COVID-19 Coronavirus UK and World News Weekend Update 10 /11 October 2020.
The UK dashboard is a bit iffy today, so not everything has been updated.
The UK added 12,872 cases today and now has reported a total of 603,716 positive cases of COVID-19.
3,837 people were in hospital on Thursday 8th, with 442 using a ventilator on Friday 9th.
In the 24 hours up until 5pm yesterday, we officially reported the loss of another 65 people who have tested positive to COVID-19 within 28 days. We now very sadly have a total of 42,825 officially reported losses of life in all settings.
Rep. Of Ireland 41,714 cases and 1,824 losses of life. (Not yet reported today.)
There have now been a total of 37,611,948 reported cases worldwide. The number of people who have lost their lives worldwide to COVID-19 is 1,079,274. Already 28,202,212 people have recovered.
On Friday and Saturday the number of daily cases across the world exceeded 350,000 per day - the highest figures of the pandemic. This isn't only due to the rise in cases across Europe (which is very real), but also the whole world is testing more, and finding more low or no symptom cases.
Tomorrow there's a UK Coronavirus briefing and it's pretty certain that blonde bloke who was Mayor of the Danny Boyle Olympics will announce the Tiers Of Restriction/Intervention.
It seems likely Tier 2 will trigger at 100 cases per 100k population - so a huge amounts of England are well over, by several times in some cases - from Liverpool right over to Newcastle, plus Sheffield, Nottingham etc.
No leaks yet about exactly what triggers the next tiers will have, or what exactly it will mean for people in those areas, but hospitality WILL be closed in some places, and the government’s favourite paper-to-leak-to is reporting there'll be some restrictions on inessential movement in harder hit areas.
The school 'Tiers' guidance which I covered more on 28th September is roughly as follows:
The Tiers Of Intervention (which are associated with the local Tiers of Restriction, but I know nothing else, you'll have to wait for confirmation from Boris):
Tier 1 - Fully open, Over 11's wear face-coverings when moving around indoors for all tiers.
Tier 2 - Secondary schools rota model with blended in-person / remote learning. Further education limit numbers onsite.
Tier 3 - All under 11 open. 11+ closed to students except priority groups (vulnerable children, the children of critical workers and selected year groups identified by Department for Education).
Tier 4 - All education full-time on site only to priority groups. (AP, special schools and other specialist settings will allow for full-time on-site attendance of all pupils.)
On Friday Rishi Sunak announced that the Job Support Scheme will be expanded to cover any UK businesses ordered to close:
"Under the expansion, firms whose premises are legally required to shut for some period over winter as part of local or national restrictions will receive grants to pay the wages of staff who cannot work - protecting jobs and enabling businesses to reopen quickly once restrictions are lifted.
The government will support eligible businesses by paying two thirds of each employees’ salary (or 67%), up to a maximum of £2,100 a month."
Cash grants for businesses required to close in local lockdowns will also be increased to up to £3,000 per month.
You thought the England/Wales Test & Trace has already made ALL of the errors didn't you? How wrong we were. Turns out that they have been regularly assigning test results to the individual's local health authority, even when they're not actually living there currently, or at least that's what it seems. For all we know they could be throwing darts at a map.
This has been picked up because Richmond Council were doing their own contact tracing, and 40% of cases had no testing location. When they looked into it, over 25% actually came from elsewhere. As they were mostly aged 17-21 I'd imagine correcting this error is going to be very bad news for Uni areas, and better news for Richmond.
Trump of the Friday:
"I didn't have a problem breathing."
Donald Trump during his 'medical exam' on-camera interview on Friday.
Yes, you did. We all saw you, you dingbat.
The Great Barrington Declaration is an open letter (well, really it's a petition), signed by over 200.000 people and asking governments worldwide to accept herd immunity by transmission among the younger population.
Recent research (collated into a great article) in 'The Atlantic' spells out the risk of complications and long term recovery (Long COVID). It is a real threat, and it's barely even understood yet.
While a "25-year-old who contracts this disease is approximately 250 times less likely to die than an infected 85-year-old", your average 35 year old man "has one-in-100 chance of developing a long-term illness after contracting COVID-19."
Errrr, nah. I can't say I'm keen.
Independent SAGE had a lot to say about the Barrington Declaration, and so do many medics and scientists worldwide. There is no question that if everyone under a given age attempted to return to how they were last year, it would still overwhelm health services and fill all of the hospital beds, and then a lot of us would be dying for lack of a few hours on simple oxygen, or because we broke our leg, or had appendicitis...
Trump of the Yesterday:
"We have a cure!"
Well, early signs are really promising, and if this was a Hollywood movie then you'd be correct, but in the real world we don't take all the drugs and then declare just one of them a miracle. And we usually wait until trials are over.
Kim Jong-Un has addressed a massive maskless crowd in North Korea and declared the country COVID-free. He also said they are facing economic hardship. Recent typhoons have battered the country, so COVID19 isn't something they would find easy to cope with right now. Hardly surprising they shot and burned an unannounced defector they saw arriving from South Korea. They're terrified of the virus.
Donald Trump is all better and it isn't just him saying it this time. His personal physician has declared he's no longer an infection risk and can resume as normal from tomorrow, day 10 after his first symptoms.
It's lead to a lot of debate over whether that's actually right. The US CDC guidelines say mild cases should be okay after 10 days, and that's generally accepted as true for the vast majority, but science and the CDC say severe cases need 20 days to be sure. The level of virus in severe cases can come back, and the patient can infect other people and/or become pretty ill. Can Donald really be described as having a mild case? Is he assumed to be different because he took anti-viral and antibody cocktails, steroids and anything else he'd ever heard of?
