Coronavirus outbreak

[mjr]

You are probably right. But if you live in the area, or were thinking of going to the area, you should not leave, or not visit, the area. People will though, they will come and go like normal, then in a few weeks there will be an outcry that not enough was done. It is the behaviour we are seeing all over the country.

Opposition and community 'Do more!'
Government and PHE 'OK, don't leave your area'
Opposition and community 'They can't do that to our community, it's not fair'
Government and PHE 'It will really slow the transmission and save lives'
Behaviour doesn't change
Opposition and community 'I can't believe they didn't do more'

Shouldn't England have a government that doesn't make mistakes so obvious that they can be widely predicted by Internet Forum People? ...that doesn't make mistakes they've made before, repeatedly?

Is this government too stubborn and too proud to sacrifice the hostage to fortune it gave away in February and delay or partially reverse the unlocking?

 

[mjr]

Potentially similar issue here if they use local government boundaries.
We're now in the Unitary Council of West Northants. If there's a problem here it will be in urban area of Northampton which, until April, was a Borough in its own right, and not in the more rural hinterland around Towcester and Daventry.

I thought the BBC had been reporting that Towcester had the B1.617.2 variant in two schools? And the hinterland there is so rural that not all the villages have schools any more, instead bussing students to Towcester, Brackley and larger villages like Bugbrooke, Deanshanger, Roade and so on. So I suspect any outbreak could spread to that hinterland more easily than one might think at first.

 

[Bromptonaut]

I take your point, schools have been a vector. Several hundred a day bussed to Campion are but one issue. My neighbour who works there says social distancing in corridors etc isn't good. Last time it was in town - HMOs and the Uni were probably factors.

 

[mjr]

Ireland likely to set a time limit on indoor dining https://www.thejournal.ie/restaurants-failte-ireland-5447515-May2021/

 

[johnblack]

I thought the BBC had been reporting that Towcester had the B1.617.2 variant in two schools? And the hinterland there is so rural that not all the villages have schools any more, instead bussing students to Towcester, Brackley and larger villages like Bugbrooke, Deanshanger, Roade and so on. So I suspect any outbreak could spread to that hinterland more easily than one might think at first.

The villages nearly all have primary schools, all the villages you mentioned are for secondary education. The Towcester outbreak was at Nicholas Hawksmoor primary school, but would more than likely also have been in Sponne secondary school. Incidentally, Sponne does not accept "bussed in" children, it's catchment area is Towcester only.

 

[Bromptonaut]

The villages nearly all have primary schools, all the villages you mentioned are for secondary education. The Towcester outbreak was at Nicholas Hawksmoor primary school, but would more than likely also have been in Sponne secondary school. Incidentally, Sponne does not accept "bussed in" children, it's catchment area is Towcester only.

Does that not include Towcester's surrounding villages?

I've a friend in Greens Norton who has a son at Sponne, it's admissions criteria suggest that its catchment is:
Abthorpe, Adstone, Blakesley, Bradden, Caldecote, Easton Neston, Farthingstone, Foxley, Greens Norton, Litchborough, Maidford, Silverstone, Slapton, Tiffield, Towcester, Wappenham, Whittlebury, Wood Burcote and Woodend.

Some of those surely will travel by bus?

 

[johnblack]

Does that not include Towcester's surrounding villages?

I've a friend in Greens Norton who has a son at Sponne.

There are a few exceptions but it is now very tight, (probably draw a circle a couple of miles round it) but because Towcester has grown so much they just can't fit them in. There used to be a bus from our village, that stopped, but you could still go if you could get them there, but that is no longer an option.

 

[lazybloke]

Look's like we're in Matt Lucas territory again:

Go on holiday (but don't go on holiday)
Get down the pub (but don't go to the pub)
Go to Bolton (but don't go to Bolton)

etc.

It's almost as though there was no plan on how to deal with variant outbreaks...

Community transmission of the Indian variant was a problem even before the recent relaxations, so I don't understand why the government expect 'advice' to be an effective control now.

Local lockdowns would be really hard, but that's the kind of leadership that is needed to address serious public health issues. I'm astonished that both the government and the opposition oppose that options; it's a lack of responsibility and leadership.

And as it's already speading widely, there will be no benefit from pausing the next relaxations in June. Too little, too late. The 3rd wave of infections looks inevitable.

