Is there any polling on Scots living outside Scotland? I wouldn't be sure they are majority anti-independence, especially in the context of Brexit (it's a ticket to an EU passport). I was born in Fife, live in London, and support independence, and would be happy to vote on it.
Massively anti-independence. Or at least they were prior to 2014.
It was almost comical, amongst my old uni friends I keep in contact with every single one living in England was anti-indy and all bar three living in Scotland were pro-indy.
The funny thing is that I can turn most people in England pro Scottish independence in 2 sentences
"Scotland has free Prescriptions and Free University. Yet they still want more and still expect the English to pay for it...."
Now that isn't 100% accurate but its no less inaccurate than £350m on the back of a bus.
Is there any polling on Scots living outside Scotland? I wouldn't be sure they are majority anti-independence, especially in the context of Brexit (it's a ticket to an EU passport). I was born in Fife, live in London, and support independence, and would be happy to vote on it.
Fifers....
When I was a solicitor there medical records of a certain vintage contained the acronym "NFF". This turned out to be normal for Fife and was subsequently banned by the NHS.
In S Essex there was NFO..... normal for Ockenden, a small town between Grays and Upminster. Overspill estate. FLK = Funny looking kid was also about.
So many doctors have a natural charm about them. And some don't.
Our local, female, GP's all have excellent 'surgery manners'. One is exceptionally good and I complimented her on it, having long ago, when I was working, been concerned to improve relationships between professionals, especially in my own profession, and the public. She told me that at Med School she'd been told by one of the professors that with her general manner, she would be an excellent GP. She still wasn't entirely sure whether that was intended to be complimentary!
Guardian: The coronavirus test and trace system was condemned as “barely functional” today as its tsar admitted that demand was up to four times capacity, while 90% of tests were failing to hit the 24-hour turnaround target.
The Guardian has seen documents showing tracers taking up to two weeks to contact friends, relatives and workmates of people diagnosed with Covid-19 – the entire length of the self-isolation period.
But amid growing anger and lengthening queues at testing centres, Dido Harding, head of the £10bn NHS test-and-trace programme designed to prevent a second wave of Covid-19, told MPs on Thursday: “I strongly refute that the system is failing.”
Are they seriously saying that current demand is 900K tests a day? In a population of 65m with about 3.5k new cases a day? A significant number of that 65m live in areas with almost no Covid at all.
There is a lot of anxiety and panic out there, only some of which is justified. Poor and confused messaging by the government again but they need to make it clear who and where their priorities for testing are and the rest of us with a seasonal cold at exceptionally low risk will just have to wait a bit.
The thing is, if you have a cold with a cough you don't know that it's a cold until you've been tested.
I know, hence the anxiety. But if you live in an area where very few to no cases and if your neighbours haven't been idiots going on foreign holidays you are just not a priority for a test.
As I said the messaging on this has once again been abysmal, offering the moon (almost literally), failing miserably, then trying to bring some sort of rationing in after everyone is pissed off and even more anxious, its a master class in incompetence. Again.
I've been through this process in Ireland this week. I have a sore throat. It's listed by the HSE as sometimes being a symptom of coronavirus. I contacted a local GP, and completed their triage form. They phoned back to double-check symptoms and I was told it was very unlikely to be Covid, there being very little in the area, and I didn't need to be swabbed.
Could I have made that judgement myself? Yes, probably. But I'm a lot more confident with the decision now, and if I'd been in NW Dublin the decision from the GP might have been different.
The advice here is that if you have any respiratory symptoms, contact your GP and they will decide. People are more likely to trust their local GP than a computer system, or a call centre.
With schools it is local public health teams who make the decision whether a whole class needs to be tested when one pupil has a positive case - in the UK schools and parents seem to be making it up as they go along.
Is there any polling on Scots living outside Scotland? I wouldn't be sure they are majority anti-independence, especially in the context of Brexit (it's a ticket to an EU passport). I was born in Fife, live in London, and support independence, and would be happy to vote on it.
Massively anti-independence. Or at least they were prior to 2014.
It was almost comical, amongst my old uni friends I keep in contact with every single one living in England was anti-indy and all bar three living in Scotland were pro-indy.
Interesting. I was anti independence before 2016 too, not massively so, just didn't seem worth the hassle. Similarly I'm not a gut nationalist now, it's just the Brexit vote brought home how defenceless Scotland is to protect its interests from inside the Union.
This plot shows the estimated rate at which the Pillar 1 & 2 testing is finding cases. Pillar 1 & 2 positives divided by the estimated (by ONS) cases for that day.
The trend line is 14 days.
Does this mean that we have already had our second peak and that we are panicking about the sequelae of that (hospital admissions, etc)?
No - the ONS infection survey is showing a rising level of cases. What this shows is the percentage of the *total* cases in the real world that are being found by testing.
Guardian: The coronavirus test and trace system was condemned as “barely functional” today as its tsar admitted that demand was up to four times capacity, while 90% of tests were failing to hit the 24-hour turnaround target.
The Guardian has seen documents showing tracers taking up to two weeks to contact friends, relatives and workmates of people diagnosed with Covid-19 – the entire length of the self-isolation period.
But amid growing anger and lengthening queues at testing centres, Dido Harding, head of the £10bn NHS test-and-trace programme designed to prevent a second wave of Covid-19, told MPs on Thursday: “I strongly refute that the system is failing.”
Are they seriously saying that current demand is 900K tests a day? In a population of 65m with about 3.5k new cases a day? A significant number of that 65m live in areas with almost no Covid at all.
There is a lot of anxiety and panic out there, only some of which is justified. Poor and confused messaging by the government again but they need to make it clear who and where their priorities for testing are and the rest of us with a seasonal cold at exceptionally low risk will just have to wait a bit.
900K would be everyone with cold/flu symptoms. So that would be possible.
The Government are getting blamed for the stupidness of people. Remember when they said don't panic buy toilet rolls, people did. The problem with Covid is that the symptoms are similar to cold/flu and anyone with a sniffle is trying to get a test. You only have to look at the queue for a test in Bolton yesterday, did any of those look ill?
Is there any polling on Scots living outside Scotland? I wouldn't be sure they are majority anti-independence, especially in the context of Brexit (it's a ticket to an EU passport). I was born in Fife, live in London, and support independence, and would be happy to vote on it.
