Covid: looking back

2

Comments

  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    One of the Indian double variants has been reported in Michigan now. Hold on to your hats.
  • BoogieBoogie Shipmate
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    One of the Indian double variants has been reported in Michigan now. Hold on to your hats.

    😢🕯

  • RussRuss Shipmate
    Simon Toad wrote: »
    Lock the fuck down again, and shut your borders. Tell the public that elimination is the goal.

    Seems like you're accepting that border controls are permanent ? That as long as there are countries in the world which haven't eliminated the virus then quarantine requirements remain ?
  • RicardusRicardus Shipmate
    Simon Toad wrote: »
    The UK is an island country. You can effectively isolate yourselves.

    Again, it's not that simple. We're an island country that is dependent on imports of fresh food from the Continent. Especially during the winter months. Fresh produce is loaded on a lorry in Europe, driven onto a ferry at Calais, driven off again at Dover.

    Now you can say, why not just put the trailer on the ferry, leave the driver in France, and get a fresh driver in Dover? But the various Brexit arguments have shown that the whole system is so tightly time-constrained that even a few minutes' extra delay at Dover calls the whole thing to fall apart.

    So basically, we are an island whose defence against scurvy depends on hundreds of lorry-drivers coming in each day from France.
  • I'm sure there's plenty of vitamin C in kale.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    edited May 1
    From the sounds of it, the USA hopes to see open borders in September.
  • Simon ToadSimon Toad Shipmate
    Russ wrote: »
    Simon Toad wrote: »
    Lock the fuck down again, and shut your borders. Tell the public that elimination is the goal.

    Seems like you're accepting that border controls are permanent ? That as long as there are countries in the world which haven't eliminated the virus then quarantine requirements remain ?

    Its a policy decision with a little more finesse than that. Its risk management, having regard to our capacity to manage quarantine. We have a travel bubble up with NZ so that we and the Kiwi's don't have to quarantine. That depends upon both countries being in control of the thing - more or less no community transmission.

    The primary aim of the border controls is to manage the numbers of people in the quarantine system. If more people in quarantine are sick, it increases the likelihood of the virus leaking into the community via workers servicing them.

    I do think we in Australia will have quarantine requirements for a long time, but at some stage we will probably move to some sort of traffic light system, similar to what we use for internal travel. But I don't see Britain becoming a quarantine free destination while the current policy settings remain.

    I can't comment on the EU, because I'm not on top of their systems. The US is in a different spot. Thanks to the GOP, its compliance that is the issue. Also, because there is so much politically validated resistance there, Democrats have to craft their policy settings with the likelihood of compliance in mind.

    IF Europe and the US can get their outbreaks sorted, THEN they can allocate sufficient resources to at least dampen the virus in poorer countries.

  • Simon ToadSimon Toad Shipmate
    As an addendum, all this is contingent upon the advice of epidemiologists, not politicians or pundits like me. That counters policy being formulated out of political expediency, greed, fear of personal financial loss and (as in my case) just plain fear.
  • TelfordTelford Shipmate
    Barnabas62 wrote: »
    .... (UK focussed, feel free to add those from elsewhere):
    ... but we're past a quarter million and counting even with restrictions, and it's hard to believe that it won't go higher before we're done.

    Just as a matter of fact, we aren't past a quarter of a million in the UK. Current official death total is 127K within 28 days of diagnosis, 151K with COVID-19 mentioned as a contributory cause on the death certificate. The excess deaths count is reckoned in the long term to be the best estimate and I believe the current figure is about 121K.

    The death total is still rising but very slowly. Which doesn't mean there will not be another big surge, but the success of the vaccination programme suggests this will only happen if a vaccine-resistant variant takes hold.

    Looking back does I think show plenty of examples of forecasting based on premises later proven to be inaccurate and government actions show some political taint. The general view is that we acted too late in imposing restrictions at the beginning, and relaxed restrictions too early at various times since. Those actions certainly contributed to the sickness, hospitalisation and death totals. In terms of deaths per million, the UK still ranks very high on the list, despite recent significant improvements.

    I think the UK government, in common with all governments, has been trying to balance effective and restrictive medical precautions against economic and social consequences. That balance has taken place against the novelty of the virus and an emerging understanding of how dangerous it might be. And the emergence in the Autumn of the highly infectious UK variant didn't help.

