Good News Part 5. For science, positivity, puffins and daffodils. For anyone who isn't coping with gloom and doom.All aboard Boaty McBoatface!

[FuzzyPuffling]

New thread for the positive crew. Oldies, lurkers and newbies all welcome. Keep the science and positivity coming.

@littleowl1

Hello everyone, I hope you are all doing ok.

I was collating today's data for the homepage of www.covidmessenger.com and I wanted to highlight something I am feeling cautiously optimistic about.

I have been monitoring cases in Kent daily (Kent was the county that first had high prevalence of the new variant) and there are signs that things are beginning to turn in recent days (ie cases starting to fall).

I published a detailed post about this here:
www.covidmessenger.com/latest-analysis/

Kent is important for the rest of the country as it highlights how the new variant responds to various social restrictions - its a bit long to detail it all here but I explain it in the post.

It's an immense relief that cases appear to be starting to fall.

It is early days - it could be a data blip - but my instinct tells me things have peaked in Kent. This will provide an immensely valuable dataset for all our clever scientists and doctors working hard to determine the most suitable measures to contain the spread in other parts of the country.

So while it has been grim living in Kent for the last few weeks, with relentlessly depressing data, I do think our experience will be hugely valuable.

Thanks that's a really helpful positive bit of info

Morning all!
Checking in and I have 6 pages to read!

Fantastic thread. Thank you.

www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/covid-testing-rolled-out-seven-19600771

Results from sampling schools in Surrey - apologies link is to local sure and looks quite busy !

@Pomegranatespompom - my DC’s secondary school was set up as a COVID test centre before Christmas and 90% of the 1,500 pupils were tested. We had zero cases. The school was so confident that they’d written to us to say they could re-open on 5th Jan rather than the staggered start the rest of England were going to have. Obviously that went out of the window with lockdown 🙁 Really hoping that testing will play a big part in getting schools back.

@Shehz21 There seems to be no clear logic a lot of the time with how people are effected. I'm glad yours was mild. Do you mind me asking what makes you CV? (I'm interested as I am a Type 1 diabetic.)

@Inastatus completely agree. We had 1 case in our school a day that wasn’t a teacher or student. Any mention of schools on the other threads leads to talk of people wanting teacher to die though - Impossible to have a sensible conversation.
I’ve repeatedly talked about low incidences in children on routine testing in hospitals ( I work in big London trust) but it doesn’t fit with that some people want to hear. I’m so sad for what children are missing and there were other ways to protect the vulnerable without disadvantaging children so much.

Absolutely apologise if that was moany - I really appreciate this thread.

@JemimaPyjamas absolutely no logic - around half my team have been positive - some very unwell. We’ve all had very similar exposure yet on lateral flow plus antibody tests - the rest of us remain negative.

1 case in the school not 1 case a day !

[quote Pomegranatespompom]@JemimaPyjamas absolutely no logic - around half my team have been positive - some very unwell. We’ve all had very similar exposure yet on lateral flow plus antibody tests - the rest of us remain negative.[/quote]
Strange isn't it. We had one DC test positive after a case in their school (the only two in the whole school since they've been open!) And no one else in the house got it despite us all living under the same roof and obviously not distancing from each other as DC young.

Hello, checking in for good news

My daily dose of goodness, it's like pointing your face to the sunshine for a short time - thank you!

I'm likening the new strain as a stone in a pond, it hits (Kent) and the ripples move over the pond (UK), hence, in my head, why places like Cornwall are now showing an increase and slowly Kent decreases. So, in my non scientific brain that's what's happening now!

Loving the sleeps countdown btw!

Does anyone have any more information about this quote and what was meant by moving through the tiers come mid February? It was from the policing minister on bbc breakfast.

“These current measures should, in theory if we all stick by them, be enough to drive the numbers down so that we can start to move through the tiers from mid-February,” Malthouse says.”

For anyone new to the thread, here is the global vaccine progress tracker. An even happier thing to look at now the UK is providing up to date data on ours.

Zoe app is down again. It almost hit 70k/day (less that a week ago??) and now it's almost 60k flat. It's the right direction in any case.

Omg thank you for this. I am feeling in despair so have joined this thread . I’m a teacher, Mum of 4 and ready to join the positivity x

@TheChineseChicken

Does anyone have any more information about this quote and what was meant by moving through the tiers come mid February? It was from the policing minister on bbc breakfast.

“These current measures should, in theory if we all stick by them, be enough to drive the numbers down so that we can start to move through the tiers from mid-February,” Malthouse says.”

I though we were coming back out of lockdown into tiers as before so I understood it to be about tiers not alert levels. I thought once the numbers started coming down we'd move out of lockdown but it won't be a sudden no restrictions. We'll come out in tiers based on local levels, then move down them as the situation improves, which it will do due to vaccines.

I understand tiers and levels to be different things and the implications of moving between them are obviously very different. So it would be good to know if the policing minister meant tiers or levels. If tiers, that would imply things starting to ease in some areas mid Feb but I haven’t heard this to be the case anywhere else before this quote, hence I was a bit surprised

@TheChineseChicken

I understand tiers and levels to be different things and the implications of moving between them are obviously very different. So it would be good to know if the policing minister meant tiers or levels. If tiers, that would imply things starting to ease in some areas mid Feb but I haven’t heard this to be the case anywhere else before this quote, hence I was a bit surprised

I totally thought this was the case but can't point to a particular source. Was it not said by ministers over the weekend?

I know some were waiting for this but of good news!

Sir David Attenborough receives Covid-19 vaccine www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-55630861

David Attenborough gets the vaccine. All is right with the world!