Shops/pubs/indoor mixing 'not till cases under 1000 a day'

[bathsh3ba]

According to The Telegraph.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/16/covidlockdown-continue-cases-drop-1000-day/

First it was save lives.
Then it was prevent hospitalisations and protect the NHS.
Now it's all down to cases apparently.

Beginning to think the whole thing is pointless. OK so schools may partly open and some outdoor mixing but even that is sounding unsure.

Amongst our age group -40s we are no longer following the social mixing rules

And presumably will you be sending your children to school when you can? Terrific...

Yes
And I’m a teacher

Hardly anything in that article

The case numbers are an unknown ‘senior Whitehall source’ the rest is gradual opening which is not a surprise

simple way to get under 1,000 positive cases per day is to stop testing everyone
I bet the government are going to do just that. They'll quietly ease off testing, or "lose" or redefine positive results, to make it look as if case numbers are coming down. After all, they did the opposite: they tested more and more and more, and then screamed "LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOK!!!!!! Cases are going up and up and up!!!!!" This hallowed government never falsifies data. And pigs can fly.

@Pastanred

Indoor mixing happening for many now

Allowed or not

I’ve had 3 party invites just this week from people who would never have asked few months ago

Amongst our age group -40s we are no longer following the social mixing rules

I am in my 40s as are my friends, no social mixing or party invites here. Not sure you can assume that just because your social group are mixing, indoor mixing is happening for many.

That is what I'm seeing @Pastanred. I really think people have got to the point where they've just had enough.

Anecdotally I know friends are starting to mix inside their houses and although I'm not I can see compliance starting to wane.

Once spring and the warmer weather comes I can see the government struggling to keep us locked down.

@wanderings

simple way to get under 1,000 positive cases per day is to stop testing everyone I bet the government are going to do just that. They'll quietly ease off testing, or "lose" or redefine positive results, to make it look as if case numbers are coming down. After all, they did the opposite: they tested more and more and more, and then screamed "LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOK!!!!!! Cases are going up and up and up!!!!!" This hallowed government never falsifies data. And pigs can fly.

Sadly I think the opposite is true

The government will ramp up testing in order to keep positive case numbers high and to maintain the fear factor. This in turn will help them justify a very slow relaxing of restrictions and the introduction of vaccine passports through the back door.

The new three word slogan coming soon

Get ready, get tested, go...

Amongst our age group -40s we are no longer following the social mixing rules
-And presumably will you be sending your children to school when you can? Terrific...
Yes..And I’m a teacher

Christ on a bike, I read things like this and wonder if I'm going to be able to send ds (medically vulnerable) back to school at all, before there is a vaccine suitable for children.

@Pastanred

Indoor mixing happening for many now

Allowed or not

I’ve had 3 party invites just this week from people who would never have asked few months ago

Amongst our age group -40s we are no longer following the social mixing rules

This is the case in my social group too.

@wanderings

simple way to get under 1,000 positive cases per day is to stop testing everyone I bet the government are going to do just that. They'll quietly ease off testing, or "lose" or redefine positive results, to make it look as if case numbers are coming down. After all, they did the opposite: they tested more and more and more, and then screamed "LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOK!!!!!! Cases are going up and up and up!!!!!" This hallowed government never falsifies data. And pigs can fly.

Duh! When cases started going up last August onwards, people were saying the same "it's only because we're testing more". Then a few weeks later, hospitalisations increased, then a few weeks later, deaths increased. By that time, it was too late to control it as exponential growth had taken hold.

Not sure why people are so surprised - the R rate is barely below 1. Many hospitals are still more full than they were at the first peak. I am SO over lockdown (central London) but any relaxing has to be cautious because all of these people saying ‘reopen everything now’ are I assume going to want treatment in hospital for car accidents / cancer / broken legs / hip replacements etc etc. Opening schools surely will increase the R rate, let’s just hope it is not too much to tip hospitals over the edge.

@Pastanred

Yes And I’m a teacher

Christ on a bike, I read things like this and wonder if I'm going to be able to send ds (medically vulnerable) back to school at all, before there is a vaccine suitable for children

I hope vulnerable kids will be allowed to continue with home education if they choose, or that at least masks will be mandated for all.

