The UK response - Part II - read OP

Who cares about cases if the people testing positive aren't sick? This announcing of daily cases doesn't happen with any other virus.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118039973#Comment_118039973

The people concerned may not be sick, but they are infectious. That's why people care.

Pete_Cavan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118036297#Comment_118036297

From The Guardian article linked above;

So far, Ukas has received more than 500 applications from private firms to perform tests and/or swab handling. About 400 have passed stage two, 255 have had a final stage-three assessment, and 191 have received full Ukas accreditation. An additional 54 public labs, including Lighthouse laboratories, are also accredited.

Obviously those are today's figures and things would have been different a year ago but it would seem there could have been hundreds of other companies who would have been in the frame for this contract. While many of those probably had little experience of PCR testing at the time, that wouldn't have put them at a disadvantage against the company who did get the contract given their lack of experience.

S.M.B.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118039973#Comment_118039973

I still care about cases as a certain percentage of people are getting sick and a percentage of those getting sick are dying and as cases numbers grow so could the other two (thankfully it's unlikely to not be at the same rate as earlier in the pandemic).

The result is a loss of life (luckily I have yet to have anyone close to me due to covid related complications) and a continued strain on the NHS which is already under severe pressure.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118039983#Comment_118039983

But when does it ever end? If you vaccinated 100% of the population you'd still have cases. Do you agree with The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health’s president, Dr Camilla Kingdon, that mass testing in schools is causing chaos and should end: https://www.itv.com/news/2021-10-17/senior-doctors-call-for-end-to-mass-covid-testing-in-schools

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118040057#Comment_118040057

Same question to you S.M.B: when does mass testing ever end? Do you agree with The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health’s president, Dr Camilla Kingdon, that mass testing in schools is causing chaos and should end: https://www.itv.com/news/2021-10-17/senior-doctors-call-for-end-to-mass-covid-testing-in-schools

Dr David Tuthill in Wales said something similar a few days ago: https://www.google.ie/amp/s/www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/stop-testing-children-without-any-21718839.amp

Peregrinus

The UK has strikingly higher per-million infection rates than comparable European countries. This is not simply an artefact of the UK doing more testing than other European countries, since the UK has also has strikingly higher per-million hospitalisation rates, and strikingly higher per-million death rates.

Unquestionably, therefore, the UK has a bigger covid problem than it could have. Scaling back testing might help to mask this, or at least to distract attention from it, but it will do nothing to address the problem. And it's a real problem with real and serious consequences that include avoidable deaths, so distracting attention from it is not a good idea. The more data you have about this, the easier it is going to be to understand why the UK has such a problem, and therefore how to address it effectively. A policy of not gathering data doesn't look wise to me.

Having said that, it may well be that the testing regime in schools in particular needs review; that it imposes more burdens than is justified by the data that it yields. But the account attributed to the Telegraph report seems pretty incoherent to me: "You are asking completely healthy children to test, with the potential to be excluded (from school) . . .". If they are completely healthy, on what basis might they be excluded from school? Is the report using "completely healthy" to mean "asymptomatic, but possibly infected and possibly infectious"? If the testing shows them to be infectious, that would look like a good reason to exclude them from school.

Joe_ Public

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118040005#Comment_118040005

Who did have lots of experience of testing at the time were the people in the existing NHS labs and if you go back to April/May last year and beyond, you'll see how they were begging and pleading for their role in covid testing to be expanded and not just confined to pillar 1. They were ignored in favour of private operators like randox and delta, creaming off lucrative contracts.

At the time turnaround times for the private labs were 2,3 days. For the nhs labs it was measured in hours. It made no logical or moral sense whatsoever.

Of course, a certain level of private involvement was always necessary, but overloading in the private sector while under utilising the available expertise in your public sector just seems stupid and reckless. All the more so when you consider how well the nhs itself has performed in these roles while the private wing has often been a byword for sheer cronyism and rank incompetence. But of course getting the market tentacles into health as much as possible is an article of faith for some of these tories. So for them it'll pretty much be a good job well done.

S.M.B.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118040103#Comment_118040103

My position on the need to have a reasonable level of visibility when it comes to the prevalence of Covid throughout the UK and my opinion on the mass testing of school children seem like quite separate topics to me to be honest.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118040298#Comment_118040298

these are the NHS labs that couldn't manage more than 25,000 tests per day?