    How much of this was foreseeable? How much was foreseen but discounted in government decision making? That will require a formal enquiry, and I should think there will be one at some stage.

    Personally I'd give the UK government/UK scientist combo a C. The early March 2020 judgments and actions were I think complacent and led to a lot of avoidable initial deaths. The supplies of PPE etc. were also pretty shambolic early on. The later shambles over Christmas seems to have arisen because of political discounting of the effect of the UK variant until very late in the day. Boris got his arm twisted. But there have been some good decisions as well and the UK actions in getting the vaccination programme off the ground much earlier than the rest of Europe have been a good example of foresight and decent judgment on early actions.

    Could have been better, could have been worse.
    A very fair assessment
  • Simon ToadSimon Toad Shipmate
    edited May 2
    Simon Toad wrote: »
    As an addendum, all this is contingent upon the advice of epidemiologists, not politicians or pundits like me. That counters policy being formulated out of political expediency, greed, fear of personal financial loss and (as in my case) just plain fear.

    My fear is for my country, but it is much more for those in other countries, especially the poor. I am very angry at the rest of the developed world for not dealing with this virus properly, and being in a position to help the poor now.

    Our experience shows that the only way to deal with the economic fallout from Covid is for Governments to spend like a rich college kid on spring break, close down everything except essentials and wipe the virus out locally. We are in BUDGET SURPLUS this month (see link in my post above). International tourism and related industries are fucked, but they are fucked anyway. Everybody else is doing well now. We are basking in the afterglow of a massive post-covid spending spree, fueling recovery in hospitality, the service economy and retail.

    WAKE UP
  • Simon ToadSimon Toad Shipmate
    We wanted to go to a French Restaurant in Kyneton, a small country town near us for our anniversary. The restaurant is small, and only open Friday to Sunday. Two weeks ago, We tried to get a booking for this weekend. No spots till June. Then we rang back to get a booking for my wife's birthday - no spots available in June on the weekend.

    Small business is only damaged by a long, hard lockdown if your Govt does not support actual, real and genuine small business and individuals.
  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    Sojourner wrote: »
    Ruth wrote: »
    How many Australians have been stranded abroad because of these policies?

    Currently 35 to 40,000

    And your point is?

    Sometimes a question is just a question. A certain number of those people will die, of course, but perhaps more Australians would die if people overseas were all allowed to go home. I don't know, and have no way of knowing. I don't know if the Australian government has any way of knowing. I wonder what kinds of calculations went into that decision. I wonder if calculations figured in the decision as much as feeling. I wonder if the families of Australians who die of covid overseas will have any kind of legal claim they can make against their government.
    Simon Toad wrote: »
    IF Europe and the US can get their outbreaks sorted, THEN they can allocate sufficient resources to at least dampen the virus in poorer countries.

    The US has secured more than enough vaccine doses for everyone living here, and we should be giving them away. We should be helping companies ramp up production, and we should tell the people arguing in favor of companies protecting their patents to go fuck themselves (looking at you, Bill Gates). The idea that there is "our" outbreak and "their" outbreaks is horseshit. Every person infected presents the virus with a chance to mutate, and the more variants there are, the greater chance there is that one of them will break through the vaccines that we have.

    I cannot tell you how unbelievably lucky I feel to live where I do and to have been vaccinated. It's not like I deserve this good fortune; it is completely an accident of birth. My sole contribution to the development of the coronavirus vaccines was to pay US taxes. Yes, countries are going to look after their own first, the US included, maybe especially the US, because that's the way we do things. But I'm not going to pretend like it's right or moral.
  • Simon ToadSimon Toad Shipmate
    I feel the same way Ruth. I emphasise self-interest in my advocacy, but that's just because I reckon that's the argument most likely to succeed.
  • SojournerSojourner Shipmate
    If any of the stranded Aussies succumb to COVID we would sure as hell hear about it and yes there would be much carry-in about legal action.

    I am not an admirer of our current political leaders but reserve scorn for the government of Western Australia which flatly refused ( and continues to refuse) incoming travellers for quarantine. We call such an attitude N(ot)I(n)M(y)B(ack)Y(ard) ism.

    I am even more disgusted by the EU threat to stop vaccine imports to Oz in the face of the local plan to donate vaccine to our near neighbour Papua-Niugini which has its very own COVID epidemic.

