Coronavirus UK Daily Statistics

[Mitz]

Hi mate,
Whilst in principle I wholeheartedly agree with what you are saying, there is a major flaw in this concept.

Liken a Covid test to a cars annual MOT test, all it proves is that at xxx time, on xxx day you did not have Covid. However within half an hour of leaving the test centre you may catch it on your way home, and from then on you have supposedly tested negative, but are infecting other people all the time.

Now this approach may have been effective if started in say Jan Feb this year, but with the situation now you would have to be able to test the entire population of the UK (circa 68 million) every two, or three days, that would mean 10 million tests a day just to test everyone weekly.
The ideal time to test people would be now, with the new 4 week lockdown in place, but to have everyone tested in four weeks would mean 2.5 million tests a day to complete, and what's our capacity at the moment, 200,000 and that has never been reached in practice.

So, as I say it is a good idea, but not achievable, even though the Chinese figure of testing an average of one million people a day sounds impressive the population of China is 1.4 billion, so when that is added to into the math's, they face the same problem in reality.

Hey bud.

Looks like they're going to do it in Liverpool. Also saw something about another town somewhere else in the country with 36000 people that they're going to blanket test.

If the testing is carried out efficiently and quickly the people who catch the virus after being tested could be negligible. Besides, they could test more than once - twice, a few days or a week apart for instance.

And besides, none of this is about eradicating the virus. I see so many people post online that lockdown is pointless because the virus will come back. The whole point of these lockdowns isn't to eradicate the virus, it's to suppress the spread of the virus so that the healthcare system doesn't get overwhelmed. There will ALWAYS be some people catching the virus regardless of what we do in terms of lockdown and testing. But it buys time and saves lives between now and when a vaccine becomes available.

 

[Badboybez]

Hey bud.

Looks like they're going to do it in Liverpool. Also saw something about another town somewhere else in the country with 36000 people that they're going to blanket test.

If the testing is carried out efficiently and quickly the people who catch the virus after being tested could be negligible. Besides, they could test more than once - twice, a few days or a week apart for instance.

And besides, none of this is about eradicating the virus. I see so many people post online that lockdown is pointless because the virus will come back. The whole point of these lockdowns isn't to eradicate the virus, it's to suppress the spread of the virus so that the healthcare system doesn't get overwhelmed. There will ALWAYS be some people catching the virus regardless of what we do in terms of lockdown and testing. But it buys time and saves lives between now and when a vaccine becomes available.

It seems that we mainly agree with each other on this matter.
The only thing we appear to differ on is the scale of testing that the UK could do, given our performance so far.
Mind you bear in mind China's figure of 1 million people in a day, against a population of 1.4 billion, they still face a similar situation. In addition their methods after a positive test are far more severe. Don't forget their policy of locking people in their own homes earlier this year, including welding steel doors shut.

Yes lockdowns do help to stop the infection rate, but we must learn to accept that as a part of modern life. In my opinion a vaccine is a long way off, despite all the rhetoric from various countries leaders. I was speaking to one of my friends of 40 years who is a research scientist at one one of the UK's largest pharmaceutical companies. As he said to me "a vaccine may well never be found, look at the common cold, no one has a vaccine for that, as to flu yes there is a yearly "jab" but that has a different formula every time due to mutations, and does not work 100%, so given the make up of covid, it has already mutated twice, so it may be many years before there is even a yearly "jab" available, let alone a proper vaccine"

 

[Mitz]

It seems that we mainly agree with each other on this matter.
The only thing we appear to differ on is the scale of testing that the UK could do, given our performance so far.
Mind you bear in mind China's figure of 1 million people in a day, against a population of 1.4 billion, they still face a similar situation. In addition their methods after a positive test are far more severe. Don't forget their policy of locking people in their own homes earlier this year, including welding steel doors shut.

Yes lockdowns do help to stop the infection rate, but we must learn to accept that as a part of modern life. In my opinion a vaccine is a long way off, despite all the rhetoric from various countries leaders. I was speaking to one of my friends of 40 years who is a research scientist at one one of the UK's largest pharmaceutical companies. As he said to me "a vaccine may well never be found, look at the common cold, no one has a vaccine for that, as to flu yes there is a yearly "jab" but that has a different formula every time due to mutations, and does not work 100%, so given the make up of covid, it has already mutated twice, so it may be many years before there is even a yearly "jab" available, let alone a proper vaccine"

I don't disagree with any of that. The UK will need to massively step up its ground game to test at the scale needed. However, with the will and funding I believe anything is possible. A tall order, yes, but definitely achievable.

Unfortunately, punishment in the UK is still far too lenient. I saw one pub come out publicly to state that they refuse to close and invite other businesses to follow suite. IMHO, if they do remain open after being legally instructed to close, their business should be seized and forcibly shut. Fuckwits are a big reason why this virus will continue to spread faster than it needs to regardless of what we do.

I agree. The virus will be with us for a while and it may well be a number of years before a vaccine can deal with the virus decisively. But hopefully it can save many vulnerable lives between (almost) now and then.

 

[Mr Ripple]

Latest News
December 30 (GMT)
Updates

• 50,023 new cases and 981 new deaths in the United Kingdom [source]

 

[Crewella]

Latest News
December 30 (GMT)
Updates

• 50,023 new cases and 981 new deaths in the United Kingdom [source]

I know some of those will be from over the Christmas period ............ but jeeeeez ..............

 

[OzoreXS]

Latest News
December 30 (GMT)
Updates

• 50,023 new cases and 981 new deaths in the United Kingdom [source]

thats for the last 24h? OMFG

 

[DeeDee aka (Pod Queen)]

This is just crazy!

 

[crustyfolker]

Not looking good is it. More draconian measures will come into play soon, but hey ho folks wouldn't listen to the stay home and don't mix advice throughout the year. Money first lives second. Sorry but the Gov have handled things badly from day 1. Hospitality business has moaned to get their own way, ie folks mixing in their establishments and look at the results. Sorry but thats how it is. Business's have suffered i get that but what cost can you put on 70k lives.
The plot thickens, lets vaccinate the oldest folk first, while the younger oap's can wait (gov hopes to get rid of the younger OAP's as they could get a pension for a couple of decades), whereas the older folks who get the vaccine will enjoy a shorter life saving billions in the long run, same for those folks with illness's leave those vaccines for later in the hope they can cut down the amount of folks who may go on to cost the NHS and DWP.
Now the gov are going to put the armies into schools?. Put them on the streets to keep folks indoors for 6 weeks eradicating the virus as it has no way to spread to other households.

 

[zouzounaki]

Not looking good is it. More draconian measures will come into play soon, but hey ho folks wouldn't listen to the stay home and don't mix advice throughout the year. Money first lives second. Sorry but the Gov have handled things badly from day 1. Hospitality business has moaned to get their own way, ie folks mixing in their establishments and look at the results. Sorry but thats how it is. Business's have suffered i get that but what cost can you put on 70k lives.
The plot thickens, lets vaccinate the oldest folk first, while the younger oap's can wait (gov hopes to get rid of the younger OAP's as they could get a pension for a couple of decades), whereas the older folks who get the vaccine will enjoy a shorter life saving billions in the long run, same for those folks with illness's leave those vaccines for later in the hope they can cut down the amount of folks who may go on to cost the NHS and DWP.
Now the gov are going to put the armies into schools?. Put them on the streets to keep folks indoors for 6 weeks eradicating the virus as it has no way to spread to other households.

but you were posting a while ago about how you were away on a mediterranean island. how did you get to the airport without going out the house?

 

["Misfit"]

The way this thing is going nobody is going to escape this.
Best hope this vaccination comes quick and it works.