The UK response to Covid-19 [MOD WARNING 1ST POST]

devnull

Delay on latest UK Figures
https://twitter.com/DHSCgovuk/status/1247151160324128773

theological

I don't get your line of questioning. It's an international pandemic so obviously knowledge from China and east Asia will be beneficial. The tests were sourced from there. Public Health England are validating them and they are defective. It is better not to use these because they are not safe. The UK is already working with other countries on the virus. I don't know why you think they aren't.

I'm saying that the criticism isn't reasonable because no country yet has a working test.

As for Matt Hancock's comment - he said this for the end of April. I will give him this time to up the amount of testing before criticising him for not achieving it.

devnull

Latest Figures are showing a further 432 deaths across Scotland, Wales and England.

Can't really read much into it because it's only includes deaths up to 5pm on Sunday, so the majority of deaths in Scotland won't be included and many of the NHS Trusts who don't report deaths at a weekend won't be included either.

Does not include Northern Irish figures either, as they're not yet in.

theological

devnull wrote: »

Weekend UK Figures are showing a further 432 deaths.

Can't really read much into it because it's only includes deaths up to 5pm on Sunday, so the majority of deaths in Scotland won't be included and many of the NHS Trusts who don't report deaths at a weekend won't be included either.

432 is for England only. Scotland have published figures as have Wales. These probably will be collated later.

Leroy42

So you don't think they should have asked for any data on these tests? You don't think they should have reviewed the operation of these tests prior to ordering them?

I get that they would want to see them, but it seems to me that at best Hancock was premature to state that the goal was 100k when he had no ability to know when the test might be available. I totally agree that knowledge of China and Asia is beneficial, but that doesn't stop the UK from having a plan for their own tests.

What is that plan? Any time frame?

And again, you continually compare the UK to other countries. The UK has the resources to be a leader in this, and seemingly you were more than happy to accept that they had the fast lane on the whole thing up until a few weeks ago but now you think they should rely on China and Asia for how to get through. They should, we both agree, but why didn't they do that before?

devnull

theological wrote: »

432 is for England only. Scotland have published figures as have Wales. These probably will be collated later.

Sky News is reporting
403 England
27 Wales
2 Scotland

Scotland have already said that the figures for yesterday and today are a big under-estimate because of the way their reporting system works and there will be a sharp rize on Tuesday.

These two day drop-offs have been seen every weekend so far since DHSC started making the stats available (raw data here) Tuesday and Wednesday's figures are the key since the weekend ones mean little on their own.

See the trend below (figures covering weekend periods in bold)

Date | Deaths
19/03/2020|41
20/03/2020 | 33
21/03/2020 | 56
22/03/2020 | 48
23/03/2020 | 54
24/03/2020 | 87
25/03/2020 | 41
26/03/2020 | 115
27/03/2020 | 181
28/03/2020 | 260
29/03/2020 | 209
30/03/2020 | 180
31/03/2020 | 381
01/04/2020 | 563
02/04/2020 | 569
03/04/2020 | 684
04/04/2020 | 708
05/04/2020 | 621
06/04/2020 | 432*

* Excl NI and based on individual countries own stats.

Joe_ Public

I read a piece over the weekend, trying to relocate it, but it quoted a UK medical source who said he wasnt particularly concerned about the antigen test yet, as it was only going to become really useful down the line, in the event of if/when we get the second strand. The focus, he argued, had to be on swab testing for now. That failure was what was undermining them. Just one opinion anyway.

Seth Brundle

This is a great moralising thread on Twitter...

https://twitter.com/MyDoncaster/status/1247083713428631553

threeball

Joe_ Public wrote: »

It never even occurred to me that the two were lumped in together. Would seem a bit disingenuous if so, but not sure.

Hancock said in a presser the other day that the 100k a day figure was across 3 tests. Can't remember the 3rd but two of them were swab and antigen

threeball

theological wrote: »

432 is for England only. Scotland have published figures as have Wales. These probably will be collated later.

Sturgeon already said that figures would be unreliable until tuesday due to the new method being implemented of reporting deaths. Phoned in rather than physical presence.

Joe_ Public

threeball wrote: »

Hancock said in a presser the other day that the 100k a day figure was across 3 tests. Can't remember the 3rd but two of them were swab and antigen

Yeah i acknowledged my error on that above. Makes sense as the 100k figure was pure pie in the sky if it only referred to swabs. Would still be good to see their targets broken down, though.

threeball

Joe_ Public wrote: »

Yeah i acknowledged my error on that above. Makes sense as the 100k figure was pure pie in the sky if it only referred to swabs. Would still be good to see their targets broken down, though.

At this stage they're just throwing out big round numbers with no real plan on how to achieve them. Then explain it away after a week and promise even bigger numbers and another type of test.
The antigen test is a prime example.

devnull

threeball wrote: »

At this stage they're just throwing out big round numbers with no real plan on how to achieve them. Then explain it away after a week and promise even bigger numbers and another type of test.
The antigen test is a prime example.

As stated up-thread, it's purely throwing figures about win the aim of buying them some time and taking the immediate heat off them and kicking the can a few weeks down the road, by which time they have another promise.

Politics, essentially.

Donald Trump

devnull wrote: »

As stated up-thread, it's purely throwing figures about win the aim of buying them some time and taking the immediate heat off them and kicking the can a few weeks down the road, by which time they have another promise.

Politics, essentially.

Are sure look lads. They never said what type of tests they were committing to have completed.