Fifers....
When I was a solicitor there medical records of a certain vintage contained the acronym "NFF". This turned out to be normal for Fife and was subsequently banned by the NHS.
Rude! Fife is the finest spot on earth, or would be if only it wasn't so close to Dundee. (why wasn't Jesus born in Dundee? Because they couldn't find three wise men and a virgin).
Guardian: The coronavirus test and trace system was condemned as “barely functional” today as its tsar admitted that demand was up to four times capacity, while 90% of tests were failing to hit the 24-hour turnaround target.
The Guardian has seen documents showing tracers taking up to two weeks to contact friends, relatives and workmates of people diagnosed with Covid-19 – the entire length of the self-isolation period.
But amid growing anger and lengthening queues at testing centres, Dido Harding, head of the £10bn NHS test-and-trace programme designed to prevent a second wave of Covid-19, told MPs on Thursday: “I strongly refute that the system is failing.”
Are they seriously saying that current demand is 900K tests a day? In a population of 65m with about 3.5k new cases a day? A significant number of that 65m live in areas with almost no Covid at all.
There is a lot of anxiety and panic out there, only some of which is justified. Poor and confused messaging by the government again but they need to make it clear who and where their priorities for testing are and the rest of us with a seasonal cold at exceptionally low risk will just have to wait a bit.
The thing is, if you have a cold with a cough you don't know that it's a cold until you've been tested.
I know, hence the anxiety. But if you live in an area where very few to no cases and if your neighbours haven't been idiots going on foreign holidays you are just not a priority for a test.
As I said the messaging on this has once again been abysmal, offering the moon (almost literally), failing miserably, then trying to bring some sort of rationing in after everyone is pissed off and even more anxious, its a master class in incompetence. Again.
I've been through this process in Ireland this week. I have a sore throat. It's listed by the HSE as sometimes being a symptom of coronavirus. I contacted a local GP, and completed their triage form. They phoned back to double-check symptoms and I was told it was very unlikely to be Covid, there being very little in the area, and I didn't need to be swabbed.
Could I have made that judgement myself? Yes, probably. But I'm a lot more confident with the decision now, and if I'd been in NW Dublin the decision from the GP might have been different.
The advice here is that if you have any respiratory symptoms, contact your GP and they will decide. People are more likely to trust their local GP than a computer system, or a call centre.
With schools it is local public health teams who make the decision whether a whole class needs to be tested when one pupil has a positive case - in the UK schools and parents seem to be making it up as they go along.
Guardian: The coronavirus test and trace system was condemned as “barely functional” today as its tsar admitted that demand was up to four times capacity, while 90% of tests were failing to hit the 24-hour turnaround target.
The Guardian has seen documents showing tracers taking up to two weeks to contact friends, relatives and workmates of people diagnosed with Covid-19 – the entire length of the self-isolation period.
But amid growing anger and lengthening queues at testing centres, Dido Harding, head of the £10bn NHS test-and-trace programme designed to prevent a second wave of Covid-19, told MPs on Thursday: “I strongly refute that the system is failing.”
Are they seriously saying that current demand is 900K tests a day? In a population of 65m with about 3.5k new cases a day? A significant number of that 65m live in areas with almost no Covid at all.
There is a lot of anxiety and panic out there, only some of which is justified. Poor and confused messaging by the government again but they need to make it clear who and where their priorities for testing are and the rest of us with a seasonal cold at exceptionally low risk will just have to wait a bit.
The thing is, if you have a cold with a cough you don't know that it's a cold until you've been tested.
I know, hence the anxiety. But if you live in an area where very few to no cases and if your neighbours haven't been idiots going on foreign holidays you are just not a priority for a test.
As I said the messaging on this has once again been abysmal, offering the moon (almost literally), failing miserably, then trying to bring some sort of rationing in after everyone is pissed off and even more anxious, its a master class in incompetence. Again.
I've been through this process in Ireland this week. I have a sore throat. It's listed by the HSE as sometimes being a symptom of coronavirus. I contacted a local GP, and completed their triage form. They phoned back to double-check symptoms and I was told it was very unlikely to be Covid, there being very little in the area, and I didn't need to be swabbed.
Could I have made that judgement myself? Yes, probably. But I'm a lot more confident with the decision now, and if I'd been in NW Dublin the decision from the GP might have been different.
The advice here is that if you have any respiratory symptoms, contact your GP and they will decide. People are more likely to trust their local GP than a computer system, or a call centre.
With schools it is local public health teams who make the decision whether a whole class needs to be tested when one pupil has a positive case - in the UK schools and parents seem to be making it up as they go along.
This plot shows the estimated rate at which the Pillar 1 & 2 testing is finding cases. Pillar 1 & 2 positives divided by the estimated (by ONS) cases for that day.
The trend line is 14 days.
Does this mean that we have already had our second peak and that we are panicking about the sequelae of that (hospital admissions, etc)?
It shows how good we are at detecting cases through the main testing (based assuming the ONS random sampling as the 'true' number of cases). Looks like we got very good around 10 August, so an increase in positives at that point - if there was one - could have been partly down to that. Overall, we're fairly constant at an average of 40% or so, so getting more positive tests right now probably means that we have more cases.
All that with fairly large error bars - the ONS survey is pretty large, but incidence is still low so they still only get a relatively tiny number of positives in the sample so the uncertainty on their estimates (as acknowledge when published) is fairly wide.
This plot shows the estimated rate at which the Pillar 1 & 2 testing is finding cases. Pillar 1 & 2 positives divided by the estimated (by ONS) cases for that day.
The trend line is 14 days.
Does this mean that we have already had our second peak and that we are panicking about the sequelae of that (hospital admissions, etc)?
The waves look interesting, but the main thing it means is that the testing system is picking up about half of the cases, and has been throughout the summer.
Which probably means that testing is picking up most of the symptomatic cases, but not many of the asymptomatic ones- which I thought was the point of contact tracing.
False positives are skewing the data and harming our ability to counter the virus
"Using loss of smell combined with current testing would result in a specificity of 99.9997 per cent or a one in 3,000 chance of error rather than one in 100. It is still not zero, but if testing is restricted to people with loss of smell then it would work almost perfectly."
