So, coronavirus...

[tabascoboy]

[petej]

Aunty Beeb finger-pointing: 'look at all those Covid-infested Europeans, nothing to see here'

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59262701

They'd be very fair to question the increase in European cases, or report how those countries are trying to deal with it.

But to summarise by saying the UK is bucking the trend after having consistently high numbers for months, and yes, thankfully a slight dip in the last week or so, is beyond a rose-tinted glasses interpretation.
Interesting that there are no graphs on Covid casualties, because why would they want to report and investigate that?!

This country is doomed with the kind of politicians and media it has at the moment. It deserves better.

Such a chronic bore.

Whereas your posts are always so insightful.

That BBC article is fine. The only slightly silly section is quoting Johnson and even that is mostly him encouraging people to get booster jabs. a bit from Prof Balloux who has been a very sensible voice and Dr Clarke who states international comparisons are never very useful at the end of the article.

This thread has some good graphs which show protection from infection after vaccination waning but not from hospitalisation and death and this study https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanc ... 8/fulltext backs that up for hospitalisations.

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2021/sep/fir ... d-children

It is good that work is being done for the thankfully small proportion of children who get long covid.

My covid infection has been a week of normal cold with an added fatigue aspect. Feel much better today. probably would have recovered faster if i had stopped working. I had my 2nd AZ jab just over 6 months ago.

[JM2K6]

Up to 14% is not a small proportion.

[petej]

Up to 14% is not a small proportion.

Small proportion. Up to is doing a huge amount of work. Only 13% responded to the survey. When you consider this is an age group where they are much more likely to not have symptoms you are going to miss a lot of cases.

[JM2K6]

Up to 14% is not a small proportion.

Small proportion. Up to is doing a huge amount of work. Only 13% responded to the survey. When you consider this is an age group where they are much more likely to not have symptoms you are going to miss a lot of cases.

And we have a fuck-ton of cases, so that percentage is still a large number of people.

What exactly are you trying to achieve at the moment? You've ignored data that contradicts your "COVID is no threat to the young and the vaccine is neutral at best for them" viewpoint and nit-picked at others.

[dpedin]

Up to 14% is not a small proportion.

Small proportion. Up to is doing a huge amount of work. Only 13% responded to the survey. When you consider this is an age group where they are much more likely to not have symptoms you are going to miss a lot of cases.

And we have a fuck-ton of cases, so that percentage is still a large number of people.

What exactly are you trying to achieve at the moment? You've ignored data that contradicts your "COVID is no threat to the young and the vaccine is neutral at best for them" viewpoint and nit-picked at others.

1 in 8 of kids who have symptoms of long covid seems like a lot to me. Perhaps they all have underlying conditions so according to the Daily Mail don't count?

What was the point of that briefing by the Blonde Bumblecunt today? It seemed to me to be absolutely pointless and looked like an excuse for the BB to try, after the debacle of his COP26 speech in Edinburgh, sorry Glasgow, and to show his 'leadership qualities' in the covid response and to distract from all the other shite going on with his bunch of twats Gov. He was even more useless than usual and yet again demonstrated his excellent Norman Collier impersonation whilst managing to avoid answering any of the questions and looking like a complete and utter twat. Either that or there is something else going on that he needed to distract us all from ... HS2? He really is feckin useless.

[dpedin]

Hearing that major workforce issues coming to a head in NHS up here. They have been struggling to date and some boards called in military support but its getting worse. Nursing and consultants vacancies running at 8-9% and going higher. 1 in 5 nurses are over 55 and with changes in pension schemes happening (again!) in April there is an expected flood of retirals in the system with many retiring and joining nurse bank systems and working part time. Consultant I know is struggling to recruit to consultant posts to one of the top teams in Scotland and is relying on retired guys who have come back to work part time to keep show on the road. Previously he would have had a queue of folk wanting these jobs. Pension issues for higher earners ie consultants, is still a major issue and many are considering early retirement as well. Overall workforce is knackered, dreading winter and many are walking.

[salanya]

They didn't want to focus on Covid in the early autumn, trying to avoid discussions about Plan B, and hoping for a glory moment with COP.