    Mind you my inner cynic tells me that this is as much to do with the not inconsiderable risk of COVID transmission across the Torres Strait ( a mere 150 km) to Far North Queensland as altruism...
  • Simon ToadSimon Toad Shipmate
    This is a circumstance where altruism and self interest coincide.
  • jay_emmjay_emm Shipmate
    You'd think there ought to be a way for Australia (and others) to help their citizens in India without risking their mainland citizens (other than volunteers).

    Going onwards, one thing that does seem of note is the apparent reduction in winter flu. While this is (I think) objectively worse.
    It does suggest there may be some low hanging fruit. If a month of masks in shops saves me a day feeling sorry for myself in bed, that seems well worth considering. If it needs the pubs and church to be permanently masked to have any effect, then that would be a much harder sell.
  • HeavenlyannieHeavenlyannie Shipmate
    jay_emm wrote: »
    Going onwards, one thing that does seem of note is the apparent reduction in winter flu. While this is (I think) objectively worse.
    It does suggest there may be some low hanging fruit. If a month of masks in shops saves me a day feeling sorry for myself in bed, that seems well worth considering. If it needs the pubs and church to be permanently masked to have any effect, then that would be a much harder sell.
    The UK government will almost certainly push for common flu vaccines for the whole population next winter. They increased it to everyone over 50 this winter.
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Shipmate
    Maybe all this will stop employers pushing people to come to work with cold and flu symptoms heavily disguised by lemsip.
  • jay_emmjay_emm Shipmate
    Maybe all this will stop employers pushing people to come to work with cold and flu symptoms heavily disguised by lemsip.
    Especially now the tech is known, there's little excuse* (I hope it allows parents to half work from home in half term and the like as well, while still protecting non work time).

    * There are many many jobs where this won't work directly, but even then I think with some thought you could get some leverage
  • Lemsip?
  • BoogieBoogie Shipmate
    Lemsip?

    A lemony drink to relieve the symptoms of colds and flu. Lemsip cold & flu sachets contain two active ingredients, the painkiller paracetamol (650mg) and a decongestant called phenylephrine hydrochloride (10mg).

    They come in power form in sachets - you mix each sachet into a cup of warm water.

  • DoublethinkDoublethink Shipmate
    Importantly, they don’t stop you being infectious.
  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    Nor do they work on everybody (grouch, grouch). That particular decongestant is just shit for me and a lot of people (crank, crank). As I have reason to know right now. But let me return you to your regularly scheduled programming!
  • HeavenlyannieHeavenlyannie Shipmate
    edited May 2
    Phenylephrine is a vasoconstrictor and we use it to dilate pupils in eye clinic.
  • Simon Toad wrote: »
    The UK is an island country.

    For strict geographical accuracy, it is not - because, as any N Irelander knows, we have a land border with another nation state (the Republic of Ireland). The UK consists of the whole of one large island (Great Britain), about a quarter of another (the island of Ireland), and a number of other islands of varying sizes. Add to this the fact that we rely on imports through France for a huge part of our food - and that, despite some of Unionists' concerns, the border between the Republic and the North being effectively non-existent - and the difficulties of closing the country completely become clearer. That's not to say we couldn't have done a lot more, both at the beginning and since.
  • HuiaHuia Shipmate
    I've had my winter flu jab, but the vaccination won't be until May or June. My GP is an opportunist, make an appointment for a repeat perscription and she catches you for everything else you need - I appreciate her thoroughness.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    Twenty years ago I came down with the flu which almost killed me. I ended up at a major regional hospital and had to have thoracic surgery to clear my lungs of fluid. Since then, I have gotten the annual flu jab. It seems every concoction they came out with was on the mark for me. From the sounds of it, the coronavirus jab with also become an annual thing since the COVID virus mutates so fast,

    As for the Indian problem, I think it is worth noting that early on, India had a relatively low infection rate allowing many countries to concentrate on their own populations. Then the virus mutated--more than once--in India.

    One US CDC expert (not Fauci) it is like when a plane decompresses, the oxygen masks fall down and the adults are told to put one on themselves before they help others. I remember when I had decompression training in the military it was not long before someone could lose consciousness and die if they tried to help someone else first. Poor analogy, I know.

