Erk. It was expected it would rise further but what a figure to hear. So sad.
Yes - not happy news. But I'm afraid we will have a week to a fortnight of deaths between 500-1500 per day unfortunately. Even assuming new cases peak around the weekend / early next week there will be a lag phase in terms of fatalities.
If we hit 1500 per day presumably 20k will be too low overall?
Depends on where we stabilise in terms of deaths per day. Could be that this is a one off and it levels off. Need more data to predict well, but ~20K is, sadly, probably about right.
It's going to be like this for a few weeks, I don't think the impact of the lockdown will be seen for another fortnight.
This is me being bad with statistics and counting time. My understanding is that symptoms usually start to show on day 5 (but can be as long as day 14). There’s then usually a 2 or 3 day or so period where people feel pretty ropey and then comes the crunch point - they either start getting better or get severely ill. From that point (and sorry to be blunt), do we have any data suggesting how long is it until that person either recovers or dies?
I am just trying to assess the impact of the lockdown on timings and when we can hope to, or expect to see, a positive development.
Peston seems to treat "chemical companies" like people were treating "manufacturers" last week... "surely they are all basically the same"...
I.e. any "manufacturer" could surely turn their hand to making ventilators instead in an afternoon, and by the same token (so the spectacularly under-informed journalistic elite think) chemical companies can surely just make any chemical they feel like it at the drop of a hat.
Peston is, i'm sorry to say, very often simply wrong
It's. Not. That. Simple.
Peston is a Brownite hack who got a break from being close to Brown and reporting a story someone close to Brown leaked to him.
10 mins until the 2pm tweet from the DoH to let us know the figures are delayed.
They probably won't, but I hope people try to steer away from making forecasts of civilizational collapse/it'll all be over by Easter on the basis of a single day's data.
Could break the kneejerk barrier of 2k dead today.
How many deaths until you take this seriously?
Weren't you talking about 17 per day a few weeks ago?
It was a mistake to believe the Chinese accounts of fatalities.
I see blame it on China is going to be the new catch all excuse.
It's going to be like this for a few weeks, I don't think the impact of the lockdown will be seen for another fortnight.
This is me being bad with statistics and counting time. My understanding is that symptoms usually start to show on day 5 (but can be as long as day 14). There’s then usually a 2 or 3 day or so period where people feel pretty ropey and then comes the crunch point - they either start getting better or get severely ill. From that point (and sorry to be blunt), do we have any data suggesting how long is it until that person either recovers or dies?
I am just trying to assess the impact of the lockdown on timings and when we can hope to, or expect to see, a positive development.
I saw somewhere average date of death is day 20. Presumably from contraction.
It's going to be like this for a few weeks, I don't think the impact of the lockdown will be seen for another fortnight.
This is me being bad with statistics and counting time. My understanding is that symptoms usually start to show on day 5 (but can be as long as day 14). There’s then usually a 2 or 3 day or so period where people feel pretty ropey and then comes the crunch point - they either start getting better or get severely ill. From that point (and sorry to be blunt), do we have any data suggesting how long is it until that person either recovers or dies?
I am just trying to assess the impact of the lockdown on timings and when we can hope to, or expect to see, a positive development.
I saw somewhere average date of death is day 20. Presumably from contraction.
Thanks. So we would hope (I am keeping everything crossed) that we would start to see an effect from the middle of next week on that basis. I sincerely hope so.
10 mins until the 2pm tweet from the DoH to let us know the figures are delayed.
They probably won't, but I hope people try to steer away from making forecasts of civilizational collapse/it'll all be over by Easter on the basis of a single day's data.
Could break the kneejerk barrier of 2k dead today.
How many deaths until you take this seriously?
Weren't you talking about 17 per day a few weeks ago?
It was a mistake to believe the Chinese accounts of fatalities.
I see blame it on China is going to be the new catch all excuse.
Are those pesky facts being racist again?
I can't think of any context in which somebody who's not a racist would say this.
It is not all certain that Peston is screwing up. We have to drill down to find out and u can't be bothered doing that. However Gove definitely is screwing up the government's communication on CV and should be taken off that role.
As an aside in my work from time to time we get into situations where things have gone wrong and we're on the hook. I am happy to go to customers and say, this is the situation, this is what we are doing about it and this what you can now expect and when, we will keep you updated on progress. They may not be happy about the situation but above all they are relieved their issue is being dealt with.
Gove said there was a shortage of reagents and swabs, which was limiting testing Peston went and found there was no shortage of chemical ingredients for reagents. Peston claimed that this meant there was no shortage of reagents.
Guernsey Medical Director (who has set up testing on island in a couple of weeks) said there is a global shortage of reagents.
Will we get apologies from anyone who posted that ‘Gove lied’?
Come on, you know who you are...
The point is not so much that Gove lied. He's deflecting. So there's a shortage of chemicals? As there is, of lots of things. You deal with it. And if that really is the root cause of the lack of testing, which is far from certain, the government can apparently get what they need rather than offer up excuses.
What happened to Gove's explanation from the day before that the lack of testing is all the fault of Chinese lies?
The government would advised to keep Gove away from the press briefings. He's causing massive confusion, which is the last thing it needs right now.
The lack of testing was not blamed on the Chinese. I don't think it is Gove who is deflecting.
Peston didn't know that laboratory reagents aren't the raw chemicals. So he assumed that since the suppler of raw chemicals say there is no issue. So he missed the following
raw materials -> processing -> processing .... -> reagents
This is why such reporting needs to be given to people who are scientifically literate.
Question 1 - Specifically what is the shortage of - not just "reagent", but the specifics. Those long horrible names.... Question 2 - What is it made from? Who makes it? Question 3 - Who makes the components? Do they have components? Who makes those?
Not to mention - how much leadtime is there before they can start processing an order. Then how long it will take to process the order.
I wonder if the alleged short leadtime on the better test versus ordering the reagents meant they short-sightedly didn't order the reagents as the better test would be ready by then...
I dont get the experts cautious optimism. is it possible our new numbers show crossover with Italy?
I think it was clear that the experts were trying to dampen down expectations of the figures stabilising in the last few days at the presser yesterday. I suspected then that they knew we hadn’t hit the spike.
I dont get the experts cautious optimism. is it possible our new numbers show crossover with Italy?
The optimism is based upon the fact that Italy has got to the other side. Their total number of active cases is going to start dropping in the next 5-6 days. Spain, one would hope, will only be a couple of days behind.
Pretty much everywhere new cases peak 10-14 days after lockdown (with exact numbers also being a function of how many tests took place). You would expect us, therefore, to see new cases rising for a week or so. We might even get to a daily "new cases" number as high as 6-8,000.
However, it will then plateau and then fall off.
And then the question will become how can we relax some restrictions?
10 mins until the 2pm tweet from the DoH to let us know the figures are delayed.
They probably won't, but I hope people try to steer away from making forecasts of civilizational collapse/it'll all be over by Easter on the basis of a single day's data.
Could break the kneejerk barrier of 2k dead today.
How many deaths until you take this seriously?