But now they don't want any focus on the failings of COP, or their own sleazy processes and MPs. And as numbers have been going up across Europe, it's the perfect moment to blame that for Covid issues in the UK.
Obviously ignoring that numbers have been consistently above 30k cases a day for 2-3 months now...

[fishfoodie]

They didn't want to focus on Covid in the early autumn, trying to avoid discussions about Plan B, and hoping for a glory moment with COP.

But now they don't want any focus on the failings of COP, or their own sleazy processes and MPs. And as numbers have been going up across Europe, it's the perfect moment to blame that for Covid issues in the UK.
Obviously ignoring that numbers have been consistently above 30k cases a day for 2-3 months now...

He's had the advantage of being able to hide up in Scotland; while his MPs were fuming back in their Constituencies. They've no doubt been getting in the neck for that time; & the corruption headlines show no sign of going away; & now Labour are referring cases in the Standards Czar; & it would be electoral suicide to try messing with them, with so many Tory MPs sitting on the naughty bench.

It may need more than one MPs blood to make this go away.

[Rinkals]

They didn't want to focus on Covid in the early autumn, trying to avoid discussions about Plan B, and hoping for a glory moment with COP.

But now they don't want any focus on the failings of COP, or their own sleazy processes and MPs. And as numbers have been going up across Europe, it's the perfect moment to blame that for Covid issues in the UK.
Obviously ignoring that numbers have been consistently above 30k cases a day for 2-3 months now...

He's had the advantage of being able to hide up in Scotland; while his MPs were fuming back in their Constituencies. They've no doubt been getting in the neck for that time; & the corruption headlines show no sign of going away; & now Labour are referring cases in the Standards Czar; & it would be electoral suicide to try messing with them, with so many Tory MPs sitting on the naughty bench.

It may need more than one MPs blood to make this go away.

I dunno. Does the electorate even notice?

[fishfoodie]

They didn't want to focus on Covid in the early autumn, trying to avoid discussions about Plan B, and hoping for a glory moment with COP.

But now they don't want any focus on the failings of COP, or their own sleazy processes and MPs. And as numbers have been going up across Europe, it's the perfect moment to blame that for Covid issues in the UK.
Obviously ignoring that numbers have been consistently above 30k cases a day for 2-3 months now...

He's had the advantage of being able to hide up in Scotland; while his MPs were fuming back in their Constituencies. They've no doubt been getting in the neck for that time; & the corruption headlines show no sign of going away; & now Labour are referring cases in the Standards Czar; & it would be electoral suicide to try messing with them, with so many Tory MPs sitting on the naughty bench.

It may need more than one MPs blood to make this go away.

I dunno. Does the electorate even notice?

Some of them do; because there were plenty of stories of MPs inboxes full of angry punters mails, & headlines in the Daily Heil, & Express tend to get noticed more than ones in the Guardian; by the typical Tory voter

[petej]

Impact of the not immensa labs south west screw up in the react COVID prevalence study.

[dpedin]

https://www.newstatesman.com/comment/20 ... d-disaster

[dpedin]

Impact of the not immensa labs south west screw up in the react COVID prevalence study.

I still think this should lead to a criminal investigation - it is inevitable that the 'deliberate' or at best incompetent' production of false negatives has led to a number of avoidable deaths. I believe the (Not NHS) Test and Trace organisation was responsible for award and monitoring of the contract?

[petej]

[quote=dpedin post_id=156614 time=1637064296 user_

Impact of the not immensa labs south west screw up in the react COVID prevalence study.

I still think this should lead to a criminal investigation - it is inevitable that the 'deliberate' or at best incompetent' production of false negatives has led to a number of avoidable deaths. I believe the (Not NHS) Test and Trace organisation was responsible for award and monitoring of the contract?

This sort of thing will nearly always be due to an accidental fuck up followed by various people in management positions arse covering (trying not to admit it) while desperately urging their minions to fix it in the background. It is possible someone internal deliberately sabotaged it but highly unlikely.