    Nevertheless, many major countries are now pouring aid into India. Here is hoping they can turn it around. quickly.
  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    Phenylephrine is a vasoconstrictor and we use it to dilate pupils in eye clinic.

    Yep. But I suspect it doesn't work on a sizable minority of people, at least nasally, to judge by the complaints. I know in my family firsthand that it does nothing but raise the blood pressure. We've taken to avoiding anything with that stuff in it, and get our remedies single ingredient. Though I have to admit we have freaky drug reactions to a whole swathe of things, so there may be any number of people for whom it works very well indeed.
  • Ruth wrote: »
    Sometimes a question is just a question. A certain number of those people will die, of course, but perhaps more Australians would die if people overseas were all allowed to go home.

    It makes more sense than the approach of saying "India has horribly high Covid rates, so we're going to ban travel from India in two weeks time", meaning that there's two weeks when you let all the infected people travel for free.

    If you need to impose a travel ban, quarantine, or whatever, it seems to me that you need to impose it NOW - not give people a warning so that it's "fair".

    The virus doesn't care about "fair".
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host, Epiphanies Host
    The virus doesn't care about "fair".

    The single most important lesson, looking back. Of course we do know that viruses no nothing about fairness - if we think about it - but there is a strong capacity for self delusion at work in many minds.
  • Boogie wrote: »
    Lemsip?

    A lemony drink to relieve the symptoms of colds and flu. Lemsip cold & flu sachets contain two active ingredients, the painkiller paracetamol (650mg) and a decongestant called phenylephrine hydrochloride (10mg).

    They come in power form in sachets - you mix each sachet into a cup of warm water.

    We'd call it neo-citran. A brandname that's used generically. Which apparently lemsip also is.
  • The5thMaryThe5thMary Shipmate
    I can't get any vaccinations until July 10th. I never go anywhere anyway, so, no big deal.
  • LydaLyda Shipmate
    edited May 3
    The5thMary wrote: »
    I can't get any vaccinations until July 10th. I never go anywhere anyway, so, no big deal.

    It's good to hear from you. How are you doing? Well I hope and that your case hasn't become too severe.

    ETA: Ah, now I've seen your Hell thread post. :+1: I'm glad that you are on the mend! Rest up as much as possible.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Ruth wrote: »
    How many Australians have been stranded abroad because of these policies?

    Can't give you numbers, but one of the news sites is quoting some stranded in India and unable to return home. They are being painted as victims who should be allowed back in. No-one says when they went to India though, and I'd not be surprised if it turned out that their departure from here was after covid hit.

    From time to time, there are internal lockdowns, with people being barred from travelling from one State to another. In Sydney, there was a period when the northern beaches were locked down after an outbreak there. Not easy, but the lockdown worked.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    edited May 3
    Simon Toad wrote: »
    Ricardus wrote: »
    One comment to note - and this is not at all to denigrate the success of Australia and NZ, or to justify the UK response - is that Australia and NZ both get less than half the number of daily international arrivals as the UK*, and also were not at the start of the pandemic particularly close to a country where infection had got out of control (at least compared to the UK's closeness to Italy)**. So they both had a bit more time to react before the number of cases became uncontrollable.

    Both countries used their allotted time well, whereas the UK squandered what little time we had, but it isn't quite as simple as 'Australia did this so we should be able to too.'

    * I have statistics if anyone is bothered.
    ** For some reason lots of Brits seem to think Australia and New Zealand are right next to China. Which they are, in the same way the UK is right next to Nigeria.

    We closed our borders, internal and external. Our international border remains closed. Britain, IIRC, allowed people to holiday in Spain over the summer. I have heard that Britain is going to allow travel to Europe again shortly.

    We don't let people travel internationally without good cause. Everyone who returns from overseas must quarantine in a hotel room for 14 days, where they are guarded. This is because early on, people did not obey quarantine orders at their home, and then tried to abscond from hotels. The number of people returning per day is capped so that we can properly police their quarantine period.

    We have paused all returns from India until 15 May. There is no guarantee that returns will be allowed after that date. After two cricketers in the IPL got around that by transiting through Doha, the Govt has announced this morning that it will criminalise returning from a declared country. The maximum penalty is 5 years jail.

    Here are the stats on Melbourne's outbreak. We peaked at 687 cases in 24 hours on 4 August 2020. It took till the end of October to record 0 cases in 24 hours, and then in mid-November we had a significant run of 0 cases.