Weren't you talking about 17 per day a few weeks ago?
It was a mistake to believe the Chinese accounts of fatalities.
I see blame it on China is going to be the new catch all excuse.
Are those pesky facts being racist again?
There are two groups not blaming the Chinese govt at present - the Chinese government and Zoomer Nats blaming Westmonster.
Also, after lockdown, if a bunch of hotels at a tourist hotspot have failed... well, hey, the beaches there will still be just as good, the business case for starting new hotels in the same spot is just as good. If a business is fundamentally good, it should be reborn from the ashes- perhaps under a different name and with a different owner, but so what?
Can't say the same about the people who die.
This is the economic Darwinist argument and it recognises that many businesses fail even when times are good because they are poorly run or a competitor comes along doing it better and cheaper or a better widget is designed elsewhere.
As we've seen the supermarkets took on thousands of extra staff and were able to recruit from a pool of those laid off by other employers. Sunak seems anxious to preserve, conserve and protect but capitalism is and always been brutal and adversarial.
As we saw with manufacturing industry in the UK, nothing has a right to exist in perpetuity. We saw manufacturing wither and die and the response was to allow new businesses to emerge - it wasn't pretty, indeed it was painful but throughout history out of such disasters new opportunities have arisen.
Scandinavia, Germany, Netherlands and Canada have all steered very far clear of both economic and social darwinism over the last forty years. All are better placed to withstand the crisis than the UK as a result.
Germany has the same top income tax rate as the UK, the UK has the most statist healthcare system of all of those countries and Canada has contributions based only unemployment benefit unlike the UK
That is an apples and Bratwurst comparison. Germany's health system and some other things are not financed by tax at all.
When people try to compare the German and the British system they almost exclusively focus on the funding side. The UK's taxfunded system vs. the insurance based system we have. I'm not sure if that approach captures the essence of the issue. The GKV system with its very high degree of uniform regulation is in its effects not much different from the NHS, the share of private insurance is small and utilises basically the same health care providers.
The bigger difference might be on the provider side. The reforms of the 90's and early 00's had lead to a substantial opening to private health care enterprise (transformation of Stadt-, Kreis-, and Landeskrankenhäuser into public/private cooperations, or entirely private institutions), giving rise to Fresenius et al. Some people make the (somewhat plausible) argument that it was the prevalence of private stakeholders' interests in this sector that served as a bulwark against further cuts, maintaining a comparatively generous level of health care provision, in contrast to eg. the UK where the public part of the sector was subject to much more cost cutting in the name of "cutting the slack".
If 2000 NHS staff have been tested thats 1.3% of the total tested.
If 1.2 million NHS workers in England thats 2.1% of the population.
So NHS workers almost half LESS likely to be tested than a non NHS worker? Surely that cant be right?
Nowhere near all NHS staff are on the front line and the vast majority of those tests will have been for front line staff.
Yes but nearly all NHS staff are going to be working and in more contact than those of us who are self isolating. Ignoring the front line, I dont understand why back office NHS staff would be less likely to be tested than non NHS staff.
My initial assumption is that the 2k figure was plucked out of the air as they thought it sounded significant and they dont know how many of the tests are for NHS staff.
I dont get the experts cautious optimism. is it possible our new numbers show crossover with Italy?
I think the optimism is more that new infections are slowing. They would have a prediction of what will happen under various scenarios in terms of new cases going into the hospitals. They have that data in real time - it's obviously something we don't see.
If I had to guess, I'd imagine that their predictions are telling them that new infections are consistent with a model where they are substantially slowing and can then use that to establish how well the NHS will cope.
Deaths, sadly, are a real lagging indicator. But looking at Italy or Spain, I'd expect that the total number of deaths we see per day between Thursday and Sunday will be, give or take, the number of daily deaths we should expect for a couple of weeks.
It is more radically unethical (in normal circumstances) than I originally understood, and is a true real world example of the trolley scenario - but with volunteers...
....Multiple measures would be put in place to ensure that prior to consenting, potential participants fully comprehend the unusual risks involved in the study. After the controlled human challenge model had been set up, vaccines could be evaluated. Volunteers who had not been previously infected would be randomized to receive either the candidate vaccine(s) under investigation, or placebo. After an interval to permit a full immune response to the vaccine, a controlled exposure to SARS-CoV-2 would be administered. Appropriate vaccine schedules (e.g. dose, number of doses) will have been determined, to the extent possible, in the conventional Phase 1/2 immunogenicity and safety studies that preceded the challenge study. Following the challenge, the participants would be carefully followed, to monitor whether those vaccinated had a different response to viral challenge. Because the challenge studies would be relatively small and some volunteers might show few clinical symptoms, there would need to be careful consideration of the choice of the primary endpoint, through discussions with regulatory authorities. Possibilities would include viral load, measured at least daily (e.g. in throat swabs), and then cumulated over the course of the infection (as has been done in influenza challenge studies)[8], and time to first clinical symptoms. For some vaccines, the endpoint might be the proportion infected. Throughout the study, intense immunological monitoring would seek any correlates of vaccine effect. The required size of such studies would depend upon the endpoints chosen, but they might require of the order of 100 volunteers. Any volunteers in whom infection was confirmed would receive excellent care for COVID-19, including priority for any scarce life-saving resources, in state-of-the-art facilities. Throughout the trial and until infectiousness were ruled out, all participants would remain isolated in a secure and comfortable setting, e.g. in converted from those used for influenza challenge studies....
Should this be contemplated ?
Downside, 100 subjects unnecessarily and deliberately infected... upside, the saving of perhaps six months on trialling a vaccine.
It's on getting to these sort of numbers that Italy and Spain shot up within a few days. The weekend should tell us a little bit more about how much more we might have contained this, in comparison (Spain about a week ago, Italy about two weeks ago). Looking at yesterday's trajectory France looks to have made that same jump,so they'll be hoping their figures stabilise over the weekend.
If 2000 NHS staff have been tested thats 1.3% of the total tested.
If 1.2 million NHS workers in England thats 2.1% of the population.
So NHS workers almost half LESS likely to be tested than a non NHS worker? Surely that cant be right?
Non NHS workers being tested at the moment are sick.
and no need to test non patient facing staff your 1.2m is circa 800k on tht basis from memory
You cant ignore the non patient facing staff, they are still more at risk than those who are self isolating, so should be showing up in the stats at least the same proportion as accountants, lorry drivers or teachers.
If 2000 NHS staff have been tested thats 1.3% of the total tested.
If 1.2 million NHS workers in England thats 2.1% of the population.
So NHS workers almost half LESS likely to be tested than a non NHS worker? Surely that cant be right?
Non NHS workers being tested at the moment are sick.
I'm pretty sure they are only testing NHS workers with symptoms/sick - that is what the test detects - who is sick at that point in time with COVID19
If they are recovered, it won't show anything.
According the to the Head of the English Trusts this afternoon they are also trying to test any of their staff who are off because a family member is in isolation. He said that only about 15% of the tests they have done on staff so far - which are tests done on those who are currently off - have had positive returns.
