@delilahbucket
Fully vaccinated or negative test for entry. The scientists are watching these events very closely as it's great data for them to see how Covid spreads when people are close by but vaccinated or testing negative. Despite what Facebook users say, these events are actually very useful.
Most scientists would disagree
www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/25/uk-covid-pilot-events-record-no-substantial-outbreaks
Scientists have warned that it is very difficult to draw any conclusions from the tests because although all event attenders were required to provide a negative rapid test – a lateral flow test – as the condition of entry into the events, they are not considered as effective as the gold standard PCR test.
PCR testing before and after an event was a voluntary request for attenders. Although PCR tests take at least a day to give results, they are far more reliable.
Paul Hunter, a professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia, said it was difficult to draw any valid conclusions about the magnitude of the Covid transmission risk, because only a small proportion of people tested were tested after the event.
“I don’t think we can actually draw many strong conclusions out of this at all really – other than there does seem to be an increased risk associated with indoor events compared to outdoor events. But we knew that already,” he said.
Allyson Pollock, a clinical professor of public health at Newcastle University, described the study as “very poor” and the £2bn spent on Innova lateral flow tests – the type used in the ERP – as a “public scandal” due to their “very low return rate and very low yield”.
The government was trying to balance the economic benefits of opening events against the harms they are going to cause by spreading Covid, said Jon Deeks, a professor of biostatistics at the University of Birmingham. “But they haven’t really got that counted properly.”
In July, more than 60,000 fans will be allowed into Wembley for the semi-finals and final ofEuro 2020. Deeks said the main reason the positive cases were low in the initial dataset was because of the very low prevalence of disease at that time. “But it won’t be as good at the Euro 2020 finals,” he added.