Scrutable

We've had meetings about the situation yesterday and today. At both, the CEO has printed off copies of various policies, and asked people to pass them round to everyone

The other reason why schools must close is because they spread ordinary colds, sore throats, coughs and flus.

Keeping them open means a family has a child who comes down with a mild temperature and sore throat - and then that entire family has to self-isolate. No working to support the economy, potentially no wages coming in, a lot of fear and worry. And most likely to be an everyday cold virus. Or the cold spreads to Dad's workplace - which closes down thinking a round of Covid has hit.

And later on, there's a real case in the family and they have to do it all again. Keeping schools open increases the problem of self-isolating fatigue.

lpm wrote: Tue Mar 17, 2020 5:38 pm They are deliberately keeping them open - as a final measure up their sleeve. They want loads of children to get immunity early, because in their own lives children have very little to do with their grandparents. The fact that some vulnerable children will die.....

AFAIK, and believe me I’ve looked, no one under 30 has died from it yet.

21 year old football coach died from it, was in the news recently. Had leukaemia. So vulnerable kids are vulnerable.

JellyandJackson wrote: Tue Mar 17, 2020 6:20 pm

lpm wrote: Tue Mar 17, 2020 5:38 pm They are deliberately keeping them open - as a final measure up their sleeve. They want loads of children to get immunity early, because in their own lives children have very little to do with their grandparents. The fact that some vulnerable children will die.....

AFAIK, and believe me I’ve looked, no one under 30 has died from it yet.

Looks like a few have in China, english https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus# ... st-at-risk

Original source in Chinese: http://rs.yiigle.com/yufabiao/1181998.htm (Maybe machine translation will work).

Substantial undocumented infection facilitates the rapid dissemination of novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV2)

https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abb3221

We estimate 86% of all infections were undocumented (95% CI: [82%–90%]) prior to 23 January 2020 travel restrictions. Per person, the transmission rate of undocumented infections was 55% of documented infections ([46%–62%]), yet, due to their greater numbers, undocumented infections were the infection source for 79% of documented cases. These findings explain the rapid geographic spread of SARS-CoV2 and indicate containment of this virus will be particularly challenging.

Thank you, I stand corrected. (And considerably more worried for the offspring than before.)

JellyandJackson wrote: Tue Mar 17, 2020 6:37 pm Thank you, I stand corrected. (And considerably more worried for the offspring than before.)

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

A contrarian take by John Ioaniddis
https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-f ... able-data/

f.ck me, not even John McDonnell would have dreamed of printing that much money.

calmooney wrote: Tue Mar 17, 2020 7:09 pm A contrarian take by John Ioaniddis
https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-f ... able-data/

The comments take him down better than I ever could. He estimates total infections to top out at 1%, which is contracted by the main source he uses in the article, being the Diamond Princess which had 18% infected with active measures taken. The 0.3% mortality rate seems to be pulled out of his butt. He also totally ignores the data available from Italy, including complete sampling of a town.


ETA: He also says "The vast majority of this hecatomb would be people with limited life expectancies. That’s in contrast to 1918, when many young people died."

ie: f.ck the old people and those with comorbidities.

bjn wrote: Tue Mar 17, 2020 7:33 pm

calmooney wrote: Tue Mar 17, 2020 7:09 pm A contrarian take by John Ioaniddis
https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-f ... able-data/

The comments take him down better than I ever could. He estimates total infections to top out at 1%, which is contracted by the main source he uses in the article, being the Diamond Princess which had 18% infected with active measures taken. The 0.3% mortality rate seems to be pulled out of his butt. He also totally ignores the data available from Italy, including complete sampling of a town.


ETA: He also says "The vast majority of this hecatomb would be people with limited life expectancies. That’s in contrast to 1918, when many young people died."

ie: f.ck the old people and those with comorbidities.

Yeah. Referring to people in the terms of mass animal sacrifice is not an endearing position.

lpm wrote: Tue Mar 17, 2020 5:21 pm What about H&S in schools? How are they possibly providing a safe working environment for a teacher with diabetes, or a 65 year old catering staff, or a pregnant teacher?

People are able to track their own infection chains - they will know if grandma dies after catching it from grandson, who caught it during an outbreak at Emmerdale Secondary School. The public enquiry into these sorts of deaths is going to be full of anger.

My wife teaches in an Academy school - she was sent home at 2 this afternoon, one of 12 staff with differing elevated risk statuses. She’s frantically translating her lesson plans into clear instructions for other people to cover.

It’s a new academy and only has two year groups - 7 and 8. Tomorrow and Thursday it’s just the year 8’s and Friday just the year 7’s. I can see them just closing the doors from next week.

JQH wrote: Mon Mar 16, 2020 10:46 pm Seen a claim on FaceBook that Johnson is only "advising" people not to go to pubs etc rater than ordering the venues to close because if he did the latter the venues could claim on their business insurance. While this fits in with my prejudices about Johnson, I've no clue how this kind of insurance actually works and hence whether there's any truth in the post. Anybody better informed?

