This still feels pretty thin. No one will care about Leicester (or anywhere else for that matter) when the real economic pain begins to be felt.
If we have more Leicesters then there's a narrative to be made that the government's handling of the pandemic has made the economic pain much much worse.
What's the explanation for why we don't know the figure how many people we've tested for like the last month?
The contract with the companies doing testing doesn't seem to include communicating the results to anyone.
@Foxy. Do people coming into hospitals with pillar 2 positive results confirmed (to them) still get pillar 1 tested and counted? Or is there a chance that pillar 1, public, numbers are being depressed by the existence of pillar 2?
This still feels pretty thin. No one will care about Leicester (or anywhere else for that matter) when the real economic pain begins to be felt.
I've heard, "at least you've got your health," as a look on the bright side saying to someone down in the dumps, but I can't imagine anyone telling someone whose lost a family member to disease, "at least you've got your job."
Lost jobs can more easily be replaced than lost lives.
This still feels pretty thin. No one will care about Leicester (or anywhere else for that matter) when the real economic pain begins to be felt.
If we have more Leicesters then there's a narrative to be made that the government's handling of the pandemic has made the economic pain much much worse.
Yes, not much enthusiasm for lockdown from the city folk. Not least my colleagues planning holidays next week. Fortunately, I live outside the line so can do as I please.
New outbreak at a bed factory in Batley. Though 8 miles away in the north of Kirklees, it's a worry. Could have most of my family covered by separate lockdowns by next week at this rate.
What's the explanation for why we don't know the figure how many people we've tested for like the last month?
The contract with the companies doing testing doesn't seem to include communicating the results to anyone.
@Foxy. Do people coming into hospitals with pillar 2 positive results confirmed (to them) still get pillar 1 tested and counted? Or is there a chance that pillar 1, public, numbers are being depressed by the existence of pillar 2?
Yes, they would be tested, not least because GPs and Hospitals don't get informed of pillar 2 results.
Inpatient numbers stable through June, at about 75 with 10 on ICU. A slight shift to younger patients on respiratory wards.
2/3 of our population is in the County, where cases are now rare. The rise in cases from the Eastern part of the city was probably masked by the drop in the County.
A second wave - God forbid - will be utterly defining for Boris. If it happens then his reputation, authority and career could explode in a way the likes of which we have never seen; if not, we will be forced to conclude that Boris resides amongst the political immortals.
OK, beyond the current hotspots (this week's numbers out tomorrow), my geograpihical spread theory would have the following as the sort of locations vulnerable to.local outbreaks in the coming weeks:
TBF they were doing everything incredibly fast and under real pressure.
I’m sure it was overlooked.
So you fix it and move on.
I have pointed out all along that the obsession with testing numbers was daft. The purpose of testing is to trace and isolate, which we are still failing at.
This is what is happening with tracing in Leicester, according to todays PHE report:
1.5 Backward contact tracing A current study on the utility of backward contact tracing is being piloted across England. Leicester city residents have been included in the pilot. Against an intended sample of 50 cases, only 11 cases in the city had successfully completed the study until 24 June 2020. Preliminary analysis of the 11 cases did not identify any events with multiple households attending. Most of the cases did not report leaving home, other than for visiting supermarkets.
Tracing 11 cases seems pretty feeble to me in a city with 944 cases, 90+ Tier 2, over 2 weeks.
OK, beyond the current hotspots (this week's numbers out tomorrow), my geograpihical spread theory would have the following as the sort of locations vulnerable to.local outbreaks in the coming weeks:
That's what I wondered below. If it is still a notifiable disease, then it has to be reported, contract or not. Although perhaps not in a useful format?
TBF they were doing everything incredibly fast and under real pressure.
I’m sure it was overlooked.
So you fix it and move on.
I have pointed out all along that the obsession with testing numbers was daft. The purpose of testing is to trace and isolate, which we are still failing at.
This is what is happening with tracing in Leicester, according to todays PHE report:
1.5 Backward contact tracing A current study on the utility of backward contact tracing is being piloted across England. Leicester city residents have been included in the pilot. Against an intended sample of 50 cases, only 11 cases in the city had successfully completed the study until 24 June 2020. Preliminary analysis of the 11 cases did not identify any events with multiple households attending. Most of the cases did not report leaving home, other than for visiting supermarkets.
