Hygiene at supermarkets during Coronavirus epidemic

[Nearholmer]

I'd wondered about that, but I guess two things might be at play:

 

- pop-up hospitals are quicker to create than qualified doctors, nurses and support staff, so presumably they would have to be staffed by taking people from existing hospitals, out of GP surgeries etc., which might be just about workable for a period if virtually all other treatment is suspended, but not if the NHS is to attempt to move back towards normality; and,

 

- from what one reads, it seems that the virus can cause endless horrible complications, which logically must need a multi-faceted response that the pop-up hospitals possibly aren't equipped to provide. A lot of virus patients apparently need kidney dialysis for instance.

 

It may be that the pop-ups would actually never be able to save patients with very, very complex needs, and are designed for a scenario where there are immense numbers of patients with less complex needs, possibly even the extreme scenario where it is necessary to decide not even to attempt to save those who develop the most complex needs.

 

Whether or not I've got this right, I hope they are never needed.

[Reorte]

10 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

It may be that the pop-ups would actually never be able to save patients with very, very complex needs, and are designed for a scenario where there are immense numbers of patients with less complex needs, possibly even the extreme scenario where it is necessary to decide not even to attempt to save those who develop the most complex needs.

 

I think (correct me if I'm wrong) but their purpose was to treat the less serious cases and to help recovery as you say. Proper hospitals will be preferable as long as they have room but if there was a danger of them being overwhelmed (which looked like a more than likely possibility) it made sense to have them concentrate on the serious cases and have somewhere else for the more routine ones.

 

I'm all for condemning what I often see as excess overcaution but the Nightingale hospitals were a very sensible precautionary measure.

Edited May 4, 2020 by Reorte

[Andy Hayter]

I will correct then since you implore.

 

They were set up to treat patients that needed to be put on ventilators - hardly "less serious" but as Nearholmer points out there are patients with much more complex needs - so equally not the most serious..

 

The problems with these pop up hospitals would seem to be how to staff them with the trained nurses and doctors and so with minimal demand at present it makes sense to utilise these resources (the staff) in the A&E departments where they normally work.

 

Anecdotally the FN1 has turned away patients because they did not have the staff.

[monkeysarefun]

Just read a story where the UK airline industry is pushing back against a proposal to implement  a 14 day quarantine scheme for  people arriving into the country there.

 

Is it really true the  UK has no quarantine requirements for those arriving from OS?  If so that is mind boggling. Being an island (like Australia) all your original cases (like ours) came from travelers entering the country. 

Anyone arriving here (which is  returning residents only) has 2 weeks of mandatory quarantine isolated in a hotel room paid for by the govt (federal police guards  and goal threats make sure you stay there) . They have to test negative after this to get out.

 

Seems crazy gotta say, you going to all this trouble with supermarket hygiene  and being  locked down except for essential travel when some infected person can jump off a plane from the US, Spain or wherever, catch a bus or train  and sit next to you,  and then go to the shops and stand beside you in a queue..

 

Edited May 5, 2020 by monkeysarefun

[Nearholmer]

There are some bizarre anomalies. I don’t know about quarantine, but .......

 

Did anyone else see the BBC report of an Aer Lingus flight from Belfast to London on Monday with 95% seats filled? No SD, and it looked from the photos as if nobody had masks etc. 
 

I hadn’t even realised that domestic flights continued.

 

Found it: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-52528452 

 

 

What is really interesting is what the Airport Chief Exec is quoted as saying about it.

 

 

Edited May 5, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Andy Hayter]

I think it is widely acknowledged that aviation in any of its current formats cannot operate with social distancing.  That does not excuse AL for what was a poorly thought out (or not thought out at all) situation.

 

Despite lockdowns, there are still people who need to work and to do their work need to travel.  IT systems are OK for meetings, but don't help medical staff drafted from NI to London to help with the crisis.  They cannot help place airline staff to fly around the world to bring back vital medical supplies.  Courriers still need to deliver wet ink documents and physical items.  

 

EDIT to add: C19 has actually helped to cause this event.  It caused the collapse of Flybe who ran a suite of routes from Belfast to Mainland UK and beyond.  Its collapse meant that all flights were concentrated into one single, once a day connection to LHR.  So whether your end destination was Southampton, Aberdeen, Bristol or wherever, you now have a once a day chance via LHR.

Edited May 5, 2020 by Andy Hayter

[monkeysarefun]

1 minute ago, Andy Hayter said:

I think it is widely acknowledged that aviation in any of its current formats cannot operate with social distancing.  That does not excuse AL for what was a poorly thought out (or not thought out at all) situation.

 

Despite lockdowns, there are still people who need to work and to do their work need to travel.  IT systems are OK for meetings, but don't help medical staff drafted from NI to London to help with the crisis.  They cannot help place airline staff to fly around the world to bring back vital medical supplies.  Courriers still need to deliver wet ink documents and physical items.  

