer for abstaining. Either back it or don't. Personally, I don't think he should until the government has provided the full evidence.

I am pro vaccine and wanting to do what is right and get this under control, but provide the full evidence of the total costs and benefits of these tiers/lockdowns - it's not just COVID, but all the other things that get impacted by it.

Total costs & benefits? It's not a business case they're submitting here. It should be quite obvious the benefits, ie. all key metrics aren't under control. Risk of further transmission and regress backwards. Especially now as we're hitting winter, where hospitals see typically higher strains on capacity. What evidence are you particularly after though? Why everyone has moved back into tiers?

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

The tiering system looks to be broadly correct based on the metrics they are scoring it on. However I think it's naive to assume society will open up fully on 2nd of December without some form of tiered approach geographically.

 

[Brwned]

I've heard from friends in London they are now using DIY kits even in testing centres? I suppose that's one way to bring the case numbers down. There's no way most people will push the swab far enough up their nose on their own.

I was looking at doing this "test and release" program when I arrive back into London and pretty much all of the private tests I was looking at said they were administered by a medical professional, so that seemed a little implausible to me. But one of my mates is working as a site manager at one of the test centres, the ones run by the government and private contractors for people who have symptoms, and yeah he said the same thing. They've been doing that pretty much since they started. No medical professionals on site and self-administered.

It wouldn't explain the trend because it's not a new practice, it would just indicate they've always been underestimating case numbers ever since they significantly expanded testing.

On top of that he said they were using these "red vials" supplied by Matt Hancock's neighbour until somewhat abruptly, soon after Channel 4's dispatches did an investigation how these vials were leaking while been transferred from testing sites, the company said they were going to stop using those, switch to another set of vials for a couple of weeks, and then would eventually get some new red ones. No explanation for why.

And probably worst of all there was an all-company e-mail that went out a few weeks after they'd gotten up and running in which a notice was sent out to say the testing kits needed to be stored in a controlled temperature environment. For weeks they had been kept in containers in different places, some at room temperature, some outside at near-zero. And they were told that the testing kits might not work if they weren't stored in those environments. But nothing was mentioned about how all of the tests conducted in previous weeks should be treated.

Shambles throughout.

 

[zing]

Running a bad temperature and got tested. Not a pretty test..

 

[jojojo]

Researchers looking at blood samples in the US have identified antibodies to SARS2 in blood donations from December 2019. The earliest group found so far are from 13-16 December with California (23 samples) and Washington/Oregon (16).

I must admit I'm not sure what to make of the results as they say:
Of the 7,389 samples, 106 were reactive by pan Ig. Of these 106 specimens, 90 were available for further testing. Eighty four of 90 had neutralizing activity, 1 had S1 binding activity, and 1 had receptor binding domain / Ace2 blocking activity >50%, suggesting the presence of anti-SARS-CoV-2-reactive antibodies. Donations with reactivity occurred in all nine states.
Which is a huge percentage - so presumably the tests have picked up a lot of people already carrying SAR2 active antibodies from some previous infection (or there was a SARS2.0 out there not causing deaths before SARS2.01 arrived) Or am I misreading it in some way - which in honesty wouldn't surprise as I came on here to talk about it rather than rereading the full document again.

Summary at:
https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaa1785/6012472
It includes the links to the full report (which is open access).

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Researchers looking at blood samples in the US have identified antibodies to SARS2 in blood donations from December 2019. The earliest group found so far are from 13-16 December with California (23 samples) and Washington/Oregon (16).

I must admit I'm not sure what to make of the results as they say:
Of the 7,389 samples, 106 were reactive by pan Ig. Of these 106 specimens, 90 were available for further testing. Eighty four of 90 had neutralizing activity, 1 had S1 binding activity, and 1 had receptor binding domain / Ace2 blocking activity >50%, suggesting the presence of anti-SARS-CoV-2-reactive antibodies. Donations with reactivity occurred in all nine states.
Which is a huge percentage - so presumably the tests have picked up a lot of people already carrying SAR2 active antibodies from some previous infection (or there was a SARS2.0 out there not causing deaths before SARS2.01 arrived) Or am I misreading it in some way - which in honesty wouldn't surprise as I came on here to talk about it rather than rereading the full document again.

Summary at:
https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaa1785/6012472
It includes the links to the full report (which is open access).

I’m not reading the full report either! I think you might be misreading it though. Looks like only 100 out of 7.4k specimens were positive for antibodies. So a smidge over 1%, which isn’t “huge”. It’s also worth bearing in mind that blood donor serological surveys demonstrate a prevalence that consistently many multiples higher than in the community (presumably because they have regular interactions with hospitals/HCWs)