Tracing 11 cases seems pretty feeble to me in a city with 944 cases, 90+ Tier 2, over 2 weeks.
Agreed. Building public health capacity from scratch is a hard task.
Isn’t that just saying NYC got it bad early and now everywhere is catching up?
To an extent, I think that true of Leicester. We got of relatively lightly in April. A number of other towns which now seems to be having problems did too. There may be a catch up element.
One interesting point on pillar 2 testing is that in most regions twice as many pillar 1 have been done compared with pillar 2. The exception is the East Midlands where more p2 have been done than p1.
There are now 4 mobile testing stations in East Leicester, previously only accessible by car outside the city. Problematic considering the outbreak is in an inner city district with low levels of car ownership.
OK, beyond the current hotspots (this week's numbers out tomorrow), my geograpihical spread theory would have the following as the sort of locations vulnerable to.local outbreaks in the coming weeks:
I doubt Boris or Hancock have drawn up the contracts themselves.
What we are seeing is the general unfitness for purpose of the alphabet soup.
I don't think PHE would negotiate a contract that kept themselves in the dark! It is the usual private sector troughers.
Without the private sector covid would have overwhelmed the NHS and much more
Nah, the private hospitals like the Nightingales have been hardly used. The real work was done by Acute Hospital Trusts.
You are blinkered. The private sector involvement has been huge and I am surprised that you cannot accept that
No, in the couple of headers that I have written on the NHS, I have advocated private facilities. The simple truth is that they were barely used in the peak of the wave. It was the NHS owned facilities that shouldered the burden.
It's quite good news about hospitalised patients etc. - Also, the data are (finally!) better presented than before so you get a better sense of trends without having to download the data and play with it each day. The level of granularity is still not great though.
I doubt Boris or Hancock have drawn up the contracts themselves.
What we are seeing is the general unfitness for purpose of the alphabet soup.
I don't think PHE would negotiate a contract that kept themselves in the dark! It is the usual private sector troughers.
Without the private sector covid would have overwhelmed the NHS and much more
Nah, the private hospitals like the Nightingales have been hardly used. The real work was done by Acute Hospital Trusts.
You are blinkered. The private sector involvement has been huge and I am surprised that you cannot accept that
No, in the couple of headers that I have written on the NHS, I have advocated private facilities. The simple truth is that they were barely used in the peak of the wave. It was the NHS owned facilities that shouldered the burden.
Wales news was showing how Spire private hospitals are treating patients and no longer accept private patients. Public Private cooperation is good and the way forward
Virtually all the housing data that I see come from biased sources, usually trying to ramp sales (amazing opportunities etc.). I'm advising a friend on house purchase in Oxfordshire and am genuinely unsure what to suggest is likely - are we expecting a continued slide in prices, or a bounce back, or what?
Virtually all the housing data that I see come from biased sources, usually trying to ramp sales (amazing opportunities etc.). I'm advising a friend on house purchase in Oxfordshire and am genuinely unsure what to suggest is likely - are we expecting a continued slide in prices, or a bounce back, or what?
Who knows but I expect it will vary from area to area.
I doubt Boris or Hancock have drawn up the contracts themselves.
What we are seeing is the general unfitness for purpose of the alphabet soup.
I don't think PHE would negotiate a contract that kept themselves in the dark! It is the usual private sector troughers.
Without the private sector covid would have overwhelmed the NHS and much more
Nah, the private hospitals like the Nightingales have been hardly used. The real work was done by Acute Hospital Trusts.
You are blinkered. The private sector involvement has been huge and I am surprised that you cannot accept that
No, in the couple of headers that I have written on the NHS, I have advocated private facilities. The simple truth is that they were barely used in the peak of the wave. It was the NHS owned facilities that shouldered the burden.
Wales news was showing how Spire private hospitals are treating patients and no longer accept private patients. Public Private cooperation is good and the way forward
Yes, that is a national programme, but the actual numbers being treated in the private facilities have been quite modest, and non covid backlog cases.