Report in guardian quoting an insurance industry body says most policies won't cover regardless of forced or voluntary closure. It's not an expected clause to include. There is also little pandemic reinsurance in the UK for the same reason, nobody insures against super unlikely events.

Good writeup in Ars Technica about that Imperial College paper which seems to have changed the government's mind.

Nice article in the FT - not behind a paywall at the moment about the lessons from Taiwan, Korea and other East Asian countries that have done pretty well in containing COVID-19

https://www.ft.com/content/e015e096-653 ... gn=march20

jimbob wrote: Tue Mar 17, 2020 10:06 pm Nice article in the FT - not behind a paywall at the moment about the lessons from Taiwan, Korea and other East Asian countries that have done pretty well in containing COVID-19

https://www.ft.com/content/e015e096-653 ... gn=march20

I find that with the ft, if it comes up behind a paywall (as this one did), you can usually pick up the words in the title, google them directly and the article will come up 'outside' the paywall.

So, in this instance try googling "Containing coronavirus: lessons from Asia"

Kids' Ten Tors training has been cancelled by their shout group. It's the right thing to do, but we're all gutted. Except the army hasn't yet cancelled it...

Their school has sent home "home study packs" for years 7, 8 + 9. With the message, "we're not closing or planning to close, but here's these things just in case". Which I think is fair enough considering how quick some things are happening.

Woodchopper wrote: Tue Mar 17, 2020 7:06 pm

JellyandJackson wrote: Tue Mar 17, 2020 6:37 pm Thank you, I stand corrected. (And considerably more worried for the offspring than before.)

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

Ah, no worries. It is what it is.
And according to the class WhatsApp, Kid C’s best mate has a temp. Here we go...

lpm wrote: Tue Mar 17, 2020 2:48 pm If there was a phone app that tracked you everywhere and recorded other mobiles you met or came near, with data flowing to govt scientists, would it be worth it?

Depends. I think Taiwan used phone data to good effect, right from the outset to assess people coming in on flights and to check people were quarantining:

from https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/f ... le/2762689
"Taiwan leveraged its national health insurance database and integrated it with its immigration and customs database to begin the creation of big data for analytics; it generated real-time alerts during a clinical visit based on travel history and clinical symptoms to aid case identification. It also used new technology, including QR code scanning and online reporting of travel history and health symptoms to classify travelers’ infectious risks based on flight origin and travel history in the past 14 days. Persons with low risk (no travel to level 3 alert areas) were sent a health declaration border pass via SMS (short message service) messaging to their phones for faster immigration clearance; those with higher risk (recent travel to level 3 alert areas) were quarantined at home and tracked through their mobile phone to ensure that they remained at home during the incubation period."

The way China is doing it maybe not so great:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... re-to-stay

raven wrote: Tue Mar 17, 2020 11:11 pm

lpm wrote: Tue Mar 17, 2020 2:48 pm If there was a phone app that tracked you everywhere and recorded other mobiles you met or came near, with data flowing to govt scientists, would it be worth it?

Depends. I think Taiwan used phone data to good effect, right from the outset to assess people coming in on flights and to check people were quarantining:

from https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/f ... le/2762689
"Taiwan leveraged its national health insurance database and integrated it with its immigration and customs database to begin the creation of big data for analytics; it generated real-time alerts during a clinical visit based on travel history and clinical symptoms to aid case identification. It also used new technology, including QR code scanning and online reporting of travel history and health symptoms to classify travelers’ infectious risks based on flight origin and travel history in the past 14 days. Persons with low risk (no travel to level 3 alert areas) were sent a health declaration border pass via SMS (short message service) messaging to their phones for faster immigration clearance; those with higher risk (recent travel to level 3 alert areas) were quarantined at home and tracked through their mobile phone to ensure that they remained at home during the incubation period."

The way China is doing it maybe not so great:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... re-to-stay

I'm not a GDPR expert, but I'd guess that using only the anonymous data is more straightforward.

How about something based on locations? People could upload their Google location history (which is recorded by default on all Android phones) and query whether they'd been in/near anywhere known to have been contaminated. Might even be possible to contact everyone known to have gone to hotspots via their Google contact details or push notifications to the device or something.

Any system for monitoring individual people would have to be with their consent, so people intending to flout curfew would be amongst those who's refuse. However, it might have a helpful nudge effect on people with good intentions who are nevertheless tempted to "cheat".

JellyandJackson wrote: Tue Mar 17, 2020 10:50 pm

Woodchopper wrote: Tue Mar 17, 2020 7:06 pm

JellyandJackson wrote: Tue Mar 17, 2020 6:37 pm Thank you, I stand corrected. (And considerably more worried for the offspring than before.)