They'll open up the schools on Thursday for 7 year olds to come in and complete a few spelling tests. It'll keep a few posters on here happy that they UK government are fulfilling their promises........

Joe_ Public

Trying to make sense of it. What i understand - trying to sift the experts - is the swab testing is more critical for suppression which is supposed to be where they're at, but proceeding with questionable efficiency. The antigen testing would be more relevant to the next stage, when you're coming off the peak and your anxious to get people back to work. Which is probably why its so attractive to the government, they havent lost that initial anxiety about economy suffering. Almost like they've given up on ever getting to grips with mitigation at all, really just thinking about next stage. Thats just a basic interpretation on my part, open to argument.

S.M.B.

I live in a house that's converted to 3 flats. Just got a single letter through the front door from the "prime minister" explaining what's going on. Whenever there is any form of election we all get individual letters from all the candidates. They can't even send a letter correctly.

robinph

S.M.B. wrote: »

I live in a house that's converted to 3 flats. Just got a single letter through the front door from the "prime minister" explaining what's going on. Whenever there is any form of election we all get individual letters from all the candidates. They can't even send a letter correctly.

It's not addressed to anyone though. They just produced a bunch of identical letters and told the posties to stick one through every letterbox, exactly the same as when you get the fliers from Dominoes or Aldi with your post.

The government has not forgotten about you or done anything wrong or incompetently, just your local postie decided they couldn't be bothered to stick three in your letterbox.

devnull

The latest tweet on testing has some interesting notes added to help make the numbers bigger give a better understanding.

The test figures is now number of tests rather than number of people, and now includes 'surveillance testing' whatever that is.

https://twitter.com/DHSCgovuk/status/1247185093648699393

S.M.B.

Well when ever I get a dominoes flyer I get about 5 of them shoved through the letter box.

If the contents of the letter is vital they should be ensuring that each household is getting one. They probably could have sent it out long ago too to be honest. Telling "the posties to stick one through every letterbox" isn't good enough imo.

josip

S.M.B. wrote: »

Well when ever I get a dominoes flyer I get about 5 of them shoved through the letter box.

If the contents of the letter is vital they should be ensuring that each household is getting one. They probably could have sent it out long ago too to be honest. Telling "the posties to stick one through every letterbox" isn't good enough imo.

Every house, regardless of occupancy, gets 5 dominoes flyers

robinph

Not clear from that if they are saying that previously they have not been counting the tests done on people who were being tested for a second time, if that was 1 day or 2 weeks ago. Or if they are testing the same people multiple times a day.

S.M.B.

They love those 5 pillars too, how about you focus on the important one and do that rigorously and effectively.

S.M.B.

S.M.B. wrote: »

They love those 5 pillars too, how about you focus on the important one and do that rigorously and effectively.

and which is the important one?

robinph

S.M.B. wrote: »

Well when ever I get a dominoes flyer I get about 5 of them shoved through the letter box.

If the contents of the letter is vital they should be ensuring that each household is getting one. They probably could have sent it out long ago too to be honest. Telling "the posties to stick one through every letterbox" isn't good enough imo.

Not sure that it's vital information in the letter. Haven't opened mine yet which only arrived today, but the letter and it's contents were decided on a couple of weeks ago now and is already well publicised. It's just been posted out to cover people who have not been paying attention to the news and don't know what is going on.

If they needed to tell ME anything they they would be writing to ME.

Joe_ Public

Why not also give the figure for numbers tested? Its not like its not relevant.

I mean numbers of people tested.

robinph

robinph wrote: »

Not sure that it's vital information in the letter. Haven't opened mine yet which only arrived today, but the letter and it's contents were decided on a couple of weeks ago now and is already well publicised. It's just been posted out to cover people who have not been paying attention to the news and don't know what is going on.

If they needed to tell ME anything they they would be writing to ME.

My parents are convinced that some people are waiting for Boris to knock on the front door and tell them exactly what they should be doing.

Anyone who does not know at this stage is either a complete moron or lives in some sort of bunker completely detached from the rest of the world.

devnull

S.M.B. wrote: »

They love those 5 pillars too, how about you focus on the important one and do that rigorously and effectively.

Someone has probably realised that because of the fact with the antibody tests being a month or so away, they have no chance of hitting the 100k tests under the previous way of presenting test statistics, so they appear to have changed the way the totals are calculated to make the numbers look bigger.

I really would like a definition of what surveillance testing is, because this is something that I have not heard until now and seems like it could be a handy way to boost numbers if required.

Why not also give the figure for numbers tested? Its not like its not relevant. I mean numbers of people tested.

Because those numbers wouldn't look so high and they have to make it look like they are keeping to their 100k promise.

Joe_ Public

Joe_ Public wrote: »

Why not also give the figure for numbers tested? Its not like its not relevant.

I mean numbers of people tested.

they give the number of tests carried ot and the number of people tested.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-information-for-the-public

Number of cases and deaths
As of 9am 6 April, 252,958 tests have concluded, with 13,069 tests carried out on 5 April (this does not include data for Northern Ireland). Some individuals are tested more than once for clinical reasons.

208,837 people have been tested, of whom 51,608 tested positive.

As of 5pm on 5 April, of those hospitalised in the UK who tested positive for coronavirus, 5,373 have died.

devnull

Aegir wrote: »

they give the number of tests carried ot and the number of people tested.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-information-for-the-public

Overall yes, but not for the day in question.

Up until before the weekend they were mentioning how many people were tested per day.

devnull

devnull wrote: »

Overall yes, but not for the day in question.

i doubt anybody has two tests on the same day