There is something endearing about Matt Hancock. Unlike other members of this government Hancock struggles to lie and spin effectively. He tries his best, but he can’t do it and the truth keeps leaking out.
Does he recognise that he has been set up as the whipping boy?
Is there any polling on Scots living outside Scotland? I wouldn't be sure they are majority anti-independence, especially in the context of Brexit (it's a ticket to an EU passport). I was born in Fife, live in London, and support independence, and would be happy to vote on it.
Fifers....
When I was a solicitor there medical records of a certain vintage contained the acronym "NFF". This turned out to be normal for Fife and was subsequently banned by the NHS.
In S Essex there was NFO..... normal for Ockenden, a small town between Grays and Upminster. Overspill estate. FLK = Funny looking kid was also about.
I've also heard 'normal for Portsmouth'. All doctors seem to have tales about this; I don't know how many were actually writing things like that in practice. Given doctors' handwriting, we'll probably never know
Interesting article, though I'm rather confused by the idea that rapid tests won't help solve capacity issues with testing. Currently half of all testing capacity is being used clinically by the NHS or Care Homes etc - if that capacity could be freed up with rapid testing like this then the existing capacity for the rest of the country would essentially be doubled wouldn't it?
Read the article, each machine has bandwidth of one test. To test 20 people simultaneously you need 20 machines, it's cumbersome. The nanopore machines are a better bet which can process around 300 samples simultaneously.
It also emerged that Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, is planning to adopt a national "traffic light" system for putting regions into lockdown, with local action being triggered when infection rates reach a set level.
Telegraph
FFS. Johnson introduced a traffic light system at one of the press conferences way back and then we never heard about it again.
Anyone any idea what level we are at? iirc there were five levels of traffic light.
IIRC, at the "5 level traffic light" announcement, Boris said we were at level 3½ which rendered it pointless 2 minutes after it was announced.
Since I have heard nothing further I assume we are still at level 3.5
Johnson is a cyclist so doesn't take traffic lights seriously.
This plot shows the estimated rate at which the Pillar 1 & 2 testing is finding cases. Pillar 1 & 2 positives divided by the estimated (by ONS) cases for that day.
The trend line is 14 days.
Does this mean that we have already had our second peak and that we are panicking about the sequelae of that (hospital admissions, etc)?
It shows how good we are at detecting cases through the main testing (based assuming the ONS random sampling as the 'true' number of cases). Looks like we got very good around 10 August, so an increase in positives at that point - if there was one - could have been partly down to that. Overall, we're fairly constant at an average of 40% or so, so getting more positive tests right now probably means that we have more cases.
All that with fairly large error bars - the ONS survey is pretty large, but incidence is still low so they still only get a relatively tiny number of positives in the sample so the uncertainty on their estimates (as acknowledge when published) is fairly wide.
But our CMO tried to claim in the recent conference with Boris that an increase in the number of positives was proof of an increase in the incidence of the disease, not an increase in the efficiency of our tracing. I didn't understand that at the time. I mean it could be, but there is at least one other strong possibility. Or, more likely a combination of effects meaning that the rate of increase was being overstated.
Is there any polling on Scots living outside Scotland? I wouldn't be sure they are majority anti-independence, especially in the context of Brexit (it's a ticket to an EU passport). I was born in Fife, live in London, and support independence, and would be happy to vote on it.
Fifers....
When I was a solicitor there medical records of a certain vintage contained the acronym "NFF". This turned out to be normal for Fife and was subsequently banned by the NHS.
Rude! Fife is the finest spot on earth, or would be if only it wasn't so close to Dundee. (why wasn't Jesus born in Dundee? Because they couldn't find three wise men and a virgin).
This plot shows the estimated rate at which the Pillar 1 & 2 testing is finding cases. Pillar 1 & 2 positives divided by the estimated (by ONS) cases for that day.
The trend line is 14 days.
Does this mean that we have already had our second peak and that we are panicking about the sequelae of that (hospital admissions, etc)?
The waves look interesting, but the main thing it means is that the testing system is picking up about half of the cases, and has been throughout the summer.
Which probably means that testing is picking up most of the symptomatic cases, but not many of the asymptomatic ones- which I thought was the point of contact tracing.
The asymptotic cases estimates range from 60% to 80%, so the testing must be finding quite a few of the asymptomatic cases.
Given that Pillar 2 testing is being used extensively around known cases, what is probably happening is this -
- A high proportion of the total cases is found in the clusters around cases which are symptomatic. - In the situation where there are no symptomatic cases (a "silent" cluster) they aren't being picked up
So if some of you could start some betting hysteria about how the Dems are going to lose that would be great thanks. Want to get back on them over 1.94
This plot shows the estimated rate at which the Pillar 1 & 2 testing is finding cases. Pillar 1 & 2 positives divided by the estimated (by ONS) cases for that day.
The trend line is 14 days.
Does this mean that we have already had our second peak and that we are panicking about the sequelae of that (hospital admissions, etc)?
It shows how good we are at detecting cases through the main testing (based assuming the ONS random sampling as the 'true' number of cases). Looks like we got very good around 10 August, so an increase in positives at that point - if there was one - could have been partly down to that. Overall, we're fairly constant at an average of 40% or so, so getting more positive tests right now probably means that we have more cases.
All that with fairly large error bars - the ONS survey is pretty large, but incidence is still low so they still only get a relatively tiny number of positives in the sample so the uncertainty on their estimates (as acknowledge when published) is fairly wide.
But our CMO tried to claim in the recent conference with Boris that an increase in the number of positives was proof of an increase in the incidence of the disease, not an increase in the efficiency of our tracing. I didn't understand that at the time. I mean it could be, but there is at least one other strong possibility. Or, more likely a combination of effects meaning that the rate of increase was being overstated.
They are going by the infection survey -
which shows total cases rising.
The positivity curve, which adjusts for the increasing number of tests being done is also rising -
This plot shows the estimated rate at which the Pillar 1 & 2 testing is finding cases. Pillar 1 & 2 positives divided by the estimated (by ONS) cases for that day.
The trend line is 14 days.
Does this mean that we have already had our second peak and that we are panicking about the sequelae of that (hospital admissions, etc)?