    Our lockdown in Melbourne was fierce. You were not allowed to leave your home other than for exercise or to buy essentials. All shops were closed except for certain types, like supermarkets, petrol stations and fortunately for my family, newsagents. A range of benefits were introduced to compensate people for loss of income. You weren't allowed to evict people. There was a raft of measures.

    Planes go everywhere where there are airports. The idea that our geographical isolation played any more than a very minor role in our success is utterly wrong. Britain is ideally placed to cut itself off from everywhere else. But it didn't do it.

    The idea that there is a certain level beyond which Covid 19 can't be eliminated strikes me as dangerous crap. It clearly can. We did it. If other countries haven't, its because they haven't gone hard enough for long enough.

    Other countries need to do what we did. Vaccines are not going to end this thing. We already have a variant in Sth Africa which can beat the Astra Zeneca vaccine. We have four or five virus variant breeding grounds around the world, including the United States.

    If you reckon that economic damage is the problem that prevents you doing what is necessary to beat this thing, the Federal Govt here just recorded the first monthly surplus for the year because of a windfall in tax revenue, and an unexpected drop in expenditure due to the rubber band effect we are experiencing here. Tax revenue goes up when economic activity goes up. If you lock down, close your borders and police the recalcitrant properly, you WILL eliminate the virus in your country, and then everyone will get out there and spend all that money they couldn't spend during the lockdown.

    Stop pretending that nothing can be done. Stop making excuses for not doing the necessary. Lock down and stay down until community transmission is eliminated. We in the developed world should have already done this, so that we could now be pouring our resources into helping the poor.
    I’ve been pondering this over the last few days. I agree that Australia and particularly New Zealand have had a much better strategy for dealing with the pandemic, and that the British government has been slow and indecisive in dealing with the spread of Covid.

    On the other hand Australia has less than half the population of the U.K., and, while it is largely concentrated in urban areas, Australian urban density is nothing like that in the U.K.

    Secondly, there is a fair amount of evidence that unrecognised and/or asymptomatic Covid was present in the U.K. to some extent in December 2019 and January 2020 - before any calls for lockdown. I think if it had been known about and treated as a notifiable disease then, community transmission might have been controlled.

    Thirdly there is a widely different level of international movement. (There is some suggestion, for example, that an early rash of infections in Cumbria was related to a county-wide skiing trip in Italy for primary school children in the third week of February.) Generally, it looks as though Australia gets about 20-21 million arrivals/returns from overseas each year (source - and see the featured articles in the sidebar). For the U.K. the comparable figure is 134 million (Source). In addition we are (still) closely integrated into the European economy with daily deliveries of anything from medicines, machine parts, and fruit and vegetables to fresh flowers. Some of that trade could easily be reduced, but much of it is at least very important or essential.

    It is relatively much easier to achieve effective lockdown in Australia, and relatively a much easier decision to make.
  • Fawkes CatFawkes Cat Shipmate
    Picking up on @BroJames ' comment (and specifically one earlier from @Simon Toad ) I've been pondering why the UK doesn't think that it could now eliminate Covid. Full disclosure: science and I parted ways at the end of school, and mathematics even earlier (at O level - what England then had as 16+ exams).

    But @BroJames points out that although undetected, it's now thought that Covid was in the UK from late 2019. And that there was further infection in (for example) February 2020. And so on, and so on.

    Now it follows that one response to infections is to close the borders. But by itself that does nothing about infection already on the island. We also know that it's possible to have asymptomatic cases and transmission - cases that logically won't show up as diagnosed or in hospital, but which may trigger outbreaks among the more vulnerable.

    Quite simply, even if the UK's reported rate is the same today as Australia's ( and I don't think it is - my understanding is that the UK's current success is nothing to where Oz is right now) then the UK has pockets of Covid ready to blow up ( is this 'community transmission'?) while in Australia cases can be traced back to each incident's importation, and eliminated.

    If I have understood the science, Covid is in the UK to stay - we will have to find a way to live with it. Lucky and skilled Australia and New Zealand may not have to address that issue.
  • I'm in an area where cases are rising again, and we featured in the top three areas of highest rates earlier in this wave, so no, Covid hasn't gone. According to my local paper this week:
    Of the 315 local areas in England, 52 per cent have seen a rise in rates in the seven days to April 23 (the most up-to-date accurate data).
    Not that you'd believe it from behaviour locally.