 

 

No different requirements to here, we dont all just surf and walk around going 'gday  all day!  We have exemptions for medical staff, airline staff, essential services etc, as long as they are tested when they get here etc, but for the hoi poloi returning from overseas its off to two weeks isolation.

[Andy Hayter]

This is all internal travel though.  Think Hobart to Sydney.

[monkeysarefun]

1 hour ago, Andy Hayter said:

This is all internal travel though.  Think Hobart to Sydney.

 

Interstate travel here is also currently banned unless you want to spend 2 weeks locked up in isolation.  Domestic flights have stopped, drive your car and  police will stop you at the border.  Again, exemptions for medical staff, freight transport drivers etc.

Thought is to do it tough now in order to get things back to normal sooner. 

 

  As a result most of the states have recorded no new infections for the last week or so.

Edited May 5, 2020 by monkeysarefun

[Ron Ron Ron]

6 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

......Domestic flights have stopped.....

I just looked at FR24, literally a couple of minutes after you posted that.

Dozens of domestic flights all over Oz at the present time.

No doubt a lot less than usual though.

[monkeysarefun]

19 minutes ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

I just looked at FR24, literally a couple of minutes after you posted that.

Dozens of domestic flights all over Oz at the present time.

No doubt a lot less than usual though.

 

 

If  you want to get a seat on one of the very few interstate flights left  be prepared to sit in a hotel room for 2 weeks when you get there.

 

Most passenger flights on FR24 are smaller regional intrastate flights using smaller aircraft - I can still fly to Bathurst or Dubbo or whatever if I want. 

 

Most other aircraft shown are freight, a couple of international flights (either freight or returning after bringing back expats)  or  local air traffic of Cessna size.

 

 

Edited May 6, 2020 by monkeysarefun

[kevinlms]

8 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

Interstate travel here is also currently banned unless you want to spend 2 weeks locked up in isolation.  Domestic flights have stopped, drive your car and  police will stop you at the border.  Again, exemptions for medical staff, freight transport drivers etc.

Thought is to do it tough now in order to get things back to normal sooner. 

 

  As a result most of the states have recorded no new infections for the last week or so.

Except for Victoria, which had a sudden outbreak, largely related to a meat works. 

[Ron Ron Ron]

9 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

 

If  you want to get a seat on one of the very few interstate flights left  be prepared to sit in a hotel room for 2 weeks when you get there.

 

Most passenger flights on FR24 are smaller regional intrastate flights using smaller aircraft - I can still fly to Bathurst or Dubbo or whatever if I want. 

 

Most other aircraft shown are freight, a couple of international flights (either freight or returning after bringing back expats)  or  local air traffic of Cessna size.

 

 

There still appear to be a number of flights, including interstate, with the usual types of jet and prop airliners being used.

e.g. Qantas A 330s between Sydney and Perth, Melbourne, Brisbane.

Quite a few 737’s and Fokker 100’s flying around too. Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia.

[monkeysarefun]

10 hours ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

There still appear to be a number of flights, including interstate, with the usual types of jet and prop airliners being used.

e.g. Qantas A 330s between Sydney and Perth, Melbourne, Brisbane.

Quite a few 737’s and Fokker 100’s flying around too. Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia.

The point I was originally making is that you catch one of those flights   from say Sydney to Darwin, , be ready to spend two weeks in isolation when you land, compared to the UK where anyone can fly in from anywhere in the world  and jump straight into a supermarket queue behind you.

 

This from a recent Financial Times article comparing Britain with the rest of the world..

Aggressive quarantine policies have been introduced in Australia, for international and interstate travellers. A man in the state of Western Australia was reportedly jailed for repeatedly sneaking out of the hotel room he was supposed to have been quarantined in for 14 days after flying over from the eastern state of Victoria.

Edited May 6, 2020 by monkeysarefun

[Ron Ron Ron]

1 hour ago, monkeysarefun said:

The point I was originally making is that you catch one of those flights   from say Sydney to Darwin, , be ready to spend two weeks in isolation when you land, compared to the UK where anyone can fly in from anywhere in the world  and jump straight into a supermarket queue behind you.

 

This from a recent Financial Times article comparing Britain with the rest of the world..

Aggressive quarantine policies have been introduced in Australia, for international and interstate travellers. A man in the state of Western Australia was reportedly jailed for repeatedly sneaking out of the hotel room he was supposed to have been quarantined in for 14 days after flying over from the eastern state of Victoria.

 

We may be talking at crossed purposes here?

I'm not disputing any of what you've said there at all, but you did make the statement yesterday that domestic flights had stopped, which they clearly haven't.

Rather they are reduced and there are restrictions on their use.

 

21 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

....Domestic flights have stopped......

