Children and young adults are in danger – and so are their vulnerable relatives. But kids are still in school and uni – and with no masks in class
Health Secretary Matt Hancock appeared on BBC News this morning and admitted that the Tories’ claims that there is little evidence for the young suffering serious COVID complications or that they transmit the coronavirus to older people are false.
Hancock said that students and children can suffer debilitating ‘long COVID’ symptoms for months after infection – and can easily infect vulnerable relatives:
But for months the Tories have justified their haste to push children back into school by insisting that children are at almost zero risk of serious COVID-19 – and that there is little evidence that they transmit the virus to others.
Their claims flew in the face of scientific evidence, but the Tories have just blown their own argument out of the water.
Yet they are pressing ahead anyway and their new restrictions change nothing significant in those settings, while infection rates (now at the highest rate in the whole history of the UK pandemic), hospital admissions and deaths rocket exponentially and the UK is on the verge of replicating the catastrophe of the first wave.
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This may provide an effective testing solution.
Four Covid-19 sniffer dogs have begun work at Helsinki airport in a state-funded pilot scheme that Finnish researchers hope will provide a cheap, fast and effective alternative method of testing people for the virus.
A dog is capable of detecting the presence of the coronavirus within 10 seconds and the entire process takes less than a minute to complete, according to Anna Hielm-Björkman of the University of Helsinki, who is overseeing the trial.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/24/close-to-100-accuracy-airport-enlists-sniffer-dogs-to-test-for-covid-19
Well, there’s a woman who can smell Parkinson’s disease so this is reasonable in concept – whether the dogs are capable of spreading coronavirus to a second person after smelling it on the first is a concern.
Not sure how that can be avoided.
David – If you read the article you will see that the current methodology being used makes this impossible.
Ideally this would eventually be used like the the drug sniffer dogs are used in airports It could prove to be a game changer for a wide variety of venues.
As far as I’m aware there is no evidence that dogs can pass Covid-19 to humans. The chances of a sniffer dog passing on an infection in a similar scenario to how drug dogs are used appear to be extremely unlikely.
Yeah, I hadn’t read the article. Wipes do seem adequate to isolate passenger>dog>passenger – but that leaves the flight itself of course, and the question of whether the dog can smell which passengers have been infected in the previous few hours, say at the departure airport.
If the purpose is to avoid quarantine for incoming passengers I’d argue it’s far from being as secure.
David – The argument is that it is an extra line of defence in the fight against the spread of decease. Even using the current methodology it doesn’t take much imagination to work out how this could be beneficial in locations like schools
It’s utility would depend on a number of factors, not least the difficulty I assume there’ll be in finding and training enough reliable dogs for all the locations they’d be needed.
32,700 schools and 150 universities for a start, accommodating c.12,000,000 youngsters aged 5 to 19.
The strong likelihood is that the emergency will be over, or better tests or vaccines will be available long before dogs could begin to make a measurable difference outside of secure locations like airports – where people are accustomed to being funnelled and IDs checked anyway.
David – Apparently the training isn’t difficult or time consuming. There are obstacles to everything but despite your doubts active research is taking place in the UK to scientifically establish the efficacy of the method with a view to deploying dogs at airports within 5 months. It is also worth noting that the trials for using malaria detection dogs in the general community as a method of detecting asymptomatic carriers appear to be going well
It would be negligent not to explore every avenue of research.
Airports, ports and other points of entry are ideal locations, obviously.
It might also offer some reassurance to audiences at large sports and music events.
Schools less so I think, but given that the people involved are unlikely to have been diverted from vaccine research I have no criticism of funding, expanding and implementing this strand in the usual progressive manner.
I understand a number of vaccines are being fast-tracked and I don’t think it’s unduly optimistic to hope that at least one will be effective.
If the vaccines all fail or give only short-lived protection, as is possible, dogs may turn out to be essential and who knows, it may become commonplace for training in disease detection to accompany obedience training for pet dogs.
