Scrutable

Grumble wrote: Thu Jul 16, 2020 5:00 pm Rumoured that the government will ask everyone to go back to work tomorrow.

Second wave on its way ...

FlammableFlower wrote: Fri Jul 17, 2020 3:40 pm Lansley joins those getting in a retaliatory kicking into the gov over their attempt to blame everyone else for their failings and at the same time centralise control

Though TBF one of the likely outcomes of the pandemic is that his god-awful NHS reforms will be undone* so he’s a bit sensitive that his abysmal legacy won’t endure.

It is ironic that he tried to sell his 2012 vandalism on the basis it would be so amazing that afterwards the NHS wouldn’t need any further changes for a generation or more and then spectacularly failed to take any stakeholders along with him. Cameron was too lazy to notice it was even going on and when it came to his attention was on the verge of pulling the plug until Clegg insisted it should go-ahead because “elected House of Lords”**. Cheers Clegg!

*although I have every faith in Cummings and Johnson curling out something worse.

**a sentence that still doesn’t parse a decade later.

So... having lost track of how many people have been tested, now they're pausing updates on the numbers of deaths because they make England look bad compared to the rest of the UK.

Still, everything's under control, back to work everyone!

shpalman wrote: Sat Jul 18, 2020 4:21 pm So... having lost track of how many people have been tested, now they're pausing updates on the numbers of deaths because they make England look bad compared to the rest of the UK.

Still, everything's under control, back to work everyone!

It’s claimed that:

it seems that PHE regularly looks for people on the NHS database who have ever tested positive, and simply checks to see if they are still alive or not. PHE does not appear to consider how long ago the COVID test result was, nor whether the person has been successfully treated in hospital and discharged to the community. Anyone who has tested COVID positive but subsequently died at a later date of any cause will be included on the PHE COVID death figures.

By this PHE definition, no one with COVID in England is allowed to ever recover from their illness. A patient who has tested positive, but successfully treated and discharged from hospital, will still be counted as a COVID death even if they had a heart attack or were run over by a bus three months later.

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/why-no-on ... l-anomaly/

If true the numbers will overestimate Covid deaths, but probably not by very much. I doubt that there will be many who, say, recovered from Covid in April and died of something else in July. A methodological complication will be the long term effects of some Covid infections.

Well that's a deeper issue of not having any idea of who has recovered from covid.

It's a complete fiasco in many ways - due to Hancock's interventions.

And the excess deaths shows undercounting in April.

For weeks 12-18, (11 is the first week with covid deaths) there were 14,200 more excess deaths than COVID-19 recorded deaths.

I'd imagine this is an underestimate, as other infectious diseases would have been suppressed by the lockdown. There is a hint of this if you compare the ONS respiratory deaths for 2015-2020

Of course that is confounded by the fact that respiratory deaths include non-infectious causes like COPD as well as infectious causes like flu.

The ONS has the caveat that some deaths might mention both respiratory causes and COVID-19

Lombardy reported zero covid deaths today. I'm sure it's partly a weekend effect but the average is anyway only 5-6 deaths per day right now. There were only 3 deaths in the whole of Italy, which is averaging about 12-13 per day.

Just for context the UK is on about 70 per day, whatever that means, given they've got no idea how many of those actually had an active covid infection at the time they died.

Israeli doctor reinfected with coronavirus 3 months after recovering
https://www.jpost.com/health-science/is ... ing-635550

Woodchopper wrote: Sun Jul 19, 2020 9:08 pm Israeli doctor reinfected with coronavirus 3 months after recovering
https://www.jpost.com/health-science/is ... ing-635550

Bother.

You couldn't make it up...

Why are people working in a call centre during a pandemic?!

You literally just need a secure website and a headset. I know a few call-centre workers (it's a big industry in Portugal) and they're all doing it from home. Practically everyone has their own laptop and a headset but it's not like a chromebook would break the company's bank.

Bird on a Fire wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 12:45 pm Why are people working in a call centre during a pandemic?!

You literally just need a secure website and a headset. I know a few call-centre workers (it's a big industry in Portugal) and they're all doing it from home. Practically everyone has their own laptop and a headset but it's not like a chromebook would break the company's bank.

Welcome to Britain 2020... suddenly that UK expansion pack to Cyberpunk2020 I bought back in the 90s isn't looking so far fetched...

In other news the politicisation of the UK response is ongoing.

FlammableFlower wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 2:47 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 12:45 pm Why are people working in a call centre during a pandemic?!

You literally just need a secure website and a headset. I know a few call-centre workers (it's a big industry in Portugal) and they're all doing it from home. Practically everyone has their own laptop and a headset but it's not like a chromebook would break the company's bank.

