Main Coronavirus / Covid-19 Discussion Thread

[e77]

Closing pubs at a certain time should have been managed locally. A village pub in the middle of nowhere has a different set of challenges to one in a town like Worthing and one in London.

Problem is England is the least devolved country in Europe, making these things difficult.

 

[Bozza]

I'd have preferred a step by step approach to reopening. I would have been quite happy with pubs and restaurants reopening starting with a 10pm curfew, monitor that and only extend when it's clear numbers are staying low.

Eat out to help out, message to get out might have helped those places short term, but if they have to shut again could be devastating. It was a gamble to open up as much as we did, and now people have got used to old routines, drinking with friends again, to pull back once more is tough to impose.

I agree - we took our foot of the brake too quickly, and we're now pumping it again to try and get things to slow down.

But we can't change that now, alas, so we have to try and find the balance of measures that can be sustainable for a period of time. Consistency is key, I feel, so everyone knows where they stand day-to-day.

 

[RossyG]

Of the people who supposedly died of Covid yesterday, seven hadn’t been tested for it but they put it on the death certificate anyway.

 

[WATFORD zero]

I agree - we took our foot of the brake too quickly, and we're now pumping it again to try and get things to slow down.

But we can't change that now, alas, so we have to try and find the balance of measures that can be sustainable for a period of time. Consistency is key, I feel, so everyone knows where they stand day-to-day.

Agree with all of that. Everything we do seems be reactive rather than as a result of any medium or long term planning.

Given that, I'd like to see stricter measures immediately, until we know what this current growth in cases means in terms of hospitalisations and deaths (maybe another 2-4 weeks). I'm not sure that the 10pm curfew does much, but whatever is introduced, I will happily follow.

The biggest worry I have is the resumption of schools, colleges and universities condensed into a couple of weeks has to have a significant impact, and I'm not sure that the measures being bought in now will be able to offset that impact.

Again, what I find so frustrating is that the School, College and University timetables has been known all along, together with the onset of Autumn, but I can't see anything factored into any plan to recognise this

 

[WATFORD zero]

Of the people who supposedly died of Covid yesterday, seven hadn’t been tested for it but they put it on the death certificate anyway.

Doctors are buggers like that. Always putting things on death certificates for no apparent reason

 

[Bozza]

Of the people who supposedly died of Covid yesterday, seven hadn’t been tested for it but they put it on the death certificate anyway.

You'd do well to read this: https://www.independent.co.uk/voice...ertificates-conspiracy-theories-a9513981.html

How you react to the information it contains will depend on whether you have already made your mind up that this is all some big scam or similar.

Hell, I'll even save you some time, if you can't be arsed to make the click and read a thorough description of the death certificate process from someone who does it day in, day out. Here's one key bit:

There is no formal requirement to have a positive Covid-19 test back in order to write this on a death certificate. Bear in mind that first tests are often negative in people who later do turn out to have Covid-19. Testing was not widely available in the first few weeks of the pandemic; it is still often hard to access outside hospital.

In acute care we have become very used to how many patients with respiratory features of Covid-19 are present. There is a clear pattern based on symptoms, blood tests, observations, X-rays and the course of disease and even with a first test negative we continue to treat them as positive cases, including personal protective equipment and infection control measures.​

 

[Bozza]

The biggest worry I have is the resumption of schools, colleges and universities condensed into a couple of weeks has to have a significant impact, and I'm not sure that the measures being bought in now will be able to offset that impact.

Again, what I find so frustrating is that the School, College and University timetables has been known all along, together with the onset of Autumn, but I can't see anything factored into any plan to recognise this

Yeah, it's a massive concern, not because these are a high-risk group - thankfully they are not, but spread is going to be rapid and will then reach other age groups from there.

There would be some logic in "letting the virus run through" those in education as, assuming some immunity would result, there'd be a sizeable chunk of the population out there acting as a firewall to future spread. Unfortunately whilst it's running through them, they'd be passing it on. And not every one of this younger group would have a favourable outcome, of course.

 

[beorhthelm]

Of the people who supposedly died of Covid yesterday, seven hadn’t been tested for it but they put it on the death certificate anyway.

its called clinical diagnosis. doctor or medical professional can diagnose from symptoms before death illnesses someone had. and yeah, sometimes they might be wrong, but there is no incentive to mis-diagnose deliberatly. i'd be more worried about them under-reporting to keep some family, home, venue out of quarantine.