The waves look interesting, but the main thing it means is that the testing system is picking up about half of the cases, and has been throughout the summer.
Which probably means that testing is picking up most of the symptomatic cases, but not many of the asymptomatic ones- which I thought was the point of contact tracing.
As I understand it, in the UK contacts are not tested. You'd hope they are isolating as asked, and so not spreading the virus on, but you wouldn't expect to see them in the numbers. It does mean that you're not then identifying the contacts of contacts who may also need to isolate.
False positives are skewing the data and harming our ability to counter the virus
"Using loss of smell combined with current testing would result in a specificity of 99.9997 per cent or a one in 3,000 chance of error rather than one in 100. It is still not zero, but if testing is restricted to people with loss of smell then it would work almost perfectly."
Since false positives seem to be the result of labs bollocksing the thing up, if you're worried about false positives the obvious thing would be to test the positive cases again (ideally using a different lab) rather than adding another screening method that creates loads of false negatives instead.
... I have very little sympathy for those Trump supporters who are like the Kool Aid Cult .
WTF happened to the USA !
Somebody lifted the carpet that had decades of things being swept under it. There has always been a lot of intolerance, either racial, sexual or political but things just kept getting swept under the carpet and ignored.
You might want to cast your mind back to "better" times when the USA was respected as aleading democracy - Senator McCarthy was witch-hunting for commies and ruining jobs, lives and reputations, Rosa Parks was fighting to be treated like a person and there were riots in Stonewall NY by LGBT folk wanting to be treated decently and without prejudice.
Having said that, the UK was not much better - "No Dogs, No Blacks, No Irish" as some establishments used to have written on their entrances.
There is something endearing about Matt Hancock. Unlike other members of this government Hancock struggles to lie and spin effectively. He tries his best, but he can’t do it and the truth keeps leaking out.
Does he recognise that he has been set up as the whipping boy?
He's been in a curious position since Johnson's takeover. He stayed on when Hunt et al didn't. An odd decision, because his heart clearly isn't in the Johnson gang stuff. And a good thing, because goodness only knows who BoJo would have appointed to heath in his absence; Lord Lecter of Baltimore probably.
I guess the same could be asked of Rishi; what does he make of sharing a government with the rest of them?
Fantastic piece by Fraser this morning. Drift at the top. Lack of evidence any of these measures works (they claim to have major evidence of local lockdowns working - but wont publish it). No sign of any discussion about the underlying assumptions being used e.g. do the advisors now think there is some evidence of some level of pre-existing immunity. No strategy.
"Without evidence, it’s hard to fix on any Covid strategy. And without a strategy, the Prime Minister will end up anchorless and not in control, the whip hand lying with his scientific advisers. It’s not leadership but a recipe for drift, chaos and confusion – at a time when the country is in dire need of leadership."
The fact that numbers have got worse since the local restrictions were brought in in the NW suggests the currents strategy is at best only mitigating. It could be a lot worse if unrestricted, but certainly not a triumph.
It would be interesting to know what loci of transmissions have been identified by T and T. They must have data by now.
Is there any polling on Scots living outside Scotland? I wouldn't be sure they are majority anti-independence, especially in the context of Brexit (it's a ticket to an EU passport). I was born in Fife, live in London, and support independence, and would be happy to vote on it.
Fifers....
When I was a solicitor there medical records of a certain vintage contained the acronym "NFF". This turned out to be normal for Fife and was subsequently banned by the NHS.
The bit I don't get is how does anyone think this will help Scotland remain in the UK, the only people in the UK who will be bothering to votes are those that would prefer Scotland to leave.
Who knows? Maybe some ex pats might be worried they might lose their residency rights EU style. But it is irrelevant. If and when this comes again it will again be decided by those who are on the electoral register in Scotland.
There is something endearing about Matt Hancock. Unlike other members of this government Hancock struggles to lie and spin effectively. He tries his best, but he can’t do it and the truth keeps leaking out.
Does he recognise that he has been set up as the whipping boy?
He's been in a curious position since Johnson's takeover. He stayed on when Hunt et al didn't. An odd decision, because his heart clearly isn't in the Johnson gang stuff. And a good thing, because goodness only knows who BoJo would have appointed to heath in his absence; Lord Lecter of Baltimore probably.
I guess the same could be asked of Rishi; what does he make of sharing a government with the rest of them?
Sunak is taking the Starmer route: hold your nose, don't be overtly disloyal, and hang in there so you're ready to pick up the crown when it all comes crashing down. For Hancock it's not so obvious since I can't see him becoming leader. Perhaps it's just that he likes being a politician, it is showbusiness for ugly people after all.
False positives are skewing the data and harming our ability to counter the virus
"Using loss of smell combined with current testing would result in a specificity of 99.9997 per cent or a one in 3,000 chance of error rather than one in 100. It is still not zero, but if testing is restricted to people with loss of smell then it would work almost perfectly."
Since false positives seem to be the result of labs bollocksing the thing up, if you're worried about false positives the obvious thing would be to test the positive cases again (ideally using a different lab) rather than adding another screening method that creates loads of false negatives instead.
The COVID minimisers have come up with the following - the tests are detecting dead virus in people and so exaggerating the actual number of "real" cases. So the smell thing will identify "real" cases.
False positives are skewing the data and harming our ability to counter the virus
"Using loss of smell combined with current testing would result in a specificity of 99.9997 per cent or a one in 3,000 chance of error rather than one in 100. It is still not zero, but if testing is restricted to people with loss of smell then it would work almost perfectly."
Since false positives seem to be the result of labs bollocksing the thing up, if you're worried about false positives the obvious thing would be to test the positive cases again (ideally using a different lab) rather than adding another screening method that creates loads of false negatives instead.
The linked article says that government advisory group SAGE estimates that the standard tests we use have a false-positive rate of 1 per cent, which could account for large numbers of those being found positive.
Is there any polling on Scots living outside Scotland? I wouldn't be sure they are majority anti-independence, especially in the context of Brexit (it's a ticket to an EU passport). I was born in Fife, live in London, and support independence, and would be happy to vote on it.
Fifers....
When I was a solicitor there medical records of a certain vintage contained the acronym "NFF". This turned out to be normal for Fife and was subsequently banned by the NHS.