Joe_ Public

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118040893#Comment_118040893

Pillar 1 capacity was generally in the region of 70-80,000 so your figures are a bit out of date. But imagine if in march/April last year, some of those billions spaffed on private cowb..., sorry, operators, had been put instead into investing in and developing the already existing network of facilities and expertise, like they were doing in most other countries, imagine where they might have been. Might have avoided all those tests been posted abroad or binned, the huge issues about data provision that fatally undermined the whole test and trace operation, as well as the myriad other problems they encountered for a start. Sure, who knows?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118041409#Comment_118041409

your concern for the British tax payer is heart warming, comrade.

So the government increased capacity withint he NHS three fold? that's a pretty big increase?

Quite what the **** the NHS is going to do with all that testing capacity after this is all over though, god knows. Maybe they should have spent the money imprving the countries general scientific facilities?

https://www.gla.ac.uk/colleges/mvls/llig/

https://bspslighthouselaboratory.nhs.uk/

https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/how-science-and-innovation-are-helping-tackle-covid-19-testing

https://md.catapult.org.uk/lighthouse-lab/

https://www.kingston.ac.uk/news/article/2394/13-oct-2020-life-inside-a-lighthouse-lab-kingston-university-phd-student-shares-experience-of-volunteering-in-specialist/

But yes, some were started up by nasty capitalist scum, like this one supported by the Welsh government

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-53847710

Joe_ Public

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118041869#Comment_118041869

The thing is, back in late spring last year, i think the kind of questions a lot of people in UK health were asking was how can we tackle this health crisis most effectively, what's the most efficient use of our resources to ensure we get on top of the situation asap and limit the already too severe toll it has taken? Where does our expertise lie and how to best utilise it etc

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall as part of that conversation giving billions to private operators and concluding that even if it all went wrong, 100s of thousands of tests bungled, test data fatally not shared with public health bodies, people in some cases having to drive 100s of miles to access tests despite their "world leading" system etc, it would all be worth it because a few hundred jobs would be created and we could trot out this blather about great British science and innovation.

So they splurge all these billions on test and trace while at the same time creating a two tier system where the private labs cannot share their data with the public health bodies that need them, basically hobbling the whole test and trace effort from the outset.

And this makes sense because...???

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118042579#Comment_118042579

is your objection to the outcome, or the fact billions was spent with private companies?

Could you explain how test and trace could have been ramped up to the level it is, without spending billions with private companies?

Do you think the NHS had 20,000 people twiddling their thumbs, waiting to answer phones, or that the NHS even had 20,000 phones to give them? Did the NHS ever have the telecoms engineers, coders, recruitment, HR and payroll people to pull this off by themselves?

Where do you think the kit came from and why do you think Perkin Elmer were so involved in setting up the light house labs? because their CEO is mates with Boris, or because they are a leading manufacturer of test equipment. Which begs another question, did the NHS have all this equipment stuffed down the back of the sofa waiting to be used in the first place?

Joe_ Public

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118043481#Comment_118043481

If by "outcome" you mean the purported "world beating" test & trace system that turned out to be anything but, then yes, i most certainly object to the outcome. Reading your posts feels like entering some parallel universe where the plucky nhs amateurs had to step aside while the slick professionals came in and took over the show with all their mastery and know how. And how did that end up? Chaos, bungling incompetence, blatant cronyism, thousands of preventable or premature deaths - or as you refer to it, the "outcome."

It didn't have to be that way, they weren't forced down that road. It was a choice to put all community testing and tracing in the hands of private operators for reasons that I've yet to see adequately explained. The nhs labs were expanded to 70-80,000 capacity, rarely if ever fully utilised, and could have been expanded further if given the go ahead and the resources. There is simply no reason why they couldn't. If you'd read previous posts carefully, you'd know I have no qualms with private firms being used. Of course, the nhs couldn't do It all on its own. That goes without saying. But as the record shows, it was the nhs that performed its assigned tasks with impressive efficiency while the lavishly endowed private operators delivered a grim catalogue of incompetence and failure and yet it was the former that remained under utilised. Go figure.

