170 workers at a factory in Cornwall test positive for Covid. Most totally unaware and had no symptoms.

[Treesofwood]

What is going on? Do these tests even work? How can that any people have a deadly disease that kills 1% of people it infects and not even know?

@BrieAndChilli

It’s not just meat though is it, there were all those outbreaks in Leicester clothes sweat shops. Maybe we should just all go around naked and stop buying clothes going by some people’s reasoning!!

Also why are all these asymptomatic people being tested? Are the factories having private tests? I think we would all be very surprised if the whole population were tested, we would probably find a huge proportion of the country had covid with no symptoms!! It’s just that we aren’t supposed to get tested unless you do have symptoms

My DPs factory now has their own private testing. It's cheaper for them to pay £50 a test if they can get the workers back the next day than have loads off struggling to get tests and waiting on results. They aren't doing mass testing but imagine they would if there was an outbreak. They have new cases most days though, though thankfully so fat they haven't been linked

Long Covid is estimated to be affecting 60,000 Brits. Very roughly 12 million have been infected, using the death figure along with the most recent IFR of 0.3%.

This gives a very rough 0.5% chance of getting "long covid", 20 times less than the completely inaccurate 10% figure.

I know one person IRL with long covid, though they are getting much better after 6 months.

Attached are the predicted % chances of dying of Covid for those with/without comorbidities. This may upset some of the doomsayers as most of the numbers are tiny.

Meat processing is cold and inside so two conditions for spread met. Fruit picking is outside.

Workers also share accommodation and transport.

The 2 people I know who currently have it are quite ill. Both youngish and healthy otherwise. I was a close contact and have just had my negative result.
I read an interesting study the other day which said the lack of symptoms in some could be down to t cells produced when previously exposed to coronaviruses like the common cold recognising the sars-cov-2 virus and mounting an immune response against it. Not conclusive and further studies required but I thought it was an interesting theory.

@Treesofwood

What is going on? Do these tests even work? How can that any people have a deadly disease that kills 1% of people it infects and not even know?

It doesn't and never has killed 1%.

Death rate is slightly higher than flu *could be anything from the same to double...BUT it's very skewed in the population so in young people the death rate is lower than flu and older, higher bmi it rises to much higher than flu.

Apparently it's partly because of the cold temperature, the fact that they have to work in close proximity to one another, and because it's very noisy so they have to shout

Yes SARS-CoV-19 thrives below 4 degrees (your fridge and freezer).
In Australia when they had a regional lockdown to tackle their mini-outbreak they closed the abattoirs and meat-processing plants.

How strange that it took so many weeks for Australia to get onto of a small outbreak with very strict lockdown. And it is just a coincidence that we are just coming to their spring. Almost like what happened with the UK
The cases decreased from South to North in UK, despite lockdown starting on the same day. Almost inline with decent spring weather.
But no, must have been the lockdown. Of course.

Closing abbatoirs and meat processing plants would be a great idea regardless of covid.

Bakeachocolatecaketoday Why are we not being told to lose weight or face a ten grand fine then? It would save lives. And people would actually be impacting on their own destiny rather than other people's, so even better.

It doesn't and never has killed 1%.

The REACT 2 serological study gave an IFR of 0.9% for UK community deaths (deaths excluding care homes).
mobile.twitter.com/DevanSinha/status/1293830021199679488

Not that an overall IFR is particularly useful given the age distribution, but that figure is very close to 1% and goes well above 1% if care home deaths are included. Although the CDC and WHO consensus figure is lower at around 0.6% and improved treatments etc have probably reduced that a bit further.

Much more useful to look at an age based IFR though.
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.23.20160895v5

Detailed discussion of death rate

"So what is the real death rate?
Many scientists have attempted to estimate the proportion of people who die after catching Covid-19. So far they tend to produce rates between 0.5% and 1%,...

The researchers who conducted the REACT-2 survey produced a more detailed analysis, which estimated an overall death rate that is nine times higher, at about 0.9%. The death rate from the disease may [reduce with] improvements in medical treatment."

Are the IFR studies based on antibody seroprevalence? I know that meta analysis one above is. I wonder if they will end up changing as we now know not everyone produces antibodies in the first place and they can wane quickly, so these surveys may not be that reliable?

Or do the studies account for these things?

The Diamond Princess was a very useful accidental study. The passengers and crew were originally unaware of Covid and were mixing freely and at close quarters until they were quarantined. The passengers were mostly over 70 and many had existing conditions.

3711 passengers and crew. Most of them were tested. 634 were found to be positive (17%). Some couples sharing a cabin had one positive and one negative. Of those positives 328 had no symptoms at any time. 7 are reported to have died from Covid and another 4 died later 'probably/possibly' of Covid.

So, even among a particularly vulnerable group, over 50% of people who tested positive had no symptoms.

There was another cruise ship, the Greg Mortimor, where 60% of the passengers and crew tested positive and none reported any symptoms. AFAIK there were no reports of them developing symptoms later, certainly not during the time it took to evacuate them and get them home.

