above R

[randomer]

so its above R where I live. In about 7 days or so the shops will open and more people will mix....what am I supposed to do please Boris?

I live in the North West. Doesnt suprise me as nobody round here has been following any rules even in lockdown. My neighbour works in a hospice, there has been a constant stream of visitors and builders in lockdown. Life has just carried on the same here apart from my household. I am vulnerable and am lucky in that I do not work, but DH does. We are being very careful. I am particularly worried as I have to allow a gas engineer in the house for over an hour to service all the appliances, I am trying get it put off until the R rate comes down. I do not want a stranger in the house for so long.

Of course the R rate is rising in some locations, take Brighton for an example literally thousands of non-locals are visiting the beach, non-existent SD, it’s no surprise that the R rate is only slightly below one, and that’s if the figures can be relied upon.

The management of the virus by the government has been truly shocking IMHO, take responsibility for yourselves & families don’t rely on government to protect you.

So you are the only people in the NW following guidelines ChitinousAlien?

Also NW. They've delayed school opening for y6 and y10 in this area. I feel so sorry for the families and, of course, the kids.
There's a really horrible tendency on here to "other " people. "It's those other people " that have a problem, not me. Which is how we got into the Too Late lockdown mess in the first place.
It's "other " people until it's you.

If you're in the southern part of the south west, avoid all the tourist spots. Hopefully people won't holiday in those areas and increase risks to other parts

Drivingdownthe101

From what we are seeing out and about, supermarket, the roads, etc, we seem to be! Although my DH work are being very strict

@IncrediblySadToo

It’s nowhere near 9000 cases a day. Stop believing the biased media. Oh, and if people would stop slamming down their phones to them, maybe they’d have something to do

Zoe is not biased media

Many people employed to do the track & trace have not been given any contacts to follow up on. Nothing to do with phones being slammed down! I said NO WORK, not no results 🙄

Nope, Many people have had phones slammed down on them. I can assure you this is true

It’s not just NW and SW though really. Although that is worrying in itself. The lowest R in any region is 0.89 (North East and Yorkshire). So I have no idea why they are showing those numbers and simultaneously claiming R is between 0.7 and 0.9. The rate in London is 0.95 and in the highly populated South East is 0.97.

And there might only be 1 in 1000 with it, but the R rate indicates that that 1 person is passing it on to another person (with rounding). It doesn’t make it better if person one works in a hospital or care home- they are still passing it on to another person who is either in the care home or hospital and therefore extremely vulnerable, or their passing it to another member of staff in their workplace, or they are passing it to someone in the community as staff members in hospitals or care home still go to the supermarkets, to the beach, to meet with friends and family... etc...

I think it's madness. The number of cases and the number of deaths are nowhere near low enough to warrant opening up so many things at once. I hope it'll all be ok but I'm worried.

I say this as a severe long-term sufferer of Covid. 10 weeks now and I can still barely function. I'm having tests for underlying heart and lung damage. I'm not included in any stats now, only the original 'mild' ones. There are thousands of us sufferers hidden behind closed doors. The medical community are seeing more of more people like this. There is no treatment.

38 year old active woman with no underlying health conditions, no medications, normal BMI.

This is not some kind of 'bad flu' and it can affect anyone. Some people's complacency in the middle of a deadly pandemic just baffles me. Our death rate as a country is absolutely shameful.

The lower the infection rate, the more meaningless R becomes. Eg you're on an island with 5 people. 1 person gets virus and passes it into their wife and child. R rate of 2 right there. R only works well with lots of infections.

Daily infections have plummeted to around 5,000

@Aposterhasnoname
Do you have to be quite so unpleasant? I am scared, I follow the rules. The government are beyond hopeless. Its so sad.

Are you a fan of them? Please tell me what you think is going well?

The number of cases and the number of deaths are nowhere near low enough to warrant opening up so many things at once

So many things? You mean non essential shops, with strict hygiene controls and social distancing measures? Or schools, in small bubbles, and only 3 year groups (not even that in most places)? What else has been opened?
Cinemas, theatres, restaurants, cafes, playgrounds, sporting events, gigs, a lot of offices... still closed. Seeing people in their houses still isn’t allowed.
Barely anything has been ‘opened up’.

@GwenSaturn

I think it's madness. The number of cases and the number of deaths are nowhere near low enough to warrant opening up so many things at once. I hope it'll all be ok but I'm worried.

