Coronavirus - worldwide spread and control

But by that argument the change in testing numbers means the data are valueless so we have to assume nothing.
It merely emphasises that we have no organised strategy.
GPs do not have data on their patients. Nobody knows what these figures mean for local spread. It bears no relation to competent ongoing epidemiology. `

As I said before, in medicine we plan on the basis of the worst reasonably likely situation , not the most likely situation.

I am also puzzled by the fact that the curve really does look flat. If increases in testing were involved then there should be obvious step changes at some point or at least some odd contours.

 

Yeah, NZ is talking about significant reopening soon, too. The first easing from level 4 to level 3 restrictions was quite small and cautious - we're currently still in level 3 - but the next one down to level 2 will be a much bigger jump. At least the borders will stay closed. Still, makes me a bit nervous, not convinced our contact tracing ability is that great yet. Can only hope that our current community transmission truly is as low as they think it is, in which case we might just get away with it.

 

This is an interesting take on the various strategies taken against corona spread, based on something the author calls 'catch rate', basically a measure of how many people in the community you have to test to find an infected case.

https://videnskab.dk/kultur-samfund/er-danmark-og-europa-ved-at-teste-sig-ud-af-corona-krisen
https://translate.google.com/transl...g-europa-ved-at-teste-sig-ud-af-corona-krisen

 

It may be the case, but the number of cases also clearly hasn’t fallen significantly enough to be able to actually ease lockdown, re open and do contact tracing (as an earlier guardian article said - need case numbers to be very low to do contact tracing).

Also, the figure they’re giving still isn’t the “true” figure, because testing still isn’t being done widely in the community. We have been told cases in hospitals have peaked as they have been falling in the past week, but the number of healthcare workers are increasing (From a guardian article before). We have been told care home deaths are high but care home workers and residents aren’t being properly tested. Also it’s only recently that “community testing” was even introduced, ie “frontline” health workers, and it’s been difficult for them to obtain tests as the online system wasn’t working very well.

So the number of cases may actually be rising in certain populations (care workers, care home residents, other sections of community, and that seems to be the case in the guardian article, even from the “true” figures), and we don’t have an accurate record of that. Lewis Goodall was on newsnight 2 days ago saying care homes are a real problem at the moment.

Also note that the number of tests have fallen from 122,000 down to 69,463 (on 5 May), only around 50,000 actual people tested.

Devi Sridhar was on Newsnight 2 days ago, Saying we are still not testing widely enough - that if you’re getting around 2% of all the tests you do are positives - you’re doing well. If it’s around 2-5%, you’re ok. And if it’s 8-10%, you are in real trouble, which is where the U.K. is, at 6,111 positive cases on 5 May (the number new cases that day has increased from what I said before, don’t know why?).

 

That's one of the most interesting and informative articles I've read to date. Thanks for posting it.

 

China eased restrictions after a few months but it was only because they actually got cases down so much, and they had a strict lockdown with isolating of mild cases as well as more severe cases, contact tracing in place, so when lockdown opened they are able to keep on top of it - basically what we were all supposed to be doing as per the WHO but didn’t do. So we can’t even compare our timelines to China tbh. And in the places in China where cases have come back up, like Harbin, the restrictions have gone back up again.

What is it that the U.K., USA, hope to achieve? It’s clear in the number of new cases coming in every day that we still have a lot of new cases, and we don’t even have proper contact tracing to trace thousands of new cases every day! Many thousands are still coming in from abroad without quarantine. We are still not testing people in the community - like you and me - unless you happen to be a “frontline workers”. There are still big issues with PPE. Things will get worse the more you ease at this point. Yet they’re starting anyway with a phased plan to get things back to normal.

What do they expect to happen then? For cases to fall? Or what? I don’t get how short sighted some countries are being and why they seem to have put a time limit on lockdown or restrictions, regardless of what is actually going on, on the ground. And to make matters worse, not to use that time to build up proper community based structures for testing and tracing or monitoring.