That’s just the sort of rubbish you read in the socialist worker. Big on rhetoric, short on logic.

did you manage to figure where the NHS would find these 20,000 people, of how, in the middle of a pandemic, they would onboard them?

they made a mistake not including the local test and trace in the original model, but that was pretty quickly changed so that the bulk of tracing was done at a national level and the harder more complex tracing at a local level.

you didn’t manage to explain how the local teams could have ramped up to do it themselves though. Or how/where the NHS testing could have been ramped up to do the testing.

but yeah, the morning star would love it.

devnull

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118039973#Comment_118039973

It's still causing disruption and businesses and peoples lies even if they're not getting sick. We've had quite a few double vaccinated staff off recently because of breakthrough infection and it's been pretty disruptive to how we work, since I work in a sector where not everything can be done remotely.

Also my cousin for example was hoping to go abroad next week for their first holiday out of the country in 2 years. They managed to get the virus from their kids and got a breakthrough infection and despite feeling well, they have to isolate and miss their holiday.

With cases going up it's going to be the disruption it can cause businesses, places of education etc that is going to start to hit things as well as the obvious health concerns that a quicker spread brings.

Schools and colleges are rifle with COVID-19 in the East of England at the moment. Really need to move forward with numbers of teenagers being vaccinated since it's clear this wave is originated in schools and then has been seeded in families.

It remains to be seen what happens over the coming days in terms of the older population. Since talk of this new mutation of Delta has started there's definitely been an uptick in older age groups. Now whether that is an impact of vaccines wearing off and the new mutation taking advantage of it, or just the result of natural spread of the virus from kids to parents to grandparents etc, remains to be seen.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118040057#Comment_118040057

But the head of the NHS said the other day that the NHS was never overwhelmed: NHS boss says health service was NEVER overwhelmed in fight against Covid | Daily Mail Online

So if it wasn't overwhelmed pre-vaccination, then why would it be overwhelmed with huge numbers of people vaccinated?

Daily Mail, I know.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118040187#Comment_118040187

I get where you're coming from, but my question is about when it ends? When does mass testing of schoolchildren end? Or does it never end? How protected do people need to be?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118045430#Comment_118045430

But should they have been off? I've never heard of perfectly healthy people being off work.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118046624#Comment_118046624

there was relatively little, if any, winter flu wave last winter, due to the lockdowns and people taking precautions against covid.

This year, not only is there a likely hood that the annual flu wave will come around, but also people will have a lower natural immunity, because it skipped last year. In a bad year, flu could see 5000 people per week admitted to hospital with flu, add that to the 6000 per week currently being admitted with covid and the backog the NHS has already built up and it makes for a very uncomfortable winter.

S.M.B.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118046624#Comment_118046624

The Head of the NHS's definition of an overwhelmed service seems very far removed from my initial statement about the strain and pressure COVID is continuing to have on the NHS. Even the full article title seems like an oxymoron to me.

NHS boss says health service was NEVER overwhelmed in fight against Covid but warns 'tough winter' will see thousands more hospital treatments cancelled

If the NHS was not overwhelmed (or under strain & pressure which was what I originally said) then why is it not operating as per usual as opposed to cancelling pre-planned procedures? Based on other Amanda Pritchard quotes it looks like her definition of 'overwhelmed' is closer to having masses of people left to die in hospital courtyards.

It's also worth nothing that the third paragraph of that article highlights that those working on the front line have accused her of 'gaslighting'. Again, probably down to a very different definition of 'an overwhelmed NHS'.

Lollipop95

Wonder if there’s any truth to this AY variant in the UK being way more transmissible or is it the usual Daily Mail dramatics.

devnull

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118046639#Comment_118046639

if you test positive than if you cannot work from home then you are going to have to isolate at home, yes.

Chris_5339762

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118047705#Comment_118047705

Work still to do I'm sure, but based on how its slowly taking over (but at a slower pace that Original to Alpha, or Alpha to Delta), it COULD Be about 10-15% more transmissible than Delta.

Given that the R0 of Delta was up to 8, that would make AY.4.2 with a R0 of about 9.

Edit: But its currently only 6 - 10% of cases in the UK, yet is increasing steadily.

Martina1991

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118041869#Comment_118041869

"Quite what the **** the NHS is going to do with all that testing capacity after this is all over though, god knows. Maybe they should have spent the money imprving the countries general scientific facilities?"