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

Ah, no worries. It is what it is.
And according to the class WhatsApp, Kid C’s best mate has a temp. Here we go...

Still most likely to be flu or a cold.

A paediatrician friend in the NE post this to FB:

This is how it feels from our point of view in paediatrics.

We have tested every kid admitted with respiratory problems (that’s a very common presentation for us) for about a week and a half now and all have been negative, so the prevalence in our paediatric population is currently very low. There are respiratory viruses circulating in the community, but they aren’t SARS-CoV2. But this will change. It just hasn’t started yet.

The current problem is staffing. Many staff are already in 14 days isolation, largely due to an illness in their kids (almost certainly not COVID-19). This will become more of a problem and more so if schools close. No one wants to be off, we all want to be at work. We are currently not able to test health care workers and get them back in quickly which would be really useful. We expect it will come.

We are protecting our staff in high risk groups by redeploying them away from the front line and the rest of us pick up the shifts.

Everyone who could possibly have the virus needs to be isolated and we have to wear personal protection equipment which slows us down and makes basic nursing and medical care cumbersome. This makes patients’ journeys through ED slower which causes waiting times to go up. We have to talk each other through removing PPE in a sort of weird unsexy scripted striptease.

We are offering out patient clinics via video link, reducing all non urgent work, all doing extra shifts (today is my 5th on call in 7 days) to cover absent colleagues to keep the regular emergency work going. I’m on the phone all the time, reassuring families with children with chronic health problems.

All study leave is cancelled. All non urgent non clinical work is cancelled. New PCR testing capacity is being built and so volume of testing can increase and test times come down.

Operating theatres, anaesthetic rooms, theatre recovery and HDU areas are ready to become new ICU facilities.

Junior doctors are not rotating as they are most efficient now, all staff will be prepared to work in roles they may not usually do, consultant are doing night shifts to cover absent juniors and we have back up rotas in place for when our next colleague has to isolate. Our neonatologists are covering NICU when we are doing middle grade shifts and we are ready to work PED to let our dual qualified ED consultants move over to adult ED. Our community paeds colleagues will do our clinics and safeguarding sessions so we can do shifts.

I have never seen such a rapid expansion of shared knowledge in medicine. Data sets from around the world are being published, immediately summarised and contextualised with existing data and shared immediately through WhatsApp networks of clinicians.

One of the most touching things is that as the medical students have been dismissed from the wards, tonight we learned they are organising to put on free childcare for hospital staff.

Woodchopper wrote: Tue Mar 17, 2020 4:09 pm

mikeh wrote: Tue Mar 17, 2020 3:44 pm Mobile phone data is used in emergency response, WorldPop (and Flowminder) research groups at Southampton have done plenty on this area, for example following the earthquake in Nepal, and hurricanes in Haiti
https://www.worldpop.org/events/hurricane
https://web.flowminder.org/case-studies ... quake-2015

Clearly the ethical issues often make people raise their eyebrows, but in situations like this, you'd hope the eyebrow may remain a little lower than it might otherwise be. I have seen an entertaining presentation from this group showing how the French move around the country across the year, so for example at start of August, everyone in Paris heads to the beach, and come last week in August the many dots on the map move back to the capital

Not in emergency response mode, but they've also done this in Namibia, looking at migration patterns around the country. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-019-0242-9
Which is all useful data if you wanted to, for example, have a think about likely hot spots of cases, chains of transmission etc.

More of this sort of thing, I say.

As I'm sure you'll know, there are much fewer ethical issues if the data is annonymized and the phone users have given their permission for data to be collected and analyzed (eg French people migrating to the coast). Google currently tracks people's phones in order to identify the fastest routes through traffic.

Ethics wise it becomes much more difficult if an individual's movements could be tracked.

So ethics wise it would be pretty easy to use phone data to get a better idea of, say, what kinds of activity bring people into contact with many others and for how long (eg what is the mean closeness of buses compared to trains). The main practical problem would be getting Google, Apple or Facebook etc to hand over the data.

Just to quickly come back to this, the data that gets handed over to the researchers is anonymised, but you're of course looking at where individual people move around, so you basically could if you felt so inclined work out where their home is and relatively easily who they are, and where they go to of a day. When you sign up for a phone contract, there prob is a line in there about 'may be used for research purposes' but I bet most people aren't aware of how or what that really means, or could mean. Phone companies understand the value of this kind of research but don't like the reputational risk, so are broadly not keen, but as per the links above, can be persuaded (especially in times of great need). And I know that ethical R&D approval is thus tricky based on all of that, and more besides .

Meanwhile, Neil Ferguson, he of the recent modelling paper, has tweeted a reckoning he has come down with COVID19 and is thus self-isolating. Also reckons theres tons of it around in Westminster.

Daily press conferences may become Prime Minister Skype calls soon*

* that's my comment, not from Neil Ferguson