The bit I don't get is how does anyone think this will help Scotland remain in the UK, the only people in the UK who will be bothering to votes are those that would prefer Scotland to leave.
Who knows? Maybe some ex pats might be worried they might lose their residency rights EU style. But it is irrelevant. If and when this comes again it will again be decided by those who are on the electoral register in Scotland.
So no reason the same should also not apply to Scots living outside Scotland for less than 15 years in any hypothetical indyref2
Providing they were registered before they left and could only vote in their registered constituency from which they had left, so how would you identify Scots entitled to vote in the referendum unless they were last registered in Scotland?
This plot shows the estimated rate at which the Pillar 1 & 2 testing is finding cases. Pillar 1 & 2 positives divided by the estimated (by ONS) cases for that day.
The trend line is 14 days.
Does this mean that we have already had our second peak and that we are panicking about the sequelae of that (hospital admissions, etc)?
It shows how good we are at detecting cases through the main testing (based assuming the ONS random sampling as the 'true' number of cases). Looks like we got very good around 10 August, so an increase in positives at that point - if there was one - could have been partly down to that. Overall, we're fairly constant at an average of 40% or so, so getting more positive tests right now probably means that we have more cases.
All that with fairly large error bars - the ONS survey is pretty large, but incidence is still low so they still only get a relatively tiny number of positives in the sample so the uncertainty on their estimates (as acknowledge when published) is fairly wide.
But our CMO tried to claim in the recent conference with Boris that an increase in the number of positives was proof of an increase in the incidence of the disease, not an increase in the efficiency of our tracing. I didn't understand that at the time. I mean it could be, but there is at least one other strong possibility. Or, more likely a combination of effects meaning that the rate of increase was being overstated.
Probably based on an analysis like @Malmesbury 's plot showing that the efficiency of our tracing (% of estimated national cases that we pick up through main testing) hasn't really changed by a meaningful amount - around 40-45% average and, particularly no big up-tick in the last few weeks to explain the big up-tick in positives.
Is there any polling on Scots living outside Scotland? I wouldn't be sure they are majority anti-independence, especially in the context of Brexit (it's a ticket to an EU passport). I was born in Fife, live in London, and support independence, and would be happy to vote on it.
Fifers....
When I was a solicitor there medical records of a certain vintage contained the acronym "NFF". This turned out to be normal for Fife and was subsequently banned by the NHS.
In S Essex there was NFO..... normal for Ockenden, a small town between Grays and Upminster. Overspill estate. FLK = Funny looking kid was also about.
So many doctors have a natural charm about them. And some don't.
Our local, female, GP's all have excellent 'surgery manners'. One is exceptionally good and I complimented her on it, having long ago, when I was working, been concerned to improve relationships between professionals, especially in my own profession, and the public. She told me that at Med School she'd been told by one of the professors that with her general manner, she would be an excellent GP. She still wasn't entirely sure whether that was intended to be complimentary!
I got a great one a few months ago when I had a bad knee. Such a positive experience I was loath to leave after my 10 minutes.
Interesting article, though I'm rather confused by the idea that rapid tests won't help solve capacity issues with testing. Currently half of all testing capacity is being used clinically by the NHS or Care Homes etc - if that capacity could be freed up with rapid testing like this then the existing capacity for the rest of the country would essentially be doubled wouldn't it?
Read the article, each machine has bandwidth of one test. To test 20 people simultaneously you need 20 machines, it's cumbersome. The nanopore machines are a better bet which can process around 300 samples simultaneously.
I think you misunderstood my question, you don't need simultaneous testing in many of the places I mentioned.
Currently for instance with Care Homes the Care Home staff are (quite rightly) getting routine testing every single week. One of these machines could run potentially a hundred tests per week, if you were to give out one or two of these machines to every Care Home then they could do routine testing in-house and then they wouldn't need to send out their samples to the Lighthouse laboratories etc.
Given that Care Homes and the front line NHS etc are currently 50% of the tests done, getting a huge chunk of that removed from laboratories and done in house would massively reduce demand in the laboratories and free up capacity for non-routine testing.
300 simultaneous samples would be great for laboratories, schools etc but would be overkill for things like Care Homes.
It also emerged that Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, is planning to adopt a national "traffic light" system for putting regions into lockdown, with local action being triggered when infection rates reach a set level.
Telegraph
FFS. Johnson introduced a traffic light system at one of the press conferences way back and then we never heard about it again.
Anyone any idea what level we are at? iirc there were five levels of traffic light.
IIRC, at the "5 level traffic light" announcement, Boris said we were at level 3½ which rendered it pointless 2 minutes after it was announced.
Since I have heard nothing further I assume we are still at level 3.5
Johnson is a cyclist so doesn't take traffic lights seriously.
He occasionally rides a bike but he's no cyclist. He doesn't even have a power meter FFS.
False positives are skewing the data and harming our ability to counter the virus
"Using loss of smell combined with current testing would result in a specificity of 99.9997 per cent or a one in 3,000 chance of error rather than one in 100. It is still not zero, but if testing is restricted to people with loss of smell then it would work almost perfectly."
Since false positives seem to be the result of labs bollocksing the thing up, if you're worried about false positives the obvious thing would be to test the positive cases again (ideally using a different lab) rather than adding another screening method that creates loads of false negatives instead.
The linked article says that government advisory group SAGE estimates that the standard tests we use have a false-positive rate of 1 per cent, which could account for large numbers of those being found positive.
I saw that claim, and the suggestion of a second test rather than adding a different screen with vast numbers of false negatives was based on that. However I from a quick look I don't think the linked article says what the Spectator person says it does? This isn't talking about the *current* testing regime, it's talking about the idea of having a big, cheap, indiscriminate testing regime (now aka "the moonshot", and it's saying, "OK, let's say we had a false positive rate of 1%. In that case..."
There is something endearing about Matt Hancock. Unlike other members of this government Hancock struggles to lie and spin effectively. He tries his best, but he can’t do it and the truth keeps leaking out.
Does he recognise that he has been set up as the whipping boy?
He's been in a curious position since Johnson's takeover. He stayed on when Hunt et al didn't. An odd decision, because his heart clearly isn't in the Johnson gang stuff. And a good thing, because goodness only knows who BoJo would have appointed to heath in his absence; Lord Lecter of Baltimore probably.