He had loaaaads of drugs which are only usually given to very ill patients, and needed oxygen twice... Personally I wouldn't be arranging lunch any time next week.
The Barrington Declaration claimed to have signatures from 15,000 scientists and medical practitioners, and bless em, some poor intern at Sky News has obviously gone through them. They found that among the scientists and medical practitioners listed, were Dr Johnny Bananas, I.P. Freely, Dr Harold Shipman and Dominic Cummings. (I bet Mike Hunt signed it a few times too.)
Loads of therapists had also listed themselves as medical practitioners, including my favourite, a Mongolian Khöömii Singer. I'm sure that most are excellent at their jobs, but your opinion on herd immunity for a pandemic virus is probably just as informed as my postman.
Disgraced SNP MP Margaret Covid (previously known as Margaret Ferrier) has been interviewed by media and says that she took public transport because she panicked after her positive COVID-19 result:
"A lot of people say Covid makes you do things out of character. You're not thinking straight."
That's because you were ill chick, and I can see how it happened. Doesn't really help anyone who you put at risk though, and you broke actual law. If you find yourself ill again, get a responsible grown up to give opinion or even just take charge. They can keep an eye on you then too...
There were, (and still are) huge worries about the spread of COVID-19 among the world's poorest people, living in refugee camps and slums worldwide. Against all odds, India's Dharavi slum in Mumbai, home to around 1 million people in a 0.81 square mile area (2.1sq km; 520 acres) has managed to suppress COVID-19 and prevent a massive outbreak so far. It is credited to:
- restrictions on movement and a hard lockdown
- heath officials going door-to-door with information and looking for people with symptoms.
- isolating anyone suspected of having COVID immediately to quarantine centres
- fantastic, and rapid contact tracing
In reality, a very similar approach to China, who managed to suppress their outbreak far better than most of those who followed.
The Queen's birthday honours list this year is dominated by COVID-19 heroes. Celebrities and ordinary people who have made extraordinary effort - thank you all of you. They include:
Joe Wicks, M.B.E. - kids YouTube P.E. lessons Demigod. Kept everyone moving every weekday for 4 months or more.
Marcus Rashford, M.B.E. - professional footballer and campaigner who secured lunches for 1.3m UK schoolchildren during the Summer holidays.
Sir David Attenborough, Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael And St George - UK national treasure and now owner of longest name tape in a coat ever.
Lady Leshurr, B.E.M. - Popular grime musician and winner of my award for 'least likely to have written a song about washing your hands, but it's true'.
Most of the people receiving honours are not names you'd probably recognise, they're the ordinary people who have done extraordinary things. 14% of those awarded are keyworkers, and 72% are people who have worked for their local community.
Some people, all with names and histories, and stories to tell:
Countries / Cases / Losses of life (some states /provinces yet to report):
USA 7,963,143 (+17,638) 219,373 (+91)
India 7,073,958 (+22,415) 108,523 (+152)
Brazil 5,095,586 (+3,746) 150,338 (+102)
Russia 1,298,718 (+13,634) 22,597 (+143)
Spain 890,367 not yet reported today 32,929
France 718,873 not yet reported today 32,637
UK 603,716 (+12,872) 42,825 (+65)
Iran 500,075 (+3,822) 28,544 (+251)
Chile 481,371 (+1,776) 13,318 (+46)
Iraq 402,330 (+2,206) 9,852 (+62)
Italy 354,950 (+5,456) 36,166 (+26)
Germany 324,938 (+1,485) 9,699 (+8)
Ukraine 261,034 (+4,768) 4,972 (+85)
Canada 181,772 (+1,593) 9,612 (+4)
Netherlands 174,653 (+6,373) 6,584 (+17)
Belgium 156,931 (+7,950) 10,175 (+24)
Poland 125,816 (+4,178) 3,004 (+32)
Portugal 86,664 (+1,090) 2,080 (+13)
.
.
Sources:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/
"Medical experts do not consider antibody drugs a COVID-19 ‘cure,’ though they are promising, AP and The Atlantic report" https://twitter.com/i/events/1314645929098539008?s=09
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-politics-54492574?__twitter_impression=true
"Kim Jong-un declares North Korea COVID-19 free at major pre-dawn military parade" https://twitter.com/i/events/1314908864664334338?s=09
"Trump's physician says the president is 'no longer a transmission risk' but doesn't state if he has tested negative for COVID-19" https://twitter.com/i/events/1315104873461895169?s=09
https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/uk-scotland-54496759
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports
https://twitter.com/jneill/status/1314620952739745792
https://www.mylondon.news/news/west-london-news/coronavirus-tests-cases-deaths-hospitals-19078446
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/09/what-young-healthy-people-have-fear-covid-19/616
https://gbdeclaration.org/view/signatures/
https://twitter.com/i/events/1314651721306644483?s=09
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2020-mumbai-dharavi-covid-lockdown/
https://twitter.com/Jordanfabian/status/1314722731225743362?s=19
https://twitter.com/i/events/1314586045288128512?s=09
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53065806
https://twitter.com/i/events/1314681586500206592?s=09
Seroprevalence (how many people have antibodies) in Japan - flawed sample group?
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.09.21.20198796v1
Stay safe lovely and keep those antidotes coming. Hugs and you are the best xx
ReplyDelete