The contract is being extended for some months. A bit tough on anyone with private insurance as they cannot be seen. It is an irony that I pointed out in my recent header, that the Tory government has effectively stopped private medical care across most of the country.
Incidentally Spire hospitals have run at a loss over recent years, but the government contract is as costs plus, so they are finally running at a profit.
Going back to Uber, I reckon they're going bust within 12 months.
They had 9bn in "Unrestricted cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments" at end March. They're losing something like 3bn a quarter.
Coronavirus isn't going away any time soon in their main US market or their second largest market, Brazil.
Could all be over by end of the year.
They're not going to go bust because someone will be prepared to invest in them, even if not at current prices.
Ultimately, at some point CV-19 will be over, either because a hundred million people have died and the rest of us have some form of immunity, or because a vaccine is created.
There will then again be a need for an efficient way of matching drivers with riders. Uber is an efficient way of matching drivers with riders. It also has a massive market share in places like London, Los Angeles, etc.
So, I would not bet on Uber going bust.
Fancy betting with me? £50 to charity says they are bust by 31st Dec 2021. I say the uber app is not hard to develop, there are limited barriers to entry and once they stop subsidising taxi services they are toast.
Or just it was the North first, and now it's the South. Not that difficult.
No. The way both later maps mirror the first is more than just a North-South thing. They match on a granular, county level
It's probably something to do with race AND aircon (as well as the bug moving south)
We know that the virus is bad in the most BAMEy parts of the UK; there is no logical reason why this should not be the case in America. BAME citizens are more likely to have front line dangerous jobs, to lack second homes, to be in crowded housing, to have religious beliefs that may lead to transmission, and so on.
Or just it was the North first, and now it's the South. Not that difficult.
No. The way both later maps mirror the first is more than just a North-South thing. They match on a granular, county level
It's probably something to do with race AND aircon (as well as the bug moving south)
We know that the virus is bad in the most BAMEy parts of the UK; there is no logical reason why this should not be the case in America. BAME citizens are more likely to have front line dangerous jobs, to lack second homes, to be in crowded housing, to have religious beliefs that may lead to transmission, and so on.
I dunno, isn't it just tracking density? There might be a second-order effect at work here of course.
Isn’t that just saying NYC got it bad early and now everywhere is catching up?
I think it was HYUFD pointed out the flaw with these charts, last time they were posted here. It is difficult to know what is really going on because we don' know the totals. A realistic scenario for these graphs is that the blue states start off with lots os cases and the red states not so many. Ten the number of new cases in the blue states drops, but stays constant in the red states. You would exactly this graph. A similar plrot showing total numbers not proportions would be far more informative.
I doubt Boris or Hancock have drawn up the contracts themselves.
What we are seeing is the general unfitness for purpose of the alphabet soup.
I don't think PHE would negotiate a contract that kept themselves in the dark! It is the usual private sector troughers.
Without the private sector covid would have overwhelmed the NHS and much more
Nah, the private hospitals like the Nightingales have been hardly used. The real work was done by Acute Hospital Trusts.
You are blinkered. The private sector involvement has been huge and I am surprised that you cannot accept that
Big G, I think we can trust the Doc on this one.
I do not accept that the private sector involvement across the UK did not contribute to preventing the NHS being overwhelmed
It didn't. Private hospital capacity was barely used.
We certainly paid for it though. £400m/month and counting.
I can understand where the Treasury are coming from when they look at that deal and say it's terrible value for money. Maybe that's the price you pay for underinvestment and trying to be efficient/have low spare capacity.
Isn’t that just saying NYC got it bad early and now everywhere is catching up?
I think it was HYUFD pointed out the flaw with these charts, last time they were posted here. It is difficult to know what is really going on because we don' know the totals. A realistic scenario for these graphs is that the blue states start off with lots os cases and the red states not so many. Ten the number of new cases in the blue states drops, but stays constant in the red states. You would exactly this graph. A similar plrot showing total numbers not proportions would be far more informative.
The plot here is of per capita cases. Looks interesting to me.
Isn’t that just saying NYC got it bad early and now everywhere is catching up?
