Westminstenders: How many Dead Cats Do You Get In A Thunderstorm?

[RedToothBrush]

It never rains. It only pours.

What I wouldn't give for a bit of old fashioned drizzle right now.

4 years on and we are facing a torment of calamities. Brexit, serious political instability in the USA ahead of an election that Trump will refuse to lose even if he does, trade deals with the rest of the world put on 6 week deadlines, anger within the commonwealth, a sick weak dependent PM on the back foot and ill briefed, rampant growing corruption in the Tory party, woke nut jobs out of touch with reality, councils on the brink of bankruptcy and the whole covid-19 crisis.

Agree about how angry young people are. It's more a restlessness and uncertainty, that risks tipping into anger. Or is anger that is being 'swallowed' as depression.

I'm furious at the impact thus is having on the young. And it's a choice.

It's really interesting watching what is unfolding in London. It's not good.

I have two University Age children. Many other posters on here are in the same situation.
We KNOW what they are thinking.
The Government do not.

You know, I wonder, ListeningQuietly. In my bleaker moments, I think the Johnson circle know full well.
And they are hoping for incidents that will make people huddle around a 'strong leader'.

And it's just such an authoritarian thing to keep schools shut, isn't it? I just keep remembering the chapter in 'Wild Swans' by Jung Chang, where all the schools are shut.

Channel 4 are reporting that he (Keir) have her a chance to take it down, and refused.
Guess not so much of a team player..... well not Keir's team anyway.....

JeSuisPoulet studies also show that what is typed into the computer is far less well encoded and memorised by the brain.
One reason, amongst others, why I have banned computers from my lecture halls and classrooms for all students other than those with SEN for whom computers are useful aids.

I would caution against using antibody test to prove anything at this point, I've not seen good proof of its false positive / negative rate

For us I don't think its about purely establishing whether we might be now immune.

The issue is more that we seriously think that we were early cases, because we have this China link and a lot of friends who had 'unusal' illness at the end of last year which remain unexplained despite extensive investigation. For me personally, I had symptoms which I was told were 'all in my head' in February by a doctor, which are now sounding a lot like a post viral response consistent with what other people who have had covid have had.

Our friend who is likely to get it through work, has good reason for the company to be doing antibody testing and they are scientifically astute enough to understand what it may or may not mean.

So its less about immunity and more about understanding the spread of the disease.

The scenes from Bournemouth beach are shocking but more because of faecal borne diseases

Absolutely - a basic public health issue that was learnt in the 19th century. But never mind hey, now we have left the EU we can go back to having filthy beaches. I well remember going to Rhyl as a child, where the tide goes out a long way and past the sewage outfalls. These were shut off when the tide was out, but there were brown stains on the sand. Nice huh? I should say well I'm still here so it never did me any harm, but I am not doing, I would rather bathe in clean water and sit on clean beaches.

@RedToothBrush

We believe we probably had covid around here in Nov / Dec - there is a direct China connection which is why we are particularly convinced that it was here earlier than thought (lots of other small details too). One of our friends has just said his work place are going to do antibody tests in the next couple of weeks. If he doesn't get it DH has found somewhere locally doing the Abbott test and he's said he'd do it just to see if we have all had it. If either have antibodies it's almost certain we've all had it.

Please have a read about positive predictive value of the antibody tests before drawing conclusions. Depending on the test sensitivity and specificity, a positive result might mean only a 50/50 chance that you actually have antibodies, and even if it's correct you may well have had asymptomatic infections later. I am highly sceptical that your family had COVID19 so early, when there would've been low hundreds of infections in a very localized area of China.

Re antibody tests - it can take up to 3 weeks to produce antibodies, and a certain % people who have had Covid won’t make antibodies.

In a Chinese study of recuperating Covid patients 30% didn’t have antibodies.

Doesn’t really prove anything. I think these tests will just confuse everyone.

Some people, especially younger ones, might use T cells and hence not manufacture antibodies in any detectable quantity

@TheMship Several reports that the amount of COVID antibodies goes rapidly down within months
I gather this would typically happen for many viruses

Would people with few detectable antibodies left after a few months still have immunity for a year or two ?

