Covid - coming out of Lockdown 3 - no politics, less opinion and more facts and information.

[hayfield]

13 hours ago, stewartingram said:

I noticed on the news** earlier today, that they stated in a rather low key way, (no dicussion/fault finding/speculation), that Germany had closed its borders. But if it had been the uk.......?

 

**news - to me, is where we are informed of the facts (only) of something that has happened. No speculation of what might happen, no opinions of anybody, no comments from social media.

I remember the days where newspapers printed facts the day after the event!

 

Since when did the red tops let facts get in the way of a good headline ?

 

Sadly others now seem to be less interested in reporting the facts and more on supporting their own side (nothing changed there). More like in the early months of the pandemic there was a truce and readers wanted facts, now editors believe rather than wanting interesting fact based information they want interesting stories 

[hayfield]

14 hours ago, Metr0Land said:

 

Do we know for certain what date it was?  Every time Sky News have shown the pic today they've prefaced it saying 'we've been unable to independently verify the date of this pic' so politicians are being asked to defend a pic whose provenance is uncertain. Clearly the camera doesn't lie (unless Photoshopped) so we can see it's No10, but the publishers aren't allowing verification.  Why?

 

I thought every picture had ID information, so it would be very easy to identify it, unless that is it was not in the publishers best interests !!

 

But then if this is another leak by someone with an agenda, should they still be in no 11/10 ? 

[Reorte]

21 minutes ago, hayfield said:

 

I thought every picture had ID information, so it would be very easy to identify it, unless that is it was not in the publishers best interests !!

 

Various bits of data are usually recorded when you take a digital picture, date and time being the minimum (and of course if the camera's clock isn't right those won't be either). Might get camera settings too. Make and model are often there. All of it can be removed.

 

If you just grab a screenshot with the photo on it all you'll get is information pertaining to when you did that. It's possible to stick very hard to see watermarks in the image itself, most don't have those unless someone has done it deliberately.

Edited December 21, 2021 by Reorte

[Nearholmer]

29 minutes ago, hayfield said:

Out of interest what are the influenza figures, is the semi shielding keeping it at bay again?

As others have said, it’s difficult to find numbers, but there certainly doesn’t seem to be any suggestion anywhere that there is a big outbreak, although when they do occur, they seem to centre around this week through to mid-Jan, so it may be too early to tell.

 

Another set of fingers crossed!

[boxbrownie]

1 hour ago, Neil said:

Found on Facebook -

 

 

 

Rees-Mog in the background there I see.

[TheQ]

One thing with  that photo graph.. I seem to remember it was rule of 6 at the time..

 

And IIRC At the PM's table there were 4,, twenty foot behind there was a group of three, and maybe another 20ft behind there was another 6 ..  to me that means they weren't breaking any rules.

Actually just seen the picture again.. the group at the back is either a group of 8 or a group of 3 standing near a group of 5..

 

Also number 10 is actually 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 and another block round the corner all internally connected together, plus there are vast underground bunkers from WW2 plus no doubt deeper ones built more recently.  You could hold a lot of parties in there without Boris knowing in his flat..

 

Then.. also.. think of "Yes Prime Minister", the Civil Service is not the government.. What the PM is told by the Senior Personal Private Secretary and what Happens in the Civil Service is not necessarily the same thing..

Edited December 21, 2021 by TheQ

[boxbrownie]

41 minutes ago, hayfield said:

 

I thought every picture had ID information, so it would be very easy to identify it, unless that is it was not in the publishers best interests !!

 

But then if this is another leak by someone with an agenda, should they still be in no 11/10 ? 

It depends what programmes you use to reproduce/edit the original or a copy with, some can lose all Meta Data completely.

[Nearholmer]

19 minutes ago, Reorte said:

All of it can be removed.

Unless carefully stripped, it is sometimes possible indirectly to identify the device on which it was taken from the meta-data, which could compromise their source.

 

The newspaper that first published it may not have the original meta-data, or they may have both a super-securely held  version with meta-data, which they could use in court if forced, and a stripped version for publication themselves and syndication.

 

 

[TheQ]

2 minutes ago, boxbrownie said:

It depends what programmes you use to reproduce/edit the original or a copy with, some can lose all Meta Data completely.

you can, if you know how, add  / change the meta data as you wish.. 

[boxbrownie]

9 minutes ago, TheQ said:

One thing with  that photo graph.. I seem to remember it was rule of 6 at the time..

 

And IIRC At the PM's table there were 4,, twenty foot behind there was a group of three, and maybe another 20ft behind there was another 6 ..  to me that means they weren't breaking any rules.

Actually just seen the picture again.. the group at the back is either a group of 8 or a group of 3 standing near a group of 5..

 

Also number 10 is actually 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 and another block round the corner all internally connected together, plus there are vast underground bunkers from WW2 plus no doubt deeper ones built more recently.  You could hold a lot of parties in there without Boris knowing in his flat..

