Coronavirus - worldwide spread and control

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I am very concerned that as I suspected, England is still following mitigation (and herd immunity) rather than suppression.

1. in the guardian article above, scientists say contact tracing will only catch 15% of cases

2. We currently have an estimated 8000 cases a day but only about ~2000 of them are being picked up through testing. (Even with apparently “ramped up” testing and the actual number of people tested has been unavailable for nearly a week now.) Why is this? And if only 1/4 of cases are being picked up, only 1/4 will be contact traced at the most.. what happens to the rest? They keep spreading the virus / their contacts and they will never know they’ve been infected? How can elimination ever happen under these circumstances?

I think it would be easy to get back into exponential growth in these circumstances.

Edit: not U.K. I mean England.
Scotland & Wales are very much making their own (much better) decisions.
 
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The problem with 'shielding' people from coronavirus? It's almost impossible
Devi Sridhar and Yasmin Rafiei
Testing and tracing is the answer to protecting our most vulnerable – not trying in vain to ‘cocoon’ them away
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As western countries ease lockdown, suggestions have been made for those being shielded to stay “cocooned” away indefinitely until a vaccine or antiviral therapy is found or natural herd immunity is reached. What we suggest instead is a general strategy of suppression, where governments make a commitment to keeping daily new cases as low as possible through an active testing-and-tracing programme and real-time monitoring of transmission.

At the same time, the government should advise those in “shielded groups” about their individual risk, as well as provide them with data about transmission within their communities, and then leave these individuals to make an informed decision about how and when they would like to engage in society.

For a government to pursue shielding alone, with its proven inefficacies and intrinsic harms, would be nothing but an Orwellian strategy – one that presides over the fates of those at greatest risk, against all evidence. There are serious ethical and moral questions around building a society where the healthy and young are left to circulate, and the elderly, the disabled and the vulnerable are hidden away.
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https://www.theguardian.com/comment...ng-impossible-coronavirus-testing-and-tracing
 
lunarainbows said:
We currently have an estimated 8000 cases a day but only about ~2000 of them are being picked up through testing. (Even with apparently “ramped up” testing and the actual number of people tested has been unavailable for nearly a week now.)
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And if all these tests have been rolled out, then why isn't the number of infections generally still on the way up? Are we really supposed to believe that virtually all the tests which have been carried out have turned out negative?

I wouldn't usually quote the Daily Mail as an authority, but this article stating that 18 UK councils haven't even seen their first peak yet gives cause for concern in view of the lockdown measures already being relaxed (all 18 are listed, in case you are concerned):

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coron...eing-eased/ar-BB14JDgW?li=BBoPWjQ&ocid=ASUDHP

I really can't see how we can fail to have another sharp rise in London - where rates have been steady recently - if my local area is anything to go by: myself excluded, the proportions of people wearing masks on buses this week in my experience has been a maximum of 50%, ranging down to 20% in one case and even 0% in another. This despite us being advised, or even instructed, to wear face coverings on public transport in London to restrict any possible spread. It needs to be made totally unacceptable NOT to wear a face covering on public transport
 
Government publishes SAGE minutes
The Government Office for Science has today (Friday 29 May) published the minutes from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) meetings 1 to 34, up until the beginning of May.
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https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-publishes-sage-minutes

You can find the SAGE minutes here:
https://www.gov.uk/search/transparency-and-freedom-of-information-releases?organisations[]=scientific-advisory-group-for-emergencies&parent=scientific-advisory-group-for-emergencies

The Guardian has written this summary of the minutes:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...how-uk-advisers-reacted-to-coronavirus-crisis
 
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Jonathan Edwards said:
The current advisors should be sacked. Whether they will be or not is another matter.
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I just came across this earlier tweet from Anthony Costello:



I can’t understand why there haven’t been more calls like this for these advisors to resign or be sacked. They have proven to be dangerously incompetent. Isn’t it a scandal that they still in charge?
 
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lunarainbows said:
This is the article I’ve been waiting for someone to write. I wanted to know why Sweden has been able to get away with herd immunity while in the U.K., there has been a public outcry
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I, too, would really like to know... Here are some relevant quotes from a couple of recent news articles:
TT Google Translate said:
Risk of domino effect when fewer follow the advice

Sweden's corona strategy works because of social pressure and the willingness to follow norms. But it is a fragile system - which risks collapsing completely if more people start to relax, according to philosophy professor Erik Angner. [...]

But norms are very fragile. The more people stop following them and show that there is another way to go - the greater the likelihood that you will too. And lately, the alarm has been getting louder that the Swedes have started to relax and stop following the advice of the Public Health Authority.

- It can have a very big effect. The more you talk about people not following the norm, the more you send the signal that there are very many who do not.

So the risk is that it will have a domino effect, the more the media and the authorities notice that people do not follow the advice - the more people can catch on. Therefore, it is important to emphasize that the majority of Swedes actually adhere to the rules, says Erik Angner. [...]

What is it that makes Sweden's voluntary strategy work, while other countries have had to resort to hard closures and legal means?

- It's not that Swedes are better than other people. However, we have a tradition of following norms and, in addition, generally high confidence in the authorities. It has helped in this case, says Erik Angner.

Tighter restrictions, on the contrary, can create irritation and push away the natural instinct to follow norms - which gives the opposite effect, he says.