Reportedly T cell immunity lasts for years
and some Tcell immunity for SARS was found (in some countries affected earlier by SARS) to help those people with COVID

Part of my concerns for those suffering longterm effects of COVID is the denial by some that this happens

so they will struggle to convince
employers, benefits office, unsympathetic GPs, even friends or partners

Re antibody tests - it can take up to 3 weeks to produce antibodies, and a certain % people who have had Covid won’t make antibodies.
HOW
can they know this
most people do not go near a medic
so the medics have no idea when they became infected
if they became infected
if it was something else
if they have had COVID before

the data is dismally weak

I think listening a lot of the data is coming from overseas

Listening Antibodies are specific - tests distinguish those for COVID from other Coronaviruses

What matters wrt antibodies is for how long they provide immunity - and whether it is full or partial

Tests can also show if T cells were activated instead, which can alos provide immunity

Representative sampling (like opinion polls !) around say London, or the whole country,
would give an estimate, within standard deviations of error, of the degree of immunity

Currently, it is estimated that 5-7% of the UK have COVID antibodies
No figures for T cells, because they would probably be mostly in the under-30 survivors

mrsL
But until its been peer reviewed its little more than press releases
free publication is FAB but must be taken with the right caveats
If ANYBODY is basing medical decisions in the UK on PrePub reports
it will get messy later

Serology studies from abroad with % antibodies suggests Europe is v far from "herd immunity":

5% France
5% Spain
7% Sweden
1% Denmark
1% Norway

However, some COVID epicentres have much higher levels:

37% A small town in N Italy where 1% of the population died

42.4% In a tiny Austrianski resort, just published
www.i-med.ac.at/mypoint/news/746359.html

PHE / Uni Cambridge have carried out serology studies which produced the UK estimates

I think I am a big enough girl to understand all this thank you.

I know why my friend's employer is looking to do antibody tests too.

I'll park it there.

Are we allowed a sweepstake on Shadow Ed Sec?
I'll put my empty wallet on Yvette Cooper

PS, £900,000 excellently spent IMHO
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53183925
bring on the wood pigeons

I wonder if this scary Mirror front page is supposed to remind readers of Farage's scary ref poster
(this time with nearly all whites as the scary hordes)

I was wondering if the timing was connected with this www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jun/23/uk-to-launch-genetic-study-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-cfs?CMP=share_btn_fb&fbclid=IwAR3t3qF1UtTIZ5WfaWT1f2BTtP6uqSRio0xJeuk8piZrb5MXs_mKMWKihP8 as I suspect we will have an epidemic of chronic fatigue after COVID.

Red I know another family who came down with it in December. Her child seems oddly susceptible and also had swine flu a few years back . No one believed her then either, but they were tested and it was confirmed. I know we are supposed to believe this wasn't here until late Jan but we've hardly kept our finger on the pulse here and China haven't been keeping the world abreast of it either.

Data is shockingly bad here as we know, not least thanks to the lack of treatment for anyone not turning blue with COVID in the early days and being allowed into hospital. We have no idea how long antibodies last and I would be amazed there aren't studies in progress on this topic alone.

These ridiculous crowds could enable BJ & co to wiggle out from under the blame if COVID should rise again

However, imo there won't be a 2nd wave this summer, probably just "ripples" or rather clusters, until at least Autumn
and hopefully much longer now that so much more is known about avoiding or squashing new clusters.

BCF that might be true for Germany, but in UK we have known what to do and repeatedly failed to do it. At all, not just properly. We see now that regular testing for NHS staff has been voted down by MP's (yesterday) and has anyone heard of PPE stocks being replenished? And the lack of contact tracing? Anyone heard any more about how we know aircon can carry this, yet are allowing pubs and cinemas to open in peak summer? I like the optimism of Autumn but I wouldn't be completely surprised by a mid/late August wave.

"I know I risk being boring on this but ... it's like this huge, invisible elephant. And it's a massive deal. And it really was R L-B's job to point this out.
And it really didn't happen."

I think that sums up the Corbyn years: wide open goals totally missed.
I don't think Starmer had any choice if he was to avoid the kind of headlines that Corbyn attracted.