 

[Bold Seagull]

Of the people who supposedly died of Covid yesterday, seven hadn’t been tested for it but they put it on the death certificate anyway.

Equally someone who tested positive for Covid and died may not necessarily have passed because of the Covid and may have died from another underlying cause.

A certification of death does not require a positive test result because it is in the medical professional's clinical opinion what the cause of death is based on symptoms, treatments, and medical history.

 

[Poojah]

Yeah, it's a massive concern, not because these are a high-risk group - thankfully they are not, but spread is going to be rapid and will then reach other age groups from there.

There would be some logic in "letting the virus run through" those in education as, assuming some immunity would result, there'd be a sizeable chunk of the population out there acting as a firewall to future spread. Unfortunately whilst it's running through them, they'd be passing it on. And not every one of this younger group would have a favourable outcome, of course.

I have to admit, schools are my number one concern right now. They simply can't be socially distanced when at capacity, and whilst the bubble system they have in place as a containment measure is something, its effectiveness is limited nevertheless. We have two kids in different year groups at school, and so right there you effectively have a linking of two bubbles. Given the sheer number of kids who will have siblings in multiple age groups / bubbles, the system seems doomed to fail.

I picked this up from the Good News thread incidentally (the good news being that NHS triage calls have been dropping), and it's both interesting and scary that 0 - 18 year olds accounted for a very small fraction of cases, until early September - ergo when the schools went back; and then BOOM!



I don't know what the answer is. Education is so important, and I've seen my own kids miss out on so much this year already. We've been very cautious as a family since this crisis began, but with a 6 and 4 year old mixing at school the control is really taken our of your own hands. You're at the mercy of the conduct of the acquaintances of the kids' classmates.

 

[sydney]

**** me dead

total potty .....live ya life.............just my opinion

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

its called clinical diagnosis. doctor or medical professional can diagnose from symptoms before death illnesses someone had. and yeah, sometimes they might be wrong, but there is no incentive to mis-diagnose deliberatly. i'd be more worried about them under-reporting to keep some family, home, venue out of quarantine.

Exactly. That's how most deaths are signed off. An autopsy (dissection) and lab tests are done only on a tiny proportion of people who die, i.e., when death is unexpected or suspicious.

I am still hopeful that the low hospitalization rates and very low death rates in relation to diagnosed cases versus the first wave persists and the numbers are still extremely encouraging, but it is not yet certain the virus has mutated to pussy covid. In the meantime those who keep downplaying everything are getting on my nerves, implying we already know it is perfectly safe to carry on as normal without any contingency for the old and vulnerable. It very certainly isn't.

On a different tack, I work at one of the top 5 universities in the UK (meaning I work where jobs are relatively safe - if ours go then every university in the UK is ****ed) and we continue to be urged to provide some hours of face to face teaching a week. The imperative is exclusively to mitigate against students asking to defer or asking for their money (fees) back. I think it is madness for every reason:

1. There is no point making students return to halls and digs if 90% of teaching is online. As we see in Scotland today, this simply creates hundreds of new Covid cases.
2. Small group teaching is the easiest to do via Teams, but we are being urged (some of us pressured inappropriately) to do small group teaching face to face, just because we can. But we still have to travel by bus and tube to get together to do the small group teaching. Doing this would be the only reason for having most of the students (who are back on campus) back on campus
3. There is no point inventing new types of teaching such as extra tutorials and quizzes simply to justify asking students to attend. Yet we are.
4. We can't run normal lectures or lab practicals and maintain social distancing, period, so there is in fact no educational reason to call the students back as everything that is being delivered is being or could be delivered online.
5. The social reason for being at uni, the going to student bars, joining clubs, doing sports etc is gone at the moment, as none of these fun things are possible. So students stay in their room with lessons online, and pop in a few hours a week for pointless face to face teaching.

Thus students have been encouraged to pay for accomodation, live away from home for what? For most students, nothing is currently available that couldn't have been done online. And it is being mooted that they will be made to stay in digs and halls over Christmas if numbers are still high? That's fair. Not.

I had a teams meeting with a tutee yesterday who is in a hall of residence, rammed with students, with the first years larking about and making a row when she is trying to engage with teaching online.

I think that if students had stayed at home they could still have had a half decent year.

Med students, dentists and other students with a large practical or clinical components of training are an exception; I have no idea how we are going to teach those doing clinical training. Ironically we used to do only lecture teaching (plus tutorials) for the first 2 years of med school (so-called phase 1 and phase 2). After that (phase 3) it was all hospital training with patients, in very small groups. Then a few years ago someone had the great idea to integrate clinical training into phase 1 and 2, so all med students now must be on campus to see a few patients from year 1 owing to this 'blended' training. Genius .