 

And not forgetting that it is certain sections of society who are disproportionately affected, and who will be affected further when lockdown is eased.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1258314493140111361


https://twitter.com/user/status/1258317719058997248

 

If we had testing of everyone who was symptomatic; plus contact tracing for all confirmed/suspected cases (e.g. symptomatic but not positive on 1st test) then presumably we would have a strategy --- roughly North Korea's (successful) approach. It seems relatively simple e.g. even if you cannot diagnose using (PCR - virus) test then diagnose via symptoms. It looks like a logistics problem and others have highlighted that the army are good at that sort of thing. Meanwhile the UK falls further behind other countries --- New Zealand, Australia, Germany ---.

 

The UK has the NHS, which is devolved in countries which are not England.

It is possibly a matter of curiosity as to why the death rate as a proportion of tested infected hospital cases would appear to be roughly double in England (2% roughly) than in the rest of the UK (1% roughly).

It would appear that the NHS in England is losing twice as many CV-19 patients as the NHS in other parts in the UK, despite assurances that at no point has it been 'over run' and that it has spare capacity in the order of 40% ATM (I can't give a quote, it was in the briefing last week or so)

So, the NHS may be 'the best health service in the world, envied by all' (paraphrasing), but it seems this may not be so if you're in England, and have Covid-19.

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/#countries

If you're 'planning' to catch it it might be an idea to do so somewhere that is not in England.

 

I'm completely out of touch. I find it hard to take things in these days and my memory sucks when it comes to new information.

Can anyone give me a link which answers the following questions?

What are the tests being touted by the UK government? Are they :

Tests for evidence of past infection with covid-19?
Tests for current infection?
Tests for antibodies?

How reliable are the tests? Chances of false positive? Chances of false negative?

 

Another Covd-19 article by Dr Hammond, which seems to be a little muddled. On the one hand he says he will “never understand” why we stopped testing, tracing and isolating (ie suppression strategy) and then he says we are now stuck with “staged herd immunity” (ie mitigation strategy). But we’re not stuck with it. We still have a choice. And most independent scientists seem to support suppression until a vaccine and/or effective treatments can be developed. If Dr Hammond thinks mitigation was a mistake before, why does he seem to think we have no choice but to pursue it now?

 

Govt have been talking about PCR (current infection) and antibody tests (supposed to measure if you’ve had past infection).

Antibody tests aren’t yet available on the nhs in the U.K. because they’re not certified yet for use. (I notice some private labs are selling them though).the world health organisation has warned that positive antibody tests don’t necessarily mean that someone is immune - we don’t know how long they’re immune for, there may be false positives and false negatives. The New York Times has a few good articles on antibody testing: https://www.nytimes.com/article/antibody-test-coronavirus.html

the 100,000 a day figure and the “ramping up” testing target is (so far) only about the PCR tests, as the antibody tests aren’t being used yet - this is testing to see if you have current infections. That’s what people are being tested for now on the NHS and in mobile centres.

 

Absolutely. I'd assume the true number of new cases is still much higher than the reported figure. I'm not defending government policies or testing!

Pretty worthless, yeah. I thought that's what people have been assuming about the 'new cases' data, and that's why there's much more interest in deaths (which also has it's own problems).

There has been a big increase in testing, so doesn't the steady number of positive results indicate that either i) the increase in testing means a higher proportion of declining new cases are getting positive results or ii) the number of new cases is stable, and we were so effectively identifying who should be tested that the increase in testing is just being wasted on people who don't have the virus? The latter seems pretty unlikely.

 

Thanks for that information @lunarainbows

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...sters-warning-of-care-home-coronavirus-crisis

 

Oense om karantän: ”Viss spridning är acceptabel
https://www.svd.se/oense-om-karantan-viss-spridning-ar-acceptabel

It makes me so angry to read statements from this man, or any Swedish news about COVID-19 for that matter.

It might not be possible to stop it completely, but it might also work. Look at countries like South Korea, Island, New Zealand etc.
One can certainly aim for zero spread and implement strategies to that end if one wanted to.

The goal for traffic related deaths for example, is zero, yet that is never reached.

 

I think the bit I bracket out may be non sequitur. I strongly suspect that the vast majority of extra tests are on health care workers who are pretty unlikely to have Covid19 on the day tested. So testing vastly more people is not actually finding any more cases. Health care workers who got the virus were probably being tested before anyway. Others who have the virus are not being tested any more than before - just when they pitch up at hospital sick.

 

Professor in Economics
Comparison of U.K. and other European countries

https://twitter.com/user/status/1258150673474031621


https://twitter.com/user/status/1258367266976129025