[dpedin]

[quote=dpedin post_id=156614 time=1637064296 user_

Impact of the not immensa labs south west screw up in the react COVID prevalence study.

I still think this should lead to a criminal investigation - it is inevitable that the 'deliberate' or at best incompetent' production of false negatives has led to a number of avoidable deaths. I believe the (Not NHS) Test and Trace organisation was responsible for award and monitoring of the contract?

This sort of thing will nearly always be due to an accidental fuck up followed by various people in management positions arse covering (trying not to admit it) while desperately urging their minions to fix it in the background. It is possible someone internal deliberately sabotaged it but highly unlikely.

My suspicion is that they were overwhelmed with samples and behind in reporting and just decided to not test batches and just declare them as negatives to help them catch up.

If this was a passenger jet crashing and some died because someone fucked up and folk then tried to cover their arses then they would end up in prison. If a building site didn't provide all safety requirements and systems and someone dies in an accident and they try and cover it up those responsible end up in prison. Providing these type of healthcare lab services are no different. If the owners/managers of this lab didn't have the correct quality systems in place, knew that they couldn't operate to the standards required and knowingly failed to implement the required improvements, etc then they are at fault. Criminal negligence, corporate manslaughter, call it what you want.

[petej]

[quote=dpedin post_id=156614 time=1637064296 user_

I still think this should lead to a criminal investigation - it is inevitable that the 'deliberate' or at best incompetent' production of false negatives has led to a number of avoidable deaths. I believe the (Not NHS) Test and Trace organisation was responsible for award and monitoring of the contract?

This sort of thing will nearly always be due to an accidental fuck up followed by various people in management positions arse covering (trying not to admit it) while desperately urging their minions to fix it in the background. It is possible someone internal deliberately sabotaged it but highly unlikely.

My suspicion is that they were overwhelmed with samples and behind in reporting and just decided to not test batches and just declare them as negatives to help them catch up.

If this was a passenger jet crashing and some died because someone fucked up and folk then tried to cover their arses then they would end up in prison. If a building site didn't provide all safety requirements and systems and someone dies in an accident and they try and cover it up those responsible end up in prison. Providing these type of healthcare lab services are no different. If the owners/managers of this lab didn't have the correct quality systems in place, knew that they couldn't operate to the standards required and knowingly failed to implement the required improvements, etc then they are at fault. Criminal negligence, corporate manslaughter, call it what you want.

I thought that people were given false positive and false negative results.

[petej]

Aircraft crash is also an easily identifiable cause of death. Catching covid due to a lab results is pretty tenuous and won't hold up in court. They might get payments withheld and a contract cancelled for being shit. With lft's I wouldn't bother with PCR testing outside of clinical settings. Waste of money.

[JM2K6]

re: the JCVI's recommendation: https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n2251

linked from this here article https://www.newstatesman.com/comment/20 ... d-disaster which is a good read (dpedin linked it earlier)

[Slick]

Have Scottish Government mentioned anything about under 50's getting a booster yet?

[GrahamWa]

Have Scottish Government mentioned anything about under 50's getting a booster yet?

Think "she" said today that under 50s that didn't fall into the currently permitted categories wouldn't have reach 6 months (24 weeks) since the 2nd jag. So the booking portal hasn't open to them yet. Sturgeon is in the same bracket so she will know I suppose.

[dpedin]

[dpedin]

[quote=dpedin post_id=156614 time=1637064296 user_

This sort of thing will nearly always be due to an accidental fuck up followed by various people in management positions arse covering (trying not to admit it) while desperately urging their minions to fix it in the background. It is possible someone internal deliberately sabotaged it but highly unlikely.

My suspicion is that they were overwhelmed with samples and behind in reporting and just decided to not test batches and just declare them as negatives to help them catch up.

If this was a passenger jet crashing and some died because someone fucked up and folk then tried to cover their arses then they would end up in prison. If a building site didn't provide all safety requirements and systems and someone dies in an accident and they try and cover it up those responsible end up in prison. Providing these type of healthcare lab services are no different. If the owners/managers of this lab didn't have the correct quality systems in place, knew that they couldn't operate to the standards required and knowingly failed to implement the required improvements, etc then they are at fault. Criminal negligence, corporate manslaughter, call it what you want.