I guess the same could be asked of Rishi; what does he make of sharing a government with the rest of them?
Sunak is taking the Starmer route: hold your nose, don't be overtly disloyal, and hang in there so you're ready to pick up the crown when it all comes crashing down. For Hancock it's not so obvious since I can't see him becoming leader. Perhaps it's just that he likes being a politician, it is showbusiness for ugly people after all.
The person I am most impressed with in the Govt is Grant Shapps. Now I don't like him because of his past, BUT he has been willing to be interviewed in the most car crash situations and always pulls it off. He is always pretty impressive and seems to be on the TV/Radio all the time.
He was also an arch remainer. Because of his background I was surprised to see him nail his colours to the mast so obviously. But it has done him no harm, but that again may be a reflection of his ability to play the game.
There is something endearing about Matt Hancock. Unlike other members of this government Hancock struggles to lie and spin effectively. He tries his best, but he can’t do it and the truth keeps leaking out.
Does he recognise that he has been set up as the whipping boy?
He's been in a curious position since Johnson's takeover. He stayed on when Hunt et al didn't. An odd decision, because his heart clearly isn't in the Johnson gang stuff. And a good thing, because goodness only knows who BoJo would have appointed to heath in his absence; Lord Lecter of Baltimore probably.
I guess the same could be asked of Rishi; what does he make of sharing a government with the rest of them?
Sunak is taking the Starmer route: hold your nose, don't be overtly disloyal, and hang in there so you're ready to pick up the crown when it all comes crashing down. For Hancock it's not so obvious since I can't see him becoming leader. Perhaps it's just that he likes being a politician, it is showbusiness for ugly people after all.
The person I am most impressed with in the Govt is Grant Shapps. Now I don't like him because of his past, BUT he has been willing to be interviewed in the most car crash situations and always pulls it off. He is always pretty impressive and seems to be on the TV/Radio all the time.
He was also an arch remainer. Because of his background I was surprised to see him nail his colours to the mast so obviously. But it has done him no harm, but that again may be a reflection of his ability to play the game.
Yes there is a shamelessness to Shapps that is almost admirable.
This plot shows the estimated rate at which the Pillar 1 & 2 testing is finding cases. Pillar 1 & 2 positives divided by the estimated (by ONS) cases for that day.
The trend line is 14 days.
Does this mean that we have already had our second peak and that we are panicking about the sequelae of that (hospital admissions, etc)?
It shows how good we are at detecting cases through the main testing (based assuming the ONS random sampling as the 'true' number of cases). Looks like we got very good around 10 August, so an increase in positives at that point - if there was one - could have been partly down to that. Overall, we're fairly constant at an average of 40% or so, so getting more positive tests right now probably means that we have more cases.
All that with fairly large error bars - the ONS survey is pretty large, but incidence is still low so they still only get a relatively tiny number of positives in the sample so the uncertainty on their estimates (as acknowledge when published) is fairly wide.
But our CMO tried to claim in the recent conference with Boris that an increase in the number of positives was proof of an increase in the incidence of the disease, not an increase in the efficiency of our tracing. I didn't understand that at the time. I mean it could be, but there is at least one other strong possibility. Or, more likely a combination of effects meaning that the rate of increase was being overstated.
Probably based on an analysis like @Malmesbury 's plot showing that the efficiency of our tracing (% of estimated national cases that we pick up through main testing) hasn't really changed by a meaningful amount - around 40-45% average and, particularly no big up-tick in the last few weeks to explain the big up-tick in positives.
The infection survey is up. The positivity number (which adjusts for number of tests) is up. The number in hospital is up. The number being admitted to hospital is up.
What evidence do you require, if the above is not sufficient?
False positives are skewing the data and harming our ability to counter the virus
"Using loss of smell combined with current testing would result in a specificity of 99.9997 per cent or a one in 3,000 chance of error rather than one in 100. It is still not zero, but if testing is restricted to people with loss of smell then it would work almost perfectly."
Since false positives seem to be the result of labs bollocksing the thing up, if you're worried about false positives the obvious thing would be to test the positive cases again (ideally using a different lab) rather than adding another screening method that creates loads of false negatives instead.
The linked article says that government advisory group SAGE estimates that the standard tests we use have a false-positive rate of 1 per cent, which could account for large numbers of those being found positive.
I saw that claim, and the suggestion of a second test rather than adding a different screen with vast numbers of false negatives was based on that. However I from a quick look I don't think the linked article says what the Spectator person says it does? This isn't talking about the *current* testing regime, it's talking about the idea of having a big, cheap, indiscriminate testing regime (now aka "the moonshot", and it's saying, "OK, let's say we had a false positive rate of 1%. In that case..."
I share your doubts and previously understood that false positives amounted to around 0.4%. Moreover, until fairly recently, positive tests were well below 1%.
Interesting article, though I'm rather confused by the idea that rapid tests won't help solve capacity issues with testing. Currently half of all testing capacity is being used clinically by the NHS or Care Homes etc - if that capacity could be freed up with rapid testing like this then the existing capacity for the rest of the country would essentially be doubled wouldn't it?
Read the article, each machine has bandwidth of one test. To test 20 people simultaneously you need 20 machines, it's cumbersome. The nanopore machines are a better bet which can process around 300 samples simultaneously.
I think you misunderstood my question, you don't need simultaneous testing in many of the places I mentioned.
Currently for instance with Care Homes the Care Home staff are (quite rightly) getting routine testing every single week. One of these machines could run potentially a hundred tests per week, if you were to give out one or two of these machines to every Care Home then they could do routine testing in-house and then they wouldn't need to send out their samples to the Lighthouse laboratories etc.
Given that Care Homes and the front line NHS etc are currently 50% of the tests done, getting a huge chunk of that removed from laboratories and done in house would massively reduce demand in the laboratories and free up capacity for non-routine testing.
300 simultaneous samples would be great for laboratories, schools etc but would be overkill for things like Care Homes.