I think it was HYUFD pointed out the flaw with these charts, last time they were posted here. It is difficult to know what is really going on because we don' know the totals. A realistic scenario for these graphs is that the blue states start off with lots os cases and the red states not so many. Ten the number of new cases in the blue states drops, but stays constant in the red states. You would exactly this graph. A similar plrot showing total numbers not proportions would be far more informative.
The plot here is of per capita cases. Looks interesting to me.
Local lockdowns ‘just days away for 36 coronavirus hotspots in UK’
to the first line of the story:
Local lockdowns could be just days away for 36 areas earmarked as ‘coronavirus hotspots’, it has been reported.
Is 'could' the most important word in the English language ?
In reality the chance of further lockdowns in the next few days is almost zero and the chance that 36 areas having lockdowns in the next few days is zero.
Isn’t that just saying NYC got it bad early and now everywhere is catching up?
I think it was HYUFD pointed out the flaw with these charts, last time they were posted here. It is difficult to know what is really going on because we don' know the totals. A realistic scenario for these graphs is that the blue states start off with lots os cases and the red states not so many. Ten the number of new cases in the blue states drops, but stays constant in the red states. You would exactly this graph. A similar plrot showing total numbers not proportions would be far more informative.
The plot here is of per capita cases. Looks interesting to me.
But you have to control for the huge increase in testing done between the start and end of that plot... somehow.
That's true. The first peak would almost certainly be much higher with the current rate of testing. That means that the decline in case numbers in blue states is all the more impressive - and likely means that there was a decrease in case numbers initially in the red states too.
But I don't think there's a major difference in test availability between red and blue states now - so the difference between the two lines at the same point in time is relevant.
This is the paper/article behind the story I noted earlier today. It’s a bit thin, but it does suggest that school reopening is not risk free, as the PM keeps insisting.
Isn’t that just saying NYC got it bad early and now everywhere is catching up?
I think it was HYUFD pointed out the flaw with these charts, last time they were posted here. It is difficult to know what is really going on because we don' know the totals. A realistic scenario for these graphs is that the blue states start off with lots os cases and the red states not so many. Ten the number of new cases in the blue states drops, but stays constant in the red states. You would exactly this graph. A similar plrot showing total numbers not proportions would be far more informative.
The plot here is of per capita cases. Looks interesting to me.
But you have to control for the huge increase in testing done between the start and end of that plot... somehow.
That's true. The first peak would almost certainly be much higher with the current rate of testing. That means that the decline in case numbers in blue states is all the more impressive - and likely means that there was a decrease in case numbers initially in the red states too.
But I don't think there's a major difference in test availability between red and blue states now - so the difference between the two lines at the same point in time is relevant.
Yeah, the current difference driven by the fact it didn't start everywhere at the same time.
Comments
https://twitter.com/johnharris1969/status/1278259630628618241
Cummings claims he loves superforecasting.
Here's a forecast. It is going to be ruinous mayhem.
Lost jobs can more easily be replaced than lost lives.
Confirms my initial positive impression:
https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/07/01/pfizer-and-biontechs-first-vaccine-candidate
FWIW, I think there will be an effective vaccine (and perhaps several) by the year end. And at that point, things could improve quite quickly.
What we are seeing is the general unfitness for purpose of the alphabet soup.
Inpatient numbers stable through June, at about 75 with 10 on ICU. A slight shift to younger patients on respiratory wards.
2/3 of our population is in the County, where cases are now rare. The rise in cases from the Eastern part of the city was probably masked by the drop in the County.
https://twitter.com/AP/status/1278425198824493056
https://twitter.com/AP/status/1278426585910185987
https://twitter.com/AP/status/1278426759751520256
Trump and the GOP are surely screwed?
I’m sure it was overlooked.
So you fix it and move on.
Let people make their own choices and accept responsibility for it.
Though nobody I work with has any intention of going anywhere near a pub for at least a week afterwards.
Catterick, Burnley, Halifax, Grimsby, Worksop, Nottingham, Buxton, Northampton, Cambridge, Chelmsford, Dover, Wycombe, Bournemouth, Bath, Bridtol
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/jul/01/our-hero-west-indies-legend-sir-everton-weekes-dies-aged-95-cricket
Legend.
You do know you can go to the pub in the evening - even if you worked during the day, right?