It must be very hard to see how grown adults are willing to risk your child because they want to go to a party.

I've never been so ashamed of living in this country - the appalling behaviour towards vulnerable groups.

Lateral flow testing for asymptomatic cases has really been ramped up these last couple of weeks in many areas - recommended twice a week for anyone frontline who does not get tested in the workplace includes bluelight services, postal workers, utility workers, early years staff, bus and cab drivers, supermarket workers, some volunteers eg at vaccine hubs and no doubt this will contribute to positive cases nowadays.

@Pastanred

Indoor mixing happening for many now

Allowed or not

I’ve had 3 party invites just this week from people who would never have asked few months ago

Amongst our age group -40s we are no longer following the social mixing rules

How pathetic. I am glad I don’t know anyone like you.

Hey don’t worry, if you are enough of a minority you might be able to just piggyback on everyone else’s sacrifices and efforts.

I can happily wait until April for a mooch around tkmaxx and my first haircut since August, so long as my autistic teen can get back to school ASAP.

@Pastanred

Indoor mixing happening for many now

Allowed or not

I’ve had 3 party invites just this week from people who would never have asked few months ago

Amongst our age group -40s we are no longer following the social mixing rules

Wow 🤦‍♀️😔

To be fair, pastanred has been openly anti lockdown restrictions for a long time. If she / he has been as open about this in real life as online, then I should imagine that his / her friendship circle is likely to have become one of similarly-minded individuals. Through self-selection, this becomes self-perpetuating.

It's the same with any polarising issue - those who are like-minded, especially if vociferous, will tend to group together, so that in a specific 'micro group', everyone will tend to have the same views, which unless the members of that group are careful it begins to appear that 'everyone' shares.

This works both ways - it is perfectly possible that pastanred's current friendship group is of lockdown breakers, and another poster's is of lockdown keepers. The interesting question is the national balance.

I do hope that, if your social indoor mixing leads to a dose of covid after schools go back, you aren’t on these boards blaming the children and insisting schools need to be closed.

As SAGE have said that the false positive rate for PCR tests is 0.8% to 4% (it can't be as high as 4% as positives, true or false, weren't that high last summer), we will need do no more than 25,000 (for 4%, so not that low) to 125,000 tests per day to keep under 1000 positives even if no one has the virus at all.

You can scream 'Covid denier' all you like but you can't change the maths. Although it's imprecise as we don't know the exact FPR.

We were getting under 1000 positives on 150000 tests a day last summer. If that’s a recent number, then SAGE might need to redo their calculations. I suspect the FPR is quite a lot lower than 0.8%

@RafaIsTheKingOfClay

We were getting under 1000 positives on 150000 tests a day last summer. If that’s a recent number, then SAGE might need to redo their calculations. I suspect the FPR is quite a lot lower than 0.8%

I posted a link earlier in the thread from the autumn where an FPR of 0.8% was being quoted in an article explaining why false positives weren't a significant issue. However, as you say, our low cases over the summer suggests this rate looks like an overstatement. A pp upthread mentioned that David Spiegelhalter suggests a FPR of 0.05% for PCR tests, for example.

However, a difference from where we were in the summer is the rise in random mass testing via lateral flow tests. I also posted this link earlier, which gives a FPR of 0.32% for lateral flow tests (clearly, the false negatives are still a much much bigger issue with these tests).

fullfact.org/health/lateral-flow-test/

I don't know if there have been any further advances on calculating the FPR for lateral flow tests since this article was published? Today, the government are floating the idea of sending out 400k lateral flow tests daily for random testing purposes. 0.32% of 400k is 1,280 cases. If the 0.32% is a reasonable figure, then I can't see how this issue can be completely disregarded if we do start random mass testing on a major scale.

Yes Rafals
It’s 0.5% based on the ONS data from last summer according to David Spiegelhalter in that video I posted upthread.

Oops! 0.05%

And cross post with cornishyarg

And yes to the issue of mass testing without symptoms.
hamstersarse also pointed this out earlier.

Surely they will publish those numbers separately?
We also have to consider surge testing which is effectively community/random PCR testing.