The UK response - Part II - read OP

I'd like to know what the chances of developing 'long covid' as a result of infection are as my chances of being infected have just gone up exponentially.

For unvaccinated people it is circa 20%. For vaccinated people numbers are hard to come by because of the prior probability of getting a breakthrough infection (think a study of Israeli health workers put it as 6 out of 39 cases, in a sample population of 1,500 exposed people).

Feel similar re avoiding long covid as had post viral disease that debilitated me for months a few years back . Am being forced back into office in a few weeks though so, even though in personal life am being really cautious, I might as throw my hat to the wind as the office will probably be as risky as going to a nightclub

However isn't rhinovirus one of the common cold viruses? Are there deadly forms of it going about?

Scotland seems to have the highest case incidence in the world at the moment (780 per 100K) but the death rate is still quite low (0.8 per 100K - double Irelands number) . Although now it looks like it has peaked for every age group except the under 16s (they are not eligible for vaccination).

In the past week, 80% of the legible population is fully vaccinated. Of the new Covid cases last week, 40% of these were unvaccinated.

In terms of hospitalisations, 34% were unvaccinated - as it is mainly young people who are unvaccinated this is a big number.

With deaths 23% were unvaccinated - once again as it is mainly younger people this looks high.

For fully vaccinated, there are still a number of deaths (70% of all deaths) but as the elderly are fully vaccinated - it is age rather than vaccine likely to be the cause.

@godzilla1989 wrote

Who ever said that a 76 year old vaccinated person has the same chance as death [sic] as 26 year old unvaccinated when exposed to Covid?

Why are you attributing this to @bob mcbob and then smearing his intelligence?

Sure they'll probably go up in the polls again. Brexit innit.

If all this had happened before 2016 I can't imagine a scenario were Johnson wouldn't have been forced to resign by the end of April 2020. Their strategy for dealing with the pandemic in the first few weeks was beyond dreadful. His own reckless behaviour nearly cost him his life.

The cases don't look good but you can look at it two ways really

40K cases from a million tests.

Now if they did 100K tests / day like Germany does for example, it would be far far lower. So you could argue that lots of positive cases being caught rather than them just running around the country spreading it to others.

So UK 65mln population 1mln tests and 40K cases or

Germany 84 mln population 100K tests and 10K cases

Personally i would rather have 40K people isolating / day than 80K people running around possibly passing it to others.

The growth is mainly amongst secondary school kids in England

Prevalence was highest once again in secondary school pupils, prompting Prof Christina Pagel, the director of UCL’s clinical operational research unit, to reiterate criticism of preparations for the return of children to schools. An estimated 8.1% of all secondary pupils were infected, up from 6.93% the previous week.

Scottish schools went back earlier and case numbers are now falling

That's why one looks at the 7-day average to get a proper assessment.

That said, there have not been less than 20,000 cases per day in the UK since June, and the 7-day average is now over 40,000.

The company's suitability for the contract was questioned shortly after the award, not just now that they have fcked up. The shadow health secretary, said: “Serious questions have to be asked about how this private firm – who didn’t exist before May 2020 – was awarded a lucrative £120m contract to run this lab". They are being investigated for a possible breach of consumer law and some of the carry on at the lab is pretty shocking.

Is there anything you aren't willing to overlook?

Jenny Harries on Friday: The lab is "accredited to all appropriate standards."

UK government spokesperson on Monday: "The lab was fully accredited by the UK independent accreditation body [UKAS] before being appointed."

UKAS: Neither Immensa nor Dante are or have ever been accredited.

Oh dear, the awful Guardian stirring it up again.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/18/uk-lab-immensa-false-negative-covid-tests-not-fully-accredited