[tomtom]

Who’d a thunk that eh?

What seems to be the core issue where the government has (being generous) dropped the ball is that of testing. Seeing how important it was in Korea (for example) and how it worked in China were all things we should have been ahead of (like Germany) instead of being reactive and catching up. Hindsight etc... but all paths seem to come back to testing.

[ali k]

He also said the number of tests being carried out has fallen over the last couple of days to fewer than 15k because *demand* has now fallen, hence why they can now start testing the old people.

Granted, I’m cynical of this government’s motives at the best of times but this statement just strikes me as pure unadulterated bullshit. *If* he’s on track to achieve 100k tests a day in 2 weeks time and there’s spare testing capacity in the system why on earth would you just allow slack days like this when instead you could keep up the pressure and test, test, test?! And *if* there’s spare capacity why would you not have a tiered system already in place to overspill to the next most vulnerable category so you didn’t just waste days like this?

Or is it a case of (a) there actually STILL isn’t the capacity? or (b) the capacity is being ‘stockpiled’ during the next few weeks so on the 1st May they can smash out 100,000 tests and Hancock can hit his target for a day?

[tomtom]

It may well be that people simply do not expect to be able to be tested. So no-one is asking or taking up the service...

Ideally - every person with a sniffle or fever in the last 2 months should have been tested - then we'd have an idea where it was, instead of now just assuming that its everywhere.

Testing is also key to reducing the lockdown... managing future spikes in cases is all about knowing when those spikes are happening - not based on hospital admissions. By then you're 2-3 weeks late.

[TobyD]

There was a great summary of the risks of 5G phone masts by the BBC science correspondant on the coronavirus podcast : they could give you it if a positive sufferer wiped their nose on the mast, then you wiped the snot off and put it in your mouth pretty soon afterwards, they would probably give you the virus. Otherwise not, obviously.

[Nigel]

Testing is undoubtedly key. If you want to compare the garbage we get at our daily briefings with the sort of info the South Korean's have, check out the Korea Centres for Disease Control & Prevention, KCDC - daily update for today and every other day since Jan 3 if you click through: https://www.cdc.go.kr/board/board.es?mid=a30402000000&bid=0030

Note that they are only doing 15K tests a day at present too. Same as us. They have done 534K tests total to our 398K total. Population size 51 million (Korea) vs 67 million (UK). So although they have done more tests for a smaller population, actually I'm most surprised that the numbers are not *wildly* different. Looks on the face of it to support the thesis that our overall strategy straight out of the blocks was, well, the wrong one (for reducing deaths).

We are only in a position where we need to hit 100K tests a day because we didn't take the South Korea approach to begin with.

[Fultonius]

Heard an interesting thing on a cross-industry weekly wind Ops and Maintenance call yesterday. One of the marine operators is testing everyone for both presence of and, antibodies for COVID. They're able to buy kits for £14, with minimum orders in the thousands. When asked if they felt this was diverting crucial kits from NHS etc., they guy said they'd asked the supplier about this, and the supplied HAD NOT EVEN BEEN CONTACTED by the Government or any central procurement...

[Oldmanmatt]

Heard an interesting thing on a cross-industry weekly wind Ops and Maintenance call yesterday. One of the marine operators is testing everyone for both presence of and, antibodies for COVID. They're able to buy kits for £14, with minimum orders in the thousands. When asked if they felt this was diverting crucial kits from NHS etc., they guy said they'd asked the supplier about this, and the supplied HAD NOT EVEN BEEN CONTACTED by the Government or any central procurement...

That seems completely pointless at this stage.
Antibodies do not indicate immunity, yet, at least.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-14/do-coronavirus-survivors-have-immunity-from-reinfection-maybe

[petejh]

Heard an interesting thing on a cross-industry weekly wind Ops and Maintenance call yesterday. One of the marine operators is testing everyone for both presence of and, antibodies for COVID. They're able to buy kits for £14, with minimum orders in the thousands. When asked if they felt this was diverting crucial kits from NHS etc., they guy said they'd asked the supplier about this, and the supplied HAD NOT EVEN BEEN CONTACTED by the Government or any central procurement...

If you listen to the daily briefings the scientific advisers say the antibody tests aren't accurate - they've tested the accuracy of multiple test on the market. That's why the UK gov haven't run with one yet. A quick search online seems to back this up. Your marine operator will be getting false negative/positives.