I say this as a severe long-term sufferer of Covid. 10 weeks now and I can still barely function. I'm having tests for underlying heart and lung damage. I'm not included in any stats now, only the original 'mild' ones. There are thousands of us sufferers hidden behind closed doors. The medical community are seeing more of more people like this. There is no treatment.

38 year old active woman with no underlying health conditions, no medications, normal BMI.

This is not some kind of 'bad flu' and it can affect anyone. Some people's complacency in the middle of a deadly pandemic just baffles me. Our death rate as a country is absolutely shameful.

I get that in a minority of people it's extremely damaging and causes death.

I say this as a high risk person, we can't remain locked down for much longer. I will be returning to work very soon too.

We have to be realistic, a lot of us just aren't coping at home particularly well, I've been home for 13 weeks now and have been out about five times.

The economy does need to re-start, just as many lives depend on that as does protecting them from CV.

Lockdown has done its job, the nhs coped, obviously there were some hospitals that had periods of being overwhelmed but we have capacity now, we need to get on with the rest of our lives.

The R is above 1 where I live (NW). I live near Blackpool and Preston - Preston apparently hasn't reached its localized peak and Blackpool is apparently way above 1 in localized terms.

@AdalindMeisner I know, and people on here bitching about not opening up the town. I look at pictures of the prom with envy but I'll only go back and visit when it's ready for me not when I'm ready for it.

5,000 a day! That's potentially 35,000 new infections every week?! And that's before everything opens up again.

Nope, I don't find that a very reassuring figure @MrsArchchancellorRidcully! Not at all.

Counties such as Australia, New Zealand and South Korea must be shaking their heads in disbelief at the UK.

@Drivingdownthe101

So why aren’t all these agencies (ONS and Zoe for example) working together to get an accurate picture? And why are the press mainly reporting the ONS data over the Zoe data? Genuine question, it just doesn’t seem to make any sense. I input my symptoms into Zoe and got told I’d be sent a test but it didn’t arrive. I arranged a test through the NHS instead, which was negative. My symptoms have since been attributed to something else entirely, but I’d have assumed CV if I wasn’t tested.

Zoe is working with ONS and if you listen to to webinar it explains the 2 approaches. No idea why the media is only picking up on one. I would trust the researchers over the journalists.

Regarding your test the process is zoe informs you to take a test then you are asked to book it yourself through the normal nhs route and then report back on the app if it is positive. As far as I am aware zoe does not send out any tests directly. Only those reporting back a positive nhs test are included in the numbers.

@IncrediblySadToo

www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/warning-more-people-die-south-4197816.amp&ved=2ahUKEwiD7vrb5-zpAhUdURUIHdRjC-8QFjAHegQIEBAB&usg=AOvVaw3kBSg7_YMJasy1tyRd7ZNu&ampcf=1

www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/coronavirus-two-more-deaths-weston-4198756.amp&ved=2ahUKEwiTzP-W6ezpAhVzsHEKHcWSBqEQFjADegQIBhAB&usg=AOvVaw3uqv6gH2GuciOC72EwZhLE&ampcf=1

It's made repeatedly clear that even though the R rate in the SW is around 1, infections are low.

I like to come on here. Because everyone I know is critical of the government response, and the US people I know are critical of their government response. They look at the stats, the data and the evidence (and some of them work with it) and they feel that our government response has been weak.

Then I come on here and people think that our stats are good news and I see why these absolute pricks are in power.

The thing is without an effective track and trace up and running how will we know what is causing the local flare ups ?
Obviously if it’s a rise in a hospital or a care home they would be pretty easy to close.
But how would they pinpoint where these cases have come from in the community ?

If only the positive people are included in Zoe's app - then surely that's the same data that PHE are using? Those tests aren't counted seperately.

Indeed @everybodysang it's like Boris is the demon headmaster and he's hypnotised everyone to believe that 40k deaths and still counting is a-ok!

I'm in the South West and R is high here too, but for very different reasons.

Bear in mind that it isn't a measure of global or local saturation. It just means that where there is an outbreak it is spreading ^between those affected" and that the other half of the equation is incidence. Currently that is estimated at 1 in a 1000 people.

There probably will be additional restrictions, Hancock alluded to it yesterday. But they will depend on where the virus is , specifically.

North East. Boris voting heartland.