 

Then.. also.. think of "Yes Prime Minister", the Civil Service is not the government.. What the PM is told by the Senior Personal Private Secretary and what Happens in the Civil Service is not necessarily the same thing..

Careful, your in danger of spoiling the whole story line 

[boxbrownie]

2 minutes ago, TheQ said:

you can, if you know how, add  / change the meta data as you wish.. 

Absolutely.

 

 

Ooo…could we be onto a conspiracy here? 

Edited December 21, 2021 by boxbrownie

[Andy Kirkham]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59704282

 

An item advising us to lay off "doomscrolling" the Covid statistics over Christmas as for various reasons they could be misleading about the real situation. For instance if cases outstrip the capacity to process tests there will be a false impression of levelling off.

 

I confess I'm obsessed with the progress of the pandemic and spend hours searching for reassuring nuggets of information.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Reorte]

13 minutes ago, TheQ said:

you can, if you know how, add  / change the meta data as you wish.. 

Metadata should only be regarded as useful notes for whoever took the photograph, not evidence of anything in a serious situation.

[EddieB]

1 hour ago, Bernard Lamb said:

My daughter tested positive yesterday so that's Christmas stuffed.

She is double jabbed and had covid some months ago and had an appointment for her booster this week.

She probably got it from one of the kids at school and going by the dates probably on Friday, which was the last day of term.

No symptoms, so without the test would have been none the wiser and would have carried on spreading it.

Bernard

 

That seems about par for the course.

 

Whether the latest strain is spreading in partnership with a cold/flu bug or generating similar symptoms of itself, the "classic" symptoms (temperature, cough, loss of taste/smell) are seldom manifesting.  As we've found (and had corroborated from those in the Health Service) there are many instances of "false negatives" in both Lateral Flow and PCR tests.  Combined with what appears to be an extended asymptomatic incubation period, and little difference between vaccinated/unvaccinated becoming infected (though potentially affects severity) and hence infectious it looks like the latest variant has few barriers to stop it spreading widely.

 

The above is based on personal experience and that of trusted friends.  Not a representative sample, but more than just hearsay (or random posts on social media).  A lot that we're not hearing from "official" channels, whom we fear are stuck repeating messages from previous campaigns.

 

As we've found, it's hard to throw up resistance when you have had children at school.  On the plus side, one of us remains negative (testing positive for delta over a year ago), suggesting that the immune response stays in memory longer than we are being advised (but in accordance with articles published in "Nature" earlier this year).

[EddieB]

40 minutes ago, TheQ said:

One thing with  that photo graph.. I seem to remember it was rule of 6 at the time..

 

And IIRC At the PM's table there were 4,, twenty foot behind there was a group of three, and maybe another 20ft behind there was another 6 ..  to me that means they weren't breaking any rules.

Actually just seen the picture again.. the group at the back is either a group of 8 or a group of 3 standing near a group of 5..

 

Since they visited other rule-breakers and issued fines, I think the Metropolitan Police have become politicised and failed to recognise their need to have investigated in the public interest.

 

Beyond that, the endless diet of who was or wasn't at this, that or another party splashed all over the media (particularly a certain LBC morning anchor), is becoming tiresome.

[Oldddudders]

6 minutes ago, EddieB said:

Since they visited other rule-breakers and issued fines, I think the Metropolitan Police have become politicised and failed to recognise their need to have investigated in the public interest.

 

Beyond that, the endless diet of who was or wasn't at this, that or another party splashed all over the media (particularly a certain LBC morning anchor), is becoming tiresome.

I think since the Sarah Everard issue, the Met has been in bad odour with many. But Commissioner Dick has thanked Boris for his support over that mishandling by saying there is a lack of evidence of wrongdoing in the party-zone.  

[Hobby]

1 hour ago, hayfield said:

Out of interest what are the influenza figures, is the semi shielding keeping it at bay again?

 

Judging by the figures I found and published on here many pages ago they only seem to be done annually and in 2020 had dropped down to negligible, as had most other similar viruses, being swamped by Covid, it may be we'll get some figures in the new year for 2021 but I'd be surprised if they don't show a similar result to 2020.

[Nearholmer]

47 minutes ago, EddieB said:

failed to recognise their need to have investigated in the public interest

Its the old ”public interest” vs “interesting to the public” question again, I guess.

[RJS1977]

1 hour ago, EddieB said:

Since they visited other rule-breakers and issued fines, I think the Metropolitan Police have become politicised and failed to recognise their need to have investigated in the public interest.

 

Beyond that, the endless diet of who was or wasn't at this, that or another party splashed all over the media (particularly a certain LBC morning anchor), is becoming tiresome.

 

I think the police have generally tended to attend events as they happened, rather than respond to reports of something that (may have) happened several months ago.

