The number of schools hit by confirmed in-school ‘clusters‘ of coronavirus infections has risen to 595 – just in England – more than double last week’s 225.
The real number is far higher, as schools as only counting infections in the same class as a cluster and are excluding infections in multiple classes in a year group – so five infections in a class is a cluster, but ten in ten classes would not be counted:
At the same time, the number of new positive tests in Northern Ireland in the last 24 hours was 934 – almost four times yesterday’s official number of 259.
A similar level of incidence across the UK would equate to around 36,000 daily new infections.
Governments, especially in England, have all too predictably lost control of the second wave and the new measures applied patchily to local areas are unlikely to make a dent in the rate of increase.
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So what are we supposed to do, have another lockdown? At the moment all I see is hope that a vaccine will grant us immunity. The problem is, even if some of the vaccines work, and that’s a very big if, they will never provide full immunity for the old and infirm. Those with compromised immune systems will still get the virus and some will die just like people die every year from the flu.
Immunity to most viruses is provided not by a synthetic vaccine, but by our immune system’s innate and adaptive capabilities.
Actually Lundiel.
Both the chief candidates for China’s Vaccine program and that in Russia have a decent efficacy as far as those over 65 are concerned, this means an immune response of above 50 according to the CDC, both vaccines are higher than 60.
Further, the first recipients for these vaccines, after testing on Military personnel, are front line medical staff, and then those deemed most at risk, before population-wide rollout.
China expects to launch its national vaccine program by December, and has made arrangements for quite a number of emerging economies to access these vaccines at cost – China’s most expensive vaccine in State Three testing is a two-stage vaccine and costs about US$100, whilst its other vaccine candidates cost significantly less.
And, if we think this pathogen cannot be contained, well in South Korea with a population of 51 million they had 63 confirmed transmissions/infections, whilst in Hong Kong we had less than 10, most imported.
Compare with my home country of wales, which today was fast approaching 500 confirmed, infections per day, and, ensuring we recognise the deficiencies of RT-PCR tests, the figure could be 400, or more than 500, which is why, its usual to have both a pathology confirmation and clinical confirmation, which, sadly they don’t do in the UK.
It may be that your home country has a high proportion of people carrying an early human DNA strand, making them far more susceptible than people from east Asia. There is still much to learn, I would hesitate in crowing if I were you.
Lundiel,
I keep myself updated by visiting both scientific literature and Health Authority websites in Asia, the best of which is in English and found in South Korea.
I also have a great deal of faith in the Chinese, who have been throwing out large numbers of STEM Post Graduates, many of whom have then done stints in Western Nations.
Still, Im happy with less than one transmission per million where I reside and that was achieved by hard work and sacrifice.
It’s hardly “crowing” to point out differences in competency between governments.
We should all be demanding that the Tories explain why they haven’t followed the obvious examples set by other countries instead of spending 99% of their time and our resources trying to conceal their own incompetence.
And demanding of the red tories why they’re doing such a dismal job of holding the government to account on its dismal performance.
If Corbyn had been PM and the UK had had only half the number of cases of any other country, imagine the derision that would have been heaped on him for “being so useless” as to have any cases at all.
I think lundiel is primarily concerned with the vaccine WE’LL be offered, whose source may well be far less trust-worthy than that of the vaccine offered to Russian or Chinese people!
The number of clusters is substantially higher in primary & secondary schools than in other establishments, according to the table above.
This shows the madness of the push to reopen schools early. It seems children over 10 years old carry the same viral load as adults, so teenagers an carry the virus home to elderly relatives.
With secondary schools having the infection rates above, we see it is just a matter of time before we see a rise in infection rates among the most vulnerable section of the population as a result of Covid19 passed to them by their teenage grandchildren.
We must hold this Government to account on this.
And “no ifs no buts” Sir Keir Rodney Starmer.
You leave Keith alone, he’s doing a brilliant job supporting Bojo and selling himself to the mythical New Working Class.
Sorry, had an attack of Centrism, so seeking medical assistance now!
Jonathan Cook’s latest post…..
Doubt is a treacherous path. We must avoid being diverted towards terminal cynicism
What I think of as the cynical left are once again berating the progressive critical left, myself included, for failing to write what they want written about Covid-19. I take this as a kind of unintended compliment: that they think we can write about their concerns better than they can themselves.
But even if I wished to write someone else’s argument rather than my own, it would still be difficult to know for sure what the cynical left wants from progressive writers: that we pronounce the pandemic fake, or that we declare the danger from it overblown, or that we denounce mask-wearing as an infringement on personal liberty, or that we argue lockdown is a prelude to George Orwell’s 1984. Or maybe all of these.
https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2020-10-01/doubt-path-despair-cynicism/
Off Guardian were not amused, they’ve been having a bit of a scrap with Jonathan today on Twitter.
