Covid-19 the second wave.

[PhilBrew]

I always wondered how they associated blame to where the person contracted covid.

I think it's a mathematical modeling thing, you know - ask all those who test positive where they have been for the last two weeks or whatever, collate all the data and look at patterns. Might be wrong.

... I think you're right, but the problem is that the means of asking "all those who test positive" is the (agreed by just about everyone to be fundamentally flawed) "test, trace and isolate" system ... as far as I understand it, when a contact tracer contacts someone who has recently tested positive for COVID-19 what they will ask about is times/places where you've spent more than 15 minutes with anyone ... So, since the whole system of gathering data is discounting the "casual" interactions that those who have the virus have had with all sorts of other people, and only accounting for those "longer term" (social) interactions, guess what? People mixing with friends and family, either at home or in entertainment venues, will end up being the "main" way that the disease gets recorded as being transmitted

As an example, I could spend a whole afternoon, wandering around a town, going into different shops interacting with handfuls of people in those shops and passing dozens of people in streets moving around the town, but as far as the contact tracers (and the data of how/where the virus is spreading) is concerned, only the half an hour I spent sitting in a Costa/pub/whatever will be of interest

Cheers PhilB

 

[Covrich]

5 live reporting people queuing at hairdressers and opticians and many are staying open until midnight, its 4 weeks FFS.

OPticians are staying open

 

[Covrich]

https://www.lincolnshirelive.co.uk/news/local-news/aldi-lockdown-panic-buying-lincoln-4663716

Straight to the Gallows!!

 

[Rodcx500z]

Dominic must need an eye test on ride about

 

[An Ankoù]

https://www.lincolnshirelive.co.uk/news/local-news/aldi-lockdown-panic-buying-lincoln-4663716

Straight to the Gallows!!

Maybe he was has an Italian restaurant and is planning takeaways of spag bol and risotto.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Sunak to extend furlough scheme to end of March

The furlough scheme will be extended across the UK until the end of March, chancellor Rishi Sunak has confirmed.
Mr Sunak said the scheme will pay up to 80% of a person's wage up to £2,500 a month. He told the Commons that the government will review the policy in January.
The chancellor said his intention was "to give businesses security through the winter".
"The security we are providing will protect millions of jobs," he added.
The furlough scheme subsidises the wages of people who cannot do their jobs, either because their workplace is closed, or because there is no longer enough work for them.
Mr Sunak said it would apply throughout the UK, saying the country had "a Treasury for the whole of the United Kingdom".
As part of the revised scheme, anyone made redundant after 23 September can be rehired and put back on furlough.

More support
Mr Sunak also announced billions of pounds of other support for the economy, including more money for self-employed people.
Support through the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) will be increased, with the third grant covering November to January calculated at 80% of average trading profits, up to a maximum of £7,500.
At the same time, the chancellor raised guaranteed funding for the UK's devolved administrations by £2bn to £16bn.
But, many people will remain ineligible for help, including the newly self-employed, those whose pay themselves in dividends, freelancers, and sole traders who previously had a trading profit of more than £50,000.


'Ridiculed'
Shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds accused Mr Sunak of ignoring objections to the government's measures "until the last possible moment".
She pointed out that he had previously "ridiculed" a furlough extension as "a blunt instrument".
But Mr Sunak defended his rapid change of policy, saying: "It is not a weakness to be fast-moving in a crisis, but rather a strength."

Full article - Sunak to extend furlough scheme to end of March

 

[Cheshire Cat]

More U turns than a Swiss mountain road

 

[Chippy_Tea]

More U turns than a Swiss mountain road

I don't mind the government U turns it shows they are willing to listen and admit they got the original decision wrong (even if they don't actually say it in public) rather that than a government unwillling to listen and too stubborn to change.

 

[lupinehorror]

i have worked through all of it (from home) but 90% of others in my department were on furlough for 5 months (with 100% pay not 80%) but recently that 90% were being told to apply for secondment positions (again, i was not). while i'm lucky to have been able to work through it, and avoid secondment, i'm glad to hear this announcement today.

 

[Leon103]

Most will know how to take care of themselves and should know the virus is still out there. To be honest around where I lived it was the elderly that didn't seem to care about the first lockdown. A neighbour had a letter from her gp to isolate and came over to tell is and said it must have been a mistake, which it wasn't. Her and her husband were out everyday and still ate despite being back in lockdown

So the above couple I have referred to have been told to self isolate via track and trace after vising another neighbour who came out of hospital with Covid. But do you think they have listened? No, today alone I have seem them out talking to a neighbour, talking to their grandson and his work colleague, and going out for a walk. Don't want to wish ill on people but I hope they catch it.

 

[Covrich]

Makes me wonder if they are provisioning for potential lockdown all the way until end of flu season.

As someone in his 30s I am not going against it but I do wonder how we are supposed to pay for all of this.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

As someone in his 30s I am not going against it but I do wonder how we are supposed to pay for all of this.