Will we get apologies from anyone who posted that ‘Gove lied’?
Come on, you know who you are...
The point is not so much that Gove lied. He's deflecting. So there's a shortage of chemicals? As there is, of lots of things. You deal with it. And if that really is the root cause of the lack of testing, which is far from certain, the government can apparently get what they need rather than offer up excuses.
What happened to Gove's explanation from the day before that the lack of testing is all the fault of Chinese lies?
The government would advised to keep Gove away from the press briefings. He's causing massive confusion, which is the last thing it needs right now.
The lack of testing was not blamed on the Chinese. I don't think it is Gove who is deflecting.
Peston didn't know that laboratory reagents aren't the raw chemicals. So he assumed that since the suppler of raw chemicals say there is no issue. So he missed the following
raw materials -> processing -> processing .... -> reagents
This is why such reporting needs to be given to people who are scientifically literate.
Question 1 - Specifically what is the shortage of - not just "reagent", but the specifics. Those long horrible names.... Question 2 - What is it made from? Who makes it? Question 3 - Who makes the components? Do they have components? Who makes those?
Get Gove off those press briefings is my sincere advice to the government. He's not doing your communication any good.
He was very clear where the supply bottleneck was. It's not his fault Peston is an idiot.
I've found that using most of your previous commuting time for exercise helps a lot. I used to commute 75 minutes each way. Now I spend an extra half hour in bed and 45 minutes on exercise in the mornings, and then 45 minutes on exercise in the evenings after work and then I'm "home" half an hour early.
It helps keeps work detached from home life and not spilling over (which is very easy), and the amount of exercise really helps.
On the food front - keep a food diary. Write down everything you eat during the day. This provides a "nudge" to you (it won't work for some people), but you subconsciously want to keep it short.
10 mins until the 2pm tweet from the DoH to let us know the figures are delayed.
They probably won't, but I hope people try to steer away from making forecasts of civilizational collapse/it'll all be over by Easter on the basis of a single day's data.
Could break the kneejerk barrier of 2k dead today.
How many deaths until you take this seriously?
Weren't you talking about 17 per day a few weeks ago?
It was a mistake to believe the Chinese accounts of fatalities.
I see blame it on China is going to be the new catch all excuse.
You blaming the Croatians ? How many wet markets do they have ?
I guess it's psychologically necessary for you to put blame for your fat headed optimism on someone other than yourself.
'I only thought the schools should go back after Easter because I naively believed the Chinese figures, and everyone knows that they're liars.'
Things are obviously getting bad here in Birmingham. Our local hospital is being cleared to concentrate on Covid-19 cases only. And my poor close relative has today received a letter telling her that her cancer treatment has been indefinitely suspended. She is, of course, terrified.
Edit: On a brighter note, my other half's daughter seems to be recovered from her mild illness, and the rest of us are fine. I doubt that she did have CV, but we remain in self-isolation just in case.
It is more radically unethical (in normal circumstances) than I originally understood, and is a true real world example of the trolley scenario - but with volunteers...
....Multiple measures would be put in place to ensure that prior to consenting, potential participants fully comprehend the unusual risks involved in the study. After the controlled human challenge model had been set up, vaccines could be evaluated. Volunteers who had not been previously infected would be randomized to receive either the candidate vaccine(s) under investigation, or placebo. After an interval to permit a full immune response to the vaccine, a controlled exposure to SARS-CoV-2 would be administered. Appropriate vaccine schedules (e.g. dose, number of doses) will have been determined, to the extent possible, in the conventional Phase 1/2 immunogenicity and safety studies that preceded the challenge study. Following the challenge, the participants would be carefully followed, to monitor whether those vaccinated had a different response to viral challenge. Because the challenge studies would be relatively small and some volunteers might show few clinical symptoms, there would need to be careful consideration of the choice of the primary endpoint, through discussions with regulatory authorities. Possibilities would include viral load, measured at least daily (e.g. in throat swabs), and then cumulated over the course of the infection (as has been done in influenza challenge studies)[8], and time to first clinical symptoms. For some vaccines, the endpoint might be the proportion infected. Throughout the study, intense immunological monitoring would seek any correlates of vaccine effect. The required size of such studies would depend upon the endpoints chosen, but they might require of the order of 100 volunteers. Any volunteers in whom infection was confirmed would receive excellent care for COVID-19, including priority for any scarce life-saving resources, in state-of-the-art facilities. Throughout the trial and until infectiousness were ruled out, all participants would remain isolated in a secure and comfortable setting, e.g. in converted from those used for influenza challenge studies....
Should this be contemplated ?
Downside, 100 subjects unnecessarily and deliberately infected... upside, the saving of perhaps six months on trialling a vaccine.
I guess China will already be doing this, only with less voluntary volunteers.
Things are obviously getting bad in here in Birmingham. Our local hospital is being cleared to concentrate on Covid-19 cases only. And my poor close relative has today received a letter telling her that her cancer treatment has been indefinitely suspended. She is, of course, terrified.
That strikes me as extremely poor decision making on the part of the trust.
Things are obviously getting bad in here in Birmingham. Our local hospital is being cleared to concentrate on Covid-19 cases only. And my poor close relative has today received a letter telling her that her cancer treatment has been indefinitely suspended. She is, of course, terrified.
Seriously? My dad is having a pacemaker fitted at the Royal Surrey in Guildford tomorrow; they seem to be carrying on as normal for now.
If 2000 NHS staff have been tested thats 1.3% of the total tested.
If 1.2 million NHS workers in England thats 2.1% of the population.
So NHS workers almost half LESS likely to be tested than a non NHS worker? Surely that cant be right?
Non NHS workers being tested at the moment are sick.
and no need to test non patient facing staff your 1.2m is circa 800k on tht basis from memory
You cant ignore the non patient facing staff, they are still more at risk than those who are self isolating, so should be showing up in the stats at least the same proportion as accountants, lorry drivers or teachers.
Why would an NHS Accountant with no symptoms get a test while we have such limited capacity? And I was an NHS Accountant. Obviously its frontline staff first
It is not all certain that Peston is screwing up. We have to drill down to find out and u can't be bothered doing that. However Gove definitely is screwing up the government's communication on CV and should be taken off that role.
As an aside in my work from time to time we get into situations where things have gone wrong and we're on the hook. I am happy to go to customers and say, this is the situation, this is what we are doing about it and this what you can now expect and when, we will keep you updated on progress. They may not be happy about the situation but above all they are relieved their issue is being dealt with.
Gove said there was a shortage of reagents and swabs, which was limiting testing Peston went and found there was no shortage of chemical ingredients for reagents. Peston claimed that this meant there was no shortage of reagents.
Guernsey Medical Director (who has set up testing on island in a couple of weeks) said there is a global shortage of reagents.
Which is why the idiots saying Gove was being dishonest were showing their own ignorance borne out of wishful thinking.
ZHC is widespead in many sectors, particularly the huge retail, entertainment and hospitality areas ; and the public health consequences of many of these workers in delivery continuing to need and have demand for work at the moment , may not be so preferable, ultimately.
