Meeting outdoors in small groups and outdoor sport next month

[Mrstiggywinkle1]

Just read an article saying once schools have gone back on 8th March, that they will allow small groups to meet outdoors and outdoor sports to start up again.
Then an unlock from there, starting with outdoor dining/drinks in pubs and restaurants before indoor.
I’m personally hoping the domestic tourism industry opens up in late March or early April so my family can come here and visit from the north east, we are in the south west. Also have lots of friends who work in the local tourism industry here.

So things are looking up and I feel much more optimistic than I did 2 weeks ago.

@MNnicknameforCVthreads

"1 in 8 get long Covid"

I know I'm being pedantic, but surely this means 1 in 8 of those who have had a positive covid test

Given many (most?) children are asymptomatic (and therefore don't get a test), together with the heatmap stats here: coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases?areaType=nation&areaName=England

I would say that the risk to children of getting long covid is on a par with being injured in an RTA or playing sport or getting some other illness that requires hospitalisation.

1 in 8 of those who tests positive is still 1 in 8 of those who test positive. (13% for younger children 15% for older children who are less likely to be asymptomatic.

Even if you’re right she half don’t get a test that’s still 1 in 16.

The road traffic accident comparison is an irrelevant unscientific one and I wish people would stop it.

I’m hoping that from March we will be able to start some home ed activities again. March will be a year since everything stopped and never restarted in my area.

@Cheesecats

Can you link to where ONS have said this 1 in 8 figure?

My point was as much about it being 1 in 8 of those children who even get Covid. The vast majority of children haven't had (and probably won't get) Covid - at least in any given year, as that is how these things tend to be measured.

People keep quoting RTAs to help people understand risk, which the general public are notoriously bad at gauging. Ditto comparing it to cancer numbers etc.

I think outdoor sports should actually be allowed to resume very soon - even before schools go back. It’s probably lower risk for children to be running around outside than in a classroom. It would do them good to get back to some social interactions. Maybe that should be something to look at for after half term?

Meeting people in small groups outside would be lovely.

I don’t think the government will open any schools and relax any other restrictions though until schools are open.

I think it’ll be selected year groups back either in 8th or the week or so after-probably N, R, 1, 6. I don’t think anyone else will go back until after Easter.

@MNnicknameforCVthreads

You should read the Tim Harford column in the FT about the number to do with vaccination and releasing lockdown. It is very sensible and illuminating.

@BelleSausage

That sounds a good read, I just googled and looks like you need a subscription. Do you know if I can access it a different way or could you summarise?

I really hope the outdoor sports will indeed be allowed, and not subjected to one of Saint Boris's famous U-turns. After all, it was he who told us "we all need to be fitter to resist the virus", before snatching away people's main forms of exercise.

[quote MNnicknameforCVthreads]@Cheesecats

Can you link to where ONS have said this 1 in 8 figure?

My point was as much about it being 1 in 8 of those children who even get Covid. The vast majority of children haven't had (and probably won't get) Covid - at least in any given year, as that is how these things tend to be measured.

People keep quoting RTAs to help people understand risk, which the general public are notoriously bad at gauging. Ditto comparing it to cancer numbers etc.[/quote]
Of course. Here’s a link and screenshot of relevant bit.

www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthandlifeexpectancies/adhocs/12788updatedestimatesoftheprevalenceoflongcovidsymptoms/covid19symptomsprevalence.xlsx

I find the rta comparison to be very clunky and misleading myself. Rtas don’t spread asymptomatically to families and the community. Perhaps you could compare it per child but even then the data is likely lacking about victims who have an eta and aren’t classed as fatal or life changing but still go on to struggle for some weeks or months much like long Covid. That wouldn’t be in the stats. Out of curiosity though I do feel like looking into rta stats to see if they genuinely compare as frequently stated!

@bumbleymummy

I think outdoor sports should actually be allowed to resume very soon - even before schools go back. It’s probably lower risk for children to be running around outside than in a classroom. It would do them good to get back to some social interactions. Maybe that should be something to look at for after half term?

I agree. And not just children. I think adults could meet in small groups for exercise too. Things like tennis and golf are very low risk.

The figures constantly trotted out to justify lockdown on the basis of 'long COVID' are heavily misleading.

The 1 in 8 figure covers anyone who still has any symptoms at all after 4 weeks. In the vast majority of cases, this will be a cough or tiredness.

Only 2% of people who test positive for COVID have symptoms after 12 weeks.

@FizzyPepsi

The figures constantly trotted out to justify lockdown on the basis of 'long COVID' are heavily misleading.

The 1 in 8 figure covers anyone who still has any symptoms at all after 4 weeks. In the vast majority of cases, this will be a cough or tiredness.

Only 2% of people who test positive for COVID have symptoms after 12 weeks.

That makes much more sense! However, I feel I must ask if you link to the 2% figure if you don’t mind?!

Scotland are opening the first three year groups to begin with. Same as Wales.

@Cheesecats

I share the geeky need to look into RTA stats! Let me know if you end up finding something interesting.

It’s a totally fair point about an illness being different to an accident. Although I think even someone like Whitty or JVT used the speed limit analogy - we could change the law and prevent more deaths and injuries, but we take a balance between risk and reward.

