COVID-19 — Coronavirus

[artfuldodger]

We had a covid19 scare on friday all staff told to get tested before coming back to work if negative. We were all negative and came in today, just found out one member of staff didnt get tested but came in anyway. Not happy to be working around him. Chances are he is negative but this is out of order in a pandemic. I am 60 and wife is diabetic yet this member of staff ignores the company and it seems that arent doing anything about it. Really not happy

I thought you could only get a test if you have symptoms?

 

[somapop]

What's the take on a potential large number of people having had this asymptomatically and having an anti-body test (which of course may not take memory cells into account)?
Potentially could be a big portion of society that have either had positive tests (and you'd hope some form of immunity) AND having had it but asymptomatic.
I think everyone is scrambling to find answers/solutions now. Earlier on it was 'the virus is weakening' and seeing places open back up and having low cases over the summer helped that response.

 

[Healdplace]

Scotland data up first:

0 deaths - but Sunday data so that is not unusual and will catch up tomorrow as Nicola Sturgeon reminded.

Cases 951

385 Greater Glasgow, 268 Lanarkshire, 76 Ayrshire

Big rise in hospital data though worryingly.

Patients up 32 to 1225

ICU up 12 to 93. Biggest rise I can recall in a day.

 

[give it to gordon]

I thought you could only get a test if you have symptoms?

For some reason our type of work can get tested , dont really know why !

 

[ayrshire_blue]

Scotland data up first:

0 deaths - but Sunday data so that is not unusual and will catch up tomorrow as Nicola Sturgeon reminded.

Cases 951

385 Greater Glasgow, 268 Lanarkshire, 76 Ayrshire

Big rise in hospital data though worryingly.

Patients up 32 to 1225

ICU up 12 to 93. Biggest rise I can recall in a day.

And a 9.6% positive rate of all tests. Not good.

 

[Healdplace]

Scotland 3 wks ago v 2 wks ago v last wk v today

Deaths 0 v 1 v 1 v 0 today

Cases 961 v 943 v 1122 v 951 today. Almost the definition of a plateau across those weeks with 18 cases separating 3 of the 4 weeks.

Patients 527 v 724 v 1052 v 1225 today - still a clear week to week fall in the increase but numbers do seem to have accelerated a bit lately.

ICU Ventilated 36 v 61 v 90 v 93 today - was clearly falling here most of last week but the influx of patients in recent days has upped the numbers on these beds. Still a very clear slowing down. But just that word of caution to watch how it goes in next few days.

 

[Healdplace]

And a 9.6% positive rate of all tests. Not good.

Thank you. I don't think she gave that today. But yes that has started to go up again lately.

 

[artfuldodger]

For some reason our type of work can get tested , dont really know why !

I just wondered as my sister works somewhere where someone tested positive. Then 2 more people within days. They closed the place down and told everyone to either take annual leave or come in to do a deep clean. But only those with symptoms got tests.

 

[give it to gordon]

I just wondered as my sister works somewhere where someone tested positive. Then 2 more people within days. They closed the place down and told everyone to either take annual leave or come in to do a deep clean. But only those with symptoms got tests.

Not sure you can force the staff to use their leave like that. Self isolation shouldnt count as leave. Is a deep clean done by specialist firms ?

 

[Healdplace]

Conservative MP Peter Bone has spoken out about the graphs 'flashed up' and 'unreadable' in the presentation by Boris and co on Saturday and seems to think this was old data being used. It was, as noted in here at the time the numbers arguing about NW hospitals were at their worst point a week ago if you looked VERY closely at the date by freezing the picture. As I did but most would not and were not told in the briefing, of course.

Things had improved over the next few days and that data was available (I had posted it in here every night) but was not mentioned.

Peter Bone says he just wants clearer use of data so MPs can make properly informed decisions.

I agree. It is why I started doing these things myself as I saw this problem months ago and decided the best thing was to collate all the data myself from source so any spin was missing. Other than any I accidentally introduced myself.

 

[artfuldodger]

Not sure you can force the staff to use their leave like that. Self isolation shouldnt count as leave. Is a deep clean done by specialist firms ?

I just think the company are winging it.

 

[lancs blue]

What's the take on a potential large number of people having had this asymptomatically and having an anti-body test (which of course may not take memory cells into account)?
Potentially could be a big portion of society that have either had positive tests (and you'd hope some form of immunity) AND having had it but asymptomatic.
I think everyone is scrambling to find answers/solutions now. Earlier on it was 'the virus is weakening' and seeing places open back up and having low cases over the summer helped that response.