Still plenty of ZHC jobs around, mainly in deliveries and most of that work can be done alone and thus keep social distancing while still earning income independent of government, so good all round
How long have you been on a ZHC?
I suspect dear old HY is on a ZHC now with the Conservative Party. This is why he has to post so much uncritical spin - to prove to them that he is indeed working.
It suddenly came to me! Until now I could not really understand it.
If 2000 NHS staff have been tested thats 1.3% of the total tested.
If 1.2 million NHS workers in England thats 2.1% of the population.
So NHS workers almost half LESS likely to be tested than a non NHS worker? Surely that cant be right?
Non NHS workers being tested at the moment are sick.
and no need to test non patient facing staff your 1.2m is circa 800k on tht basis from memory
You cant ignore the non patient facing staff, they are still more at risk than those who are self isolating, so should be showing up in the stats at least the same proportion as accountants, lorry drivers or teachers.
Why would an NHS Accountant with no symptoms get a test while we have such limited capacity? And I was an NHS Accountant. Obviously its frontline staff first
Additionally a lot of the backroom staff are now WFH, they don't have contact with the front line staff as much.
Things are obviously getting bad here in Birmingham. Our local hospital is being cleared to concentrate on Covid-19 cases only. And my poor close relative has today received a letter telling her that her cancer treatment has been indefinitely suspended. She is, of course, terrified.
Edit: On a brighter note, my other half's daughter seems to be recovered from her mild illness, and the rest of us are fine. I doubt that she did have CV, but we remain in self-isolation just in case.
Bad news about Brum.
We should be becoming increasingly concerned that in the rush to throw everything the NHS has at the plague, we end up causing a huge increase in avoidable deaths and morbidity from all the other illnesses.
Things are obviously getting bad in here in Birmingham. Our local hospital is being cleared to concentrate on Covid-19 cases only. And my poor close relative has today received a letter telling her that her cancer treatment has been indefinitely suspended. She is, of course, terrified.
That strikes me as extremely poor decision making on the part of the trust.
Depends on what the treatment is, the stage and state of her cancer etc.
A clinical decision not to crash (or keep crashing) a persons immune system at the moment does not seem inconceivable to me, at the moment.
The Wife's business backer died yesterday. He was 90, and suffered a rapid decline due to a pneumonia-like chest infection. They didn't test for Covid-19, as far as we know.
His A-list celebrity offspring is out the country. They couldn't attend the funeral today - just the two people present for the send off of a life very well lived.
When this is all over, the celebration of the man and his achievements will be huge.
I dont get the experts cautious optimism. is it possible our new numbers show crossover with Italy?
The optimism is based upon the fact that Italy has got to the other side. Their total number of active cases is going to start dropping in the next 5-6 days. Spain, one would hope, will only be a couple of days behind.
Pretty much everywhere new cases peak 10-14 days after lockdown (with exact numbers also being a function of how many tests took place). You would expect us, therefore, to see new cases rising for a week or so. We might even get to a daily "new cases" number as high as 6-8,000.
However, it will then plateau and then fall off.
And then the question will become how can we relax some restrictions?
Although that question probably won't be asked until the daily death total - which will be an even more lagging indicator - has first plateaued and then started to decline.
It is not all certain that Peston is screwing up. We have to drill down to find out and u can't be bothered doing that. However Gove definitely is screwing up the government's communication on CV and should be taken off that role.
As an aside in my work from time to time we get into situations where things have gone wrong and we're on the hook. I am happy to go to customers and say, this is the situation, this is what we are doing about it and this what you can now expect and when, we will keep you updated on progress. They may not be happy about the situation but above all they are relieved their issue is being dealt with.
Gove said there was a shortage of reagents and swabs, which was limiting testing Peston went and found there was no shortage of chemical ingredients for reagents. Peston claimed that this meant there was no shortage of reagents.
Guernsey Medical Director (who has set up testing on island in a couple of weeks) said there is a global shortage of reagents.
Which is why the idiots saying Gove was being dishonest were showing their own ignorance borne out of wishful thinking.
The idea there is a supply of readily available ingredients everybody is seeking just going idle because we are just willfully neglecting them was so patently absurd only a complete moron could even think it.
If 2000 NHS staff have been tested thats 1.3% of the total tested.
If 1.2 million NHS workers in England thats 2.1% of the population.
So NHS workers almost half LESS likely to be tested than a non NHS worker? Surely that cant be right?
Non NHS workers being tested at the moment are sick.
and no need to test non patient facing staff your 1.2m is circa 800k on tht basis from memory
You cant ignore the non patient facing staff, they are still more at risk than those who are self isolating, so should be showing up in the stats at least the same proportion as accountants, lorry drivers or teachers.
Why would an NHS Accountant with no symptoms get a test while we have such limited capacity? And I was an NHS Accountant. Obviously its frontline staff first
Additionally a lot of the backroom staff are now WFH, they don't have contact with the front line staff as much.
Correct 85% of Finance staff at my local Acute Trust WFH. My neighbour is responsible for ensuring all Critical Finance systems are accessed from home.
It is more radically unethical (in normal circumstances) than I originally understood, and is a true real world example of the trolley scenario - but with volunteers...
....Multiple measures would be put in place to ensure that prior to consenting, potential participants fully comprehend the unusual risks involved in the study. After the controlled human challenge model had been set up, vaccines could be evaluated. Volunteers who had not been previously infected would be randomized to receive either the candidate vaccine(s) under investigation, or placebo. After an interval to permit a full immune response to the vaccine, a controlled exposure to SARS-CoV-2 would be administered. Appropriate vaccine schedules (e.g. dose, number of doses) will have been determined, to the extent possible, in the conventional Phase 1/2 immunogenicity and safety studies that preceded the challenge study. Following the challenge, the participants would be carefully followed, to monitor whether those vaccinated had a different response to viral challenge. Because the challenge studies would be relatively small and some volunteers might show few clinical symptoms, there would need to be careful consideration of the choice of the primary endpoint, through discussions with regulatory authorities. Possibilities would include viral load, measured at least daily (e.g. in throat swabs), and then cumulated over the course of the infection (as has been done in influenza challenge studies)[8], and time to first clinical symptoms. For some vaccines, the endpoint might be the proportion infected. Throughout the study, intense immunological monitoring would seek any correlates of vaccine effect. The required size of such studies would depend upon the endpoints chosen, but they might require of the order of 100 volunteers. Any volunteers in whom infection was confirmed would receive excellent care for COVID-19, including priority for any scarce life-saving resources, in state-of-the-art facilities. Throughout the trial and until infectiousness were ruled out, all participants would remain isolated in a secure and comfortable setting, e.g. in converted from those used for influenza challenge studies....
Should this be contemplated ?
Downside, 100 subjects unnecessarily and deliberately infected... upside, the saving of perhaps six months on trialling a vaccine.
I guess China will already be doing this, only with less voluntary volunteers.
You have been fined 50 Social Credits for violation of the Peoples! Internet! Morality! Act!