[mrjonathanr]

Testing is undoubtedly key. If you want to compare the garbage we get at our daily briefings with the sort of info the South Korean's have, check out the Korea Centres for Disease Control & Prevention, KCDC - daily update for today and every other day since Jan 3 if you click through: https://www.cdc.go.kr/board/board.es?mid=a30402000000&bid=0030

Thanks for this Nigel. So that is what a public information briefing looks like in Korea. wow.

[Fultonius]

Heard an interesting thing on a cross-industry weekly wind Ops and Maintenance call yesterday. One of the marine operators is testing everyone for both presence of and, antibodies for COVID. They're able to buy kits for £14, with minimum orders in the thousands. When asked if they felt this was diverting crucial kits from NHS etc., they guy said they'd asked the supplier about this, and the supplied HAD NOT EVEN BEEN CONTACTED by the Government or any central procurement...

If you listen to the daily briefings the scientific advisers say the antibody tests aren't accurate - they've tested the accuracy of multiple test on the market. That's why the UK gov haven't run with one yet. A quick search online seems to back this up. Your marine operator will be getting false negative/positives.

I did wonder that, but been so busy I've not had a chance to look it up. Interesting.

[Nigel]

Thanks for this Nigel. So that is what a public information briefing looks like in Korea. wow.

I know!

Its like they get loads of information about Covid-19, and then make it public. Not convinced it will take off in the UK mind... still, its nice to see our daily graph of traffic levels.

As I'm being flippant already, found out today that Matt Hancock's degree is in, wait for it.....PPE. The irony.

[TobyD]

As I'm being flippant already, found out today that Matt Hancock's degree is in, wait for it.....PPE. The irony.

Irony? Everyone knows that's what you do if you want to go into politics. I'm not saying he's a brilliant health minister although he probably has one of the hardest jobs in the country at the moment, but a degree in any sort of healthcare probably wouldn't help.

NB I think he's got an incredibly hard job, but probably not as hard as the poor guys working in supermarkets at the moment. As risky as the NHS half the time, noone applauds them, and they get loads of abuse from selfish people who don't like having to queue up outside.

[Stu Littlefair]

It’s clear that the government really failed to ramp up testing, and that this has prevented a S Korea style approach. They are hardly alone here. In Europe, only one country - Germany - managed this.

There’s a fascinating, and haunting, article by Tim Hartford in the FT today about why we fail to prepare for things like Covid-19. The last line will stick with me for some time.

https://thakoni.com/tim-harford-why-we-fail-to-prepare-for-disasters/?amp

[petejh]

Thanks for this Nigel. So that is what a public information briefing looks like in Korea. wow.

I know!

Its like they get loads of information about Covid-19, and then make it public. Not convinced it will take off in the UK mind... still, its nice to see our daily graph of traffic levels.

As I'm being flippant already, found out today that Matt Hancock's degree is in, wait for it.....PPE. The irony.

Korea is the most advanced country in the world for information communication technology. Allied to a big brother surveillance tracking network using mobile phones, 'smart' city/town infrastructure and cctv. South Korea has the highest proportion of cashless transactions in the world. SK has the highest proportion of mobile phone use in the world and the whole country is covered by 4G or 5G - and everyone has to register their real name and address so that it's possible to for the government (should they need) to track the location of every citizen by their mobile device. South Korea had to deal with the MERS epidemic in 2015, and the SARS epidemic in 2003.
They also have the highest education level of any OECD country.

They've only recently learned how to react well during epidemics, MERS in 2015 was handled poorly. From the link below: 

After the WHO excoriated Korea’s response, the country overhauled their response to respiratory infections, fast-tracking the production of test kits and equipping hospitals with infection control units and negative pressure rooms.

The Korean population, shaken by the incident, are also more likely to wash their hands, stay at home and get tested if requested to. “Testing like this has been very successful with dealing with HIV, for example, to prevent its spread and onward transmission,” says Mina. “There were large campaigns to test people to see if they know their status, and then to act appropriately.”

It's good to have high aspirations Nige but I think comparing ourselves to Korea is always setting us up for disappointment. Maybe aim for N.Korea to start with
It seem one thing we excel at is thinking we're shit at everything 


Info from here: https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-south-koreas-success-in-controlling-disease-is-due-to-its-acceptance-of-surveillance-134068

Finally - and maybe most essentially: South Korea sits at around number 50 in 'happiness' leagues with an average rating of 5.9 out of 10. UK is around number 15 with an average of 7.1. (Gallup World Poll 2016- 2018).
Before looking to other countries approaches as a panacea, worth asking yourself do you actually want to be like South Korea? Personally I don't - they work themselves like hamsters in wheels and their lives seem heavily controlled. It seems like a democratic version of China.

But it works well in once in one hundred year disasters so that's nice.

