Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[D.A.F.C]

I see the anti vaxers and anti-mask-um...ers mothers were out in force in Perth and have teamed up with a group of freedom fighters.
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/exclusive-anti-lockdown-mums-opposing-22566642
Battleground Perth.
 
 

Belters

[die hard doonhamer]

15 minutes ago, mizfit said:

 

Unfortunately Perth seems to be home to a large group of complete fucking idiots.

 

There is a group of anti-vax mums at my kids' school. Obviously, they all smoke, but couldn't possibly wear a mask as that would make it too hard to breath.

4 minutes ago, PWL said:

From the article....utter loon ball. 

However......wid.

Though I'd probably dip it in Dettol afterwards. 

Her being one of them. She's an absolute idiot.

[Sergeant Wilson]

19 minutes ago, PWL said:

From the article....utter loon ball. 

However......wid.

Though I'd probably dip it in Dettol afterwards. 

That would be bad for her skin.

[Todd_is_God]

36 minutes ago, Snafu said:

Reads like you have spoken to one or some of the medical staff that are doing the testing.

I'm surprised that the Coupar Angus outbreak was caught due to routine testing so could have easily been missed and the figures would have been lower.

Has anyone actually been in contact with someone working in the factory now at home?

I didn't say it was. All it takes is one person going to get a test, for whatever reason, to come back positive to spark off the chain of events.

Once you start contact tracing, and testing those people, you will find more 'positive' cases, so you trace their contacts etc etc until you find someone who isn't 'positive' and stop.

They aren't necessarily infectious, or even linked.

If you test every single worker in a factory (I think there were 900?), especially now with hospitality etc open, you are going to find 'positives' just as you would if you tested absolutely everyone as they entered a randomly chosen supermarket one day.

The test is very sensitive, and if you amplify it enough times you will find even the tiniest amount of RNA if it is present.

[Todd_is_God]

37 minutes ago, Snafu said:

Wow that's 17 staff now at Kingspark School, Dundee that have tested positive.

What bothers me is why some media now started calling schools education hubs, wtf!!

From the DR

NHS Tayside  and Dundee City Council had decided to temporarily shut the education hub until at least next week to allow for a deep clean.

Can't have an outbreak in a school if you don't call it a school...

[MP_MFC]

In fairness on the whole NFL issue with that lab, from what I was reading they are not using the standard swab tests and it is some rapid response kit they have approved over there which is clearly not as accurate.

[Todd_is_God]

1 minute ago, MP_MFC said:

In fairness on the whole NFL issue with that lab, from what I was reading they are not using the standard swab tests and it is some rapid response kit they have approved over there which is clearly not as accurate.

There are no 'standard' swab tests. But you are right about rapid response.

Probably why, despite calls for them, the UK are not using rapid response tests at the border.

[Michael W]

3 hours ago, madwullie said:

Few cases at a primary school in Blantyre. Iirc 3 kids and a teacher all in the same class. 

Class have been told to stay at home. 

Must about time schools were shown a yellow card for persistent fouling. 

[Todd_is_God]

1 minute ago, Snafu said:

Then its possible almost everyone in the population is COVID-19 positive to certain degree without knowing it?

Well, yes, but that's not likely. It will be higher than the number of confirmed cases by some margin though.

2 minutes ago, Snafu said:

Reads like the current sky has fallen chicken lickin' negatives in Perthshire and the school staff results in Tayside are nothing but showing the effectiveness of the testing rather than anything serious to worry about and if you tested everyone for the virus that walked into a supermarket on a busy Saturday afternoon as it currently stands compared to the chicken factory 8.2% of them would test positive until this was verified?

The test will find virus RNA if it is there. If you have to amplify it many many times it's unlikely the person is currently infected, never mind infectious.

4 minutes ago, Snafu said:

What is the ratio or percentage for false positives in the UK testing?

No one has asked this in the briefings, or how specific the tests are. It certainly hasn't been volunteered.

A weak positive, though, isn't a false positive. But it doesn't mean they are currently infected.

6 minutes ago, Snafu said:

I would have thought that if there was inconsistencies in a medical test that person or persons would be retested again especially with COVID 19 being such a priority?

Why? They have found a 'positive' and will treat them all the same (i.e. infected and infectious). Being overly cautious with someone isn't dangerous. 

10 minutes ago, Snafu said:

What do the testers say, would they really not put someones health as their first priority?

They aren't putting their health in danger by saying "we found this" - They are doing their job. It's up to the government to consider the implications of mandating people isolate / implement local lockdowns on the back of a number of weak positives.

Given the SG admitted last week that they have no idea if someone was symptomatic at the time of being tested when the results come to them, it's fairly clear they are being ultra cautious and just treating any and all positives equally (ie that person is infected and infectious).

This will lead to "clusters" being reported, unnecessary restrictions being in place, and a never ending cycle.

Testing asymptimatic people is not a viable long term strategy if we ever want to get back to anything close to normal.

 

[Todd_is_God]

To put the above in to context, let's imagine a scenario where my wife worked in the chicken factory.

If, at any point since restrictions were eased, either of us had been exposed to the virus but shown no symptoms, then we could both have viral RNA still in our system, and be unaware. We'd currently be uninfected and not contageous.

But, by testing all the workers in the factory, she'd show as a positive and be added to the cluster, and, as a contact, I'd get a test and so would I.

Now we'd both be isolating, and test & protect would work their way through where we were over the weekend. Anyone contacted through that who gets tested and tests positive, is then linked to the chicken factory cluster (despite this being impossible), and panic sets in about how it has spread so far and so quickly. NS and JL use it as a reminder that the virus hasn't gone away, the two hospitality venues we visited likely close for a deep clean, and restrictions in general remain in place longer. Given how widespread exposure must have been back in February, March & April to produce the hundreds of people per day sick enough to need to go to hospital, it wouldn't take too much to identify a large 'cluster' once you started digging.

