October Becomes November Lockdown

[BlueThursday]

New thread

I suspect this will be the second of many

@WouldBeGood

Yep, apparently Lanarkshire is being considered for tier 4.

It is possible though that this ‘leak’ is something similar to the one a few weeks ago when a full ‘circuit breaker’ was being mooted in the papers. Nice Nicola won’t go quite as far but it’s warning of what will happen if we don’t behave.

It’ll be interesting to see whether any Lothian or Forth Valley representatives oppose the imposition of tier 3 as seems likely. Doesn’t seem to make any sense when the infection rate is far lower than the west.

Not that i agree with any of it, but if we are looking to be fair then Lanarkshire and Glasgow should be a tier above Edinburgh, West Lothian and Tayside and maybe some other parts of the central belt with the rest of the central belt and the borders and Perthshire coming in behind and some remote areas returned to at least zero.

Obviously missed loads of areas there but you get the gist.

You either do it fairly based on cases per 100k for each council area or you just give ratings arbitrarily based on who you don't or do mind pissing off at the time.

I kind of agree @WaxOnFeckOff. The testing we have just now seems to be the worst of all worlds- slow, not very reliable, false positive rate which may be enough to skew stats badly. We either sort that out properly combined with good data gathering and analysis so we can answer the kinds of questions above or we stop and focus on clinical cases.

I have struggled to find good data on the false positive rates - there's a lot of conspiracy theorist crap out there to wade through!

I like Ivor Cummings, he might have done something specific about explaining the false positives but does tend to cover it briefly in most of his videos. There was also a poster on here (a bio chemist?) who gave a very simple explanation of even how the error rate was a huge factor when you start to test people with no symptoms, that was months ago though so no chance of me remembering which post it was.

I found this from The Lancet

Useful, statistics people?

The conspiracy stuff is everywhere too, I agree.

The estimate of 0.8% - 4% false positive is one I have seen before (along with others which are very high and likely incorrect)

You've basically got two problems; false negatives (not picking up someone who does have it) and false positives (saying someone has it who doesn't). When the prevalence is low in the population you are testing then false positives are more of a problem as the sheer weight of numbers means you can end up with the majority of cases being false positives. It is less of an issue when the virus is more prevalent in the test group - either because it's circulating more widely or because you're only testing people who are relatively likely to have it like symptomatic or close contacts. Then the true positives become more significant. I think that the level of false positive may also vary by lab from what I've read.

Whilst I have heard of people being retested after a positive result I don't think it's the norm - with the levels we're looking at and the consequences of self isolation (i.e. losing 2 weeks income/education for any close contacts) then retesting probably should happen especially for people with no symptoms.

Morning. For me one of the issues about the statistics is that it is a biased sample by default - only people displaying symptoms or those told to test by track and trace are getting tests, therefore you expect to get positive tests back.

And what's happened to antibody testing? All has gone quiet on this front.

This hidden away in bbc today:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53951764

That's an August article Wax and we are two months on.

I wouldn't say, however, the media are making Covid sound worse than it is. I think in terms of the Daily Fail in particular, it is the opposite, and my DF is an avid Daily Fail reader.

He believes the Fail that it isn't really that bad and we all need to get back to normal.

I think it is worse than he thinks, and I cannot say how I would do things differently from either government but we can't go back to normal either.

I hate the fucking face masks though.

All the people slagging off 'the dentist' do realise that he has public health qualifications on top don't you? But I suppose it's more fun to belittle people.

Ahh so it is, it was sent to me on my phone so didn't see the date.

Maybe people wouldn't feel the need if he wasn't such a smug arrogant prick?

FFS

I find him patronising and lacking empathy, no matter what his qualifications.

And I want a clear strategy set out for what they are actually trying to achieve. Goes for pretty much all governments.

Thanks @StatisticallyChallenged for taking a look at the article. It’s really good to get help with understanding concepts that are far from my usual abilities.

@OOAOML

All the people slagging off 'the dentist' do realise that he has public health qualifications on top don't you? But I suppose it's more fun to belittle people.

And there’s the problem with the dentist. He’s a public health official, not a media talent- they had to go into reactive mode last week over his flippant ‘digital Christmas’ mode. He’s got too relaxed in his media spotlight, I suspect they got a shock at the public backlash last week- with Nicola having to jump in like one of santa’s helpers defending him. I also suspect NS has spent a bit of money on training some of her lead councillors

@WouldBeGood

I find him patronising and lacking empathy, no matter what his qualifications.

I agree. Casually chucking around phrases like planning for a digital Christmas when he has clearly no idea that for many familiies that's an impossibility.

He's a clearer communicator, and more personable than Chris "Grim Reaper" Whitty, but that's not difficult. I actually thought Catherine Calderwood spoke and communicated very well with exactly the right level of gravitas. Pity she fucked up with her wee trip to the East Neuk.

(Posted too soon)
Her Cabinet, in getting some media training. Hope she kept the receipt for Swinney’s session.

I've wondered a bit about the snp comms strategy of late - swinney saying students may not get home for Christmas, the digital Christmas gaff from JL - I can see they're trying to lower expectations and then relax if they can but it's been clumsily done which is surprising for the SNP as getting the message they want out is pretty much what they are reliable for.

I can't see evidence there will be any serious strategy re-evaluation this side of Christmas.

Agree that Catherine Calderwood had much better delivery. Not the ‘banter’ we’re now getting from ‘everyone’s friend’ Jason.

I agree that's the strategy - drop a few things in suggesting it's going to be horrendous, and awful, and we'll all be locked in our homes, forever. Then when it's not quite so bad, but still pretty awful, they can prove how well they've done.

Also agree that Swinney is the architect of most of the gaffes - he should have gone over the "blended learning was only ever a contingency" plan, and then should have gone again over the results fiasco, but he bumbles on. He must have some serious dirt on people.

I think the comms strategy seems to be to "leak" a confusing mix of the true plans and some worse plans.

There does seem to be a leak worse, back off a bit with the true plans strategy going on. It's happened too often now for it to br coincidence

I agree re Calderwood, she came across far better. I think in a way her trip just showed that the rules are an extremely blunt instrument. Was she stupid to go to her second home? Yes. Did she put people at risk? Probably not - and I suspect she knew that.

Jason Leitch has appeared on Off the Ball on the wireless a good few times. It’s as if he wants to be one of the lads and get inside with football supporters

@BlueThursday gosh, that seems so unlikely! How was he?