Testing capacity in NHS labs wont just suddenly become useless or obsolete. Those PCR platforms can be used to detect, influenza, RSV, and other respiratory viruses from one swab. All of those resources and equipment is an investment in the future of molecular diagnostics for NHS hospitals.

Martina1991

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118044489#Comment_118044489

The UK got a hell of a lot wrong when it came to Covid testing.

Those “Lighthouse” labs were staffed with volunteers and people with no accredited training or experience in diagnostic testing. Their staff included veterinary nurses, academics and researchers. A background in science is absolutely not equivalent to people who have the proper degree, training and state registration to perform diagnostic tests for patients. 

These labs were a rushed way to increase capacity quickly and deliver the overoptimistic promises the government made. Corners were cut all over the place when it came to quality and accuracy. Money, kits and equipment were funnelled into these labs instead of the established, accredited NHS labs. The Institute of Biomedical Scientists (IBMS) appealed to Matt Hancock to invest in NHS labs and he didn’t even know who the IBMS were. He thought they were a private company.  

That lab in Wolverhampton wasn’t the only one who made balls of it. There was a panorama documentary about another Lighthouse lab in Milton Keynes who showed gross failings and incompetence in their lab. Samples contaminated, dumped, delayed. A complete and utter **** up. Covid deniers had a field day claiming it showed the tests are worthless, unreliable and a hoax.  

They’ve spent billions on antigen tests and have no idea if they are even being used. School children are asked to do them twice a week but data showed compliance is poor and people either don’t report or don’t even perform the tests. Their antigen tests have shown to have terrible results from reviews of their performance in the real world. The FDA suggested the performance of the test had not been established, presenting a risk to health, and that the tests should be thrown in the bin or returned to the California-based manufacturer Innova.

Now they’re facing their biggest borrowing figure since WW2 (400 billion pounds). A lot of that will be down to how arse ways they ran their test and trace. 

Sources. 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-24/u-k-has-no-idea-if-millions-of-rapid-covid-tests-are-being-used 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-britain-borrowing-idUSKBN28500D

 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/28/how-uk-spent-800m-on-controversial-covid-tests-for-dominic-cummings-scheme 

https://www.sundaypost.com/fp/revealed-how-health-secretary-snubbed-expertise-of-uks-laboratory-scientists-after-mistaking-their-professional-body-for-a-private-firm/ 

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-56556806 

Joe_ Public

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118058206#Comment_118058206

That Sunday Post piece is precisely what i was talking about - there were loads of lab and medical directors contacting the government in march/april offering their services only to be rebuffed or simply ignored. Paul Nurse of the Francis Crick Institute is another, one of many. They could have opted to help develop these labs, in conjunction with the nhs and public health bodies, turning tests around within 24 hours and enabling contact tracing to get going much more quickly and effectively than it did. But they chose not to do this and went instead for a centralised private system that was beset by multiple and sustained problems from the beginning and took ages to be properly streamlined with the public health system. As I said earlier, i don't think engaging the private sector was a bad or wrong thing in itself, it was the manner in which it was done that wreaked so much damage and cost so many lives.

The Milton Keynes lab was set up by UK Biocentre and the National Institute for Health Research.

the NIHR is a joint research resource funded by the four UK health authorities.

do people really think these were set up by some randomer with a few Bunsen burners and a microscope?

Martina1991

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118059397#Comment_118059397

Then why was it and the lab in Wolverhampton a disaster?

Maybe because running a lab with volunteers with no experience or training in diagnostic testing leads to contaminated, compromised patient results.

The IBMS warned against this and appealed for labs that perform covid testing to abide by a proper quality management system.

https://www.ibms.org/resources/news/high-quality-staff-deliver-high-quality-services/

When there was thousands of people in Ireland looking for a covid test and capacity couldn't meet demand, the criteria for testing changed to try and capture the people with the worst symptoms. Testing wasn't farmed out to a private company offering the best deal.

People were saying things like " sure there's loads of labs in universities and pharmaceutical companies. Just use them to do covid testing." That would have been an uncontrolled disaster.

People think a lab is a lab and automation does most of the work.

Diagnostic testing is completely different. And has to be done right when it's patients health that's at risk.