There's also the issue of false positive tests, specially now that we are doing around 200,000 tests per day. No one seems to know the proportion. Matt Hancock has said 1% (which would give 2000 per 200,000 tests) and had also said less than 1%. Sage say between 0.8% (1600 per 200,000) and 4.2% (8400 per 200,000, which is clearly not the case as we don't have that many positives at all).

Then there are the tests that show positive for Covid RNA, but it is not active, probably because the person's immune system has dealt with it.

Basically, although it's clear that no everyone who 'gets' Covid will be at all unwell, we don't know much. Which is probably why we're beginning to emphasise hospital admissions more - at least those show people who are actually sick.

@Jrobhatch29

Or do the studies account for these things?

The REACT 2 one does. 1

Ignore the 1 (typo)

The Diamond Princess was a very useful accidental study. The passengers and crew were originally unaware of Covid and were mixing freely and at close quarters until they were quarantined. The passengers were mostly over 70 and many had existing conditions. 3711 passengers and crew. Most of them were tested. 634 were found to be positive (17%). Some couples sharing a cabin had one positive and one negative. Of those positives 328 had no symptoms at any time. 7 are reported to have died from Covid and another 4 died later 'probably/possibly' of Covid. So, even among a particularly vulnerable group, over 50% of people who tested positive had no symptoms

I agree these confined case studies of cruise ships are interesting in their findings. Also interesting that its quarantine started on 5 Feb. That would have been a good time for our government to think about borders, stockpiling PPE, tests etc. We can't really say that Covid-19 came as a big surprise to us in mid-March, which the government keep rolling out.

Nevertheless, in terms of results, I do remember that there are/were different strains of coronavirus and the one that started in the Far East was associated with a a lower death rate than the one that seems to have spread from the ski resorts of Europe in January/February - which is the one the UK has - and is associated with a higher death rate.

Has that been proven, about different strains? Not being arsey just interested lol.

It seems to be really hard to make a good judgement on % of asymptomatic. There was a meta analysis recently that said it is only 20%. I cant see it being that low personally and wonder if it depends on age groups. I also wonder who wouldn't think to report feeling a bit tired, a headache or having an upset stomach or something.

yes, but I haven't heard it mentioned for a while now.
They were called A, B and C I think

I think meat processing factories are kept as sealed as poss to keep them hygienic by keeping vermin and bacteria out.
Therefore they will use air conditioning/recycled air and this seems to be a risk for spreading covid

This is long, but interesting

www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/09/k-overlooked-variable-driving-pandemic/616548/

[quote TheSmallAssassin]This is long, but interesting

www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/09/k-overlooked-variable-driving-pandemic/616548/[/quote]
Very interesting reading, thank you.
I speed-read it all the way to the end, and was rewarded with this damning verdict on our inconsistent strategy:

"Countries that have ignored super-spreading have risked getting the worst of both worlds: burdensome restrictions that fail to achieve substantial mitigation. The U.K.’s recent decision to limit outdoor gatherings to six people while allowing pubs and bars to remain open is just one of many such examples.”

[quote TheSmallAssassin]This is long, but interesting

www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/09/k-overlooked-variable-driving-pandemic/616548/[/quote]
Very interesting article.

An aside from the original meatplant settings, I'm with a youth group following every mitigation to reduce potential spread; outdoors, separated pods, social distancing, individual equipment, no singing, supposedly no shouting, but how else can you communicate with a child 25m away down a socially distanced line in a park... Great. Minimal chance of super-spreading, but the reality is that you're left in a position of not really being able to do very much fun or worthwhile having exhausted most suitable activities over 5 months of Zoom. Actually are that many layers of measures and their cumulative impact worth their impact on the quality of the activity (especially when you have several clusters of classmates already exposed over 30 hours per week in the classroom. It certainly simplifies the consequences of potentially isolating clusters (as in we shouldn't need to because there wasn't close contact), but is it actually effective having so many layers of mitigation that combine to be highly restrictive.

Ultimately mitigation measures need to be practical for the setting. No point in safeguarding the young, healthy demographic on the meat production line against Covid if that measure e.g. masks, visors and gloves results in lacerations from reducing accuracy for example. Ventilation needs to prioritise food hygiene as the consequences of a food poisoning outbreak is likely to be more severe than Covid.

Oh, do bog off, BOGOF.

You and your bloody common sense.

I'm still trying to work out if OPs comment about it being early Spring in Australia is the beginning of a conspiracy theory??!!

@CuriousaboutSamphire

Oh, do bog off, BOGOF.

You and your bloody common sense.

I'm still trying to work out if OPs comment about it being early Spring in Australia is the beginning of a conspiracy theory??!!

Re. spring - if you can trawl through the article just linked to, it actually discusses climate and concludes it is not a significant factor when you look at places with similar climates but very different rates of Covid-19.