All subjects will be volunteered from the enthusiastic ranks of the re-educated at the state social re-education facilities.
Things are obviously getting bad in here in Birmingham. Our local hospital is being cleared to concentrate on Covid-19 cases only. And my poor close relative has today received a letter telling her that her cancer treatment has been indefinitely suspended. She is, of course, terrified.
That strikes me as extremely poor decision making on the part of the trust.
Depends on what the treatment is, the stage and state of her cancer etc.
A clinical decision not to crash (or keep crashing) a persons immune system at the moment does not seem inconceivable to me, at the moment.
An indefinite postponement is going to have a seriously detrimental effect on her mental health. It's literally taking the lifesaving medical intervention off the table for her. Even asking her to travel to a different less affected hospital seems like a better decision.
10 mins until the 2pm tweet from the DoH to let us know the figures are delayed.
They probably won't, but I hope people try to steer away from making forecasts of civilizational collapse/it'll all be over by Easter on the basis of a single day's data.
Could break the kneejerk barrier of 2k dead today.
How many deaths until you take this seriously?
Weren't you talking about 17 per day a few weeks ago?
It was a mistake to believe the Chinese accounts of fatalities.
I see blame it on China is going to be the new catch all excuse.
Are those pesky facts being racist again?
I can't think of any context in which somebody who's not a racist would say this.
I've found that using most of your previous commuting time for exercise helps a lot. I used to commute 75 minutes each way. Now I spend an extra half hour in bed and 45 minutes on exercise in the mornings, and then 45 minutes on exercise in the evenings after work and then I'm "home" half an hour early.
It helps keeps work detached from home life and not spilling over (which is very easy), and the amount of exercise really helps.
On the food front - keep a food diary. Write down everything you eat during the day. This provides a "nudge" to you (it won't work for some people), but you subconsciously want to keep it short.
And with the Olympics put back a year, can we dare to dream? ...
Things are obviously getting bad in here in Birmingham. Our local hospital is being cleared to concentrate on Covid-19 cases only. And my poor close relative has today received a letter telling her that her cancer treatment has been indefinitely suspended. She is, of course, terrified.
That strikes me as extremely poor decision making on the part of the trust.
Depends on what the treatment is, the stage and state of her cancer etc.
A clinical decision not to crash (or keep crashing) a persons immune system at the moment does not seem inconceivable to me, at the moment.
An indefinite postponement is going to have a seriously detrimental effect on her mental health. It's literally taking the lifesaving medical intervention off the table for her. Even asking her to travel to a different less affected hospital seems like a better decision.
It is perfectly possible to shop around in the NHS - that fact startles people..
A second opinion sounds called for... Was the suspension done for load reasons or medical?
Things are obviously getting bad here in Birmingham. Our local hospital is being cleared to concentrate on Covid-19 cases only. And my poor close relative has today received a letter telling her that her cancer treatment has been indefinitely suspended. She is, of course, terrified.
Edit: On a brighter note, my other half's daughter seems to be recovered from her mild illness, and the rest of us are fine. I doubt that she did have CV, but we remain in self-isolation just in case.
Bad news about Brum.
We should be becoming increasingly concerned that in the rush to throw everything the NHS has at the plague, we end up causing a huge increase in avoidable deaths and morbidity from all the other illnesses.
I had a Skype appointment with my GP this week she told me she would normally refer me for an urgent ECG as i have a missing beat but given my other risks she was minded not to.
Weird feeling my pulse for about 5 mins and trying to count how many beats missed. GP frustrated she couldnt grab my wrist via Skype
It doesn't particularly explain the lack of activity on testing from the Government sadly.
Also rank bad manners to put quotation marks around what is presumably your own spelling mistake, given that it was based on what Gove "said" - it makes it look like it was Gove's error.
I dont get the experts cautious optimism. is it possible our new numbers show crossover with Italy?
The optimism is based upon the fact that Italy has got to the other side. Their total number of active cases is going to start dropping in the next 5-6 days. Spain, one would hope, will only be a couple of days behind.
Pretty much everywhere new cases peak 10-14 days after lockdown (with exact numbers also being a function of how many tests took place). You would expect us, therefore, to see new cases rising for a week or so. We might even get to a daily "new cases" number as high as 6-8,000.
However, it will then plateau and then fall off.
And then the question will become how can we relax some restrictions?
Agree
Also means that in a weeks or two the "in 15 days we're Italy" comments will be a positive rather than a negative (Hopefully with fewer deaths overall)
If 2000 NHS staff have been tested thats 1.3% of the total tested.
If 1.2 million NHS workers in England thats 2.1% of the population.
So NHS workers almost half LESS likely to be tested than a non NHS worker? Surely that cant be right?
Non NHS workers being tested at the moment are sick.
and no need to test non patient facing staff your 1.2m is circa 800k on tht basis from memory
You cant ignore the non patient facing staff, they are still more at risk than those who are self isolating, so should be showing up in the stats at least the same proportion as accountants, lorry drivers or teachers.
Why would an NHS Accountant with no symptoms get a test while we have such limited capacity? And I was an NHS Accountant. Obviously its frontline staff first
Because in the 153k there will be accountants. The ones working for the NHS are at least as likely to be ill as they are less likely to be isolated.
I am not arguing whether they should be tested. I am saying that it seems highly unlikely that there have only been 2000 NHS staff tested as that suggests that they are less likely to be tested than average, whereas all logic would have them at least as likely as the population to catch it and need testing - and thats before any special priority testing.
It doesn't particularly explain the lack of activity on testing from the Government sadly.
Also rank bad manners to put quotation marks around what is presumably your own spelling mistake, given that it was based on what Gove "said" - it makes it look like it was Gove's error.
I don't think it's a spelling mistake, but it does look odd.. as if Gove just made the word up on the spot.
I dont get the experts cautious optimism. is it possible our new numbers show crossover with Italy?
The optimism is based upon the fact that Italy has got to the other side. Their total number of active cases is going to start dropping in the next 5-6 days. Spain, one would hope, will only be a couple of days behind.
Pretty much everywhere new cases peak 10-14 days after lockdown (with exact numbers also being a function of how many tests took place). You would expect us, therefore, to see new cases rising for a week or so. We might even get to a daily "new cases" number as high as 6-8,000.
However, it will then plateau and then fall off.
And then the question will become how can we relax some restrictions?
This. On topic, lockdown isn't the end goal. It's the means by which we get control over the epidemic and hopefully move onto less intrusive controls.
Things are obviously getting bad in here in Birmingham. Our local hospital is being cleared to concentrate on Covid-19 cases only. And my poor close relative has today received a letter telling her that her cancer treatment has been indefinitely suspended. She is, of course, terrified.
That strikes me as extremely poor decision making on the part of the trust.
Depends on what the treatment is, the stage and state of her cancer etc.
A clinical decision not to crash (or keep crashing) a persons immune system at the moment does not seem inconceivable to me, at the moment.
An indefinite postponement is going to have a seriously detrimental effect on her mental health. It's literally taking the lifesaving medical intervention off the table for her. Even asking her to travel to a different less affected hospital seems like a better decision.