Thinking about the vast majority of the Care Homes with whom I used to work, I think Mr T is right. The larger ones were divided into three, four etc units of no more than 20 or so residents and it's not of course necessary to test everyone every day. In my, now out-of-date of course, experience problems in Care Homes are likely to related to the use of temporary staff. Wages are low, and there's often a turnover of staff, so there are gaps in the permanent establishment which have to be filled by 'temps'. Add to that the fact that, in my day anyway, one sometimes found staff doing a double shift...... Home A in the morning, then Home B in the afternoon. and so on. So test which could be administered to all such staff as they arrive on shift, and get a result promptly would be a very useful safety measure. No, of course working double shifts isn't desirable and we used to 'discourage' it, but it can be quite difficult for an Inspector to detect.
Is there any polling on Scots living outside Scotland? I wouldn't be sure they are majority anti-independence, especially in the context of Brexit (it's a ticket to an EU passport). I was born in Fife, live in London, and support independence, and would be happy to vote on it.
Fifers....
When I was a solicitor there medical records of a certain vintage contained the acronym "NFF". This turned out to be normal for Fife and was subsequently banned by the NHS.
The bit I don't get is how does anyone think this will help Scotland remain in the UK, the only people in the UK who will be bothering to votes are those that would prefer Scotland to leave.
Who knows? Maybe some ex pats might be worried they might lose their residency rights EU style. But it is irrelevant. If and when this comes again it will again be decided by those who are on the electoral register in Scotland.
Fair play that you're staying attached to some reality and principle. Those flying the expat votes for ethnic Scots stuff seem to be mainly Scots and non Scots outwith the borders of blessed Alba. Many of them have also weirdly become Orkney & Shetland secessionists.
Unlikely hypothetical scenario that could lead to a September 2025 Boris departure due to SindyRef2 (not saying it will happen but its fun to hypothesise and each step is plausible) . . .
SNP win a majority at next Holyrood election.
They demand a Section 30 agreement
Boris says no, not a generation yet.
SNP unable to force through a referendum without a Section 30 agreement.
2024 election results in a Hung Parliament
Hung Parliament the Tories are by a clear margin the largest party and hold a clear majority of English seats, but the SNP dominate Scottish seats once more. Tories would have a majority without Scotland.
SNP demand a Section 30 agreement in exchange for their votes in Westminster.
Labour even with the SNP would be incapable of passing English legislation due to English Votes for English Law and know that granting the section 30 and seeing Scotland go independent would wipe out their majority.
Surprise deal reached between SNP and Tories - Tories will grant an immediate Section 30 agreement in exchange for the SNP abstaining on Confidence motions until after the referendum. Tories get to stay in office in the UK, while the SNP get their referendum.
Scotland holds their referendum, Yes wins, Boris resigns.
Except if there is a hung parliament in 2024 it will almost certainly be Starmer not Boris as PM and reliant on SNP support, if the SNP ever supported the Tories they would be thrown out of office in Scotland. Starmer would also shift the UK government towards an EEA style deal with the EU and devomax for Scotland. Not to mention most Tories including me would never countenance any deals with the SNP to threaten the Union.
If the Tories stay in power in a hung parliament it will be through the DUP not the SNP
Why doesn't Boris repeal the FTPA without replacement? An election would not be required until the 80 seat majority dies out. You might have 25 years. It certainly prevents SIndyref2 for a generation.
As he is not Head of State and the Queen would force a dissolution of Parliament after 5 years if he had not called one whatever he thought about it
That's not correct, as the monarch's power to dissolve Parliament came under the Septennial Act 1715 (as amended to reduce from seven to five years under the Parliament Act 1911). The Septennial Act was repealed by the Fixed Term Parliament Act 2011.
But he'd have zero chance of passing legislation through Commons and Lords to repeal the FTPA without any provision for when elections would be (whether reinstating the old rules or otherwise). Just not a runner at all.
Note that there was an attempt to repeal the FTPA introduced in the Lords by a Tory peer in late 2019 (killed off by dissolution of Parliament). But that repealed along with reinstatement of (essentially) the five year maximum. That's what would happen in reality.
If the FTPA was repealed then the Queen's royal prerogative powers to dissolve Parliament and call general elections would be restored, as the monarch had without restriction before the Septennial Act and FTPA, the PM is only the executive's chief minister, the Queen remains executive not the PM
Even if Biden wins it’s likely at least 45% of Americans will have voted for his opponent who is the most disgusting and corrupt nominee in living memory . Trump doesn’t give a damn how many Americans die from the virus and is packing people in at rallies with no social distancing or masks. I have very little sympathy for those Trump supporters who are like the Kool Aid Cult . WTF happened to the USA !
Yes, America is going to be in a dark place for a long time yet.
An additional sad thing about the recent run of domestic events is that we are losing justification for pointing any fingers at the US.
We rejected Britain's version of Trump, Jeremy Corbyn, twice though.
No, that was Sanders (and, actually, Sanders in a British context wasn’t that radical). Our current PM has many of the personality flaws that are leading him down a similar path, saved so far only by a little more intelligence and world knowledge.
Exactly, Farage not Boris is Britain's Trump and Sanders not Trump was the US Corbyn
Is there any polling on Scots living outside Scotland? I wouldn't be sure they are majority anti-independence, especially in the context of Brexit (it's a ticket to an EU passport). I was born in Fife, live in London, and support independence, and would be happy to vote on it.
Fifers....
When I was a solicitor there medical records of a certain vintage contained the acronym "NFF". This turned out to be normal for Fife and was subsequently banned by the NHS.
The bit I don't get is how does anyone think this will help Scotland remain in the UK, the only people in the UK who will be bothering to votes are those that would prefer Scotland to leave.
Who knows? Maybe some ex pats might be worried they might lose their residency rights EU style. But it is irrelevant. If and when this comes again it will again be decided by those who are on the electoral register in Scotland.
Fair play that you're staying attached to some reality and principle. Those flying the expat votes for ethnic Scots stuff seem to be mainly Scots and non Scots outwith the borders of blessed Alba. Many of them have also weirdly become Orkney & Shetland secessionists.
Partition has always been part of the salting the soil strategy of withdrawing colonialists, so the Shetland stuff is wearily predictable.
... I have very little sympathy for those Trump supporters who are like the Kool Aid Cult .
WTF happened to the USA !
Somebody lifted the carpet that had decades of things being swept under it. There has always been a lot of intolerance, either racial, sexual or political but things just kept getting swept under the carpet and ignored.
