[tomtom]

It’s the same swab that you stick up your nose and to the back of your throat (not in that order!).

Not at the two drive through tests I've had....

[James Malloch]

It’s the same swab that you stick up your nose and to the back of your throat (not in that order!).

Not at the two drive through tests I've had....

It's the opposite for the tests I've had up in Cumbria. One swab which is used on tonsils and nose.

[SA Chris]

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/aberdeen/2399326/aberdeen-cheese-restaurant-shuts-after-fighting-to-say-afloat-during-pandemic/

Makes of the most amazing cheese and bacon toasties are no more. I'll need to get my cholesterol elsewhere.

[Offwidth]

The analysis wintertree and I produced indicates anything from 3 in 4, to 9 in 10, of those with C19 are not being detected in the UK. This is way above any possible level of false negative effects (many sensible enough to be getting tested would presumably retest if symptoms worsen and get a later positive). This clearly shows the central government testing system is completely failing. I strongly suspect mildly affected people are avoiding tests to prevent quarantine issues. The UK is the only western nation in this position I found from the worldometer data. Italy is the closest to us in posible under-detection and they seem to be picking up three times the number of actual population positives compared to us (a ratio of 30 cf 12). As wintertree implied, journalists should be all over this.

I spotted this by accident looking at worldometer data (it surprised me) and wintertree backed it up with ONS sample based estimates of UK population infection levels. 

If the UK was more a problem with spread of positives in the young than elsewhere our daily deaths would be lower.

[sdm]

Couldn't we rule out false positives really quickly by testing a second sample as soon as someone tests positive?

With the relatively low number of cases at the moment, it wouldn't take much to retest all positives.

[sdm]

The doorstep tests they do here are one swab for both throat and nose. The drive through ones here are two separate swabs.

[chris j]

Not according to the governments own data

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/cases

According to this data cases have been rising steadily since around the 6th July. You can also see numbers in hospital, which are flat....


....The false positive rate is unknown, and incredibly hard to measure. the fraction testing positive can never drop below this value, so it must be less than a percent or so.

However it’s suspicious when no matter how many tests you run, the same fraction comes back positive. That’s more or less what’s happening now.

I recall reading a piece a week or two back showing the positive results were rising in proportion with Tier2 testing in the wider community, while the Tier1 numbers were more or less flat/decreasing. Which would indicate more of the less severe cases being picked up that then don't lead to hospitalisation. Is this not/no longer the case?

[iain]

It would be very interesting to be a fly on the wall at a meeting of SPI-M right now because I’m not sure what’s going on with UK numbers.

It looks like cases have been steadily rising since the start of July. And yet there’s been no sign of an uptick in hospitalisation or deaths. Even in the US, where initial spread was amongst the youth, deaths started to rise ~3 weeks after cases did.

I was interested in this so I asked my local public health expert.

Cases are definitely rising but as already commented almost all the positives are under 50's with the bulk being under 30's and so far they've managed to avoid passing it to their granny/grandpa. It seems that although folk aren't being careful around their peers they are being more sensible when it comes to older family.

Also public health in Sheff and elsewhere are pro-actively testing (now they have the capacity) in care homes and other groups. So far this appears to be helping contain the virus spread around the most vulnerable.

Usually you’d expect a 2–3 week lag between cases and hospitalisations at most. One explanation is that the case rise starts amongst the young and later spreads to the more vulnerable. That’s plausible, but like I said, in America that argument was also used and the rise in cases showed up as deaths 3 weeks later, like clockwork.

Notwithstanding the ineffectiveness of the national track and trace system and the decimation of resource as a result of austerity public health is still doing a massive amount of work behind the scenes at a local level attempting to keep things in check, something America doesn't have.
It won't last forever though, they've had to deal with 150 folk at a wedding last week and a funeral soon with hundreds expected. Nothing illegal anyone can take action on, just not sensible.

That could all be wrong - depending on how large the false positive rate really is, but it would be interesting to know if this is being considered at govt level...

It's certainly been considered by local public health/PHE and false postiives are not an issue. I've already asked too many questions and don't want to follow up on exactly how they've ruled it out as it's the first proper 'weekend' off in a month.

Edit: hope that's helpful

[Stu Littlefair]

It's definitely helpful! I'd certainly trust your public health guru above my idle speculation. It would be interesting to know why they're so confident that false positives are not an issue - but these people have better things to do than satisfy the curiosity of random people on internet forums!

One way of doing it would be to use infection-fatality-ratios and infection-hospitalisation ratios. These are reasonably well known from the peak of the outbreak, along with the lags between infection and hospitalisation/death. Crucially these are also broken down by age.

With these figures and the age breakdown of cases from a month or so ago, you can calculate how many people you'd expect in hospital right now. If they're in-line then false positives are probably not a big issue.