If it all now goes bad owing to this tomfoolery, I can see a clamour for fee reimburements. It is not too much of a stretch for students to claim they are being missold a lie that 'we will make every effort to ensure the standards of training and education are maintained'. I have been told that we must maintain this official line or risk loss of income (from HMG) and jobs. I am being told this is not a lie or misrepresentation since we do not yet know that the standards will fall this semester. Indeed, the Albion do not yet know our attacking potency would fall if we replaced Maupay with Mackail-Smith. However, this is not an experiment I'd fancy undertaking.

Absolute madness.

I do hope those parents who could do so have managed to get their kids to defer with a guaranteed place next year.

 

[Bozza]

I am still hopeful that the low hospitalization rates and very low death rates in relation to diagnosed cases versus the first wave persists and the numbers are still extremely encouraging.

We can't do any meaningful comparisons on ratios of cases v hospitalisations/deaths, then and now.

Earlier on this year testing capacity was very low and, essentially, we were only testing sick people in and around hospitals and care homes for quite a long time. Estimates of actual positive cases back then are in the 80-100k per day range.

However, t's undoubtedly the case that fewer people will die this time round, relative to last time round, for the same number of infections (actual infections, the number of which we'll never know) as we have six months more experience and knowledge and have found that some drugs we already have help produce better outcomes for the most sick.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

We can't do any meaningful comparisons on ratios of cases v hospitalisations/deaths, then and now.

Earlier on this year testing capacity was very low and, essentially, we were only testing sick people in and around hospitals and care homes for quite a long time. Estimates of actual positive cases back then are in the 80-100k per day range.

However, t's undoubtedly the case that fewer people will die this time round, relative to last time round, for the same number of infections (actual infections, the number of which we'll never know) as we have six months more experience and knowledge and have found that some drugs we already have help produce better outcomes for the most sick.

Fair enough. However we can look at hospitalizations. Very low still. Going up a bit but very low.

All the best

 

[darkwolf666]

its called clinical diagnosis. doctor or medical professional can diagnose from symptoms before death illnesses someone had. and yeah, sometimes they might be wrong, but there is no incentive to mis-diagnose deliberatly. i'd be more worried about them under-reporting to keep some family, home, venue out of quarantine.

This covers it...

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/877302/guidance-for-doctors-completing-medical-certificates-of-cause-of-death-covid-19.pdf

 

[Bozza]

Fair enough. However we can look at hospitalizations. Very low still. Going up a bit but very low.

All the best

Sorry - that suggests I'd been a bit blunt, which wasn't intentional - I'm just tired!

The virus may have mutated, but the things I've seen suggest that's not the case in any way - I posted a link to an article that detailed the analysis done a day or two back. Maybe it's semantics, as they certainly agreed that the virus had changed, but not in any significant way at all and its characteristics were still as they've always been and we have to treat it as such.

It raises an interesting point as to what metrics we could use for a comparison then v now. Maybe the ration of deaths to hospitalisations. If I could be arsed I'd go and drag up some data and see what it looks like.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Sorry - that suggests I'd been a bit blunt, which wasn't intentional - I'm just tired!

The virus may have mutated, but the things I've seen suggest that's not the case in any way - I posted a link to an article that detailed the analysis done a day or two back. Maybe it's semantics, as they certainly agreed that the virus had changed, but not in any significant way at all and its characteristics were still as they've always been and we have to treat it as such.

It raises an interesting point as to what metrics we could use for a comparison then v now. Maybe the ration of deaths to hospitalisations. If I could be arsed I'd go and drag up some data and see what it looks like.

S'OK

Deaths to hospitalizations is probs the best way to compare then vs now. I did see your link, and I did some digging, and feel it is too early to say (mutation) but there is hope (in 2 weeks it may be clearer). Can but hope.

Al the best, my friend.

 

[Albion Dan]

Wise words. Keep those minds open.

 

[bWize]

Live protests going off in Trafalgar square and Hyde park... Police have been brutal at times. Again no coverage from BBC etc

 

[Albion Dan]

Live protests going off in Trafalgar square and Hyde park... Police have been brutal at times. Again no coverage from BBC etc

]

That can’t be right at all media outlets like the BBC aren’t biased at all and give fair representation to all newsworthy events.