[Will Hunt]

Having the extra ice cream is very good  of you x

I had it for you, my enbubbled friend.

[dunnyg]

 

[Sidehaas]

I don't think anybody was under any illusions that the scheme wouldn't lead to more cases, but literally any policy less severe than chaining everybody to their radiators for the whole summer would have had to same effect to a greater or lesser degree. The question is, was it worth it?

I'm not suggesting places should have stayed shut. The problem with Eat-out-to-help-out was that the demand soared so much that everywhere was crammed full. Unsurprisingly the restaurants (certainly around here, anyway) were pushing the rules to their limits because they were desperate for cash. Worse, it was all concentrated in three days each week. Why not spread it out more? A better policy could have produced an economic gain with far less concentrated crowding. Eat-out-to-help-out was designed to get people together in high numbers again (albeit 'covid-safe') in order to increase people's confidence in going out quickly rather than allowing that to come back naturally over a longer period. It was a gamble.

We took advantage of it by going out for lunch to places where we could sit outside, and we bought more coffees/ice creams-to-go than we otherwise would have done, but seeing photos of multiple generations crowded round a table in a curry house seemed daft.

Well what you describe as daft is exactly what every restaurant round here was like, all days for three days a week through August.

[Will Hunt]

Eat-out-to-help-out was designed to get people together in high numbers again (albeit 'covid-safe') in order to increase people's confidence in going out quickly rather than allowing that to come back naturally over a longer period.

I'm agreeing with you that the scheme could have been designed better so as to mitigate its increased risk. However what you've said there is, to my knowledge, not based on any evidence at all.

[Sidehaas]

I'm extrapolating a bit. But Boris said a number of times through summer that he wanted to get people confident going out and about again to get the economy moving. That was his primary focus. I think they just misjudged it.

(Ps my anecdotal observation are all from around South road in Waterloo, it's a pretty popular area for restaurants and bars that some people will travel a bit to, so might not be completely representative of elsewhere, but I'm sure it all had a fairly big impact around here.)

[Will Hunt]

I'm extrapolating a bit. But Boris said a number of times through summer that he wanted to get people confident going out and about again to get the economy moving. That was his primary focus. I think they just misjudged it.

The government definitely did encourage people to enjoy themselves (and for God's sake, spend some money!) over summer but covid mitigation measures were central to the message which was Enjoy Summer Safely. If you watch the TV ad then it's packed full of the covid safe behaviours (though noticeably now, not mask wearing in shops): queueing outside shops, PPE, hand sanitiser at checkouts, doing outdoorsy stuff.


I'm not surprised that restaurants got as many bums on seats as they could. The rules around that should probably have been tighter and/or better enforced.

[Sidehaas]

I think we agree on that. Better enforcement of the rules could have helped a lot, as could a better designed policy that didn't unnecessarily concentrate people quite so much. But neither of those things were provided, and for whatever underlying reason, in some areas that was enough to tip the balance back to an exponential increase from mid-late August.

[Will Hunt]

in some areas that was enough to tip the balance back to an exponential increase from mid-late August.

Sorry, I feel like a nitpicking dick now, but isn't this also speculation? Anything above R=1 in a population will leave to exponential growth. Is that R was sitting below 1 and it was EOTHO that made the increase to >1? I'd be surprised if you could disaggregate EOTHO from the other factors causing increased transmission. Gyms, inter-household visiting, people going dogging again etc etc etc.

[Paul B]

I think we agree on that. Better enforcement of the rules...

I thought that initially but having reflected on it I think by the time you're requiring enforcement you're f*cked.

[Sidehaas]

Well, data about where most infections occur seems to be hard to come by. The only thing I remember seeing from a source that should be reliable was that slide that was leaked a few weeks ago from a brief Chris Whitty have to some MPs. Hospitality (pubs and restaurants) were way out ahead of everything else on that slide, including people's homes (work and education locations were not shown.)
Other than that, I'm drawing the conclusion that eat-out-to-help-out was responsible for most of the difference in August from the previous month because it led to lots of strangers sitting fairly close together indoors for long periods. I don't think there were any other sudden changes at the time - bits and pieces of stuff opening up but not on the same scale. So it seems very obvious. Pubs did open in late July of course, but I don't think they were drawing in the same number of people.

I did say on a ukc thread that of course this might all have happened anyway - eventually I'm sure the critical mass of people being back in restaurants and pubs would have been enough to tip the balance anyway, at least without restrictions. The rest of Europe is evidence of that. But I do think eat-out-to-help-out must have brought it forward quite a bit.

[Sidehaas]

I think we agree on that. Better enforcement of the rules...

I thought that initially but having reflected on it I think by the time you're requiring enforcement you're f*cked.

Soft touch enforcement with restaurant owners (eg inspectors making informal contact on the phone to make sure they were aware of their responsibilities) cor similar, could be effective. Many places just had too many tables packed in. Unlike pubs enforcement doesn't mean you don't need to forcibly separate anyone. Anyway, all water under the bridge now...

[andy popp]

I'm not surprised that restaurants got as many bums on seats as they could. The rules around that should probably have been tighter and/or better enforced.

For what it's worth, restaurants had virtually zero control power/control. My son is a kitchen manager/front of house in a mid-range national chain (a Harvester) and if people claim to have an exemption from wearing a mask staff cannot challenge them or ask for proof. Likewise, if a larger group claims to be from one household they cannot be challenged, no matter how obvious it is that they're lying.