    Then there are areas of the country where vaccination rates aren't great, and hotspots where the rates remain high - Selby in North Yorkshire according to the same local paper. Or there's the BBC coverage (link) which shows a yellow slab in that area.

    And then there are the variants - we have several of the nastier variants around, Indian, Brazilian and South African, all of which are of concern as they may not be so limited by vaccines.

    There's ongoing sewage monitoring - link to Guardian article about this - which is checking and producing results foreshadowing cases by a couple of weeks.
  • edited May 3
    Our 3rd wave is much worse than the previous. I wonder if it would be okay if for the next pandemic, we go with the science and medical right from the start and keep on it.

    On a Twitter topic, I saw a message labelled Ps47, and I thought "oh no, not another damn blasted variant!". But no, it's not, it is "God who knows each star you have created and the secrets of every heart, in your loving mercy comfort all who are frightened and broken, all who are wounded and needy. That we may be held in your love and peace."
  • PendragonPendragon Shipmate
    Rates round here (inner city East Midlands) are still higher than the national average.

    The UK modelling, as published in the Lancet, essentially shows that opening up will cause an uptick in rates. The slower all measures are removed the smaller the curve will be, but we need 85+% uptake and efficacy to avoid a significant fourth wave. (Locally it would be that as the student-driven autumn spike in positive tests was worse than Christmas.)

    I would expect some kind of multi-purpose booster, but it will be interesting to see if they stick to the standard flu categories or spread eligibility to all adults who want one, which is a lot of people.

    Phenylephrine is not suitable for breastfeeding women: the active ingredient that dries up the nose also impacts milk production.
  • Pendragon wrote: »
    Phenylephrine is not suitable for breastfeeding women: the active ingredient that dries up the nose also impacts milk production.

    I find phenylephrine completely useless, and judging by the comments of the pharmacists I talk to to get pseudoephedrine, I'm far from the only one.

    In Mrs C's breastfeeding years, the only thing she was allowed for a blocked-up nose was the "squirt the salt water up the nose" trick.

    Rates over here are stubbornly flat (mostly, I think, because people and governments view every down-tick in rates as encouragement to turn activities back on, so we're sitting in a feedback loop that's targeting R=1).
  • Fawkes Cat wrote: »
    If I have understood the science, Covid is in the UK to stay - we will have to find a way to live with it. Lucky and skilled Australia and New Zealand may not have to address that issue.

    I think one open question is how long immunity lasts from the vaccines (or from having had Covid).

    You can, if you want, reduce rates to effectively zero. It requires a combination of immunity and reduced contact between people in order to lower R significantly below 1, followed by waiting.

    But nobody ever actually wants to wait long enough.

    If the vaccines are 90%+ efficient at preventing transmission of Covid (which is not known to be true, but might be true) then vaccination of the whole population, by itself, would be enough to eliminate Covid after time (cf. Smallpox).

  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    Rates over here are stubbornly flat (mostly, I think, because people and governments view every down-tick in rates as encouragement to turn activities back on, so we're sitting in a feedback loop that's targeting R=1).

    Depends where you live. California is doing great - the case rate has plummeted and is the lowest in the country, only 10% vaccine hesitancy so the problem is access more than willingness and people are working on that, and LA County recorded NO covid deaths yesterday. Probably a weekend undercount, but still, amazing.
  • Simon ToadSimon Toad Shipmate
    edited May 4
    Fawkes Cat wrote: »
    Picking up on @BroJames ' comment (and specifically one earlier from @Simon Toad ) I've been pondering why the UK doesn't think that it could now eliminate Covid. Full disclosure: science and I parted ways at the end of school, and mathematics even earlier (at O level - what England then had as 16+ exams).

    But @BroJames points out that although undetected, it's now thought that Covid was in the UK from late 2019. And that there was further infection in (for example) February 2020. And so on, and so on.

    Now it follows that one response to infections is to close the borders. But by itself that does nothing about infection already on the island. We also know that it's possible to have asymptomatic cases and transmission - cases that logically won't show up as diagnosed or in hospital, but which may trigger outbreaks among the more vulnerable.