At a guess, they are doing something like this...

[Paul B]

Off now anyway to drop my 16 year old off to a beach party with 150 other kids. They have promised to socially distance and as it’s not a pub it must be fine.

You should only be socialising in groups of up to 2 households (including your support bubble) indoors and outdoors or up to 6 people from different households when outdoors.

Source: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/meeting-people-from-outside-your-household-from-4-july

Am I misunderstanding (no judgement intended) or as you've stopped them doing other things is the above basically your own assessment of risk involved or A N other reason (as in there's no stopping them and this is the least bad option)? I'm curious as from what I'm seeing people have given up listening to the Gov and are now making their own assessment of risk (vs. reward).

Here these are the local restrictions in Pendle:

You must not have visitors to your home, or your garden
You must not visit anyone else in their home or their garden
You cannot mix with other households in indoor venues like pubs and restaurants
You can still meet in public outdoor spaces, including outdoor seating or beer gardens, in groups of no more than 6 people, unless the group includes only people from 2 households
You can still meet in public spaces, like parks, where you can still meet up to 5 other people as long as you maintain social distancing
You can still travel to work
You can still go on holiday with your household members, but you must not travel to other parts of the county or country to meet up with other people
You also must not visit a care home, unless it is an exceptional circumstance

...and they're simply not being adhered to. There's been no effort locally (or as confirmed by M.E.N.) no intention to brief the restrictions out to the public.

For examples, a local cycling club stuck to the 6ppl limit but then went to the pub with each other. A colleague is expecting  and has travelled somewhere outside of the local restrictions to see their other friends who found they had idle hands during lockdown too (i.e. also expecting). The new neighbour (+1) had a garden party on Fri.

[dunnyg]

I'm sure others have pointed it out ad nauseum, but the rules don't make sense. You can go to the pub beer garden with your family, you can meet them in a park, but you can't meet them in their garden?

If one of the rules doesn't make sense, then it undermines the rest of them. I've (generally) given up on listening to government guidance, sure i'm no expert on COVID, but from my relatively un-informed background, it seems like the guidelines weren't drawn up by them anyway.

That isn't to say i'm meeting up with randoms 24/7, but popping into my parents garden the other day (calderdale), chance of catching anything form them would be very slim, and on the way back, the bars down the road are absolutely heaving with no social distancing whatsoever, but apparently it is more appropriate to meet my parents in their?

I understand the guidelines (laws?) must be flexible, but I honestly can't get over how shit this has been handled regarding communicating regulations with the general public. I'm one of the "vulnerable" types, so it has been steady for me to understand what I can and can't do up until recently, and now I don't trust govt. advice/rules/laws(?) and i'm not overly interested in staying up to date with exactly what I can/can't do as a result.

If I feel like that I can only imagine many others giving even less of a fuck.

Been a while since i've had a good rant.

I read somewhere that the UK has been preparing for this kind of event for over a decade (no reference), with policy reviews in the last 5 years. Imagine if we hadn't!

[galpinos]

I'm sure others have pointed it out ad nauseum, but the rules don't make sense. You can go to the pub beer garden with your family, you can meet them in a park, but you can't meet them in their garden?

You can't. The guidelines say no to meeting people outside your household in a beer garden, as per Paul B's post. This is then undermined slightly by the fact the law they brought it didn't cover beer gardens etc.....

If one of the rules doesn't make sense, then it undermines the rest of them. I've (generally) given up on listening to government guidance, sure i'm no expert on COVID, but from my relatively un-informed background, it seems like the guidelines weren't drawn up by them anyway.

I agree with that.

That isn't to say i'm meeting up with randoms 24/7, but popping into my parents garden the other day (calderdale), chance of catching anything form them would be very slim, and on the way back, the bars down the road are absolutely heaving with no social distancing whatsoever, but apparently it is more appropriate to meet my parents in their?

I understand the guidelines (laws?) must be flexible, but I honestly can't get over how shit this has been handled regarding communicating regulations with the general public. I'm one of the "vulnerable" types, so it has been steady for me to understand what I can and can't do up until recently, and now I don't trust govt. advice/rules/laws(?) and i'm not overly interested in staying up to date with exactly what I can/can't do as a result.

If I feel like that I can only imagine many others giving even less of a fuck.

Been a while since i've had a good rant.

I read somewhere that the UK has been preparing for this kind of event for over a decade (no reference), with policy reviews in the last 5 years. Imagine if we hadn't!

In Manchester, it definitely feels like people have NOT embraced the new guidelines and are continuing as before. Everyone has their own excuse/scenario that makes them exempt from the rules......

[dunnyg]

Missed the not with the pub, sorry!

I doubt all the people in that bar were from the same house!

Not sure if the uptake is much better in calderdale.