 

But yes, agreed that the coverage of the parties, like the County Durham trip, is becoming tiresome, and distracting from bigger failures like removing all travel restrictions in October, as we were about to enter the illness season. 

[LNER4479]

This appears to be as 'official' a set of figures on the Omicron situation nationally (with apologies to those already scanning these avidly each day).

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1042543/20211220_OS_Daily_Omicron_Overview.pdf

 

If the 'figures are generally lower at a weekend' maxim holds true, standby for some alarming figures later on today.

 

The BBC report I picked the above up from does however end with the following:

There are also some very early, tentative signs that the numbers needing Covid hospital care in the capital might be below the levels expected given the number of infections in the city.

[Reorte]

9 minutes ago, LNER4479 said:

This appears to be as 'official' a set of figures on the Omicron situation nationally (with apologies to those already scanning these avidly each day).

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1042543/20211220_OS_Daily_Omicron_Overview.pdf

 

If the 'figures are generally lower at a weekend' maxim holds true, standby for some alarming figures later on today.

Whilst the figures are unquestionably lower at the weekend I find it a bit reassuring that the rise hasn't been so great to swamp that and still produce higher figures. But it'll be very surprising if there isn't quite a jump today.

 

I also expect that we might start seeing signs of any increase in hospital admissions it's caused about now.

[AY Mod]

4 minutes ago, LNER4479 said:

If the 'figures are generally lower at a weekend' maxim holds true, standby for some alarming figures later on today.

 

Cases per day seem to have been fairly consistent through the week over the months; hospitalisations don't seem to jump around too much but it's the daily death figure which is low at weekends. That will only jump up and down even more over the holiday with holidays and bank holidays so there'll probably be some spikes in that between Christmas and New Year and then on the Weds/Thurs after New Year.

 

As most of the map is going deep purple in London/SE https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/interactive-map/cases from this evening they're bringing in another colour for case rates over 1,600/100,000 - Red?

 

It could be seen later last week that the dark colour was spreading through boroughs on the M40/M1/A1 corridors outwards. The map lags behind by around 6/7 days so I'd say the West Mids will go dark soon on the map.

[Zero Gravitas]

1 hour ago, Oldddudders said:

I think since the Sarah Everard issue, the Met has been in bad odour with many. But Commissioner Dick has thanked Boris for his support over that mishandling by saying there is a lack of evidence of wrongdoing in the party-zone.  

 

This is probably verging on the political, but the strong impression I have is that Cressida Dick is far more interested in keeping her job that actually doing it.

[Nearholmer]

39 minutes ago, LNER4479 said:

This appears to be as 'official' a set of figures on the Omicron situation nationally (with apologies to those already scanning these avidly each day).

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1042543/20211220_OS_Daily_Omicron_Overview.pdf

 

Those figures do need a bit of de-coding, and I can't claim to have achieved that fully, because they distinguish between "SGTF" and "Confirmed Omicron".

 

SGTF is a "quick and dirty" method that is done as part of the basic PCR analysis to identify samples that have a particular gene missing. Omicron doesnt include that gene, Delta does, but some other variants also don't include it, so in a situation where Omicron is much more prevalent that the other variants that dont include it, it is a very strong indicator of Omicron, but not quite  "a smoking gun", despite the fact that the figures factor out cases that are SGTF and are proven to be some variant other than Omicron, because not every sample is fully sequenced.

 

What I've never properly understood is whether the "Confirmed Omicron" is a subset of SGTF, the ones pulled forward for detailed sequence testing, or whether the two figures should be added together to get an idea of what is happening.

 

Has anyone else got their head fully round it?

[Nearholmer]

2 hours ago, EddieB said:

As we've found (and had corroborated from those in the Health Service) there are many instances of "false negatives" in both Lateral Flow and PCR tests. 

 

That has become a common narrative around here too: symptoms that could be either a heavy cold or post-vaccination Covid, then tests, both LFT and PCR, all negative over several days, then a positive result eventually arising on the third or fourth test.

 

I have begun to wonder whether the binary symptomatic/asymptomatic distinction, and the binary "you've got it or you haven't" distinction, are oversimplifications, and that fit children, and possibly fit and fully vaccinated adults, can have it, spend several days feeling a bit under the weather with mild symptoms while their system fights it, during which time they test negative, then either their system wins, and the symptoms clear away, or their system loses sufficiently to give rise to a positive test. If that conjecture/wild guess is right, are they infectious during the "attempting to fight it off" stage, or not?

 

Maybe that's where the LFT comes in: as an indictor of infectiousness, rather than an indictor of infectedness. As I understand it, a PCR should eventually see it, even if your system wins the fight, because it can detect dead virus traces. But, if you get negative tests, then the symptoms go away because your system wins handsomely, unlikely you'll bother seeking a PCR, more likely you'll ascribe it to a common cold.

 

It would be interesting, and helpful, to hear a properly knowledgable professional talk about all this.