It will eventually be the case with Covid that we’ll have to accept a certain number of deaths and chronic sufferers like we do with flu and other illnesses and afflictions.

The ons study didn’t look beyond 12 weeks for long Covid. However previous studies found 21% of those who tested positive (all age groups) had long Covid for 5-12 weeks. Half of those, around 10% had it for longer than 12 weeks.

So not 2%.

I’d be interested to see any studies that say 2% though. It’s still an emerging picture.

www.theguardian.com/society/2020/dec/16/long-covid-alarm-as-21-report-symptoms-after-five-weeks

5-12 weeks is still a terrible amount of time to be ill with something for children when we’re repeatedly told they all get it mild. 1 in 8 getting it this long and half of those longer doesn’t fill me with confidence but I appreciate we’re all different and understand others think differently.

I don’t know what to think.

Cases in my city rising after being quite low for months. But cases are ‘dropping’ everywhere apparently.

Local area around me has had the same steady number of cases with a tolerance of about +/- 2 for about 6 months apart from a massive spike at Christmas. But it’s not dropping. I’m not sure what to believe.

[quote MNnicknameforCVthreads]@Cheesecats

I share the geeky need to look into RTA stats! Let me know if you end up finding something interesting.

It’s a totally fair point about an illness being different to an accident. Although I think even someone like Whitty or JVT used the speed limit analogy - we could change the law and prevent more deaths and injuries, but we take a balance between risk and reward.

It will eventually be the case with Covid that we’ll have to accept a certain number of deaths and chronic sufferers like we do with flu and other illnesses and afflictions.[/quote]
I’ll let you know if I find anything! This pandemic has reminded me what a stats need I am!

I sadly agree there will come a time where we have to say a certain figure is acceptable.

I might look up the stats for other illnesses too!

@Anonanon12

I hope so, would love to get my kids back to football and cricket for some fitness! My oh could take the kids for a bike ride with a family friend, I'd like to meet my Mum for a walk in the woods with the kids. Would make a nice enough difference to our lives.

I've been wondering this morning, with all the incredibly clever people in this world and advances in science, why hasn't anyone come up with an easy and cheap test we can all do at home 3 times a week to prove negative to having the covid, to allow people to go to work and school and pubs etc? Teamed with an app to prove the negative result to allow access to these places.... Amazes me this hasn't been created yet

I do a lateral flow test twice a week in my home. I get them from the school that I work at.

I’m really hoping for outdoor sports. My DP is a tennis coach and it’s bizarre he’s allowed to carry out 121 lessons in a park but not on a tennis court which provides a lot more space for distancing!

I want to go away in the uk for the second week at Easter.... Im not hopeful so far!

@Lissy23

I don’t think they’ll keep schools shut much longer than beginning of March, particularly for primary. Especially when Scotland are sending younger kids back this month potentially.

Schools are not shut... about a third of kids are currently attending the school where I work.

Back to sodding outdoor mixing again. Whoopee, get to see my entitled annoying ILs who are fairly close and still don't get to see my vulnerable DPs who've seen their GCs once in 14 months because they're miles away. Can't wait!

I know indoor mixing has to wait, I wouldn't go near any elderly rellies until 2nd vaccine dose had kicked in anyway, but bloody hell it's a long slog if your nearest and dearest can only be visited with an overnight stay. I get so fed up of hearing talk about meeting bloody outdoors

@MNnicknameforCVthreads

www.kcl.ac.uk/news/study-identifies-those-most-risk-long-covid

2.3% (1 in 50) have symptoms after 12 weeks.

There are still unprecedented numbers of covid patients in hospital and a lot of them in the under 65 age groups.

Many patients are in hospital for several weeks or months, and new infections are still at 150,000 a week so we have a while to go to get back to even early September levels of 12,000 new cases a week and hospitals not dominated by covid.

We need to get numbers right down so that lifesaving operations can be resumed, and people dying of other things or going blind, or in pain can be seen. For a lot of outpatients it's been over a year now.

I read/watched this article on sky news tonight

news.sky.com/story/covid-19-when-can-lockdown-finally-end-this-is-what-scientists-are-looking-out-for-12209567

and it makes a lot of sense. While cases are falling quite rapidly, we currently still have over 1000% more people in hospital than when we last started to reopen pubs (using that as the measure as last time they were before gyms etc), and the positivity rate last time we started to reopen shops, pubs etc was 0.03% in the general population, it is currently 1.55%, so there is still a way to go on both figures before we're in a semi comparable situation to last time lockdown was lifted. I don't want lockdown to go on any longer than anyone else, but my business spent more last year on necessary adaptations to become covid secure as well as lost costs in sudden closures that we couldn't recoup than we took in the entire year. I really really want this to be the last lockdown of this scale, and if an extra few weeks or even couple of months achieves that then it's going to put a lot of smaller hospitality/leisure/tourism type businesses in a much stronger position longer term. The NHS pressure is easing, but it's still immense and again they need to be in a position where they don't have half the hospital devoted to patients with one illness so it can get back to treating other conditions which may be currently getting worse due to a lack of treatment.