I thought that people were given false positive and false negative results.

Study quoted in Times suggesting that the Immensa scandal could have led to a an additional 26k to 76k cases and up to 100 additional covid deaths based on known fatality rates. Agree that this is difficult to confirm exact numbers but it's safe to say that telling c43k people that they were negative when they were positive will have led to an increase in transmission and deaths.

[Sandstorm]

Lab fuckup caused a huge spike in cases in W Berkshire after 18 months of very low numbers. We are still buckling under high case numbers 2 months later.

[petej]

re: the JCVI's recommendation: https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n2251

linked from this here article https://www.newstatesman.com/comment/20 ... d-disaster which is a good read (dpedin linked it earlier)

FYI We were low on Pfizer and moderna. Devolved admins (Wales & Scotland) do publish data on vaccine stocks and deliveries and the distribution looked to be proportional to population size so could be estimated for England. Not sure England were squeezing out the extra doses as well. I think there was deliveries of pfizer early sept/late August from the 2nd order.

[Biffer]

Have Scottish Government mentioned anything about under 50's getting a booster yet?

Think "she" said today that under 50s that didn't fall into the currently permitted categories wouldn't have reach 6 months (24 weeks) since the 2nd jag. So the booking portal hasn't open to them yet. Sturgeon is in the same bracket so she will know I suppose.

She’s 51

[Dogbert]

Google is your friend

Scotland confirms Covid boosters for over-40s

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-59290426

[fishfoodie]

Aircraft crash is also an easily identifiable cause of death. Catching covid due to a lab results is pretty tenuous and won't hold up in court. They might get payments withheld and a contract cancelled for being shit. With lft's I wouldn't bother with PCR testing outside of clinical settings. Waste of money.

You'll have a lot more success in proving negligence; & given what we've seen so far; that shouldn't be too difficult.

All you'd need to do is quote the % of positive tests per 1k, seen in this lab, & national statistics that everyone watching the daily news conferences. That should be damning enough to show that the people administering the lab weren't paying any attention to the accuracy of their tests.

How could they possibly explain how they were seeing orders of magnitude less positive tests than any other lab in the Country ?

[Slick]

Google is your friend

Scotland confirms Covid boosters for over-40s

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-59290426

The good news is it’s coming

The bad news is Humza is on the case

[Dogbert]

Yet Scotland is the leading nation in the UK for the highest percentage of 1st / 2nd / and Booster vaccines administered. .....

Sounds like a disaster he is overseeing

[petej]

Yet Scotland is the leading nation in the UK for the highest percentage of 1st / 2nd / and Booster vaccines administered. .....

Sounds like a disaster he is overseeing

Generally it goes Wales, Scotland, England, NI for vaccine roll out speed but Scotland leads in uptake %. NI is always significantly behind the others.

[dpedin]

Yet Scotland is the leading nation in the UK for the highest percentage of 1st / 2nd / and Booster vaccines administered. .....

Sounds like a disaster he is overseeing

Generally it goes Wales, Scotland, England, NI for vaccine roll out speed but Scotland leads in uptake %. NI is always significantly behind the others.

??? - not sure what you mean by 'speed' of roll out? Vaccine uptake as a % of pop or as % of those eligible is as Dogbert has posted. Wales aren't far behind Scotland TBF. Both Scotland and Wales have an NHS structure which has made it more efficient in managing the roll out, whilst there are the usual problems and local cock ups given the scale of the task both have done better than England. NI has different issues which I down know enough about - I am sure others will comment on why their roll out has been slower.

[fishfoodie]

Yet Scotland is the leading nation in the UK for the highest percentage of 1st / 2nd / and Booster vaccines administered. .....

Sounds like a disaster he is overseeing

Generally it goes Wales, Scotland, England, NI for vaccine roll out speed but Scotland leads in uptake %. NI is always significantly behind the others.

