How are people still catching the virus?

[Baileysforchristmas]

Numbers are still so high, are people catching it from supermarkets? Does 2 metres apart still stop you catching it? Are you still pretty safe outside if you stay at least 2 metres apart?

I think this coming week it will all change

Furlough will be back in force
Nurseries closed
Schools taking less kids

Feels like there’s going to be a shift

By ignoring lockdown. Last couple of weeks, friends and family, MN posters reporting:

-mobile hairdressers in homes

• a holiday abroad
• car sharing for a mooch around the shops
• business conference of 20+facitated by Hilton Hotel
• workmen, no masks
• low mask compliance/chin wearing, in shops from staff and customers
• kids in school and parents at gates who really don't need to be
• rammed parks with cars forcing groups of walkers to bottle neck on narrow paths, waiting for cars to pass

In the first lockdown in March all takeaways and fast food places where closed and there where no support bubbles.
I think these are spreading it more than you think.
Plus I went to Asda yesterday and there was no queuing to get in and been the same to any supermarket.
The restrictions are much less than before.

Because most schools are running at more than 50% still going in, it's been proven they're a huge factor in transmission, and they are still full, even though they're "closed". Dd's class has 21 pupils in out of 30. Keeping a few at home isn't going to make much difference when over two thirds are still going in. And preschools are fully open...

Hospitals and carehomes.
Making the rest of us prisoners in our own homes is small change in comparison.

@MrPickles73

Where is the evidence (not anecdotal) that it's schools?

Ask the government or the DfE. They were struggling to find any data after the one they did in June - you know when schools were mostly closed. They apparently haven't kept the necessary data behind that

Look at the well publicised graph which shows that huge increase in rates of covid being caught in school aged children. That's pretty damning in itself.

Unfortunately we only have anecdotal data for most of covid as a lot of the data relies in people stating themselves where they'd been before catching it. You write in on your follow up covid tracker forms after testing positive.

My experience is that it's only in mumsnet that some posters are determined to believe that schools are being hit massively with covid and that staff must be catching it elsewhere.

Not a single other person has questioned me about the most likely place I caught covid yet on mumsnet it happens all the time.

You could get takeaways from March onwards.
Many restaurants immediately become take away. You could have delivery or kerbside collection. We used such services throughout lockdown 1.

In the first lockdown in March all takeaways and fast food places where closed

No they weren't. We had takeaways all through LD1.

In the first lockdown in March all takeaways and fast food places where closed

They were not, big chains like Macdonald's KFC chose to shut, but they didn't have to.

The people I knew who had it before Christmas all worked in factories, warehouses and retail or they had kids in secondary school. We went into tier 4 the weekend before Christmas and our schools have only been partially open (vulnerable and KW kids) since last Monday so I don’t think schools are responsible for our infection rates over the last few days. I’ve not notice my neighbours having visitors and most cars on my road aren’t moving (apart from the people who can’t work from home). My local park hasn’t been exceptionally busy and I’ve been to my (usually rammed pre pandemic) Tesco this morning and it was quiet and the main road between us and Tesco was really quiet as well. So I can only think workplaces open between Christmas and New Year and the hospital or care homes.

From anecdotal evidence lots of NHS staff catching the new variant through PPE, so it’s more contagious when out and about too. My sister is a mw in London, superspreader event there week before Xmas with an asymptomatic woman who tested positive. 12 members of staff were ill within 7 days, all had full PPE, all traced back to her. All passed on to family members. 35 positives within 2 weeks from this one woman who had no symptoms! That’s how it’s spreading. Don’t assume you don’t have it, stay away from others! A mask will do nothing if full PPE isn’t.

@Fluffycloudland77

Careful *@CouldBeOuting*, you’ll be getting told off for looking out your window like I was.

Can’t beat a good curtain twitch 😊

@WitchWanderer

Afraid to say this concept that PPE/2m SD will protect against SARS-COV-2 - or that workplaces/schools can somehow be made 'Covid Secure' by following a Risk Assess is a bit of a false sense of security. My background/training is as an epi & still know many in field (epis/virology) & still follow the studies with pro interest. Primary vector transmission is now firmly proven as air aerosols. The 2m business comes from WHO & is based on 1930/40s studies on influenza transmission by LARGE droplets. Aerosols are far smaller & studies show infectious particles can travel WAY further than 2m/6' (30' +); they have also been shown to hang around on non-vented indoor settings for 3 hours or longer, so someone can walk through a cloud breathed out by infectious person hours before & become infected. Covid is now est as infectious as measles (IE ...very) & that was orig variant - that's why will need higher than thought herd immunity (70/80%+) to oppress it. New variant B117 (2021/12) attaches far more easily to ACE2 receptors....one reason younger people are becoming more seriously I'll with higher viral-load. Unless you have FFP3 facemask (US: N95/99) I'm afraid 'face coverings' or surgical masks won't cut it - may as well have loo paper over your mouth! Also goggles btw....why oh why don't people protect their eyes... Just an epi perspective

This needs saying again for everyone to see.

Surgical masks do not stop healthcare workers getting covid, only FFP3 masks. Other countries are doing this, the U.K. says surgical are fine as they can changed the rules to fit their stock to show they are “world leading”. Unfortunately that we are now.