I've no doubt this is largely what happened in Aberdeen, given the lack of increase in hospital admissions from what was a relatively large number of cases.

If the plan is to eliminate Covid-19, then it's incredibly important that we are able to differentiate live, infectious virus, and dead / partial virus, as blanket isolating of people solely on the back of a positive PCR test, however strong or weak, isn't an efficient or sustainable way.

Edited August 24, 2020 by Todd_is_God

[101]

2 hours ago, Snafu said:

I see the anti vaxers and anti-mask-um...ers mothers were out in force in Perth and have teamed up with a group of freedom fighters.

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/exclusive-anti-lockdown-mums-opposing-22566642

Battleground Perth.

 

 

Hopefully they do the right thing and give up any right to be treated by the NHS ever again. Utter moon howlers.

[Todd_is_God]

Only 1 person in intensive care now is good news

Edited August 24, 2020 by Todd_is_God

[8MileBU]

On 22/08/2020 at 22:41, tamthebam said:

I went for a walk around Linlithgow Loch this evening, pondering the irony that I remember avoiding the swans years ago when there was a bird flu scare.

Anyway I went to the Golden Chip for my tea and put my mask on like a good boy. Two guys in there were not wearing masks and neither were the staff.

I felt like a twat from out of town wearing my mask but if there's a cluster in Lithgae you'll know why 

Both disgustang. 

I’d get tested just incase. Was working in Linlithgow a couple weeks ago and folk were struggling (plain ignorant) with social distancing. Seen some poor council boy take a mouthful of abuse from some snooty cow who greeted her pal with a two-kiss hug. 

On 23/08/2020 at 01:03, Todd_is_God said:

Jedward v The Corrs was not high on my "Things to happen in 2020" list

 

What’s even more staggering is that Jedward seem the less thick-as-f**k in the argument.

19 hours ago, Miguel Sanchez said:

Oh! I've had an idea.

Mind how you go.

Edited August 24, 2020 by 8MileBU

[welshbairn]

38 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

I've no doubt this is largely what happened in Aberdeen, given the lack of increase in hospital admissions from what was a relatively large number of cases.

Or the viral loads are lower because of social distancing, mask wearing and hand washing.

[Michael W]

1 hour ago, Tynierose said:

Ah but what measure are you using for persistent fouling, a player from a diddy team or Scott Brown.

Sturgeon's an Ayr fan, is she not? We'll go with that. 

[Todd_is_God]

20 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Or the viral loads are lower because of social distancing, mask wearing and hand washing.

Whilst that could be true as well, it would not explain why 80+ staff in a single factory would be 'infected'

Any food processing factory I have been in has had incredible attention to detail with regards to hygiene, before Covid-19 was even a thing. It would seem incredibly unlikely to me that that level of transmission could occur in that environment, which is what leads me to believe that the majority of these cases are the result of detecting remaining strands of RNA picked up previously from elsewhere.

There is also the possibility that, like most bugs and viruses (especially SARS) before it, it has run its course and is fizzling out.

We don't tend to go looking for virus RNA in people without symptoms, so there is nothing really to compare it to.

Edited August 24, 2020 by Todd_is_God

[welshbairn]

8 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

There is also the possibility that, like most bugs and viruses (especially SARS) before it, it has run its course and is fizzling out.

There's no evidence of any significant mutation affecting its virulence, and you wouldn't expect to find one so soon with a coronavirus. Modified human behaviour is much more likely to be the explanation.

[mizfit]

Numbers dropped again.

I’m hoping that we’ve caught most the positive cases linked to the factory now.

[Todd_is_God]

16 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

There's no evidence of any significant mutation affecting its virulence, and you wouldn't expect to find one so soon with a coronavirus. Modified human behaviour is much more likely to be the explanation.

Either way, I cannot believe that journalists still use the platform they are given to ask pish like "see when offices re-open, whenever that is, do you think people will need to wear masks?"

[Todd_is_God]

22 minutes ago, Snafu said:

That is putting incredible trust in systems and people and assuming they all work 100% of the time. Not all food processing factories have the same standard. Mistakes are made.

Either the guidance hasn't been followed or the factory hasn't a suitable system in place to protect staff as has been the case in other food processing factories not just in the UK but around the world. One would assume they would be wearing the appropriate PPE, overalls, footwear, gloves, hairnet, facemask, maybe even some eye protection.

Could be people going back to old habits and becoming complacent as well. There could be masks worn on the factory floor but people take them off when in the canteen, out for a cigarette break or in the locker rooms. It's not difficult to forget when trying to speak to someone in a noisy factory that social distancing is there for a reason.

 

Or they picked it up elsewhere and their immune system already killed it.

All are equally possible.

That they have over 80 workers positive, yet almost zero transmission linked to them outwith the factory should give a reasonable idea of how infectious these people are (or aren't).

There's clearly at least 1 person there who was genuinely symptomatic and infectious, but it doesn't mean they gave it to anyone else.

That really isn't my point, though. Making 900 people and their families quarantine on the back of a test which does not indicate infectiousness is quite clearly not an efficient or sustainable solution. More needs to be done to follow up on and verify positive PCR tests, especially the weaker ones.

That, however, first needs an explanation that PCR tests are not what they are made out to be, where every positive result is equal, which, at this point, will be seen by many people as an excuse to keep things open / ease more restrictions, particularly so if it comes from WM.

Again, being more open and transparent in the beginning would have made that much easier.

Edited August 24, 2020 by Todd_is_God