My brother-in-law and niece are both doctors and they think I had covid-19 asymptomatically in late summer as for the last 6 weeks or so I've had some issues that are very typical of post-covid effects - bouts of extreme fatigue, random muscular aches and pains and worst of all I had an asthma attack of a severity that I'd not suffered for nearly 30 years, it wasn't as bad as some I've had in the distant past but it did shake me up. I thought of getting an antibody test privately but my niece reckons they're only 50% accurate and a waste of money.

 

[St.Pauli support]

What's the plan if there is no vaccine? Repeated lock downs forever?

The only way to control new infections on a low level (in order to be able to track and trace) is distancing, masks, hygiene and room ventilation. If a society decides to not follow that advice - then yes,
but not forever obviously.

Our short term hope in Germany now are antigenic rapid tests
to protect the vulnerable group in hospitals and care homes.
About 3% false positives and 20% false negatives is more than PCR tests, but still very helpful
to detect many positive cases who otherwise wouldn't have known they are positive, and isolate. A huge factor.

We can only go step by step
and always react early, controlling the curve
(which is a basic human problem to act BEFORE most people do see a problem, before the house is burning. Politicians have to "sell" early measures and will only be said to panic by people inable to look a bit ahead...).

 

[somapop]

My brother-in-law and niece are both doctors and they think I had covid-19 asymptomatically in late summer as for the last 6 weeks or so I've had some issues that are very typical of post-covid effects - bouts of extreme fatigue, random muscular aches and pains and worst of all I had an asthma attack of a severity that I'd not suffered for nearly 30 years, it wasn't as bad as some I've had in the distant past but it did shake me up. I thought of getting an antibody test privately but my niece reckons they're only 50% accurate and a waste of money.

Absolutely. And what happens if (as discussed on here) you didn't produce antibodies as the T/B cells kicked in (how they did if you hadn't had CV19 before I do not know).

 

[blueparrot]

Thank you. I don't think she gave that today. But yes that has started to go up again lately.

Obviously a consistent rise in the %age is bad. Though couldn't a higher number mean track and trace working better with targetted testing.

 

[Healdplace]

Nicola Sturgeon just answered a question about the hospital capacity situation in Scotland.

She noted that the 93 on icu ventilator beds today compares with 150 at the height of the pandemic in April. As I recall it was nearer 200 (in fact just checked and it was 221 on 12 April)

The definitions on hospital data have been changed in Scotland since those older numbers. But when they were Nicola Sturgeon said they would have minimal impact on the icu/ventilator data.

This number is pretty comparable with where we are in the NW hospitals with 211 now on ventilator beds v 350 at the April peak.

So both north and south of the border the numbers are not wildly apart and happily fewer patients are ending up sick enough to need these beds with the better treatments early on we now have saving many lives - but there are still enough to lead to significant deaths as these beds drive the next few days death numbers to a sizeable degree.

As for patients with covid in Scotland right now - the number, Nicola noted, is at 1225 today and was closer to where it was at the peak (she said about 1500 - it was actually 1520 on 19 April.)

Again this matches the NW hospital situation where we are closer to that level than with ventilators. In fact closer to the number in the NW than in Scotland - as in days away in the NW and potentially a week or two in Scotland.

NW hospital patient numbers are 2660 last night versus the peak of 2890 on 13 April.

 

[PannickAtTheDisco]

Absolutely. And what happens if (as discussed on here) you didn't produce antibodies as the T/B cells kicked in (how they did if you hadn't had CV19 before I do not know).

there was some anecdotal suggestion that perhaps people who had contracted swine flu may be able to trigger that kind of immune response, nothing more than gossip though.

 

[lancs blue]

Absolutely. And what happens if (as discussed on here) you didn't produce antibodies as the T/B cells kicked in (how they did if you hadn't had CV19 before I do not know).

It's weird, I've not even bothered telling my GP about it as one day I'm completely exhausted and the next I'm fine, the effects seem completely random.

 

[blue b4 the moon]

We had a covid19 scare on friday all staff told to get tested before coming back to work if negative. We were all negative and came in today, just found out one member of staff didnt get tested but came in anyway. Not happy to be working around him. Chances are he is negative but this is out of order in a pandemic. I am 60 and wife is diabetic yet this member of staff ignores the company and it seems that arent doing anything about it. Really not happy

Has your employer/do employers in general not ask to see test results?

 

[Healdplace]

Can a T Cell expert comment on the University of Birmingham study. It looks pretty hopeful that everyone they tested still had T Cell protection six months after Covid infection even if they had no antibodies showing as past studies were finding.

Are any vaccines being developed that target boosting T Cell response?