Luckily (or perhaps because) she has just finished her first round of chemo and is due a two-month break. Obviously she is fervently hoping that the Covid-19 peak with be well past by then and her treatment can be resumed again.
I've found that using most of your previous commuting time for exercise helps a lot. I used to commute 75 minutes each way. Now I spend an extra half hour in bed and 45 minutes on exercise in the mornings, and then 45 minutes on exercise in the evenings after work and then I'm "home" half an hour early.
It helps keeps work detached from home life and not spilling over (which is very easy), and the amount of exercise really helps.
On the food front - keep a food diary. Write down everything you eat during the day. This provides a "nudge" to you (it won't work for some people), but you subconsciously want to keep it short.
And with the Olympics put back a year, can we dare to dream? ...
Pick a sport no-one else does, start your own federation and take part well into your fifties!
I think the optimism is more that new infections are slowing. They would have a prediction of what will happen under various scenarios in terms of new cases going into the hospitals. They have that data in real time - it's obviously something we don't see.
If I had to guess, I'd imagine that their predictions are telling them that new infections are consistent with a model where they are substantially slowing and can then use that to establish how well the NHS will cope.
Deaths, sadly, are a real lagging indicator. But looking at Italy or Spain, I'd expect that the total number of deaths we see per day between Thursday and Sunday will be, give or take, the number of daily deaths we should expect for a couple of weeks.
The number I'd be tracking above all others is NEW admissions to hospital with suspected Covid-19. Once that starts falling day on day we will be seeing light albeit still very much in the tunnel.
Look - the number of deaths are just awful - it's still very bad here in Spain with some tentative signs of a peak. However, I hate to say this but now the critical data relates to hospitalisation and ICU numbers. Every sad death in ICU releases the resource for a case which might make it. The next week will probably be pretty bad.
Boris ramped up Testing expectations 15 days ago and also said we would have exceeded 10,000 by last week
"We're massively increasing the testing to see whether you have it now and ramping up daily testing from 5,000 a day, to 10,000 to 25,000 and then up at 250,000,"
"Extinction Rebellion accuse the government of a coronavirus cover up Extinction Rebellion have staged a protest at the site of HS2 and claim that the government has used coronavirus as a means to cover up HS2 tree felling. The group have been attempting to block construction vehicles in in woodlands in Kenilworth, Warwickshire. The campaigners are sitting in treehouses along the route and claim they have been refused food and water. A source close to extinction rebellion told the Telegraph that the government was trying to complete tree felling under the ‘cloak of coronavirus”."
The new NHS field hospital in Manchester is due to open at the end of next week - on 12 April - and will have capacity for 500 beds, the city’s council leader has said.
The facility at Manchester Central convention centre will be a “step-down” hospital, meaning it will not treat intensive care cases, and is expected to be called Nightingale North.
Sir Richard Leese told a press conference on Wednesday that the new hospital would serve the entire north-west and that the government was not believed to be looking for additional sites in the region.
About a third of all hospital beds in Greater Manchester are currently occupied by 475 coronavirus patients, Leese said. The number of cases in the region has tripled in the past seven days, to 901 cases and that the daily increase had been getting steeper.
Boris ramped up Testing expectations 15 days ago and also said we would have exceeded 10,000 by last week
"We're massively increasing the testing to see whether you have it now and ramping up daily testing from 5,000 a day, to 10,000 to 25,000 and then up at 250,000,"
I've found that using most of your previous commuting time for exercise helps a lot. I used to commute 75 minutes each way. Now I spend an extra half hour in bed and 45 minutes on exercise in the mornings, and then 45 minutes on exercise in the evenings after work and then I'm "home" half an hour early.
It helps keeps work detached from home life and not spilling over (which is very easy), and the amount of exercise really helps.
On the food front - keep a food diary. Write down everything you eat during the day. This provides a "nudge" to you (it won't work for some people), but you subconsciously want to keep it short.
And with the Olympics put back a year, can we dare to dream? ...
Pick a sport no-one else does, start your own federation and take part well into your fifties!
It is not all certain that Peston is screwing up. We have to drill down to find out and u can't be bothered doing that. However Gove definitely is screwing up the government's communication on CV and should be taken off that role.
As an aside in my work from time to time we get into situations where things have gone wrong and we're on the hook. I am happy to go to customers and say, this is the situation, this is what we are doing about it and this what you can now expect and when, we will keep you updated on progress. They may not be happy about the situation but above all they are relieved their issue is being dealt with.
Gove said there was a shortage of reagents and swabs, which was limiting testing Peston went and found there was no shortage of chemical ingredients for reagents. Peston claimed that this meant there was no shortage of reagents.
Guernsey Medical Director (who has set up testing on island in a couple of weeks) said there is a global shortage of reagents.
Which is why the idiots saying Gove was being dishonest were showing their own ignorance borne out of wishful thinking.
Or from experience of Gove lying through his teeth on other occasions? Given the desirability of more trust in these situations, perhaps we'll start demanding standards in public life. This would rule Johnson out from public office which would be a healthy thing.
Anyway there is a limited supply of reagents here in Germany, which is one of the reasons it's not that easy to get tested, and frontline staff are not routinely tested (though will be tested with symptoms - hospitals haven't got enough staff to send people home for 2 weeks).
My wife's hospital has also almost stopped testing people for flu because of a shortage of swabs.
I think the optimism is more that new infections are slowing. They would have a prediction of what will happen under various scenarios in terms of new cases going into the hospitals. They have that data in real time - it's obviously something we don't see.
If I had to guess, I'd imagine that their predictions are telling them that new infections are consistent with a model where they are substantially slowing and can then use that to establish how well the NHS will cope.
Deaths, sadly, are a real lagging indicator. But looking at Italy or Spain, I'd expect that the total number of deaths we see per day between Thursday and Sunday will be, give or take, the number of daily deaths we should expect for a couple of weeks.
The number I'd be tracking above all others is NEW admissions to hospital with suspected Covid-19. Once that starts falling day on day we will be seeing light albeit still very much in the tunnel.
Yes, that would be good to know. Also, I`d like to see a split between those that died with/ without other contributory medical conditions in order to get a better handle on those that died with the virus and those that died of it.
I think the optimism is more that new infections are slowing. They would have a prediction of what will happen under various scenarios in terms of new cases going into the hospitals. They have that data in real time - it's obviously something we don't see.
If I had to guess, I'd imagine that their predictions are telling them that new infections are consistent with a model where they are substantially slowing and can then use that to establish how well the NHS will cope.
Deaths, sadly, are a real lagging indicator. But looking at Italy or Spain, I'd expect that the total number of deaths we see per day between Thursday and Sunday will be, give or take, the number of daily deaths we should expect for a couple of weeks.
The number I'd be tracking above all others is NEW admissions to hospital with suspected Covid-19. Once that starts falling day on day we will be seeing light albeit still very much in the tunnel.
I’d like to see overall deaths compared to average number of deaths on that day
Too afraid to read it... is it good news or bad news?