[tomtom]

in some areas that was enough to tip the balance back to an exponential increase from mid-late August.

Sorry, I feel like a nitpicking dick now, but isn't this also speculation? Anything above R=1 in a population will leave to exponential growth. Is that R was sitting below 1 and it was EOTHO that made the increase to >1? I'd be surprised if you could disaggregate EOTHO from the other factors causing increased transmission. Gyms, inter-household visiting, people going dogging again etc etc etc.

Read the paper Will. Or the reports about the paper. That’s pretty much what they say - exp growth can be tracked back to when the scheme started.

Lots of really glum Covid news today...

And a lack of firm action from our government (god please don’t sent out George Useless Eustace again) - what’s the saying about making a mistake once is excusable, but twice is....

[Paul B]

https://twitter.com/GraemeDemianyk/status/1322299446785314816?s=19

 

[Offwidth]

in some areas that was enough to tip the balance back to an exponential increase from mid-late August.

Sorry, I feel like a nitpicking dick now, but isn't this also speculation? Anything above R=1 in a population will leave to exponential growth. Is that R was sitting below 1 and it was EOTHO that made the increase to >1? I'd be surprised if you could disaggregate EOTHO from the other factors causing increased transmission. Gyms, inter-household visiting, people going dogging again etc etc etc.

I'm with you Will. At the end of the summer the virus spread grew fastest amongst young people and where it was spread (before schools and Universities restarted) was often said in public briefing reports to be in domestic settings (particularly in Nicola's reports to Scotland). This must mean young people were not social distancing as well as other age groups.  I think the eat out policy had a much smaller effect and those thinking otherwise, without much better evidence, risk mistaking correlation for causation; seemingly supported from October information on spread in pubs, restaurants etc (at a time when spread in Unis was clearly much higher than anywhere else).

[tomtom]

Good news. Vaccine that works!

Good news. Increase in rate of new cases seems to have stopped.

Bad news. Deaths 500 a day today (bear in mind due to treatment changes mortality rates have halved..)

For those wanting to see the links between Covid contracts and the Tory party/donors/old Etonians etc... this web page has a neat way of visualising things.

https://sophieehill.shinyapps.io/my-little-crony/

[chris j]

In something of a reversal of the 'Scotland good, England bad' trend when it comes to all things test and trace related, PHS have admitted to being as incompetent at entering/processing data as PHE and the much lauded Scottish test and trace system appears to be just about as lacklustre as the English system...

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/6267746/coronavirus-scotland-nicola-sturgeon-test-protect-willie-rennie/

[moose]

My own experience of NHStrace - contacted by text on 8th and informed that due to close contact with a Covid positive, I should be isolating from the 2nd to 16th!

I suspect it must be a Client or business/ property owner whose fire scene I inspected - and whose notion of "close contact" differs from my own (all such people are met either outdoors, or possibly indoors for 15 mins at a decent separation).

Hey ho... effectively only 8 days isolation, and thankfully I had plenty of food and UHT milk in the house.  Not a good reflection of the system but I am grateful that it's inefficiency means I got a weekend out I shouldn't have! [including a nice trip to Stronstrey Bank, which was a new crag for me].

[tomtom]

A report into NHS track and trace has just popped up as the main #1 headline story on the BBC website.

By BBC standards this is about as damning as it gets I suspect... Interesting graphics about the private company involvement.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55008133

Be interesting to see how long this stays top of the BBC news cycle...

[JohnM]

Yeah I read that BBC article. It tried to be very diplomatic saying the government was under a lot of pressure (no doubt) rather than they gave their mates a load contracts worth billions of pounds, put people in charge with massive failures in other organisations and bypassed local skills and systems that were already in place.

[Offwidth]

A link to wintertree's recent sterling work on covid stats on the other channel.

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/off_belay/friday_night_covid_plotting-728011

[Offwidth]

News coming out of the US is really grim. The increase in cases means a new record in daily deaths is near certain in about a week (exceeding the April peak) and still increasing after that  for at least a week. Trump is doing f-all.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

[moose]

There's an article on 538 on the possible effects of Thanksgiving. Some back of the envelope calculations on how in states with a high prevalence, gatherings of 10 or more are likely to have a Covid19 positive attendee, and be a potential super spreader event (North Dakota - 10 people - 80% one is Covid19 positive). Looks grim for the USA... and also for us in the presumably comparable post-Christmas period.

[moose]

Along the same lines as the above, here's a link to the risk assessment tool described by this week's More or Less on Radio 4.  It gives a probability for a guest at a gathering of a selected size in a particular area being Covid positive (based on background prevalence rates - with a background assumption on how many cases there are for every one detected).

https://covid19risk.biosci.gatech.edu/

I guess how accurate the figures are is arguable but what seems significant is how much higher the probabilities are for the USA compared to almost everywhere else.  I knew it was bad there but I didn't realise how much worse than the UK it was.

[andy popp]

what seems significant is how much higher the probabilities are for the USA compared to almost everywhere else.  I knew it was bad there but I didn't realise how much worse than the UK it was.

It's out of control across huge swathes of the country and it's Thanksgiving this coming Thursday, when Americans travel around the country in huge numbers. There are already signs that many will not do the sensible thing of staying home and celebrating only with their immediate household (we know someone whose 80 something mother just flew from Florida to Texas for that purpose).

Edit: apologies, hadn't looked on the previous page, Thanksgiving already covered.