Welcome to Britain 2020... suddenly that UK expansion pack to Cyberpunk2020 I bought back in the 90s isn't looking so far fetched...

Cyberpunk 2020 is far less dystopian.

Bird on a Fire wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 12:45 pm Why are people working in a call centre during a pandemic?!

You literally just need a secure website and a headset. I know a few call-centre workers (it's a big industry in Portugal) and they're all doing it from home. Practically everyone has their own laptop and a headset but it's not like a chromebook would break the company's bank.

Yes, that too.

Not everyone has a reliable fast internet connection.

The increase in telework and telemedicine because of Covid has really highlighted the issue of unequal access to broadband.

bolo wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 5:22 pm Not everyone has a reliable fast internet connection.

The increase in telework and telemedicine because of Covid has really highlighted the issue of unequal access to broadband.

One of the best 'nice' things that happened during lockdown was an addiction counselling charity some of my clients use providing their service users with smartphones and a data allowance. It made such a huge difference. I'm not sure where they got the money from for it but I might try and find out if I manage to speak to one of them because it was such a good idea.

On @BBCr4today this morning, the old canard is repeated: 'Behavioural scientists delayed lockdown by saying there would be behavioural fatigue'
So I made it crystal clear:
This idea DID NOT come from behavioural scientists
This idea WAS OPPOSED by those of us advising government.

https://twitter.com/reicherstephen/stat ... 21249?s=21

bolo wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 5:22 pm Not everyone has a reliable fast internet connection.

The increase in telework and telemedicine because of Covid has really highlighted the issue of unequal access to broadband.

That's true, but even if 50% or whatever work from home you can space out whoever's left.

Not everyone in Portugal has a reliable fast internet connection, but the government mandated all non-essential workers stay at home and so they did. I'm not sure that call centres are an example of the kind of work where it's essential people from different households all meet up and breathe on each other, even if it is for a good cause.

Woodchopper wrote: Sat Jul 18, 2020 5:42 pm If true the numbers will overestimate Covid deaths, but probably not by very much. I doubt that there will be many who, say, recovered from Covid in April and died of something else in July. A methodological complication will be the long term effects of some Covid infections.

And conversely, I would've thought limiting it to deaths within 28 days of a test would underestimate to some extent, if only slightly. I've seen about half a dozen reports of folks that were in hospital for longer than a month.

bolo wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 5:22 pm Not everyone has a reliable fast internet connection.

The increase in telework and telemedicine because of Covid has really highlighted the issue of unequal access to broadband.

So for call centres you employ those who do have a suitable internet connection. There are millions of unemployed people currently. It is rather perverse to give jobs to people who will have to risk the health of themselves and others, rather than give the jobs to the people suitably equipped.

Bird on a Fire wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 8:47 pm

bolo wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 5:22 pm The increase in telework and telemedicine because of Covid has really highlighted the issue of unequal access to broadband.

Coming back to this point, the issue was highlighted in the UK at the last election, with the Labour manifesto proposing to improve broadband connections nationally and provide them to everyone free of charge, as a key public service.

Almost everyone here dismissed the idea as a stupid fantasy.

Bird on a Fire wrote: Wed Jul 22, 2020 1:36 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 8:47 pm

bolo wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 5:22 pm The increase in telework and telemedicine because of Covid has really highlighted the issue of unequal access to broadband.

Coming back to this point, the issue was highlighted in the UK at the last election, with the Labour manifesto proposing to improve broadband connections nationally and provide them to everyone free of charge, as a key public service.

Almost everyone here dismissed the idea as a stupid fantasy.

I think it was more of an issue of bad election messaging.

Rather than build the case over the months leading up to the election to get people used to the idea, figure out the details, polish the arguments and iron out the wrinkles and then seamlessly knit it into whatever the overarching offer Labour was going to make to the electorate; instead it was just dropped onto the Labour MPs out of the blue late one Sunday night.

You then had the awkward sight Monday morning of Labour MPs trying to shoe-horn it into an already-packed and incoherent mass of policy offerings, without really knowing themselves how it would work or being to explain why it would be a good idea. So not only did the policy then gain no traction but it actively undermined the plausibility of the whole Labour platform.

There is a lot bad to say about the Blairites* but at least they knew how to get a message across to the electorate.


*as an aside the current BBC documentary Once Upon a Time in Iraq is well worth a watch; depressing to think the catastrophe there continues to unfold (the place is still averaging around 10 civilian deaths a day to violence and terrorism) largely ignored and forgotten by the West.

Yes, that's fair. I think they just thought it was so obviously a good idea that it didn't need explaining.

They were 6 months too early for that to be the case.