Neither. It's very good news in terms of the number of approaches, and sheer number of programmes being pursued - but even the most advanced of them have only just started dosing test subjects.
The probable timetable for producing an effective vaccine in bulk has not, and will not change (unless someone adopts the radical and risky testing idea I posted details of below).
....Multiple measures would be put in place to ensure that prior to consenting, potential participants fully comprehend the unusual risks involved in the study. After the controlled human challenge model had been set up, vaccines could be evaluated. Volunteers who had not been previously infected would be randomized to receive either the candidate vaccine(s) under investigation, or placebo. After an interval to permit a full immune response to the vaccine, a controlled exposure to SARS-CoV-2 would be administered...
I think the optimism is more that new infections are slowing. They would have a prediction of what will happen under various scenarios in terms of new cases going into the hospitals. They have that data in real time - it's obviously something we don't see.
If I had to guess, I'd imagine that their predictions are telling them that new infections are consistent with a model where they are substantially slowing and can then use that to establish how well the NHS will cope.
Deaths, sadly, are a real lagging indicator. But looking at Italy or Spain, I'd expect that the total number of deaths we see per day between Thursday and Sunday will be, give or take, the number of daily deaths we should expect for a couple of weeks.
The number I'd be tracking above all others is NEW admissions to hospital with suspected Covid-19. Once that starts falling day on day we will be seeing light albeit still very much in the tunnel.
I’d like to see overall deaths compared to average number of deaths on that day
I see where you are coming from Isam. Total deaths could (counter-intuitively) end up lower this year. I`m not sure that this will prove particularly relevant though, given the nature and scariness of Covid-19.
I think the optimism is more that new infections are slowing. They would have a prediction of what will happen under various scenarios in terms of new cases going into the hospitals. They have that data in real time - it's obviously something we don't see.
If I had to guess, I'd imagine that their predictions are telling them that new infections are consistent with a model where they are substantially slowing and can then use that to establish how well the NHS will cope.
Deaths, sadly, are a real lagging indicator. But looking at Italy or Spain, I'd expect that the total number of deaths we see per day between Thursday and Sunday will be, give or take, the number of daily deaths we should expect for a couple of weeks.
The number I'd be tracking above all others is NEW admissions to hospital with suspected Covid-19. Once that starts falling day on day we will be seeing light albeit still very much in the tunnel.
I’d like to see overall deaths compared to average number of deaths on that day
I believe there's normally a lag in recording the total number of deaths so a figure like that would give you a false sense of normality.
The number of tests is more than the number of people isn't it?
Tests. The Guardian article suggested test to people ratio was around 70%. But I have no numbers on what that figure is today.
"As of 9am on 1 April 2020, 152,979 people have been tested, of which 29,474 were confirmed positive."
The gov.uk announcements always count people, not individual tests.
Not what Gove quoted at the weekend though so throw in idle capability as well. Turned out only 9,114 tests had been been carried out on about 6,900 people on Friday – falling to 8,278 tests on 4,908 patients on Saturday Gove defends his over 10,000 comment by retrospectively claiming when he said tests he meant Testing Capability
The Welsh first minister, Mark Drakeford, has invited the leaders of the two main opposition parties in Wales, the Tories and Plaid Cymru, to join its cabinet Covid group, which has been set up to tackle the crisis. Paul Davies and Adam Price have accepted the invitation.
Boris ramped up Testing expectations 15 days ago and also said we would have exceeded 10,000 by last week
"We're massively increasing the testing to see whether you have it now and ramping up daily testing from 5,000 a day, to 10,000 to 25,000 and then up at 250,000,"
It is not all certain that Peston is screwing up. We have to drill down to find out and u can't be bothered doing that. However Gove definitely is screwing up the government's communication on CV and should be taken off that role.
As an aside in my work from time to time we get into situations where things have gone wrong and we're on the hook. I am happy to go to customers and say, this is the situation, this is what we are doing about it and this what you can now expect and when, we will keep you updated on progress. They may not be happy about the situation but above all they are relieved their issue is being dealt with.
Gove said there was a shortage of reagents and swabs, which was limiting testing Peston went and found there was no shortage of chemical ingredients for reagents. Peston claimed that this meant there was no shortage of reagents.
Guernsey Medical Director (who has set up testing on island in a couple of weeks) said there is a global shortage of reagents.
Which is why the idiots saying Gove was being dishonest were showing their own ignorance borne out of wishful thinking.
Or from experience of Gove lying through his teeth on other occasions? Given the desirability of more trust in these situations, perhaps we'll start demanding standards in public life. This would rule Johnson out from public office which would be a healthy thing.
Anyway there is a limited supply of reagents here in Germany, which is one of the reasons it's not that easy to get tested, and frontline staff are not routinely tested (though will be tested with symptoms - hospitals haven't got enough staff to send people home for 2 weeks)...
And I believe Germany is by some way the largest manufacturer in Europe of such kit ?
Comments
An extra 4324 cases and 563 extra deaths.
I dont get the experts cautious optimism. is it possible our new numbers show crossover with Italy?
I am just trying to assess the impact of the lockdown on timings and when we can hope to, or expect to see, a positive development.
He's got no discernible talent.
If 1.2 million NHS workers in England thats 2.1% of the population.
So NHS workers almost half LESS likely to be tested than a non NHS worker? Surely that cant be right?
I wonder if the alleged short leadtime on the better test versus ordering the reagents meant they short-sightedly didn't order the reagents as the better test would be ready by then...
Pretty much everywhere new cases peak 10-14 days after lockdown (with exact numbers also being a function of how many tests took place). You would expect us, therefore, to see new cases rising for a week or so. We might even get to a daily "new cases" number as high as 6-8,000.
However, it will then plateau and then fall off.
And then the question will become how can we relax some restrictions?
I'm not sure if that approach captures the essence of the issue. The GKV system with its very high degree of uniform regulation is in its effects not much different from the NHS, the share of private insurance is small and utilises basically the same health care providers.
The bigger difference might be on the provider side. The reforms of the 90's and early 00's had lead to a substantial opening to private health care enterprise (transformation of Stadt-, Kreis-, and Landeskrankenhäuser into public/private cooperations, or entirely private institutions), giving rise to Fresenius et al.
Some people make the (somewhat plausible) argument that it was the prevalence of private stakeholders' interests in this sector that served as a bulwark against further cuts, maintaining a comparatively generous level of health care provision, in contrast to eg. the UK where the public part of the sector was subject to much more cost cutting in the name of "cutting the slack".
My initial assumption is that the 2k figure was plucked out of the air as they thought it sounded significant and they dont know how many of the tests are for NHS staff.
If I had to guess, I'd imagine that their predictions are telling them that new infections are consistent with a model where they are substantially slowing and can then use that to establish how well the NHS will cope.
Deaths, sadly, are a real lagging indicator. But looking at Italy or Spain, I'd expect that the total number of deaths we see per day between Thursday and Sunday will be, give or take, the number of daily deaths we should expect for a couple of weeks.
