We're all going on a summer holiday

[MinnieMountain]

Even if it means 2 weeks of quarantine
The anti -dementors are here to be reasonable and sensible about everything.

We decided to get our pool put today. It's a big one and always freezing so tend to save it for heatwave weather but thought what the heck. Chucked my morose 11 year old dd in it in a wetsuit and fuck me, she was laughing and playing and having an absolute blast (until she went blue from cold ). DH wanted to tell her off for being too loud but I pointed out this is the happiest she has been for weeks. She was so moody last night, its put a proper smile on mine and her face. Amazing now how the little things are what makes the difference.

Re TTT, my DH is dead set against it. I'm on the fence, on the one hand I want to "play my part" so to speak. On the other hand it feels intrusive.

Also, I took my baby for his immunisations yesterday. It was awful. I nearly sat on the wrong patient chair and got shouted at!

Sorry flapping may have been a bad word. I know it's easy to get worried when there is little information out there.

I have no particular access to any special knowledge, other than I did some fairly extensive reading on the SK track and trace in the early days back in March. I can't see why we deviate greatly from that to be honest and that seems to be the case from what I have been able to gather fro. The information released so far. If anything this will be less intrusive than SK. (and therefore less effective, although you have the laws of diminishing returns - see also Spanish 'proper' lockdown)

Basically the system is really only effective when you have very few cases cropping up. SK had developed the system for their SARS out break a few years ago.

The most effective countries at controlling the early days of the outbreak seemed to generally have two things: co-ordinated testing and localised lock downs. (Germany also started with state based lockdown, but they have a very different political structure to us that allows this)
Both of those are only effective when numbers are low. Its therefore fairly heartening that the UK is reaching the point where these are beneficial and also willing to put this in place.

The devil will be in the detail of course and being British the application of these might be a little bit shit as there are some legasltive and social issues here that would prevent the exact implementations of the schemes.

You may get Malicious reports, however the questions could be detailed enough (and flipped) to reduce that possibility. Few people are that good at lying on the spot.

If it was me I would have a risk matrix setup for stories not tallying and other variables such as age etc. But that maybe too forward thinking and nuanced for this government.

I know what you mean about I’m bored meaning much more because that’s what I’m doing. It’s not boredom in the sense I’ve always meant it, it’s the utter endless grinding blankness of every day being the same and all of them being filled with the background hum of constant anxiety about the future and where all this is going.

There was actually I good BBC article on the SK method. I will see if I can find it, but their search is woeful.

I would swap getting out of lockdown for track and trace. I would also want to know how we avoid 'malicious' contact tracing. Teaching someone a lesson - or even wanting to test them to see if they would isolate for the two weeks, so they could report them if they don't, isn't beyond a fair few people.

Welcome @MrsArchchancellorRidcully, excellent username.

I am feeling so terrible for those of you in Scotland and Wales. Keeping your population under house arrest for political point scoring as just unacceptable.

Every winter our health board put up messages with monotonous regularity on FB "Overwhelmed with norovirus/flu patients, whole wards shut for deep clean, operations cancelled, avoid A and E, 9 hour waits". So if we are all carrying on with the social distancing, hand washing, masks, gloves whatever then fingers crossed those illnesses will be much lower this winter.

I'm not very tech savvy but willing to give the app a go. Cases are falling so rapidly that it seems sustainable now. Also I hope it will offer reassurance & protection to vulnerable people & their families.

Interestingly there have been a few items in the news about some countries using systematic sewage testing (delightful!) to measure the prevalence of Covid in a given community, and it actually seems quite accurate. Apparently the Australian police have been using it for years to monitor illegal drug use in cities & someone had the bright idea of using it to monitor Covid.

@sirsamuelvimesblackboardmonito thank you from Wales. I’m hoping the tide will turn soon. We hardly hear from Mark Drakeford, seem to be making no progress on unlocking and children’s rights barely get a mention here. I’d always supported Welsh Labour but they’ve lost me with their pettiness. You shouldn’t use rights to prove a point. I hope they get blasted in next year’s election when people start to see the damage this has caused and their lack of action to protect care homes and get testing underway. Set us free!

In fairness @CupCupGoose Northumberland is a pretty big county and although I've read some completely bonkers stuff on the 'local' FB forum for our town I've yet yet to witness any actual dementorish behaviour when I've been out and about.

Your village sounds bonkers!