It occurs to me that whilst ‘cases’, vague as it is, is an important indicator of spread, and ‘deaths’ is obviously hugely significant, statistics on the seriousness, progression and ongoing prognoses of cases are lacking and would also have been useful had they been made available from the beginning.
If a confirmed, symptomless case was say level 10, and full ICU with ventilation or oxygen was level 1, and figures for every age group were known, maybe we’d all be better able to judge the risks to ourselves and our daily contacts.
As things stand we don’t know how many infected have no contact whatever with doctors, how many have from mild flu symptoms to much worse symptoms or hospitalisation, or what the prevalence, nature and range of durations of persistent debilitating symptoms might be.
Maybe if we we’d been better informed we’d have made different and better choices is all I’m saying.
Maybe next time Cumminge the ‘brilliant strategist’ could turn his skills to something useful?
At last you’re talking sense!
I would also say that 9 months into the virus there is no excuse for calling death from any cause within 28 days of a positive test, death with/from coronavirus.
What I’ve just written still doesn’t support the denialist view and neither does the fact that the numbers have changed.
I was always “talking sense” based on the numbers at the time.
I’ve stated previously that the apparently far lower deaths-to-cases ratio in this current upward phase needs a confirmed explanation before we proceed on the assumption that the death rate will remain low and I still say that.
If deaths remain as proportionately low as they are I’d say a return to normalcy – with efforts concentrated on guarding the vulnerable – is reasonable.
Nah. Most of the time you talk rubbish, the rest of the time you spend justifying that rubbish.
Tell your MP you want them to save your food standards
https://www.sustainweb.org/news/agriculture-bill-action-2020/
Please share far and wide.
Just came across a link to this on Craig Murray’s blog:
Revealed: Key Assange prosecution witness is part of academic cluster which has received millions of pounds from UK and US militaries
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-10-02-revealed-key-assange-prosecution-witness-is-part-of-academic-cluster-which-has-received-millions-of-pounds-from-uk-and-us-militaries/
Just came across the following interview – ie the transcript of – with John Pilger:
Eyewitness to the Agony of Julian Assange
https://www.globalresearch.ca/eyewitness-agony-julian-assange/5725538
Please take the time to read it.
Thanks Allan…Tears ran down my face after reading the Agony of Julian Assange….I felt numb after reading that report from Pilger. No human being should be trampled and tortured in such a way as this.Please read this moving account and realise just what evil we are up against.
Off topic but there have been 21,000 new businesses registered since the government announced bounce-back loans. Given that very few people would realistically start a new business in lockdown and the ease of getting a loan, I think there are about 20,000 very happy entrepreneurs out there.
Sorry, that should have read 21,000 in the first week after bounce-back loans were made available.
⭐⭐⭐ BREAKING NEWS ⭐⭐⭐
Donald Trump is to be admitted to hospital, where he will remain ‘for a few days’ on the advice of doctors.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/breaking-donald-trump-admitted-hospital-22784755#source=breaking-news
Probably had an overdose of bleach.
It’s a blag. He’s hiding in Boris’s election campaign fridge!
TRACK AND TRACE – from MS (last Thursday)
CROSS-PARTY group of council leaders has called on Health Secretary Matt Hancock to scrap privateers’ contracts in the coronavirus test-and trace-scheme.
The Labour, Green and Tory council leaders said that Mr Hancock should fund local public-health teams to run the system instead.
Three-quarters of the British public agree, with just 14 per cent saying they want it run privately, according to a poll conducted by Survation and commissioned by campaign group We Own It.
Outsourcing giant Serco and call-centre company Sitel were initially contracted to run the system up to August 23. Their contracts were extended, potentially up to the value of £528 million and for an undisclosed time, despite ongoing issues.
Government figures published yesterday show that the system has contacted only 71.3 per cent of those tested for the virus during the latest period, a decrease from 80.8 per cent the week before.
Labour shadow health minister Justin Madders said the drop of nearly 10 per cent was “appalling” and “should not be happening at this point.”
He added: “And on the day it is revealed Deloitte, which is contracted by the government to run test and trace, is trying to sell its contact-tracing services to local councils, it is clearer than ever that [the company’s] time would be better spent improving the huge issues in the existing system.”
More than 160,000 people have signed a petition by campaign group Keep Our NHS Public calling for the NHS to run test and trace.
Petition-starter Dr Louise Irvine said she knew from experience how important an effective test-and-trace system is, as her father died from Covid-19 and two of her relatives were hospitalised.
“I’m appalled that the government has put ideology before people’s lives,“ Dr Irvine said.
Skwawky- please don’t support the government by fallind into the economy-obliterating trap of referring to positive PCR test results as “cases”. They are NOT medical cases.
Also, given the high number of False Positive results generated by PCR tests, the TRUE number of positive results for covid is much much lower.
Covid19 denier conspiraloon troll alert ! Even Trump might by now be realising that covid19 isn’t some sort of ‘hoax’ , dummy.
Dummy indeed. So speaks pant-pisser penney, the fearless voice of the radical left! 😷😂