??? - not sure what you mean by 'speed' of roll out? Vaccine uptake as a % of pop or as % of those eligible is as Dogbert has posted. Wales aren't far behind Scotland TBF. Both Scotland and Wales have an NHS structure which has made it more efficient in managing the roll out, whilst there are the usual problems and local cock ups given the scale of the task both have done better than England. NI has different issues which I down know enough about - I am sure others will comment on why their roll out has been slower.

Part of the problem in NI, is their NHS suffered from their Politicians playing silly buggers over flags, & the Cash-For-Ash corruption; & didn't do their jobs for a couple of years; & meanwhile the NHS was underfunded, & the Civil Service had no power to do anything but plug along.

You've also got an, anti-authority strain in all communities; that means that even if the authority is trying to save your life; the stupid pricks insist on doing the exact opposite.

[Biffer]

Yet Scotland is the leading nation in the UK for the highest percentage of 1st / 2nd / and Booster vaccines administered. .....

Sounds like a disaster he is overseeing

It's very noticeable that there's been a significant drop in deaths in Scotland over the last two weeks or so. From a 7 day average of about 110-120 to a seven day average of 50-60. Got to think that's related to the booster rollout?

[Biffer]

So this is not even pre-=print, it's data leaked to the Times of Israel about their booster rollout.

They're not seeing much waning after 9-10 months post 3rd shot

https://www.timesofisrael.com/pfizer-bo ... tial-data/

[petej]

Yet Scotland is the leading nation in the UK for the highest percentage of 1st / 2nd / and Booster vaccines administered. .....

Sounds like a disaster he is overseeing

It's very noticeable that there's been a significant drop in deaths in Scotland over the last two weeks or so. From a 7 day average of about 110-120 to a seven day average of 50-60. Got to think that's related to the booster rollout?

Yes. Cases in the earliest booster age groups have dropped significant (ie steeper and further than other age groups) in the last few weeks so it should be feeding through to deaths

[dpedin]

Yet Scotland is the leading nation in the UK for the highest percentage of 1st / 2nd / and Booster vaccines administered. .....

Sounds like a disaster he is overseeing

It's very noticeable that there's been a significant drop in deaths in Scotland over the last two weeks or so. From a 7 day average of about 110-120 to a seven day average of 50-60. Got to think that's related to the booster rollout?

Yes. Cases in the earliest booster age groups have dropped significant (ie steeper and further than other age groups) in the last few weeks so it should be feeding through to deaths

However notice an uptick in cases in younger age groups in last week or so - this in turn will feed through into other age groups over the next week or two. Time lag from school returning? Mate of mine currently isolating with covid probably caught from his kids.

[petej]

It's very noticeable that there's been a significant drop in deaths in Scotland over the last two weeks or so. From a 7 day average of about 110-120 to a seven day average of 50-60. Got to think that's related to the booster rollout?

Yes. Cases in the earliest booster age groups have dropped significant (ie steeper and further than other age groups) in the last few weeks so it should be feeding through to deaths

However notice an uptick in cases in younger age groups in last week or so - this in turn will feed through into other age groups over the next week or two. Time lag from school returning? Mate of mine currently isolating with covid probably caught from his kids.

My COVID is now just an annoying cough. Nearly fully recovered. Same for my toddler. Pretty much caught it bang on 6months after my 2nd jab. If I'd properly rested up for a couple of days I would be better by now.

The rate of growth has already peaked on this up swing and the downward pressure from boosters and infection should mean cases continue vaguely downwards.

[dpedin]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... tudy-finds

Looks like things like mask wearing, social distancing do make a difference to covid transmission!

[Marylandolorian]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... tudy-finds

Looks like things like mask wearing, social distancing do make a difference to covid transmission!

Yep, we could take my county as a consistent evidence that masks work. Maryland one of the top 5 most vaccinated states doesn’t have mask mandate indoor, but Montgomery co does, we have constantly over half less cases than the state.

Long Covid numbers for kids and adults, they never talk or show these numbers here, eye opening
dpedin wrote

The result:
11,219 child Covid hospitalisations [0-17]
72 child Covid deaths, to 29-Oct [ONS, 0-19]
69,000 #LongCovidKids