@SomewhereEast

A few of my former colleagues are involved in a project to do the same over here. The disease testing systems for sewage have been kicked around for a few years but there hasn't been huge traction because the perceived risk was so small of an outbreak of anything nasty in a Western country with a well developed infrastructure was low... . That's obviously changed....

Honestly, the news needs to report stuff like that more.

I’m going to stay at my parents next week. DH is being deployed and I can’t stay at home alone. This house freaks me out.

Walescrazy, did you miss Gething say last week that next years elections in May 2021 may be delayed because of covid. I didn`t. They know they will be in the doo doo so want it delayed I reckon.

During tonight's briefing, I did end up blurting out " this is a local lockdown for local people"

Feel a bit tearful reading that article about Norway and schools. Want dds to go back but keyworker childcare is not the same. May send them anyway so i can actually do some proper stuff with them afterwards though.

We had a good day at national trust beach today. Thought it would be more dementory but it was ok really. Nobody collecting money for parking. No queues for toilets. Just normality . Which was reassuring. Even an ice cream stand.

@justasking111 - I had seen that VG decided to announce that democracy was suspended but I’m assuming that seeing as the trends are so far downwards already they wouldn’t be able to actually do it. I’d love to be involved with the challenge! They haven’t mentioned it since but definitely one to watch

@justasking111 - my personal opinion is that by preempting it so far in advance they may have made themselves more vulnerable to a successful legal challenge as they have plenty of time to mitigate. I reckon the Conservative Party might be up for giving a go especially since their losses over the last couple of years. It’d be a real knock for Labour. Maybe a judicial review on grounds of unreasonableness? Although I’m sure a public law specialist will tell me I’m completely off base. If they carry on I might have a proper think!

You won't have control over it.

So not self-reporting? Good. I thought that was a downside (one of them) of the proposed app.

You then receive a call to take down the contact details of people you were in contact with.

Could be tricky given the incubation period seems to be 5 – 12 days. Also, if they say, “Oh, but you only need to report the people you’ve been within 2m of for 15 minutes”, isn’t that saying that a lot of the “rules” were over the top and all the scuttling past each other and trying to melt into a hedge was unnecessary?

I've heard through work that the 2021 local elections might be done differently and potentially online - but quite how, whether this is something the Electoral Commission / Local Government Association are thinking about just in case, or whether it is a firm proposal, I don't know. There would be huge equalities impacts with online only voting.

One thing is for sure, you can't social distance at an election count!

Did anyone watch Points West? Coverage ogvthe Weston Hospital spike.
To paraphrase the interview with the health Trust who have been dodging questions for 3 days
"Initially we stuck anyone who tested positive in together, anyone who tested negative in together and anyone who hadn't had a test result one way or the other in together, symptoms or no symptoms.
40% of clinical staff tested positive, so now we're testing all the non-clinical customer facing staff too.
Yeeees there were concerns about infection control raised two weeks ago, but, you know...
We're having a bit of a rethink...
We'll give it a good clean, it'll be fine.
Yeah, still probably daytrippers, thpugh"

@Waleshasgonecompletelycrazy I am in North Wales so conservatives have more seats. We rail at Cardiff centric decisions. £23 million for Assembly building in N Wales, 12k to fit out each office, the Cardiff lot would not travel so is now sublet to private tenants. £2 mil. repairs. 2 years ago. North Wales has the most hospitality beds, so they move N Wales tourism to Cardiff continue to rake in the money which they spend in the south. The airport up here, to shuttle to Cardiff, try getting a seat on the plane as a private citizen. They have done the same to the forestry, countryside commission, all sucked into the vortex that is Cardiff. National health money all Cardiff centric. It stinks WAG is just an overblown council.

Oh just to be clear on my boredom comments - if people are bored and that's how they're struggling with this situation, I get it and have a lot of sympathy. The kind of boredom lockdown can provoke could be dreadful so anyone is entitled to struggle with that and badly at that. My gripe is actually with dementors saying people only want to end lockdown because 'they're bored' and they're using that word as if people are just selfish and can't hack having a bit less to do. It's so dismissive. That's why I brought it up. It trivialises the reality of what many are actually experiencing.

The sewage tracking is fascinating stuff. I used to have an A Level history teacher who was obsessed with medieval poo. He'd spent most of his career excavating it!

Weeds you have to laugh Weston is a petrie dish of infection from within, but as you say they will blame day trippers, VE day, Easter, whatever.