 

Regardless, I hope you and yours are staying safe.....and indeed, the UK restrictions are very lax, or non-existent.

The press and people here talk about "the lock-down", but in the UK we haven't had a proper lock-down at all.

 

 

 

.

 

[monkeysarefun]

42 minutes ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

 

We may be talking at crossed purposes here?

I'm not disputing any of what you've said there at all, but you did make the statement yesterday that domestic flights had stopped, which they clearly haven't.

Rather they are reduced and there are restrictions on their use.

 

 

Regardless, I hope you and yours are staying safe.....and indeed, the UK restrictions are very lax, or non-existent.

The press and people here talk about "the lock-down", but in the UK we haven't had a proper lock-down at all.

 

 

 

.

 

 

I was using the one flight each that our 3 major carriers are doing daily to interstate destinations compared to the dozens they usually do as an indication that  domestic flights have stopped . It  was a comparative rather than absolute... I live under one of the Sydney to  all points west flight paths  and I haven't seen or heard a plane in a couple of weeks, been rather nice!

 

You stay safe too, watching the horror stories in the UK, Europe and the US from our little bubble is very sobering - there is starting to develop a feeling here of relief and so on that we've dodged a bullet  but that is certainly premature as the small outbreaks at a Melbourne meatpacking works and an aged care home in Sydney  show that it doesn't take much to unleash the virus and then we would be in the same boat.

[adb968008]

In the last week, the number of UK recorded infections has exceeded 6000 a day 3 times, all 3 times setting a new record high for the country.

The last time (and only) they exceeded 6000 cases in one day was 3rd April.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_the_United_Kingdom
(see number of daily confirmed cases chart 3/4 down the page), source is PHE.

 

No where else on the planet, not even New York City, has 6000 cases a day this week. We might be passed the peak, but it makes me think that true peak was at a level much much higher than anywhere else, and probably exceeds New York city, something Ive always thought.

 

The argument that testing more, finds more only proves that this outbreak in the UK was considerably higher than anywhere else in Europe, coupled with a death rate, which has been suggested globally is 0.5-1% of the actual total cases, which also means the decline is going to take longer.

 

The government might want to start reopening next week, but until I see daily rates in the lower hundreds, we wont be going out or changing any of our quarantine practices, sadly I think we can predict whats going to happen, it might be in decline, but the daily number detected infection rate is imho too high.

 

I doubt we will be going back to supermarkets anyway, we've found much nicer, quieter and better quality alternatives, that don't cost much more.

As for contact tracing apps, no bluetooth app is going to tell you which tube carriage has the virus been in, after the passenger sharing the virus has got off the train. Virus will be in the air for a few hours, and on the grab handles, escalators for the rest of the day after theyve long gone...Anyone actually looked at why infection rates are higher  in North London, than South London....theres not many tubes down this side of the capital, and where they end, the high case numbers seem to end, Croydon excepted. Its a shame they arent taking daily samples off surfaces of the IoWs buses and train daily too, and correlate that to infection bluetooth touchpoint locations.
 

Imho The virus has a travelcard, and is a big rail enthusiast... the only time it will be detected is when its ticket is bluetooth checked, the rest of the day its travelling & spreading for free, and days before its unlucky victims know theyve been gripped. Of course a possible solution is by turning passengers into Rail Enthusiasts, by Getting Passengers recording their tube carriage number may help...

Edited May 7, 2020 by adb968008

[Reorte]

1 hour ago, adb968008 said:

In the last week, the number of UK recorded infections has exceeded 6000 a day 3 times, all 3 times setting a new record high for the country.

The last time (and only) they exceeded 6000 cases in one day was 3rd April.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_the_United_Kingdom
(see number of daily confirmed cases chart 3/4 down the page), source is PHE.

 

The number of tests that's been done in the last week is massively higher than at the start of April. These additional tests are less targetted at the most likely cases than they were earlier, so the percentage positive will decrease a lot (I assume however that that's on top of what was being done before rather than instead of), but there are so many more of them it would be a surprise if they didn't jump up significantly. That they've not gone higher than they had at the start of April really is sign of a downward path in the number of cases.

 

I'd still like some analysis of where they're all occurring though. Knowing that would mean it may be possible to ease restrictions where they're not necessary and increase them where they are, to a level that wouldn't be possible generally.

[Nearholmer]

1 hour ago, adb968008 said:

We might be passed the peak, but it makes me think that true peak was at a level much much higher than anywhere else,

Have you signed-up to the reporting app ‘Covid symptom tracker’?

 

The academics running it use the responses from the 2M+ participants to extrapolate the probable number of people infected in each area of the UK each day.

 

Their estimate peaked well over 2M UK-wide, and currently stands at c270k.

 

I don’t know whether similarly well-based estimates exist for NY or Italy, for instance.