- Strict laws and regulations could have dramatically negative effects, so I hope that the government does not introduce that.
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https://tt.omni.se/risk-for-dominoeffekt-nar-farre-foljer-raden/a/3Jy0yM

Expressen Google Translate said:
Confidence in government plunges: "A new signal"

Since the beginning of the corona pandemic, Sifo the opinion and social research company has published weekly measurements of the Swedes' confidence in government, responsible authorities and healthcare.

Early in the crisis, the population joined up with both the government and the Public Health Authority. The support for the government, which has previously been around 30 per cent, doubled. At the same time, as many as 80 percent had confidence in the expert authority with state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell at the forefront.

Now Sifo is seeing a clear decline for the first time. [...]

In the survey, which was carried out between May 21 and May 27, support for the government falls from 59 percent to 48 percent - a drop of eleven percentage points. [...] Toivo Sjögrén believes that the debate that has arisen about the elderly care, high death rates, tests and Sweden's strategy has affected. [...]

Confidence in the Public Health Authority is also reversed in the new survey. The support for the authority lands at 70 percent, compared to last week's 78 percent.
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https://www.expressen.se/nyheter/fortroendet-for-regeringen-stortdyker-en-ny-signal/
 
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JaneL said:
I just came across this earlier tweet from Anthony Costello:


I can’t understand why there haven’t been more calls like this for these advisors to resign or be sacked. They have proven to be dangerously incompetent. Isn’t it a scandal that they still in charge?
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I note that the quote from me in that post is from March 15 when I predicted that the UK government would fall in line with lockdown within a week or so. Which they did. But at some stage I also predicted that UK policy would not come to resemble anything genuinely useful until July after other countries' attempts at easing up led to surges. I think the UK government is going to have a bad June. Van Tam is already making it clear that breaches of rules are not on. And Sage seems to be on the point of mutiny generally. There will be a London surge and the teachers will refuse to co-operate. Tracing will be a fiasco to start with. So it will be July.

But I have a feeling not everything will be bad. Co2 emissions are down and maybe something nice will turn up for my 70th birthday.;)
 
I assume that every single one of those people will be fined for breach of social distancing, and arrested and charged, for behaviour likely to cause a breach of the peace (dunno about anyone else but I'd like to slap 'em - which would be a breach of the peace), affray etc.
 
Simbindi said:
I'm anticipating a surge in cases in my area as the lockdown is being loosened and tourist are flocking to beaches in the South West of England, when the local R number is close to 1 (and even above it in some areas):

https://www.somersetcountygazette.c...ns-somerset-just-1---schools-prepare-re-open/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...nts-sees-40-staff-test-positive-Covid-19.html
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There should be a 5 mile limit on travelling, like Scotland & Wales (or even less). That way outbreaks can be traced and contained within a community. What on earth is the govt thinking to allow people to travel freely to wherever they like, miles and miles away. During an epidemic, where we have 8000 cases a day which we are already not tracing/testing for. Just like when London had the outbreak first and many regions didn’t, but they decided to just allow people to freely travel anywhere they liked. :(
 
lunarainbows said:
There should be a 5 mile limit on travelling, like Scotland & Wales (or even less). That way outbreaks can be traced and contained within a community. What on earth is the govt thinking to allow people to travel freely to wherever they like, miles and miles away. During an epidemic, where we have 8000 cases a day which we are already not tracing/testing for. Just like when London had the outbreak first and many regions didn’t, but they decided to just allow people to freely travel anywhere they liked. :(
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I don't think people realise that a lot of seaside towns have major social and economic deprivation and therefore there is a substantial proportion of multi-generation households and 'houses of multiple occupation' in these areas. Weston Super Mare is a classic example (my daughter used to teach in a school there). The same is true of Torquay in Devon in particular, plus many many other coastal towns around the country. Wales and Scotland have the right approach to this issue.
 
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Well, in common with the (?)Chris Giles tweet someone linked to, maybe indirectly, I too have been struck by the increasing prevalence of ambulances in my part of South London over the past few days - and that is sightings, not just hearing them. It's only once you start seeing them again that you really register that you hadn't seen any for days. Obviously, I can't say what any of them were called out for, but my perception is certainly that there's a lot more ambulance activity, I think since about the middle of the week. And given the increasing numbers of people on public transport who seem to be entirely ignoring the instruction to wear a mask, I am certainly concerned about where we are heading. I think I shall just disregard the Government's most recent set of guidelines and carry on as before.
 
I think one of the criteria before loosening lockdown should be that sanitising hand gel is readily and cheaply available. That's certainly not the case at the moment!

I personally think that at least a significant minority of people won't be following the strict social distancing rules as they are currently set out. For the last couple of weeks whilst driving my daughter has been seeing groups of young people hanging around the streets (since the announcement was made for schools reopening) - these kids just don't feel that any of the rules applies to their age group.
 
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Could this be true? If so then it makes even less sense that countries such as the U.K. don’t seem to care about face masks. Mandatory face masks would be so important in this case.

And when they say asymptomatic, how do they know they’re not just pre symptomatic - do they follow them all up to make sure?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-with-covid-19-have-no-idea-they-are-infected

Could nearly half of those with Covid-19 have no idea they are infected?
As studies confirm many infected people show no symptoms, contact tracing and face masks assume even greater importance
 
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