You might want to cast your mind back to "better" times when the USA was respected as aleading democracy - Senator McCarthy was witch-hunting for commies and ruining jobs, lives and reputations, Rosa Parks was fighting to be treated like a person and there were riots in Stonewall NY by LGBT folk wanting to be treated decently and without prejudice.
Having said that, the UK was not much better - "No Dogs, No Blacks, No Irish" as some establishments used to have written on their entrances.
My understanding is that particular 1980s photograph was of a fake sign.
The notion of no Irish etc. cards in Windows is not an urban myth. I believe it's documented on film in the 1960s. I can't recall where though.
I remember seeing them as a kid in the 1950s. Not sure they were still around in the 60s but very likely.
I remember seeing "No Travellers" signs as a kid in the 60s. In my innocence, I thought they meant "commercial travellers".
I think it's the Dogs thing which is an urban myth - the implicit equation of blacks and Irish with animals many thought to be especially offensive. Certainly there were "No Coloureds, No Irish" signs.
Whereas these days people allow tenants they don't want to apply, then reject them anyway. But the signs have gone.
Is there any polling on Scots living outside Scotland? I wouldn't be sure they are majority anti-independence, especially in the context of Brexit (it's a ticket to an EU passport). I was born in Fife, live in London, and support independence, and would be happy to vote on it.
Fifers....
When I was a solicitor there medical records of a certain vintage contained the acronym "NFF". This turned out to be normal for Fife and was subsequently banned by the NHS.
In S Essex there was NFO..... normal for Ockenden, a small town between Grays and Upminster. Overspill estate. FLK = Funny looking kid was also about.
I've also heard 'normal for Portsmouth'. All doctors seem to have tales about this; I don't know how many were actually writing things like that in practice. Given doctors' handwriting, we'll probably never know
Once, long, long ago I took a series of exams, passing of which entitled to practice as a pharmacist. One of them included a section on prescription reading; we were each, individually, given a selection of genuine handwritten GP prescriptions and we had to get the vast majority right. How the examiners what was right wasn't explained.
Comments
"Scotland has free Prescriptions and Free University. Yet they still want more and still expect the English to pay for it...."
Now that isn't 100% accurate but its no less inaccurate than £350m on the back of a bus.
Could I have made that judgement myself? Yes, probably. But I'm a lot more confident with the decision now, and if I'd been in NW Dublin the decision from the GP might have been different.
The advice here is that if you have any respiratory symptoms, contact your GP and they will decide. People are more likely to trust their local GP than a computer system, or a call centre.
With schools it is local public health teams who make the decision whether a whole class needs to be tested when one pupil has a positive case - in the UK schools and parents seem to be making it up as they go along.
(why wasn't Jesus born in Dundee? Because they couldn't find three wise men and a virgin).
All that with fairly large error bars - the ONS survey is pretty large, but incidence is still low so they still only get a relatively tiny number of positives in the sample so the uncertainty on their estimates (as acknowledge when published) is fairly wide.
Which probably means that testing is picking up most of the symptomatic cases, but not many of the asymptomatic ones- which I thought was the point of contact tracing.
"Using loss of smell combined with current testing would result in a specificity of 99.9997 per cent or a one in 3,000 chance of error rather than one in 100. It is still not zero, but if testing is restricted to people with loss of smell then it would work almost perfectly."
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/our-testing-regime-is-dangerously-flawed-here-s-how-to-fix-it
This shows the estimates for total infections per day in England from the ONS
Given that Pillar 2 testing is being used extensively around known cases, what is probably happening is this -
- A high proportion of the total cases is found in the clusters around cases which are symptomatic.
- In the situation where there are no symptomatic cases (a "silent" cluster) they aren't being picked up
I am currently Neutral Dems, Long GOP.
So if some of you could start some betting hysteria about how the Dems are going to lose that would be great thanks. Want to get back on them over 1.94
which shows total cases rising.
The positivity curve, which adjusts for the increasing number of tests being done is also rising -
The HSE had some interesting statistics on the testing of contacts.
https://mobile.twitter.com/paulreiddublin/status/1304302847924854792
In my innocence, I thought they meant "commercial travellers".
I guess the same could be asked of Rishi; what does he make of sharing a government with the rest of them?
It would be interesting to know what loci of transmissions have been identified by T and T. They must have data by now.
https://ig.ft.com/sites/expats-on-brexit/
So no reason the same should also not apply to Scots living outside Scotland for less than 15 years in any hypothetical indyref2
It provides this link...
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/914931/s0712-tfms-consensus-statement-sage.pdf
Currently for instance with Care Homes the Care Home staff are (quite rightly) getting routine testing every single week. One of these machines could run potentially a hundred tests per week, if you were to give out one or two of these machines to every Care Home then they could do routine testing in-house and then they wouldn't need to send out their samples to the Lighthouse laboratories etc.
Given that Care Homes and the front line NHS etc are currently 50% of the tests done, getting a huge chunk of that removed from laboratories and done in house would massively reduce demand in the laboratories and free up capacity for non-routine testing.
300 simultaneous samples would be great for laboratories, schools etc but would be overkill for things like Care Homes.
He was also an arch remainer. Because of his background I was surprised to see him nail his colours to the mast so obviously. But it has done him no harm, but that again may be a reflection of his ability to play the game.
The positivity number (which adjusts for number of tests) is up.
The number in hospital is up.
The number being admitted to hospital is up.
What evidence do you require, if the above is not sufficient?
It's almost masochistic.
In my, now out-of-date of course, experience problems in Care Homes are likely to related to the use of temporary staff. Wages are low, and there's often a turnover of staff, so there are gaps in the permanent establishment which have to be filled by 'temps'. Add to that the fact that, in my day anyway, one sometimes found staff doing a double shift...... Home A in the morning, then Home B in the afternoon. and so on. So test which could be administered to all such staff as they arrive on shift, and get a result promptly would be a very useful safety measure.
No, of course working double shifts isn't desirable and we used to 'discourage' it, but it can be quite difficult for an Inspector to detect.
Whereas these days people allow tenants they don't want to apply, then reject them anyway. But the signs have gone.
How the examiners what was right wasn't explained.
https://twitter.com/steve_hawkes/status/1306462335226335233?s=20