COVID-19 — Coronavirus

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Healdplace said:
The travel ban in and out of Scotland to the rest of the UK will NOT be relaxed even on Christmas day and will stay for the foreseeable future.

From Boxing Day all mainland Scotland will be in Level 4 lockdown.

Schools will be on line learning only to at least 18 January and that will be reviewed so could be extended.
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At least she has worked out where the new virus variant is superspreading - schools!
 
Chippy_boy said:
Quite difficult for that to happen though because dead people tend not to spread the virus much. That is why this virus is the worst we have seen in 100 years. It combines a high fatality rate with a high R rate. People can by asymptomatic and spread it freely before they themselves become ill, or not.

The fact is we have had Ebola outbreaks and none of them have killed anything like the numbers of people that COVID has. Ebola might be more deadly, but it's clearly less dangerous.
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The point I was trying to make, but clearly failing to make well. This virus is only dangerous because of it's level of asymptomatic spread.
 
twosips said:
In theory, if there are this many false positives, doesn't this drastically raise the CFR? Or am I (hopefully) looking in entirely the wrong direction.
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It's the 97% of actual positives missed that is more the issue (3% sensitivity = insensitive to 97% of positives)
 
grunge said:
how did they find what in Brazil 8 months ago?

there are loads of countries doing lots of genome analysis on the virus to detect mutations there are websites dedicated to it from all over the globe so Id suggest Grant Schapps is talking bollocks.

auspice

nextstrain.org nextstrain.org
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This "mutant strain" that the press are banging on about. I read we found our first case in September in Kent but the Brazilians have traced the first case back to April.

EDIT for clarity: Does this mean they are analyzing old samples from different countries to "back trace" or something or did it not first get discovered in the UK? Just a bit confused by it all.
 
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twosips said:
In theory, if there are this many false positives, doesn't this drastically raise the CFR? Or am I (hopefully) looking in entirely the wrong direction.
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Unless things have changed I don't think it will make a difference as I think that positives have to be confirmed by PCR to be considered a case.
That was what was said though it might have changed.
 
BlueAnorak said:
At least she has worked out where the new virus variant is superspreading - schools!
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Just been asked if the remote learning is due to superspreading in schools but Nicola Sturgeon denied that they have changed their view of the risk of learning in schools being low. Or that the new strain has changed that but cannot be sure.

Chief medic added no evidence from southern England that schools are transmitting it more as yet. But they are being cautious and watching the data but hope to get schools back to normal as soon as they can.
 
Oh and Nicola had asked Boris Johnson to extend the Brexit decision given the current emergency but he had said no. There were concerns over Scottish truckers being able to get to and from Europe given the actions being taken in coming days was her reasoning.

She said she would have to cut off early as a Cobra meeting is about to happen.
 
Cityfan said:
Unless things have changed I don't think it will make a difference as I think that positives have to be confirmed by PCR to be considered a case.
That was what was said though it might have changed.
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Yes they do. My partner tests 3 times per week. Any positive result has to be notified to the employer and a ‘proper’ test taken.
 
Healdplace said:
The travel ban in and out of Scotland to the rest of the UK will NOT be relaxed even on Christmas day and will stay for the foreseeable future.

From Boxing Day all mainland Scotland will be in Level 4 lockdown.

Schools will be on line learning only to at least 18 January and that will be reviewed so could be extended.
Click to expand...
She's normally 24-36 hours ahead of BJ so I'd expect a similar announcement well before we hang our xmas stockings up in England.
 
ell said:
This "mutant strain" that the press are banging on about. I read we found our first case in September in Kent but the Brazilians have traced the first case back to April.

EDIT for clarity: Does this mean they are analyzing old samples from different countries to "back trace" or something or did it not first get discovered in the UK? Just a bit confused by it all.
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Id say this Brazil thing is wrong. this is 10 mutations causing a new strain, all evidence pointing at it evolving in Kent.

Do you have links?

Edit: searched. looks like 1 of the 10 mutations may have been detected in Brazil, but not this strain.
 
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Given the rise in cases in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland despite all of their recent restrictions I do think it is now all but certain that the North West is not going to escape this same pattern.

We have tracked Scotland quite closely. And we all know any decision to impose a national lockdown will come days or weeks too late because that has been how it has happened every time. Might well already be too late to help anyway and we are only behind the curve here as there have been 5 months of restrictions suppressing hard - far more than the rest of the UK.

Unfortunately that only makes us last in the line for the boom on cases. Not immune from it.

I did not see the super spreader mutation coming but the fears of this factor about where things could go is why I consistently argued for no Christmas free for all and GM to stay in tier 3 even though we had numbers that made that arguably unfair.

Because it was the safest place to be. But safer is really the right word as we will not escape this virulent strain without far more effective action and decisive responses on a national scale which I am hoping might emerge from Cobra this afternoon.

But hope - not expectation given our past record of way too slow decision making on pretty much everything. Especially fractured across 4 nations.

Way too late now but it was obvious from day one this was a national emergency and should have required a national response making unified decisions. Not doing that will ultimately when the inquest comes be shown to have been the first serious mistake we made as a nation.
 
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Healdplace said:
The travel ban in and out of Scotland to the rest of the UK will NOT be relaxed even on Christmas day and will stay for the foreseeable future.

From Boxing Day all mainland Scotland will be in Level 4 lockdown.

Schools will be on line learning only to at least 18 January and that will be reviewed so could be extended.
Click to expand...

The right thing to do.

If it turns out early data on variant was misleading, easy to reverse, and we need lower case numbers anyway, too many people dying already.

Allowing possibility of further spread OTOH potentially catastrophic.

With luck, Boris presser later will be the same.

Get those vaccines out!
 
I think there has to be a case for the Oxford vaccine to be released this week not next week if it is already pretty obvious it is coming.

A week may be a long time in politics but it is 1000 lives in a pandemic.
 
Healdplace said:
I think there has to be a case for the Oxford vaccine to be released this week not next week if it is already pretty obvious it is coming.

A week may be a long time in politics but it is 1000 lives in a pandemic.
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I had similar thoughts, but I guess preparing all the logistics is necessary anyway and ongoing, so it might make less difference than that.

Plus if the dose is the critical piece, getting that right could actually enable more people to be vaccinated and for them to be better protected.

And it might take a bit on acceptance if seen to be rushed in a kneejerk response.
So better to take the full time needed, I think, on balance.
 
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