Coronavirus cases stable across most of England - ONS
This is a couple of weeks old, but somehow I missed it then and found it tucked away in the Health Section of the BBC News website, I could not even find a link under the special CORONAVIRUS tab, unless i missed it. Its based on ONS stats. Its easy to miss these articles, because the News Media are always focused on the latest developments, 'new cases', and don't bother to tell us very often how many people currently have COVID-19, or how many have recovered. Anyway there it is.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53781140
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53781140
Post edited by dmsmith on
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I know someone who has just brought a new large freezer to store lots of food in. All because he believes these stories and thinks there is going to be another full lockdown again so he's stockpiling on food. On the other hand I know folk who don't understand why we still have to wear a mask etc, if there is no new cases of Corona. In my view it just show how the media is mixing up peoples opinion based on what and where they read it but that's nothing new. As the saying goes today's news is tomorrow's fish and chip paper.
I'm wondering if this was unleashed deliberately by China, Trump seems to think so but that doesn't count for much as he lies constantly.
Answer
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! Standby alert !
“There are four lights!”
Step up to red alert. Sir, are you absolutely sure? It does mean changing the bulb!
Looking forward to summer in Somerset later in the year :)
Local lockdowns currently look to be the weapon of choice if track and tracing is unable to keep the number of infections down.
What concerns me, is the country wide lockdown earlier in the year should have almost wiped out this virus. It can only reproduce in a host (normally humans). It can’t reproduce in a human whose immune system is attacking it, and it can’t reproduce in a dead human.
So that means that a minority (or worse) of people are or have not been following the medical and hygiene advice. And since lockdown has been lifted, the likelihood is that more and more people are ignoring the medical and hygiene advice.
In my travels, I estimate that up to around one quarter of people are not wearing face coverings where they should (either none at all, or not properly fitted), such as in shops, trains or railway stations or busses. And they are walking or standing less than one metre apart, let alone two metres.
So how many other hygiene procedures are being ignored or not done properly?
We now know that many people may not display or experience any symptoms. But can still be carriers, and hence spread the infection. There must be relatively large numbers of symptom free people wandering around infecting others for the number of cases to be rising again.
Yet, despite knowing all the above, the government wants life to more or less go back to normal. With packed commuter trains / tubes and busy offices and shops.
Well you don’t need a crystal ball to see where that is likely to lead to...
Oh, and by only using local lockdowns, presumably the government thinks that unaffected parts of the country can continue as normal, hence less damage to the economy and less government borrowing would be needed. Also they probably hope local lockdowns will be less politically damaging.
Mark
Repair Guides. Spanish Hardware site.
WoS - can't download? Info here...
former Meulie Spectrum Archive but no longer available :-(
Spectranet: the TNFS directory thread
! Standby alert !
“There are four lights!”
Step up to red alert. Sir, are you absolutely sure? It does mean changing the bulb!
Looking forward to summer in Somerset later in the year :)
I actually went to a shop without my mask on (i forgot to put it on) and no one said a thing, i didn't realise until i was in the queue and realised i had forgot it. I felt bad.
:-)
Yes I am sure your sister through her job has a different and first hand perspective on it. I don't watch much News, I prefer to read articles.
Even if cases are stable, it doesn't mean of course there are no new ones, it just seems to mean people are also recovering. I think the wearing of masks on buses and trains etc. is still a good idea though. The next month or two will be telling I think. On the whole there will be occasional spikes and localised clusters of new cases, but hopefully nothing like earlier in the year.
Its easy to forget now and again, I keep a couple in coat pockets for that reason. Here in NI its required for them to be worn in shops by customers, but most shops and the police are not enforcing it apparently.
They seem to forget that at the start of the year the confirmed cases numbers were things like "3", and as soon as you let your guard down they'll just shoot back up to thousands again.
I don't see how the UK could cope with a repeat of anything like the earlier lockdown. If some other countries are anything to go by, many more people have had it with mild symptoms than have been tested for it, so immunity in the community ought to be higher than in February. They should know a bit more by now (6 months in) about the virus. Better guidance for protecting the vulnerable in old folks homes etc. without totally isolating them - is what seems to be needed. Also the latest computer modeling isn't taking into account what has been learned about treating patients with COVID-19.
Oh absolutely its not time to give up caution - I would guess face masks in shops and on public transport will continue to be seen until at least christmas, possibly into next year.
