Summer Solstice Unlockdown

[Bird on a Fire]

My sister reports low mask use in her area of London (the elephant), plus a confusing bunch of people voluntarily wearing masks but not covering their noses. Nowt as queer as folk.

[Tessa K]

My sister reports low mask use in her area of London (the elephant), plus a confusing bunch of people voluntarily wearing masks but not covering their noses. Nowt as queer as folk.

Quite a few people up here in North London do the 'mask only over the mouth' style. But then, perhaps they're all mouth breathers.

[Millennie Al]

a confusing bunch of people voluntarily wearing masks but not covering their noses.

It's not completely insane. If you believe the coronavirus is spread by droplets, then your nose is fairly harmless as the exhaled air stream is pointed downwards, while air from your mouth is propelled forwards, so needs a mask. While we all know that it's spread by aerosols, there has been so much emphasis on droplets - especially the 1m/2m/6foot rule - that it's understandable that some people believe it.

[bob sterman]

a confusing bunch of people voluntarily wearing masks but not covering their noses.

It's not completely insane. If you believe the coronavirus is spread by droplets, then your nose is fairly harmless as the exhaled air stream is pointed downwards, while air from your mouth is propelled forwards, so needs a mask. While we all know that it's spread by aerosols, there has been so much emphasis on droplets - especially the 1m/2m/6foot rule - that it's understandable that some people believe it.

I can pretty much guarantee nearly all "mouth maskers" have given no thought to the aerosol vs droplet issue.

[Tessa K]

Good thread here about yesterday's anti-vax, anti-lockdown demo in Trafalgar Square citing some of the bollix the speakers said. f.cking terrifying.

https://twitter.com/Shayan86/status/1418915810416934915

[shpalman]

police have blood spat at them

[OffTheRock]

a confusing bunch of people voluntarily wearing masks but not covering their noses.

It's not completely insane. If you believe the coronavirus is spread by droplets, then your nose is fairly harmless as the exhaled air stream is pointed downwards, while air from your mouth is propelled forwards, so needs a mask. While we all know that it's spread by aerosols, there has been so much emphasis on droplets - especially the 1m/2m/6foot rule - that it's understandable that some people believe it.

I can pretty much guarantee nearly all "mouth maskers" have given no thought to the aerosol vs droplet issue.

It doesn't explain the confusing group of people who voluntarily wear a mask on the bus, but under their chin. I kind of get the not covering the nose thing. That group of people have always existed. Up until now I'd always assumed the the 'under the chin' group of people were just breaking the rules because they didn't want to wear a mask. But now they don't have to wear a mask and their are still wearing it under their chin anyway.

[Gfamily]

Sarcastic mask wearing

[Bird on a Fire]

The man in the ironic mask?

[bob sterman]

It doesn't explain the confusing group of people who voluntarily wear a mask on the bus, but under their chin. I kind of get the not covering the nose thing. That group of people have always existed. Up until now I'd always assumed the the 'under the chin' group of people were just breaking the rules because they didn't want to wear a mask. But now they don't have to wear a mask and their are still wearing it under their chin anyway.

Are you sure you weren't just tricked by one of these "Wearing Mask On Bottom of Chin Illusion" masks?

https://maskalike.com/products/mask-on- ... n-illusion

As the blurb says "It looks like you're wearing your mask wrong (aka being a "chin masker"). But it's actually on right! Wear it to surprise and amuse people around you."

[Millennie Al]

It doesn't explain the confusing group of people who voluntarily wear a mask on the bus, but under their chin. I kind of get the not covering the nose thing.

I'd guess that some, if challenged would say that they were wearing a mask, and others just want to be close enough to wearing a mask that they can rapidly re-position it, making challenging them tiresome as you know that they'll just move it again soon - unlike someone who has been forced to go and get a mask.

[snoozeofreason]

Good thread here about yesterday's anti-vax, anti-lockdown demo in Trafalgar Square citing some of the bollix the speakers said. f.cking terrifying.

https://twitter.com/Shayan86/status/1418915810416934915

One of the more prominent speakers was Kate Shemirani. I heard her son interviewed on Radio 4 this meeting, and it was all very sad. It sounds as if he grew with all this conspiracy stuff, but escaped his mother's influence at 17 by winning a scholarship to a private boarding school, and is now completely estranged from her. It's about the only time that I have ever had any positive feelings about private boarding schools though.

[Tessa K]

It doesn't explain the confusing group of people who voluntarily wear a mask on the bus, but under their chin. I kind of get the not covering the nose thing.

I'd guess that some, if challenged would say that they were wearing a mask, and others just want to be close enough to wearing a mask that they can rapidly re-position it, making challenging them tiresome as you know that they'll just move it again soon - unlike someone who has been forced to go and get a mask.