Relying on vaccines will give a good degree of protection against fruther deaths, but I wonder what the projections are.
If the target is 2 jabs for every adult and child in the country then we're about 75 millions doses away from achieving that goal, which leaves a lot of people still vulnerable. Don't forget that efficacy is as low as 60% for the Indiant variant (AZ vaccine).
This could still be messy.

 

[Craig the cyclist]

Go on holiday (but don't go on holiday)
Get down the pub (but don't go to the pub)
Go to Bolton (but don't go to Bolton)

I listen to most press conferences, and read a lot of reports etc, I haven't read a single one where anyone has been told to either go on holiday, go to the pub or go to Bolton. Where have you heard that clear instruction from?

I think you should give us the link to where these instructions were issued to the population.

 

[Bromptonaut]

There's no instruction because it's advice with (as yet at least) no force of law but @roubaixtuesday's line is just as apt either way. .

The detail is here:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/covid-1...a-where-the-new-covid-19-variant-is-spreading

 

[Ajax Bay]

Laws are laws (and in UK people generally abide by them).
Guidance is guidance, and people take note of that guidance. (NB fools and wise men/women caveat.)
We live in a relatively liberal society (in UK) thank goodness and the imposition of C19 restrictions, by law, have been for the (greater) good of the local and wider community.
With freedom comes commensurate responsibility: this applies to governments, regional, local/community leaders, and individuals alike.
Laws imposing restrictions on specific bounded geographic areas cause a variety of secondary problems and I think the government have decided (maybe learning from their experience of applying that approach last summer/early autumn) that national laws are sensible (the phased relaxation 'not earlier than' approach). But imposing behaviours on specific outbreak towns where necessary is best done by grown up guidance. It would have been smart to get mayors and council leaderships on side and pushing together in the scrum.

 

[Eric Olthwaite]

Cummings' testimony is much more interesting than I expected. He's not focusing on throwing Boris under the bus (although there is criticism of him); he's focusing on throwing SAGE and Dept of Health (i.e. the scientists) under the bus.

 

[mjr]

Cummings' testimony is much more interesting than I expected. He's not focusing on throwing Boris under the bus (although there is criticism of him); he's focusing on throwing SAGE and Dept of Health (i.e. the scientists) under the bus.

Cummings remains a fascinating character. He just said it was stupid that he was in such a powerful position, that Boris was and that the alternative in an election was Corbyn. He endorsed the view that we are "led by donkeys", that they let down great people on the front line, and that bad policies and decisions had resulted in deaths

 

[mjr]

Here is that whiteboard with the cabinet plan versus the Cummings-Warner one:

View: https://twitter.com/Dominic2306/status/1397452170249842691


I see a thread about Cummings's session in general is now open at https://www.cyclechat.net/threads/the-dominic-cummings-thread.275561/

 

[mjr]

Inspired by Cummings bringing lockdown politics back to the fore again, at lunchtime I did the massively-flawed back-of-envelope comparison I mentioned weeks ago. This is showing what happens to cases if lockdowns slowly reduce a reproduction rate that slowly increases towards 3, in two scenarios:

1. in the "dither" scenario, lockdown isn't used until the rate hits 2.5, then it is released when it's down to 0.7, then we get "4 reproduction periods off" (which means slightly more than a month for covid, I think), then lockdown continues until the rate reaches 0.7 again, then released, then it isn't used again until the rate hits 1.3;

2. in the "containment" scenario, lockdown starts when the rate his 1.5, then is repeatedly released when the rate reaches 0.8 and re-imposed at 1.1.

You would spend the same total time in lockdown but cases never explode and actually slowly diminish (because the midpoint of the catch/release range is below 1). Then you remember that the total number of deaths is basically a consistent fraction of the area below the curve.

This graph is natural log scale and the calculation is not limited to any particular population (so herd immunity will never kick in), so the vertical axis is doubly gibberish, but dither scenario has thousands of times more cases in total, which means a lot more deaths

Finally, I say again that this is a back-of-the-envelope lunchtime calculation making loads of assumptions, including that there is no such thing as partial lockdown, but I suspect the basic concept probably holds and something similar but better underlies the WHO advice to lockdown sharp and early which gov.uk have repeatedly failed to follow.