I don't see how the UK could cope with a repeat of anything like the earlier lockdown. If some other countries are anything to go by, many more people have had it with mild symptoms than have been tested for it, so immunity in the community ought to be higher than in February. They should know a bit more by now (6 months in) about the virus. Better guidance for protecting the vulnerable in old folks homes etc. without totally isolating them - is what seems to be needed. Also the latest computer modeling isn't taking into account what has been learned about treating patients with COVID-19.
It would but I also think we wont see the real impact the first lockdown has had on businesses till they get their end of year financial reports, even ones that appear to be doing well. Sorry to be negative but I fear bleak times ahead once we get into the new year with closures and redundancies.
As always, there will be winners and losers. Retailers such as supermarkets who already had an online internet operation before lockdown look to be doing okay, or better than expected.
Service industries, retailers without an online internet operation, retailers who rely on office staff or commuters are being very badly affected.
Some businesses will be able to ‘bounce back’. Others will eventually fail. But keep in mind some of these businesses were already in trouble long before the lockdown. Due to events in the preceding year. So it’s hardly surprising that there are businesses that are contracting or going into administration because they have run out of money.
For example, the Homebase store in my town has now closed. It started its ‘store closing’ process before lockdown. At one time we had two Homebase stores.
Good businesses adapt and find ways of surviving. If a business fails to cope, failure looms. That’s what happens in normal times. The current situation is not good, but the same ‘rule’ applies...
Similarly the ‘supply and demand’ ‘rule’ also still applies. So if people want your product or the service you provide, you/your business will be able to trade again. Of course until restrictions are lifted, for the time being, it may be difficult to make any profit.
Mark
Repair Guides. Spanish Hardware site.
WoS - can't download? Info here...
former Meulie Spectrum Archive but no longer available :-(
Spectranet: the TNFS directory thread
! Standby alert !
“There are four lights!”
Step up to red alert. Sir, are you absolutely sure? It does mean changing the bulb!
Looking forward to summer in Somerset later in the year :)
The desire situation would be for the number of cases to still be falling, the faster the rate of change downwards, the better.
Otherwise what it really means is that people are still being infected :-(
Mark
Repair Guides. Spanish Hardware site.
WoS - can't download? Info here...
former Meulie Spectrum Archive but no longer available :-(
Spectranet: the TNFS directory thread
! Standby alert !
“There are four lights!”
Step up to red alert. Sir, are you absolutely sure? It does mean changing the bulb!
Looking forward to summer in Somerset later in the year :)
Exactly, and I'll tell you a little story that happened me a couple of days ago - I went into the local shopping centre looking to buy a mobile phone. There are three phone shops in it - I forgot about one of them. I walked passed one - they had their doors shut but two staff joked with each other inside - no customers however. A walked on down the mall to another and went in - I had my face mask on, a couple of customers sat to one side and a member of staff was explaining something to them - neither staff or the couple of customers had facemasks - I was immediately ushered out and told there was no browsing. I guess they thought I would wait outside for ten minutes - I said "its ok I'll just go over to [other phone shop]" - and they tried to dissuade me as if they were not taking customers - but I went over all the same. They had no one in, but at least their staff had visors. I got the phone I was looking for.
The restrictions have been eased here in NI somewhat most shops are allowing several customers in at a time. One of these phone shops was being overly-fastidious beyond what was required and their losing custom was self-inflicted.
I don't know what is going on in the minds of the staff in some shops and businesses, because I look in and they are completely empty of customers and the staff sometimes seem to just think its funny.
You are a bit of a worrier it would seem, like myself sometimes. It would be best for you to focus on the present day, and what the next thing for you is, insofar as your work allows that - you will be more effective then in your workplace and in that small way the company will be benefiting from having you as an employee. Subtly remind your bosses you are a valuable employee from time to time. :-)
Its an indication of what the WHO was saying about lockdowns before this pandemic arrived that they are of limited usefulness, and cause a lot of additional hardship, therefore they should be a remedy of last resort rather than first resort. Sadly we rushed into lockdown mode on the back of unhelpful computer modeling, and there is no evidence lockdowns really work for a virus. It is not people flouting it, it is that lockdowns are fundamentally flawed, and there was no exponential increase either in countries that didn't have a lockdown - thus the exponential growth theory has proved to be a myth also, because most people always take some precautions when they know there is a pandemic. in my opinion the government should have mandated wearing face masks on public transport as early as possible once what was happening in other countries such as Italy was apparent. Hindsight is wonderful but in this instance at least we had a few week advance notice of what to expect. To think that a lockdown could eradicate a virus wasn't in the goverment strategy - the lockdown was to slow its spread, "smooth the curve" - its widespread immunity that eventually means the virus cannot reproduce, except maybe for a few small pockets of infections now and again.