True about everyone having a reason. I suppose I am part of the problem.

[tomtom]

Another day with more than 1k new cases.... it’s only heading one way at the moment...

Edit: 9/10 pubs visited in Manchester not obeying distancing/name taking in this story. When you watch the vid you can understand the landlords reasoning in many ways... bonkers rules.

[SA Chris]

https://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/fp/news/local/investigation-launched-as-new-covid-19-cases-thought-to-be-linked-to-north-east-social-gathering/

Looks like 'shire is about to follow Aberdeen, i think we have until the weekend if we are lucky. Wife's birthday on Friday, we were hoping to go somewhere.

[tomtom]

Watching the A level mock grade fudge reaction unfold.

Looks like this government can’t even do a U turn properly! Suspect MrJA has something useful to contribute to this - mock grades look like a very inconsistent measure....

[Wil]

It's another example of an entirely foreseeable problem that is being dealt with on the fly rather than properly planned. Controlling the overall grades of a cohort is entirely possible (at least within subjects with a high enough uptake) and happens every year to some extent. Controlling individual grades doesn't and was always going to be fraught, especially if they're accounting for past school performance.

As a (sometime) maths teacher predicting A-Level grades can be reasonably accurate and in almost every case higher than their mock grade. In other subjects I suspect it's a lot harder to predict.

[gme]

My youngest is due his GCSE results which I think will be looked at  in the same way although neither him or I are actually bothered as he is going on to 6th form to do A levels and has a place regardless.
I took the announcement yesterday as This.

Your going to be given a grade that is based on teachers assessment and algorithms based on the schools and national statistics.

If your not happy with this result you can defer to what you got in your mocks.

If your still not happy with that you can resit in the autumn.

All seems fair to me. Can’t really see what other options they have? 

[andy popp]

This should be another nail in the coffin of Britain's bizarre system of university entry.

[tomtom]

Gav - fine except that means doing another set of exams in Autumn and all the revision and rigmarole for that and many people need the grades tomorrow not later go get their desired University place.

Though admissions this year is likely to be a right mess with most of the Russel group losing 20-50% of their student income due to the dive in international student recruitment.

[James Malloch]

My youngest is due his GCSE results which I think will be looked at  in the same way although neither him or I are actually bothered as he is going on to 6th form to do A levels and has a place regardless.
I took the announcement yesterday as This.

Your going to be given a grade that is based on teachers assessment and algorithms based on the schools and national statistics.

If your not happy with this result you can defer to what you got in your mocks.

If your still not happy with that you can resit in the autumn.

All seems fair to me. Can’t really see what other options they have?

To copy a quote from the National Union of Students:

We called this week for the UK government to ensure any exam resits were free to the student, and we welcome confirmation that this will be the case.

However, the rest of the triple lock approach is wrong. The use of mock exams results risks making a mockery of the whole system, given the lack of a standard approach to mock exams and the fact they are not taken by all candidates.

This is a botched attempt at a solution which does not fix the problem created by the classist, racist moderation system, that students’ results will be based on where they live not a true reflection of their own abilities.

We still believe that England should follow Scotland in scrapping moderated grades. With its triple lock policy, all the government has done is lock in inequality.

I don't know what they could have done better. But you would think that the people leading the country could some up with something more sensible than a last minute change which can't be applied equally across the country.

Like everything at the moment, it seems very reactionary and ill thought through.

[Wil]

There's no perfect solution to it, and what's proposed is broadly "fair" (with caveats, e.g. predicted grades for black students are less accurate and more likely to be below actual achievement).

It's the last minute chop and change response that's concerning. It's happened all the way through this crisis.

[gme]

I am only commenting on the exam situation re this year not The education system as a whole.

Everything is messed up at the minute and very much being done on the hoof as it’s pretty unprecedented but I don’t see how anything could be done right as there is no right.

With everything going on it’s probably not the best time to have a root and branch reform of the exam system however much it needs it.

I would be more worried if one of my kids had just done Alevels as the results matter although my sceptical head thinks all the unis will be fighting to fill there quotas, including the leading ones, so will pay little attention to the results.

[Wil]

very much being done on the hoof as it’s pretty unprecedented

There was a detailed government planning exercise for exactly this scenario which had not been implemented and mostly ignored throughout this. It may be unprecedented, but the on the hoof aspect is ineptitude. I'm not expecting there to be a right answer, there surely isn't to much of this, but constantly responding with patchwork solutions to things which were known months ago is ridiculous.

There have been a few successes at least - while the furlough arrangements are far from perfect the efficiency with which they've been implemented has been impressive and has benefitted a significant part of the population.

[SA Chris]

TBF it was pretty disastrous in Scotland too;

https://news.sky.com/story/downgraded-scottish-exam-results-to-be-withdrawn-after-moderation-controversy-12047226