Monday would have been sensible; Saturday is asking for trouble.
This is what is happening with tracing in Leicester, according to todays PHE report:
1.5 Backward contact tracing
A current study on the utility of backward contact tracing is being piloted across England. Leicester city residents have been included in the pilot. Against an intended sample of 50 cases, only 11 cases in the city had successfully completed the study until 24 June 2020. Preliminary analysis of the 11 cases did not identify any events with multiple households attending. Most of the cases did not report leaving home, other than for visiting supermarkets.
Tracing 11 cases seems pretty feeble to me in a city with 944 cases, 90+ Tier 2, over 2 weeks.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/notifiable-diseases-and-causative-organisms-how-to-report
Maybe Cummings' superforecasters knew several weeks ago it was going to rain on the 4th July
But they need to accept responsibility for their actions.
Building public health capacity from scratch is a hard task.
(And Deliotte seem a bit crap.)
Sky News: https://news.sky.com/story/thursdays-national-newspaper-front-pages-12019257?inApp=true
“Catching up” was not inevitable.
One interesting point on pillar 2 testing is that in most regions twice as many pillar 1 have been done compared with pillar 2. The exception is the East Midlands where more p2 have been done than p1.
There are now 4 mobile testing stations in East Leicester, previously only accessible by car outside the city. Problematic considering the outbreak is in an inner city district with low levels of car ownership.
It's quite good news about hospitalised patients etc. - Also, the data are (finally!) better presented than before so you get a better sense of trends without having to download the data and play with it each day. The level of granularity is still not great though.
The contract is being extended for some months. A bit tough on anyone with private insurance as they cannot be seen. It is an irony that I pointed out in my recent header, that the Tory government has effectively stopped private medical care across most of the country.
Incidentally Spire hospitals have run at a loss over recent years, but the government contract is as costs plus, so they are finally running at a profit.
I was thinking next spring earliest for my shot.
I say the uber app is not hard to develop, there are limited barriers to entry and once they stop subsidising taxi services they are toast.
Is it something to do with race?
https://twitter.com/Raedwald/status/1278388312391200768?s=20
Or is it air con?
https://twitter.com/indyholland/status/1278389818708418560?s=20
It's probably something to do with race AND aircon (as well as the bug moving south)
We know that the virus is bad in the most BAMEy parts of the UK; there is no logical reason why this should not be the case in America. BAME citizens are more likely to have front line dangerous jobs, to lack second homes, to be in crowded housing, to have religious beliefs that may lead to transmission, and so on.
It is difficult to know what is really going on because we don' know the totals. A realistic scenario for these graphs is that the blue states start off with lots os cases and the red states not so many. Ten the number of new cases in the blue states drops, but stays constant in the red states. You would exactly this graph.
A similar plrot showing total numbers not proportions would be far more informative.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-53257512
I can understand where the Treasury are coming from when they look at that deal and say it's terrible value for money. Maybe that's the price you pay for underinvestment and trying to be efficient/have low spare capacity.
When I read that I thought Daily Mash.
Sadly not.
And we are only half way through. Indeed, exactly half way through
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2020/06/28/covid-19-red-states-blue-states-redux/
This is abnormally BAD
The Metro's headline:
Local lockdowns ‘just days away for 36 coronavirus hotspots in UK’
to the first line of the story:
Local lockdowns could be just days away for 36 areas earmarked as ‘coronavirus hotspots’, it has been reported.
Is 'could' the most important word in the English language ?
In reality the chance of further lockdowns in the next few days is almost zero and the chance that 36 areas having lockdowns in the next few days is zero.
Meanwhile the rate of infection continues to fall.
But I don't think there's a major difference in test availability between red and blue states now - so the difference between the two lines at the same point in time is relevant.
(£)
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/leicester-lockdown-dismay-of-the-lepers-barred-from-reopened-tourist-sites-fkswvg2tx
It’s a bit thin, but it does suggest that school reopening is not risk free, as the PM keeps insisting.
Culture-Competent SARS-CoV-2 in Nasopharynx of Symptomatic Neonates, Children, and Adolescents
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/10/20-2403_article
Tory maj down from 54 to 18. 26 Lab gains from Con compared to GE2019.
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html