A lockdown is a form of attempted isolation. By reducing social interaction, it should reduce the speed and amount of the spread of the infection in the population. In that regard it did work. But unfortunately because no random testing was being carried out, it was not fully recognised that people without symptoms could be carriers and could be spreading the infection. Further, having traveled around (as part of my job as a ‘key worker’) it was very clear that some of the population were not taking it seriously. With crowds of people still on the streets during lockdown. Let me make this clear, this is what I saw with my own eyes.
In New Zealand, lockdown did work. The number of cases fell to zero. Yes I know that a while later, there was a very small outbreak, but apparently this was traced to the virus being present on some imported goods.
I’m still not convinced that face coverings are being as effective as people hope. In my travels, about 25% of people are either not wearing them properly, or don’t have one on. And this is on trains, in railway stations and in shops. All places where they are supposed to be worn.
And even when people do wear them, they only stop the larger water droplets. Human breath is very moist and the virus can travel on the small water droplets. And your breath can carry quite far. How many times as a child did you see how far you could see your breath travel in the cold still air on a cold winters morning?
Alternatively, watch how far the ‘smoke’ from someone who is vaping travels...
Even if the face covering is being correctly worn, your breath often leaks out the sides, the top or the bottom... when I wear a mask, often my spectacles mist up due to my breath leaking past my mask...
In terms of widespread immunity, that’s not very likely unless a vaccine can be developed and delivered across the whole population. I don’t know what the current guesstimate is, but earlier on, the medical scientists had a predicted figure of 5% to 6% of the population may have limited immunity. Even if this is a wild underestimate, doubling it still only gets to 10% to 12%. So the virus still has plenty of opportunity to infect many, many more people. And this immunity would not be expected to last more than three to six months. And that’s assuming that the virus does not mutate. We now know that at least one person has been infected a second time :-(
I don’t have any confidence that the current U.K. government is handling the situation well. But only time will tell.
Mark
Repair Guides. Spanish Hardware site.
WoS - can't download? Info here...
former Meulie Spectrum Archive but no longer available :-(
Spectranet: the TNFS directory thread
! Standby alert !
“There are four lights!”
Step up to red alert. Sir, are you absolutely sure? It does mean changing the bulb!
Looking forward to summer in Somerset later in the year :)
Not a matter of my opinion, and it was not done as 'last resort'. The WHO had already published a comprehensive study (available online) evaluating the usefulness and limitations of lockdowns. The UK government paniced - there are estimated to be huge numbers of non-covid deaths due to the lockdown, one article suggested it may have caused two more for every three deaths from Covid-19, and thats from the Government analysts.
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-lockdown-may-have-indirectly-caused-16-000-excess-deaths-study-12044923
That said I can sympathise with the difficulties the government has faced. Some of the confusion was caused by people like Sadiq Khan sending out conflicting messages.
Very few people thought the lockdown would be longer than a few weeks, a month at most, not nearly three months.
IMO (and I know its easy for me to give my tuppence worth and not having to wrestle a policy through government and get everyone on board) if you don't want a virus to spread its best to put measures in place sooner rather than later on the transport network - such as mandatory masks (with exemptions for those who have reasons they cannot wear one - such as asthma sufferers). A lesson from history (and the 1918 pandemic) of course is that penalties for not wearing masks can polarise people, so an explain and encourage approach seems better rather than penalties for not wearing one. Masks provide some psychological reassurance also, and reduces anxiety for instance, if one is on a crowded bus. It should of course be the goal to make them non-compulsory as soon as things improve sufficiently. The biggest nexus of people meeting daily is probably the school network. As schools are going to end up being closed eventually it might be better to begin closing them as early as possible in an initial virus outbreak. There are degrees of lockdown, some measures work best in the earlier stages of a pandemic
But its all an indication we need to have a cohesive strategy in place, we cannot rely on lockdowns.
Proof cloth facemasks are best.
Hope it doesn't come to a lockdown for you mate. About the pubs still be open. A bank local to me has closed for a few days with a sign explaining due to colleague/customer being infected with Covid. However a large factory in another town close by has had 72 staff test positive, but they've not closed the factory.