The problem is 80% of minimum wage is not going to pay the bills and you can bet most of the jobs that are going to be furloughed again will be minimum wage or very low paid ones, these people are going to get themselves into debt as they are unlikely to have savings and they will be stuck in debt for years i guess that's better than losing your job altogether but i feel heartily sorry for them.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Makes me wonder if they are provisioning for potential lockdown all the way until end of flu season.

I haven a feeling its inevitable.

 

[lupinehorror]

The problem is 80% of minimum wage is not going to pay the bills and you can bet most of the jobs that are going to be furloughed again will be minimum wage or very low paid ones, these people are going to get themselves into debt as they are unlikely to have savings and they will be stuck in debt for years i guess that's better than losing your job altogether but i feel heartily sorry for them.

can't 'Like' this but i totally agree.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

When i read this it made me realise how lucky my family have been we are all key workers and have carried on working throughout the lockdowns, my portents and in laws are in their 80's and have basically hidden in their houses for 6 months and have so far avoided it, when you read something like this it really does bring it home how lucky most of us have been.



"People don't think this is going to happen to them, but look at our family," Mrs Lewis said

A man's wife and two sons have died in the space of five days after testing positive for Covid-19.

David Lewis, 81, from Pentre, Rhondda Cynon Taf, lost his wife Gladys, 74, on Thursday, and sons Dean, 44, the next day and Darren, 42, on Monday.

All of them lived in the same block of flats in Treorchy. Other family members are now isolating.

Dean's widow, Claire Lewis, said the family were struggling to come to terms with what had happened.

The family, she said, had been careful to avoid catching Covid-19 because of Gladys and her husband David's age and because Darren had Down's syndrome.

Mrs Lewis said she did not understand how they had caught the virus.



The 44-year-old, from Treorchy, said: "We are totally devastated, all of us. My father-in-law is broken, he has lost his wife and his two children.

"He keeps on saying to us, 'It should have been me, it should have been me'.

"It's so difficult to try and help him, and hold me and my children together, because my children are absolutely devastated, and my sister-in-law is.

"She just she does not know what to do with herself, she is the baby of the family and she has lost her big brothers."



She said her mother-in-law Gladys would do "anything for anyone".

"To think she is not going to be there anymore is almost heart-breaking," she said.

Mrs Lewis, who has three children, warned people thought Covid-19 was "a big joke".

"People need to wise up," she said.

She added being in isolation made coping "so difficult".



Mrs Lewis and her youngest son, 12, have tested positive for the virus and she is waiting on results for her eldest children, 14 and 19.

"People don't think this is going to happen to them, but look at our family," Mrs Lewis said.

A GoFundMe page has raised more than £5,000 for the family since being started four days ago.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-54828574

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Toms got it nailed -

 

[dad_of_jon]

Toms got it nailed -

 

[simon12]

Does anyone else see a contradiction between the daily growth rate of +2% - +4% and the weekly positives -1.3%

 

[simon12]

Looks like the government have now admitted the numbers they published to justify lockdown were all wrong (as they obviously were) and everything was stabilising well before. I have no idea whats going on as I don't believe anyone wants a lockdown but I also don't believe anyone with a true sense of anything thinks we need one and if we did/do it needed to be 2 weeks earlier when cases were going up not when they have stabilised.

 

[Covrich]

False dawn or a real hope in sight?




From the Beeb

___________________________

The first effective coronavirus vaccine can prevent more than 90% of people from getting Covid-19, a preliminary analysis shows.
The developers - Pfizer and BioNTech - described it as a "great day for science and humanity".
Their vaccine has been tested on 43,500 people in six countries and no safety concerns have been raised.
The companies plan to apply for emergency approval to use the vaccine by the end of the month.
There are still huge challenges ahead, but the announcement has been warmly welcomed with scientists describing themselves smiling "ear to ear" and some suggesting life could be back to normal by spring.
"I am probably the first guy to say that, but I will say that with some confidence," said Sir John Bell, regius professor of medicine at Oxford University.

• Stock markets soar on Pfizer Covid vaccine news

A vaccine - alongside better treatments - is seen as the best way of getting out of the restrictions that have been imposed on all our lives.
There are around a dozen in the final stages of testing - known as a phase 3 trial - but this is the first to show any results.
It uses a completely experimental approach - that involves injecting part of the virus's genetic code - in order to train the immune system.
Previous trials have shown the vaccine trains the body to make both antibodies - and another part of the immune system called T-cells to fight the coronavirus.
Two doses, three weeks apart, are needed. The trials - in US, Germany, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa and Turkey - show 90% protection is achieved seven days after the second dose.
Pfizer believes it will be able to supply 50 million doses by the end of this year, and around 1.3 billion by the end of 2021.
The UK should get 10 million doses by the end of the year, with a further 30 million doses already ordered.
However there are logistical challenges, as the vaccine has to be kept in ultra-cold storage at below minus 80C.