 

 

[adb968008]

1 hour ago, Reorte said:

 

. That they've not gone higher than they had at the start of April really is sign of a downward path in the number of cases.

Your repeating the government line whilst not looking at the charts...

The red circled is NOT a decline.

Three peaks in 1 week is not a decline.

 

Sure they are testing more, which means they find more... had they done this level of testing in early April, who knows it might have been 30k a day.

 

But imho, 6000 a day is too high... some countries were imposing draconian in complete isolated lockdown at this figure.. not talking about back slapping themselves on a job well done, and talking about opening up.

 

remember we started isolation at 136 a day... imho we should be ending at a similar number... it only took 3 weeks to Grow 136*50 to 6000, even at half that... 6000* 25 takes you to 1.5mn in 3 weeks..

Edited May 7, 2020 by adb968008

[caradoc]

On 05/05/2020 at 21:00, monkeysarefun said:

Just read a story where the UK airline industry is pushing back against a proposal to implement  a 14 day quarantine scheme for  people arriving into the country there.

 

Is it really true the  UK has no quarantine requirements for those arriving from OS?  If so that is mind boggling. Being an island (like Australia) all your original cases (like ours) came from travelers entering the country. 

Anyone arriving here (which is  returning residents only) has 2 weeks of mandatory quarantine isolated in a hotel room paid for by the govt (federal police guards  and goal threats make sure you stay there) . They have to test negative after this to get out.

 

Seems crazy gotta say, you going to all this trouble with supermarket hygiene  and being  locked down except for essential travel when some infected person can jump off a plane from the US, Spain or wherever, catch a bus or train  and sit next to you,  and then go to the shops and stand beside you in a queue..

 

 

Should testing and quarantining of travellers not take place at origin, not destination, by which time anyone carrying the virus has not only transported it somewhere else but also possibly infected their fellow passengers ? And given the number of Brits who were abroad when lockdown struck (a huge number) would it even have been possible to quarantine all incoming passengers ?

 

 

[Reorte]

23 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

Your repeating the government line whilst not looking at the charts...

 

The red circled is NOT a decline.

Three peaks in 1 week is not a decline.

 

Sure they are testing more, which means they find more... had they done this level of testing in early April, who knows it might have been 30k a day.

 

Well yes, it might well have been 30k with that many tests in April. Hence it IS a decline. I'm not repeating anyone's line, I'm just realising that there's more going on than simply the number alone, and pointing out the pitfalls of drawing conclusions from that number alone. The three peaks in a week alone is not the complete picture and treating it like it is is making you draw inaccurate conclusions.

 

Let's assume for the sake of illustrating the point that the actual number of new cases is the same every day. Test more and the number discovered, and hence plotted on that graph, would increase. Does that mean we're increasing? No. The percentage of positive tests on the other hand would decrease (if the tests are becoming more general). That wouldn't mean that it's decreasing either. In this case though taking in all the wider evidence everything points to the numbers going down. Not conclusively from the number of new tested cases alone because we don't have the information to separate the various impacts of the change in testing regime, but taken with the wider evidence there's reason to believe it is downward, and no real reason to think the opposite.

[adb968008]

43 minutes ago, Reorte said:

Well yes, it might well have been 30k with that many tests in April. Hence it IS a decline. I'm not repeating anyone's line, I'm just realising that there's more going on than simply the number alone, and pointing out the pitfalls of drawing conclusions from that number alone. The three peaks in a week alone is not the complete picture and treating it like it is is making you draw inaccurate conclusions.

 

Let's assume for the sake of illustrating the point that the actual number of new cases is the same every day. Test more and the number discovered, and hence plotted on that graph, would increase. Does that mean we're increasing? No. The percentage of positive tests on the other hand would decrease (if the tests are becoming more general). That wouldn't mean that it's decreasing either. In this case though taking in all the wider evidence everything points to the numbers going down. Not conclusively from the number of new tested cases alone because we don't have the information to separate the various impacts of the change in testing regime, but taken with the wider evidence there's reason to believe it is downward, and no real reason to think the opposite.

 

 

if were now testing at NYCs ratio, which shows similar lines of growth for the last few days, then this looks very similar to our trajectory...

 

starting May 1st in the UK onward uncannilly maps very close to NYCs numbers from April 11th onwards...

 

No one there is talking about reducing a lock down, and today there numbers are only 1500.

 

 

the daily % is above 3%... Europes are under 0.5%...

Edited May 7, 2020 by adb968008

[raymw]

The above charts are most likely based on best guess results, and doctored to present the view that the publisher wants. If you are looking for a trend, you do not take a high resolution chart, it will be full of 'ripple'. If you look at daily results, being pedantic, is the day from midnight, dawn, 9am, whatever, for all sites?  Still, playing around with numbers and charts can be interesting, particularly when trying to correlate results.

[raymw]

Here you go http://tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations