COVID19

[TightEnd]

PM confirms three-tier system on local lockdowns:

TIER 1: Rule of Six and 10pm curfew
TIER 2: All indoor household mixing banned but permitted outdoors incl in private gardens
TIER 3: All household mixing banned and pubs/bars closed

a test and trace system that does not work has them, and by extension us, in a right bind ahead of the winter

Full national lockdown craters the economy again, and all the mental health problems we are aware of. Not possible to "let it rip" as eventuAlly it will move from those who can deal with it to the vulnerable/shielding

Anyone got any suggestions?

[StuartHopkin]

PM confirms three-tier system on local lockdowns:

TIER 1: Rule of Six and 10pm curfew
TIER 2: All indoor household mixing banned but permitted outdoors incl in private gardens
TIER 3: All household mixing banned and pubs/bars closed

a test and trace system that does not work has them, and by extension us, in a right bind ahead of the winter

Full national lockdown craters the economy again, and all the mental health problems we are aware of. Not possible to "let it rip" as eventuAlly it will move from those who can deal with it to the vulnerable/shielding

Anyone got any suggestions?

They have to let it rip, all this is pointless and doesn't match the hospitalisations or deaths.
On and off restrictions, with messy unclear rules, cant continue for the next 18 months, people are going to follow them less and less.
There should be sensible rules that are to be followed but apart from that all businesses resume as normal.

All of the resources and funds that are being used to fund these hospitality closures and test and trace improvements should be ploughed into protecting the vulnerable.

[nirvana]

Really interesting stats today. Cornwall was heaving over the last few months - loads of tourism, most hospitality businesses full and covid secure, full supermarkets, shops open.

Net result of all that seems to be cases are falling.

Uni's and schools go back and naturally, cases are rising.

All schools and Unis should close and all pubs, businesses and restaurants should be open if having lower cases and fewer over 80s dying is the name of the game.

[Marky147]

I'm going to carry on as I have for the last few months, since we came out of lockdown.

Live as normally as I can, whilst being as sensible as I can.

Also ensuring I prod and irritate all anti-masker tinfoil hat wearing friends regularly, too.

[EvilPie]

Well if I follow the rules strictly I can't see my family any more. There are 6 of us living within half a mile of each other. Myself, mum/dad and my sister + 2 kids. Works as quite a nice little group.

Anyway, those 5 are a support bubble which means I'm not allowed to see any of them any more so technically I'm all alone. Thankfully I'm completely fine with this but I can see how for some it would be hugely detrimental to their mental health particularly after only just getting back together.

On the flip side I think I may have found a new family. There's 5 in the Hopkin household so no more visiting grand parents means there might be an opening to get myself adopted.

I've been very good following the rules but this is getting so ridiculous I'm more than happy to use this loophole if it means we can still have a curry on a Wednesday night.

[Doobs]

Letting it rip amongst the youngsters doesn't really work.

Suppose you split the population half young and half old, and the oldies all hide and the youngsters all have Covid parties for 3 months.  Assuming that you can separate us oldies from our kids perfectly, then we might get 70% infections amongst them and maybe only 10s of thousands of deaths, and that age group might have herd immunity (assumes we can ignore long Covid, possible reinfections and any damage to their bodies that may appear in future years). 

Then  we release all the oldies and vulnerable and there is still no immunity in that group, so when me and my mates play poker any my mum goes down the church, we are just as vulnerable as we were before as there is no herd immunity in our age group.

FWIW The cases were already increasing before the schools went back nirvana. 



There were about 400-600 UK cases per day back around the 4 July (about 400 on the 4 July).  By 1 September they were up to 2,200 and by the time my kids went back on the 7 September there were close to 4,000.   Obviously pubs and schools are going to be both part of the increases, but it seems obvious if your plan is to keep cases low then you need to be nearer to full lockdown than where we are now.  FWIW Both kids schools have a Covid case or cases now, which always seemed inevitable. 

[the sicilian]

Letting it rip amongst the youngsters doesn't really work.

Suppose you split the population half young and half old, and the oldies all hide and the youngsters all have Covid parties for 3 months.  Assuming that you can separate us oldies from our kids perfectly, then we might get 70% infections amongst them and maybe only 10s of thousands of deaths, and that age group might have herd immunity (assumes we can ignore long Covid, possible reinfections and any damage to their bodies that may appear in future years). 

Then  we release all the oldies and vulnerable and there is still no immunity in that group, so when me and my mates play poker any my mum goes down the church, we are just as vulnerable as we were before as there is no herd immunity in our age group.

FWIW The cases were already increasing before the schools went back nirvana. 