And rats can sniff out landmines
Isaac. The Story of a Little Giant
Meet the landmine-detecting super rat! [26 minutes]
https://rtd.rt.com/films/isaac-the-story-of-a-little-giant-landmine-detector-pouch-rat/
And rats can sniff out landmines
They also have a knack at waiting until a thread about yet more stammer shithousery has become passe before putting up a comment in the small hours of the morning of the rodent regent once again extolling himself, but putting forward NO policy – after having already broken every promise he made when wanting your vote to usurp the leadership.
Get the both of them (plus a fair few others) out to Cambodia or Angola or somewhere where they can be put to far better, far more practical use that Allan linked to.
Our Rats here are far too intelligent…and socialist to put up with the verminouse knight or any more bombs dropped by the USA on Cambodians working in the rice fields ,or the legacy of long-term health problems caused by the illegal chemical weapons inside the bombs.We are still waiting for some sort of compensation from the USA and an apology for the criminal bombing campaign against Cambodia during the war in Vietnam.The legacy is all around us in crippled adults and deformed children much of it down to the capitalist war.and the evil of an insane leader.of the Khmer rouge.The people of the UK are now experiencing a genocidal lunatic running the country and backed by Brother keir in all is finery.Giant Rats do not only thrive in Cambodia and Veitnam ..,they flourish in the UK.
Now that even the idiot fantasist Hancock finally admits that children and teens can both suffer serious consequences from covid 19, and, of more large-scale significance, SPREAD it widely to adults, where are our resident paid covid19 denier trolls , Doug, RH, etc, on here this morning to spout their usual nonsense on this key issue ? Lying low I suspect. And will the Starmerite NuLabour circus continue to claim that schools are a safe place, ‘no ifs, no buts’ ?
Or is it because their immune systems are compromised
There are no peer reviewed reports of bairns catching it, suffering from it or spreading it
Killer Snowflakes how many ordinary, decent, innocent, men, women and children have you wiped out today
Doug – I would have thought that there are many “ordinary, decent, innocent, men, women and children” who have compromised immune systems.
Nope
Nurse ! Time for the Rubber Room for the bonkers covid19 denier troll, ‘Doug’ ! He’s even more in denial now than the serial fantasist, Hancock ! Search him for copies of Conspiraloon News before locking him up – he’ll only hurt himself with it.
…. And most annoyingly this fact was already widely debated on the continent in May. Issues were also around the fact that children did not get tested as a rule. My brother who is a gp has access to the test and tests patients as a standard. He takes the tests to lab in local hospital for evaluation and diagnosis. He gets the results the next day. That in turn decides on how he will proceed. Because despite covid people may have other health issues that need to be taken care of.
Soaring infection rates
Leeds to go into lock-down from midnight tonight
London placed on ‘watch list’.
They won’t knock the footy on the head though (I hope.)
They’ll probly wait until the shite have lost a few matches and/or Everton have a few points lead at the top before they abandon the season. 🙁
The UK’s Covid-19 hospital death count has increased by 36. Double the fatalities reported a week ago.
33 deaths took place in English hospitals, with three in Wales and none in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Highest rated on BBC chat room 240/40 against Killer Snowflakes
The public are starting to see through this shit fest
Doug – What on earth are you prattling on about?
Meanwhile you’ve gotta feel for those royals…they’ve been taking a financial hit, too, apparently.
They’ll only coo for £86m for the next three years….Not that it stopped the nonce from chartering a plane for £16k to attend a golf tournament in Ulster, when hundreds of commercial flights were available.
And that was followed on ITV news by ‘glad’ tidings of yet another parasite on the way… Yes folks, the nonce is gonna be a grandfather.. wonder if he’ll be booking pizza express in Windsor for the baptism do?
Q. How long does it take for a royal to have a shit?
A. Abar 9 months….same as a Tory MP.