Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!

[davek]

So the development of an app that allows for tracing in the community is a bad thing, despite you praising Ireland for doing similar, albeit more labour intensively, earlier in the crisis?

Also, Costello had bugger all to do with the spread of viruses in his work with WHO.

Did I?

 

[Neiler]

So the development of an app that allows for tracing in the community is a bad thing, despite you praising Ireland for doing similar, albeit more labour intensively, earlier in the crisis?

Also, Costello had bugger all to do with the spread of viruses in his work with WHO.

We dont have an App yet but one is planned by the end of May, we have community contact tracing teams.

 

[zzr45]

Did I?

Yes Dave, unless 'dealing with this efficiently' is damning praise.

 

[tsubaki]

There is an element of that tied into too, is there not?

'The programme will be done using an NHS app plus 18,000 human contact tracers, 15,000 in call centres and 3,000 in the field. '

How track and trace works - what NHS app plan to fight coronavirus means for you

As the UK coronavirus lockdown starts to ease, contact tracing will become crucial to control the Covid-19 virus - and that's where the 'test, track and trace' programme comes in

www.mirror.co.uk

Not really - 3000 people across the entire UK is nowhere near enough (it works out as one tester per 21000 people); even if they all worked 9-5, worked solo, didn’t have lunch, managed to travel between appointments and conducted them all in an hour (and every client was at home when they are meant to be), handed their test kits in during their own time and none went sick you’d only get a maximum of 24000 visits a day.

Realistically managing half that would be really good going, and given the infection rate indicated by this app if this disease comes back properly is going to be in the low hundred thousands of possibles per day it should be clear they should be aiming for ten times that number doing visits (at least).

London itself needs probably around 5000 to 10000 people doing the visits, probably working seven am to eleven pm, seven days a week.

 

[DanEFC92]

 

[Harryflashman]

I don’t know the strength or reliability of it but it seems a company called abbott laboratories are now marketing the antibodies test for £99. Looks like a major pharmaceutical player worth about £30bn so I’m assuming it might be genuine .

 

[zzr45]

Not really - 3000 people across the entire UK is nowhere near enough (it works out as one tester per 21000 people); even if they all worked 9-5, worked solo, didn’t have lunch, managed to travel between appointments and conducted them all in an hour (and every client was at home when they are meant to be), handed their test kits in during their own time and none went sick you’d only get a maximum of 24000 visits a day.

Realistically managing half that would be really good going, and given the infection rate indicated by this app if this disease comes back properly is going to be in the low hundred thousands of possibles per day it should be clear they should be aiming for ten times that number doing visits (at least).

London itself needs probably around 5000 - 10000 people doing the visits.

I'm not sure if they'd be doing the tests, or exclusively doing the tests for it, I know it was mentioned last night that there would be the ability to book tests at testing centres if needed. Of course, the capacity for testing has and will remain the ultimate issue.

 

[tsubaki]

I'm not sure if they'd be doing the tests, or exclusively doing the tests for it, I know it was mentioned last night that there would be the ability to book tests at testing centres if needed. Of course, the capacity for testing has and will remain the ultimate issue.

Indeed, but as the Government says we can do 120000 tests a day now so there’s no reason not to employ a suitable number of visitors.

 

[zzr45]

I don’t know the strength or reliability of it but it seems a company called abbott laboratories are now marketing the antibodies test for £99. Looks like a major pharmaceutical player worth about £30bn so I’m assuming it might be genuine .

'There's an eleventy percent chance you have coronavirus!'

 

[Blues Harp]

'There's an eleventy percent chance you have coronavirus!'

Eh?

 

[Harryflashman]

'There's an eleventy percent chance you have coronavirus!'

Ha ha .

Having had a brief look it does seem they aren’t cowboys . I’m not rushing into paying my cash just yet but they’re pushing a 99% accuracy rate. Like I say Given the status of the company I’d suspect they’re possibly genuine .

 

[ForeverBlue92]

The Tories need to start letting the Local authorities do antibody screening via their local GP services and compile a national system of those who've shown antibodies for the virus.

The current model is daft - we cant stay on lockdown forever yet there seems no intent to test those who've possibly already had the virus.

 

[Neiler]

Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, has now started giving evidence to the Commons health committee you can follow on this live blog, its very interesting in regard to the UK approach to Covid, past, present and future on some of the topics of the management we often discuss on here:

UK coronavirus: Raab says it would not be safe to reopen all schools; official death toll rises to 29,427

Testing falls below 100,000-a-day target for third day in a row as UK deaths rise by 693 and trial begins for new contact-tracing app

www.theguardian.com

 

[Harryflashman]

Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, has now started giving evidence to the Commons health committee you can follow on this live blog, its very interesting in regard to the UK past, present and future:

UK coronavirus: Raab says it would not be safe to reopen all schools; official death toll rises to 29,427

Testing falls below 100,000-a-day target for third day in a row as UK deaths rise by 693 and trial begins for new contact-tracing app

www.theguardian.com

so when people on here suggested we thought we should have been testing more and it was pointed out that we were hardly experts in the field we might have been right in that idle speculation ?

In the early phases, if we had managed to ramp testing capacity quicker, it would have been beneficial.
For all sorts of reasons that did not happen. And I think it’s clear you need lots of testing for this.

 

[davek]

How many people have died that wouldn't have under a Corbyn government Dave? And do please show your workings.

The LP were calling for the UK to come into line with other European nations who were locking down (and advocating taking WHO's line on that). The Tories vacillated for a week or more before doing that. The former Chief Scientific advisor, David King, concluded that each day that went by cost thousands of more lives.

Are you actually taking the stance that political decision making will make no difference to the direction and severity a nation experiences this virus? That's a very strange thing to believe, and completely counter-intuitive.