    Quite simply, even if the UK's reported rate is the same today as Australia's ( and I don't think it is - my understanding is that the UK's current success is nothing to where Oz is right now) then the UK has pockets of Covid ready to blow up ( is this 'community transmission'?) while in Australia cases can be traced back to each incident's importation, and eliminated.

    If I have understood the science, Covid is in the UK to stay - we will have to find a way to live with it. Lucky and skilled Australia and New Zealand may not have to address that issue.

    It is true that it will be more difficult, but I don't think the virus survives without a host, and that it survives in the host for a specific period. AIUI, the method is to get the rate of infection down to a manageable level by restricting contact between people to a minimum and testing the buggery out of the population. Then you wait. While waiting, you refine your systems for testing and tracing as much as possible.

    It took 4 months for us to get down to a level where people in Melbourne could go beyond a 5k radius from their home. The only exception were frontline workers and you had to have a pass to get through police checkpoints. Once we were down to zero local transmission, restrictions were still in place. They were lifted gradually and cautiously. That's important.

    They then started playing whack-a-mole with outbreaks. After a case is disovered, usually among workers in the quarantine system who are tested very frequently, they test the household and depending upon how active any of the housemates have been, they may go into a brief lockdown. The lockdown gives the tracing team the capacity to identify and isolate the primary and secondary contacts of the initial infected people (worker plus household). They then publish a list of the times and places attended by the infected people, and ask for everyone who might have been there to get tested. If all looks OK, and they are confident they have everyone infected in isolation, the lockdown is lifted.

    Finally, our waste water is tested, enabling the Dept of Health to locate areas where there might be an unreported case.

    There is no reason except the lack of steely resolve why this method can't work in other countries. There is resistance from the population that can get in the way, but what that means is that the resistors just don't want to do what's necessary. We dealt with that here by the media publicising particularly egregious cases. There was one poor young girl who organised a protest on facebook, and who was pregnant. The cops arrested her at home, in her PJs in front of her other two kids, and her husband filmed it all. Naturally that got everyone up in arms, and the poor girl was frightened out of her wits. It was all over the media. The message was received: Don't fuck around. The cops are going to enforce this stuff.
  • Fawkes CatFawkes Cat Shipmate
    Simon Toad wrote: »
    Fawkes Cat wrote: »
    Picking up on @BroJames ' comment (and specifically one earlier from @Simon Toad ) I've been pondering why the UK doesn't think that it could now eliminate Covid. Full disclosure: science and I parted ways at the end of school, and mathematics even earlier (at O level - what England then had as 16+ exams).

    But @BroJames points out that although undetected, it's now thought that Covid was in the UK from late 2019. And that there was further infection in (for example) February 2020. And so on, and so on.

    Now it follows that one response to infections is to close the borders. But by itself that does nothing about infection already on the island. We also know that it's possible to have asymptomatic cases and transmission - cases that logically won't show up as diagnosed or in hospital, but which may trigger outbreaks among the more vulnerable.

    Quite simply, even if the UK's reported rate is the same today as Australia's ( and I don't think it is - my understanding is that the UK's current success is nothing to where Oz is right now) then the UK has pockets of Covid ready to blow up ( is this 'community transmission'?) while in Australia cases can be traced back to each incident's importation, and eliminated.

    If I have understood the science, Covid is in the UK to stay - we will have to find a way to live with it. Lucky and skilled Australia and New Zealand may not have to address that issue.

    It is true that it will be more difficult, but I don't think the virus survives without a host, and that it survives in the host for a specific period. AIUI, the method is to get the rate of infection down to a manageable level by restricting contact between people to a minimum and testing the buggery out of the population. Then you wait. While waiting, you refine your systems for testing and tracing as much as possible.

    It took 4 months for us to get down to a level where people in Melbourne could go beyond a 5k radius from their home. The only exception were frontline workers and you had to have a pass to get through police checkpoints. Once we were down to zero local transmission, restrictions were still in place. They were lifted gradually and cautiously. That's important.

    They then started playing whack-a-mole with outbreaks. After a case is disovered, usually among workers in the quarantine system who are tested very frequently, they test the household and depending upon how active any of the housemates have been, they may go into a brief lockdown. The lockdown gives the tracing team the capacity to identify and isolate the primary and secondary contacts of the initial infected people (worker plus household). They then publish a list of the times and places attended by the infected people, and ask for everyone who might have been there to get tested. If all looks OK, and they are confident they have everyone infected in isolation, the lockdown is lifted.