That's not to say we shouldn't cherry pick the best parts of SK's approach, and hopefully retain some semblance of liberty.

edit: Stu, it's more than just 'not ramping up testing'. We aren't S.Korea in lots of ways that just doing a lot more testing wouldn't change.

[TobyD]

I think I agree with all of that Pete, although I'd be in favour of giving the police more scope to punish people who blatantly and wilfully contravene the lockdown rules,  total mass surveillance has pretty big implications and I don't like to think how much power that might give an unscrupulous government to influence future elections. 

I do think that the government is being foolish in pressing ahead with HS2 and ending the transition period in December.  They seem to be deeply unnecessary distractions to dealing with health and economic crisis. 

[mrjonathanr]

Hmm. Between SK level of detail and UK gov failing to share how many deaths in NI last night, there’s quite a bit of way to go. Rejecting the inadequacy of one does not automatically imply the extremity of the other.

[petejh]

Rejecting the inadequacy of one does not automatically imply the extremity of the other.

...

That's not to say we shouldn't cherry pick the best parts of SK's approach, and hopefully retain some semblance of liberty.

[ali k]

Testing is undoubtedly key. If you want to compare the garbage we get at our daily briefings with the sort of info the South Korean's have...

And it really is garbage. Graph 1 is transport usage which seems to me to be irrelevant other than telling us what good boys and girls we’ve been.
Graphs 2 & 3 are new or existing hospital cases, which don’t include the potentially huge number of cases in care homes due to lack of testing.
Graph 4 compares deaths with other countries, which is a false comparison given the above.

Even the director of PHE herself seems embarrassed and/or apologetic for repeatedly presenting these pointless graphs every day.

[TobyD]

This article is quite interesting;
After coronavirus, Boris Johnson's Tories will be a very different party

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/16/after-coronavirus-boris-johnsons-tories-will-be-a-very-different-party?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard


The idea that the government’s post-pandemic priorities might include lighting fires under the BBC, the civil service and the universities therefore seems even more destructive now than before. The idea that Britain should be a Brexit buccaneer, turning its back resolutely against Europe and throwing itself into the arms of Donald Trump seems even more irresponsible.

[ali k]

This article is quite interesting;
After coronavirus, Boris Johnson's Tories will be a very different party

The idea that the government’s post-pandemic priorities might include lighting fires under the BBC, the civil service and the universities therefore seems even more destructive now than before. The idea that Britain should be a Brexit buccaneer, turning its back resolutely against Europe and throwing itself into the arms of Donald Trump seems even more irresponsible.

Yes. And begs the question, how does Dominic Cummings fit into that? I would argue not well, and likely to lead to all sorts of tensions.

[galpinos]

If you listen to the daily briefings the scientific advisers say the antibody tests aren't accurate - they've tested the accuracy of multiple test on the market. That's why the UK gov haven't run with one yet. A quick search online seems to back this up. Your marine operator will be getting false negative/positives.

This is correct. My wife has an antibody testing trial on in her hospital that she has signed up for. She had some mild symptoms, was denied a viral test so now hoping the antibody test will give us some idea of whether she had it.

(Youngest is classed as vulnerable person so knowing whether my wife has had it or not would very much help with managing the family!)

[Will Hunt]

I've not followed this as closely as I should in the past week or so, but on the subject of testing I did hear one of the government advisors (was it Whitty?) saying that a major factor in the decision to not test widely was the inaccuracy of the test - particularly it's propensity to give false negatives. Might there be scandals awaiting to arise of countries that carried out tests on doctors with suspected symptoms and sent them back to work where they then infected many others? These countries like Germany who have tested lots of people - are they also doing aggressive contact tracing?

[ali k]

on the subject of testing I did hear one of the government advisors (was it Whitty?) saying that a major factor in the decision to not test widely was the inaccuracy of the test - particularly it's propensity to give false negatives.

Isn’t this the case with the antibody test, and not the swab test?

[petejh]

Yes Will, see further up thread although there's more concern over accuracy of the antibody tests I think.

Going back to Nigel and jonathanr championing South Korea's approach.

From the World Happiness Report 2019.
Yellow = 'Freedom to Make Life Choices'. Do you see the issue here..?
Fuck being South Korea. Norway, yes please.

[Stu Littlefair]

But like you said, the idea is not to become South Korea, but to try and cherry pick what works.

I’m quite worried in that respect that there are already widespread grumbles in the press about the proposed NHS app that might prevent widespread adoption. Usually these grumbles are from people who have no idea how it works and think the government will be tracking our locations