There were about 400-600 UK cases per day back around the 4 July (about 400 on the 4 July).  By 1 September they were up to 2,200 and by the time my kids went back on the 7 September there were close to 4,000.   Obviously pubs and schools are going to be both part of the increases, but it seems obvious if your plan is to keep cases low then you need to be nearer to full lockdown than where we are now.  FWIW Both kids schools have a Covid case or cases now, which always seemed inevitable. 

Hold on where do you get tens of thousands of deaths amongst the young and healthy.. thats nonsense the evidence that under 40 there are literally no deaths..

Since the very start only 240 under 40 have died and literally all had serious underlying issues..its that kind of scare mongering talk that gets everyone hiding under their bed.

Thousands of students have been diagnosed recently..has a single one of them died

I checked the official nhs stats last week for the previous two weeks .. 263 deaths attributed to covid.. only 7 under 60 none under 40 and going back nearly all deaths were 60 plus

All this is turning into a farce.. in a free society this in and out of lockdown can never possibly work and you are basically pinning all your hope on a vaccine that may or may not come.

If you herd immunity a large amount of the population they cant then infect the vulnerable if they have had it etc

Logically this is the only possible answer.. as apart from a vaccine you have no exit plan at all. Thats what we need to look at... the end game not this endless tail chasing.

This obsession with infection rates is ridiculous.. its not correlating with death rates as it was. I spoke to a friend whose a nurse and was on the front line during the initial lockdown and she is of the opinion that this could mean that as harsh as it may seem that natural selection has occurred and that the very vulnerable and weak who were likely to unable to fight any kind of infection have now died.

[RickBFA]

No idea what the answer is, other than a successful vaccine.

I was going to ask the same question to Doobs. Ten’s of thousands of deaths in the young ? Really ?

[TightEnd]

SAGE said on Sept 21 that the £10 billion Test And Trace system is only having a “marginal impact on transmission” because of a “relatively low level of engagement” and will “likely decline in future” without more resources and overhaul

the meeting minutes are a depressing read. It implies pressing for a two week circuit breaker national lockd0wn, that we now know Sunak vetoed. Whitty then in last night's press conference said tier 3 would not work without further measures by local councils, who in some cases are not on board with it anyway!

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/925854/S0769_Summary_of_effectiveness_and_harms_of_NPIs.pdf

[TightEnd]

meanwhile the crony stories continue. Test and trace, privatisation of it to unsuitable mates, surely going to be one of the big scandals of this whole thing when we look back

(accepting that the source is not unbiased)

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-investigations/government-accused-of-cronyism-after-tory-councillor-wins-156m-covid-contract/

[StuartHopkin]

SAGE said on Sept 21 that the £10 billion Test And Trace system is only having a “marginal impact on transmission” because of a “relatively low level of engagement” and will “likely decline in future” without more resources and overhaul

the meeting minutes are a depressing read. It implies pressing for a two week circuit breaker national lockd0wn, that we now know Sunak vetoed. Whitty then in last night's press conference said tier 3 would not work without further measures by local councils, who in some cases are not on board with it anyway!

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/925854/S0769_Summary_of_effectiveness_and_harms_of_NPIs.pdf

But we also know that a two week circuit breaker national lock down would not work.

[StuartHopkin]

meanwhile the crony stories continue. Test and trace, privatisation of it to unsuitable mates, surely going to be one of the big scandals of this whole thing when we look back

(accepting that the source is not unbiased)

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-investigations/government-accused-of-cronyism-after-tory-councillor-wins-156m-covid-contract/

It will be interesting to see if any of these 'connected' companies bypassed the main procurement process.

I believe we were considered for the contract mentioned in that article.

We were told that they were nervous about awarding us a second contract, forwarding us another large deposit, before we had made the first delivery on the first contract. Then it went very quiet and gowns were no longer on their buy list.

[TightEnd]

please read the section talking about it

bottom of page 4

[StuartHopkin]

please read the section talking about it

bottom of page 4

Yep, it delays it for 28 days but doesn't fix anything does it?

You would have to do one of these every other month?

And for it to be as effective as the first you would have to stop the majority of people going to work, and close schools again?

I just don't buy that a circuit breaker is a great fix, and the tier system is a terrible fix. Neither of them are a fix, they both just delay the inevitable and currently the hospitals are not overwhelmed and the deaths are not rising in line with the first wave.

[TightEnd]

it buys time. as the March one did

that time can get the Northern nightingale hospitals online ahead of the winter, for example

Of course, if the government is going to waste that time, or fail to execute with the time given to them by lockdowns as it did in the Summer, then any lasting impact is of course lacking

Without a vaccine or an effective test and trace (in NZ they had a small outbreak from people flying into the country, and traced the transmission source to a hotel lift button!), then this is life for the foreseeable future isn't it?