    Finally, our waste water is tested, enabling the Dept of Health to locate areas where there might be an unreported case.

    There is no reason except the lack of steely resolve why this method can't work in other countries. There is resistance from the population that can get in the way, but what that means is that the resistors just don't want to do what's necessary. We dealt with that here by the media publicising particularly egregious cases. There was one poor young girl who organised a protest on facebook, and who was pregnant. The cops arrested her at home, in her PJs in front of her other two kids, and her husband filmed it all. Naturally that got everyone up in arms, and the poor girl was frightened out of her wits. It was all over the media. The message was received: Don't fuck around. The cops are going to enforce this stuff.

    This does nothing about asymptomatic to asymptomatic transmission. Until and unless Covid manages to mutate to never being anything other than asymptomatic (i.e. it mutates into another cold virus), then because Covid is now deeply within the British population, this will not eliminate it - it will always be able to pop up symptomatically where (a) it will be visible and (b) people will go to hospital and/or die.

    One of the frustrating things about being in the UK at the moment is that we know that there are lots of things that we (and in particular our government) did, and are doing, wrong. Other countries have done better - but in different circumstances. So while advice from abroad is welcome, it's hard for us to challenge without feeling as if we are trying to defend our country's (and our government's) failings. Put bluntly, it would be good if people from Australia and the Isle of Man (to take a couple of specific examples) would recognise that things here are different. We can do better. But that doesn't mean we must exactly adopt your playbook. So please don't shout at us for not having done so.
  • Simon ToadSimon Toad Shipmate
    Why wouldn't a hard lockdown work? Asymptomatic transmission is a thing here too.

  • Because we've had endemic covid here in the UK since possibly November 2019, definitely February 2020. It's here, everywhere. Too late to keep it out.
  • Because we've had endemic covid here in the UK since possibly November 2019, definitely February 2020. It's here, everywhere. Too late to keep it out.

    That doesn't make a lot of sense. While asymptomatic cases mean we won't detect every case if we go a month without symptomatic cases (say) we can be reasonably sure there are asymptomatic ones either, and long enough with R kept below 1 will get us there. The problem is the government(s) choosing to lift restrictions and pushing R up again before elimination is achieved.
  • Simon ToadSimon Toad Shipmate
    Precisely. The UK can get to effective elimination if it chooses to take the necessary steps.
  • BoogieBoogie Shipmate
    Simon Toad wrote: »
    Precisely. The UK can get to effective elimination if it chooses to take the necessary steps.

    ‘It’ doesn’t mean ‘us’. Sadly we are at the mercy of politicians who dither.

    Viruses like ditherers.

  • One of the issues in the November lockdown were the rising rates of Covid infections in some areas (link to Zoe study) particularly in areas in higher tiers, so there was some doubt as to how well lockdowns do work when we have an endemic infection.

    What does seem to be working are the vaccines, but they have not been rolled out to anyone under 40 yet, so there's a significant pool of people to continue transmitting the disease when we come out of this lockdown completely, as so many of them are not due to get a vaccine for a few more weeks after June 21 - the date for all to be offered the vaccine is the end of July for a first vaccine, let alone the two/three weeks to make sure it's effective or a second vaccine.

    The problems in the UK include the endemic nature of the virus, the woeful excuse for a track and trace service (link to BMJ blog) - which, having cost £37bn is not obviously reporting anything nor has for months, and the "error strewn" tracing app (link to medical device website), which has also stopped bombarding me with advertisements, having only reached 24% of the required 60% of the population to be effective.
    from the BMJ blog dated 19 March 2021: Failures of the design of NHS Test and Trace are inexcusable. Run from national call centres it has only operated on two links of the crucial chain—Find, Test, Trace, Isolate, Support. It only tested symptomatic people who came forward and then only approached contacts suggested by index cases. It failed to find many infected cases, failed to reach the asymptomatic, failed to act in time. It still fails to support, fails to test contacts, and fails in backward tracing. Our government has imposed ideological solutions when what was needed was drawing on practical experience. Test and Trace was designed by an authoritarian government that sidelined scientific and medical expertise. It deserves radical criticism, a serious public inquiry and may even require criminal prosecution
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