I don’t think masks work, only the FFP3 masks. I do wear them but will still stay 2 metres away from everyone. I’ve been here there and everywhere before this lockdown, daughter at secondary school, son teaches at a college, I was amazed we didn’t catch it. I’m a bit freaked out with the new variant though as no one is saying how it is spreading which is causing such big infections. I thought may be 2 metres was not enough and you could catch it outside, i’m pleased at the comments on here as it seems not the case. I’m not going to the supermarket anymore, i will have my shopping delivered. Our hospital can’t cope at the moment, it’s in a pretty bad way, i’m going to be extra careful until spring. I was all for schools staying open but I am so glad my daughter and son are at home, home school learning has improved a lot since the first lockdown.

@Againstmachine

In the first lockdown in March all takeaways and fast food places where closed

They were not, big chains like Macdonald's KFC chose to shut, but they didn't have to.

Lots closed because they thought the lockdown was only going to be 3 weeks. When they realised it was going to be longer, it took them time to make adjustments such as designing websites, putting up screens, etc.

Our village fish and chip shop was closed for about 3 months because it was in tiny premises, where only 1 customer could be in at any time if keeping 2 metres away, and same with the staff behind the counter - they couldn't operate in a small area and keep 2 metres away from eachother.

They used the time wisely. They never had an online order system, but quickly got one made for them. The knocked a wall out between the kitchen/serving area to make it a larger open space so the staff could stay apart. They also had the builders in to make a sliding hatch where customers could collect their orders without going in. In June they re-opened for online ordering/click and collect only and have been busier than ever - the owner says his turnover is higher than it used to be when they allowed customer in to order & wait.

Our village bakery/pie/bacon bap shop closed because they thought they had to, according to the BBC and other media harping on about essential workers only etc. After a few weeks, they saw other fast food/takeway/food shops opening, so they did too, again took them a short while to get screens installed etc.

Certainly in our village, literally the one places open were the small supermarket and the post office. Everything else was closed, including the takeaways, pubs, restaurants, garage, butchers.

abraxan data from Sweden suggests keeping schools open gave no higher transmission rate. All I have seen is anecdotal evidence in UK.
Of the people I know who've caught it:
1 x working in hospital
1 x at work
2 x unknown but don't have any contact with school aged kids

We have 2 school aged kids and hence know loads of families and yet to have an example of child bringing COVID home from school. Would like to see evidence on this theory.

What evidence do you want to see @MrPickles73? My ds1 finished school on 11th Dec (school shut for the last week as so many staff sick). He got symptoms on the 13th, I got them on the 17th, we both tested positive on the 20th. He'd been nowhere except school, I'd been nowhere at all (not even the shop).

It's really common, we're not a special case.

I appreciate there are cases Porcupineintherough but this is anecdotal. Where is the data?

McDonalds reopened the second week in June. I know because I queued for 30mins to treat teenage DS. I have photo evidence!
Unless shops sold significant levels of foodstuff they were closed.
The Range were one of the companies that stretched the rules to stay open.
Dentists were closed to patients until 08/06/2020.
Garden centres tried to stay open but quickly got shut down.
God, people have such short memories.

Just spoken to a friend who works in a big factory in yorkshire
She’s worked mon to fri all through covid
750 people in there, yet just one hospitalisation.
Measures are taken to keep people safe, but sometimes impossible to maintain all that time .
It’s just weird
She has underlying health issues, on steroids for her lungs..but been fine

@ProfessorPootle

From anecdotal evidence lots of NHS staff catching the new variant through PPE, so it’s more contagious when out and about too. My sister is a mw in London, superspreader event there week before Xmas with an asymptomatic woman who tested positive. 12 members of staff were ill within 7 days, all had full PPE, all traced back to her. All passed on to family members. 35 positives within 2 weeks from this one woman who had no symptoms! That’s how it’s spreading. Don’t assume you don’t have it, stay away from others! A mask will do nothing if full PPE isn’t.

Serious question How do you know it’s all traced back to one woman? Do they measure dna or something

DS’s school had one case in the whole of last term. There were a few who had to self isolate due to contacts out of school. There were 3 positive cases just after the end of term but as they finished on a Wednesday it was probably due to shopping trips the weekend before rather than school. School has done lateral flow tests last week for all staff and pupils in school, over 200 in total and no positives.
It is a town centre independent school with many pupils travelling via bus or train. Either the kids are very good at staying safe which is highly unlikely, or transmission in schools is not as high as people think.
The trouble is in some schools the bubbles are very large, one positive test will close down a whole year, several staff isolating is a safeguarding issue and will close a whole school without a positive case. Schools closing for self isolation does not mean that infection rates are high in that school. They are just following the rules.

@Waxonwaxoff0

Loads of people are still going out to work. I work in a factory and it would be easy to catch Covid in these conditions.

Me too. Mine is non essential. But because all construction is open so are we.

At least 25% of people are catching it in hospital apparently.

Professorpootle the week before Christmas the whole country was out Christmas shopping. I would suggest that the super spreader event was actually Christmas.
Health professionals ( and I speak as one of them) have become ever so slightly lax about PPE and the temptation of dipping into the vast amount of chocolates that end up lying about rest areas may well be the cause rather than an individual patient. This variant and the exponential growth of infection has put the frighteners up us all again. I’m off for my vaccine tomorrow and will be wearing my FFP3 continuously for the next 3 weeks until I’m ‘safe’. It’s been a bit of a wake up call for many.