I suspect they pull it up if they see an inspector get on. If they can pull it up - wearing it under the chin stretrches the elastic so it may not stay up anyway.

[Hunting Dog]

just had a message to all clients from my vets, saying that they're keeping mask wearing and other covid protocols in place

but have had clients abusing their staff because of this - seriously? how can people be such utter a..eholes?

they're sticking to their guns though, and have 'withdrawn services' from certain clients

I'll be buying food and accessories from their branch much more in future

[headshot]

just had a message to all clients from my vets, saying that they're keeping mask wearing and other covid protocols in place

but have had clients abusing their staff because of this - seriously? how can people be such utter a..eholes?

they're sticking to their guns though, and have 'withdrawn services' from certain clients

I'll be buying food and accessories from their branch much more in future

Our vets have had to say the same throughout the last year. They had a message on the phone saying that there was a zero tolerance approach to abuse of staff.

[Woodchopper]

Possible indication that the recent uptick in cases was the consequence of the 19 July reopening.

I think we have our first clear signal of a “Step 4” effect in today’s reported case data. While growth is flat in older age groups (>40s), and maybe even still falling in under-15s (a schools effect?), it’s picking back up in the young adult (15-40) group.

[...]

Looking –as usual- at the 20-24s, with no averaging, we can see a very clear reversal of the growth trend. That final datapoint on 27th July is incomplete so is very likely to go above the red line i.e. back into week-on-week growth, once the full data is filled in.

[...]

Why is this? The simplest explanation is that we’re seeing the impact of the first weekend after “Freedom Day”, with clubs / parties / festivals etc. leading to more infections. The timing fits, with Friday night’s infections being reported on a Tuesday specimen day.

[...]

There’s no clear differentiation in male & female case rates this time, but there is a bit of a split by region, with a stronger pick-up in growth in the Midlands (East and West), South East and South West, and weaker signals in London and the North West (more immunity??).

[...]

The important questions now are: how far does this pick-up in growth go? How long does it last? And does it spread into other age groups, or stay concentrated in the 15-30s? There’s no reason at all to panic, but we do need to keep a close eye on this.

https://twitter.com/jamesward73/status/ ... 90567?s=21

Obviously it’s all speculative until we get more data.

[lpm]

? There's no uptick in cases. The data is inherently noisy, two or three days of data doesn't provide a signal. I can't trust any twitterer who spins lengthy narratives from tossing three tails in a row.

[Woodchopper]

? There's no uptick in cases. The data is inherently noisy, two or three days of data doesn't provide a signal. I can't trust any twitterer who spins lengthy narratives from tossing three tails in a row.

Fair enough, good too to wait for some more data.

[shpalman]

? There's no uptick in cases. The data is inherently noisy, two or three days of data doesn't provide a signal. I can't trust any twitterer who spins lengthy narratives from tossing three tails in a row.

Alternatively are we sure there was even a downtick? How many days in a row was that?

Still you're right that we should wait a week or so to be sure which way it's going.

[Woodchopper]

? There's no uptick in cases. The data is inherently noisy, two or three days of data doesn't provide a signal. I can't trust any twitterer who spins lengthy narratives from tossing three tails in a row.

Alternatively are we sure there was even a downtick? How many days in a row was that?

Still you're right that we should wait a week or so to be sure which way it's going.

By date reported the recent peak was 54,674 on 17 July.

It’s been lower for the last 12 days. Yesterday’s count was 31 117.

I think we can assume a trend, though of course one that could be reversed.

I agree, best to wait for a week of data before assuming any other trend.

[lpm]

Quite, we had two or three days of falling cases and suspected it was mad random noise, then it kept going for 10 days or so, and we had a couple of crazy "halved in a week" numbers that we assumed were anomalies, then two or three days when it's only down 20% from the previous week...

Also when there's vast amounts of data people are lured into cherry picking, e.g. taking 20-24 and comparing London to the South West and spinning a narrative about how nightclubs on a Friday night are different in Leeds compared to Manchester and how dog ownership rates in Sunderland leads to....

[Sciolus]

Best of all, wait for the ONS survey to avoid artefacts from changes to testing patterns.

[Woodchopper]

The excellent John Burn Murdoch on the relationship between the ONS numbers and the daily cases numbers: https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status ... 54307?s=21

ETA ONS numbers here: https://twitter.com/ons/status/1421065864418406400?s=21

[wilsontown]

Following today's update, the 7 day average in cases peaked on July 18th at nigh on 48,000, and has fallen every day since. But the rate of fall has slowed down.

[lpm]

Cases have started falling again. I shall explain this one day trend in the following tweets. (1/226)