BTW am i right that it looks like testing in past 24hrs was circa 13k ?
https://academic.oup.com/jid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/infdis/jiaa152/5814216
It is more radically unethical (in normal circumstances) than I originally understood, and is a true real world example of the trolley scenario - but with volunteers...
....Multiple measures would be put in place to ensure that prior to consenting, potential participants fully comprehend the unusual risks involved in the study.
After the controlled human challenge model had been set up, vaccines could be evaluated. Volunteers who had not been previously infected would be randomized to receive either the candidate vaccine(s) under investigation, or placebo. After an interval to permit a full immune response to the vaccine, a controlled exposure to SARS-CoV-2 would be administered. Appropriate vaccine schedules (e.g. dose, number of doses) will have been determined, to the extent possible, in the conventional Phase 1/2 immunogenicity and safety studies that preceded the challenge study.
Following the challenge, the participants would be carefully followed, to monitor whether those
vaccinated had a different response to viral challenge. Because the challenge studies would be relatively small and some volunteers might show few clinical symptoms, there would need to be careful consideration of the choice of the primary endpoint, through discussions with regulatory authorities. Possibilities would include viral load, measured at least daily (e.g. in throat swabs), and then cumulated over the course of the infection (as has been done in influenza challenge studies)[8], and time to first clinical symptoms. For some vaccines, the endpoint might be the proportion infected. Throughout the study, intense immunological monitoring would seek any correlates of vaccine effect. The required size of such studies would depend upon the endpoints chosen, but they might require of the order of 100 volunteers.
Any volunteers in whom infection was confirmed would receive excellent care for COVID-19, including priority for any scarce life-saving resources, in state-of-the-art facilities. Throughout the trial and until infectiousness were ruled out, all participants would remain isolated in a secure and comfortable setting, e.g. in converted from those used for influenza challenge studies....
Should this be contemplated ?
Downside, 100 subjects unnecessarily and deliberately infected... upside, the saving of perhaps six months on trialling a vaccine.
If they are recovered, it won't show anything.
I've found that using most of your previous commuting time for exercise helps a lot. I used to commute 75 minutes each way. Now I spend an extra half hour in bed and 45 minutes on exercise in the mornings, and then 45 minutes on exercise in the evenings after work and then I'm "home" half an hour early.
It helps keeps work detached from home life and not spilling over (which is very easy), and the amount of exercise really helps.
On the food front - keep a food diary. Write down everything you eat during the day. This provides a "nudge" to you (it won't work for some people), but you subconsciously want to keep it short.
https://www.timeout.com/sydney/news/sydneys-covid-19-shutdown-your-questions-answered-033020
'I only thought the schools should go back after Easter because I naively believed the Chinese figures, and everyone knows that they're liars.'
Edit: On a brighter note, my other half's daughter seems to be recovered from her mild illness, and the rest of us are fine. I doubt that she did have CV, but we remain in self-isolation just in case.
It suddenly came to me! Until now I could not really understand it.
We should be becoming increasingly concerned that in the rush to throw everything the NHS has at the plague, we end up causing a huge increase in avoidable deaths and morbidity from all the other illnesses.
A clinical decision not to crash (or keep crashing) a persons immune system at the moment does not seem inconceivable to me, at the moment.
His A-list celebrity offspring is out the country. They couldn't attend the funeral today - just the two people present for the send off of a life very well lived.
When this is all over, the celebration of the man and his achievements will be huge.
So Peston said it.
All subjects will be volunteered from the enthusiastic ranks of the re-educated at the state social re-education facilities.
All hail Winky The Poo!
A second opinion sounds called for... Was the suspension done for load reasons or medical?
The number of tests is more than the number of people isn't it?
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/record-setting-speed-vaccine-makers-take-their-first-shots-new-coronavirus#
Weird feeling my pulse for about 5 mins and trying to count how many beats missed. GP frustrated she couldnt grab my wrist via Skype
Also means that in a weeks or two the "in 15 days we're Italy" comments will be a positive rather than a negative
(Hopefully with fewer deaths overall)
I am not arguing whether they should be tested. I am saying that it seems highly unlikely that there have only been 2000 NHS staff tested as that suggests that they are less likely to be tested than average, whereas all logic would have them at least as likely as the population to catch it and need testing - and thats before any special priority testing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Hubertus_of_Hohenlohe-Langenburg
"We're massively increasing the testing to see whether you have it now and ramping up daily testing from 5,000 a day, to 10,000 to 25,000 and then up at 250,000,"
The gov.uk announcements always count people, not individual tests.
"Extinction Rebellion accuse the government of a coronavirus cover up
Extinction Rebellion have staged a protest at the site of HS2 and claim that the government has used coronavirus as a means to cover up HS2 tree felling.
The group have been attempting to block construction vehicles in in woodlands in Kenilworth, Warwickshire. The campaigners are sitting in treehouses along the route and claim they have been refused food and water.
A source close to extinction rebellion told the Telegraph that the government was trying to complete tree felling under the ‘cloak of coronavirus”."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/coronavirus-uk-news-latest-deaths-tests-flights-nhs-ventilators/
The new NHS field hospital in Manchester is due to open at the end of next week - on 12 April - and will have capacity for 500 beds, the city’s council leader has said.
The facility at Manchester Central convention centre will be a “step-down” hospital, meaning it will not treat intensive care cases, and is expected to be called Nightingale North.
Sir Richard Leese told a press conference on Wednesday that the new hospital would serve the entire north-west and that the government was not believed to be looking for additional sites in the region.
About a third of all hospital beds in Greater Manchester are currently occupied by 475 coronavirus patients, Leese said. The number of cases in the region has tripled in the past seven days, to 901 cases and that the daily increase had been getting steeper.
Anyway there is a limited supply of reagents here in Germany, which is one of the reasons it's not that easy to get tested, and frontline staff are not routinely tested (though will be tested with symptoms - hospitals haven't got enough staff to send people home for 2 weeks).
My wife's hospital has also almost stopped testing people for flu because of a shortage of swabs.
At least they aren't blocking ambulance routes any more.
It's very good news in terms of the number of approaches, and sheer number of programmes being pursued - but even the most advanced of them have only just started dosing test subjects.
The probable timetable for producing an effective vaccine in bulk has not, and will not change (unless someone adopts the radical and risky testing idea I posted details of below).
(As someone pointed out, the Chinese might.)
(edit)
This was the paper:
https://academic.oup.com/jid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/infdis/jiaa152/5814216
A trolley problem - but with volunteers...
....Multiple measures would be put in place to ensure that prior to consenting, potential participants fully comprehend the unusual risks involved in the study.
After the controlled human challenge model had been set up, vaccines could be evaluated. Volunteers who had not been previously infected would be randomized to receive either the candidate vaccine(s) under investigation, or placebo. After an interval to permit a full immune response to the vaccine, a controlled exposure to SARS-CoV-2 would be administered...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/30/uk-ministers-accused-of-overstating-scale-of-coronavirus-testing
You can only wriggle for so long
https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1245340275276423169?s=21