SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)

Can only see deaths and cases going up between now and the 2nd. How does England possibly come out of lockdown?
 
Can only see deaths and cases going up between now and the 2nd. How does England possibly come out of lockdown?

They’ll announce that they need another week of lockdown but it’s important that businesses have the busy Christmas period. As a result from the 14th all educational settings will switch to online which will:

A) control the spread of the virus

B) allow children and families to isolate before seeing extended families for Christmas.

Edit; is my guess - but it makes sense IMO.
 
Doesn't really feel like a lockdown this time for me, work is mostly normal in education, traffic feels the same, busy as feck on way home tonight.
 
Doesn't really feel like a lockdown this time for me, work is mostly normal in education, traffic feels the same, busy as feck on way home tonight.

Agreed. All that's happened is pubs and restaurants have closed. Most shops have found a way to stay open it seems by stocking an item considered essential.
 
Totally agree. Work from home eases congestion, redcues pollution and increases productivity.

Tories: let's tax them for that.

I'm currently splitting my time between working from home and in the office. It must depend massively on the sort of work you do, but there is absolutely no way that working from home is more productive.
 
:D I guess I should have known the responses I'd get on here considering, like you said, the heavily leaning of posters on here who can work from home are probably not going to be the biggest fans. Or seemingly from some of the criticism, read the article properly.

I'm not too sure where this criticism of save the city is coming from.....do people think the city workers (bankers, consultants etc) are the targets of this? Or at real risk of losing their jobs compared to others?

I totally agree with you that the move to home working for many will exacerbate income inequalities even more...and probably health inequalities too.

Doesn't mean that the tax increase couldn't come at least partially or fully from the employer (which it mentions) or by taxing bonuses etc etc.

But personally, even though I can't work from home for the most part, I'm perfectly happy to pay a bit more in tax to support those who are likely struggling significantly right now, as part of a raft of other measures too. I don't want society to become even more unequal.
There are super rich corporations that do not pay even 5% tax on their total income. Amazon is a prime example, excuse the pun.

If you don't want society to become more unequal, surely any increase in tax should target those in the top percentiles of income first, rather than Joe Bloggs doing call centre work from home?
 
Doesn't really feel like a lockdown this time for me, work is mostly normal in education, traffic feels the same, busy as feck on way home tonight.

Quite agree with you. During the first lockdown, there was very little traffic or people out and about. At the shops for example.
We have to hope that this semi lockdown has the desired effect. But I am less than optimistic.
 
Another IT glitch, surely?

Apparently not, and there isn't a huge backlog in reporting either. Perhaps the outcome of announcing the new lockdown well in advance and people taking advantage of the time to socialise as much as possible? Schools returning from half term? Maybe it's a freak results day - too much can be read into one off results - but it also may just be the reality of how the virus has been growing. We'll know by case numbers in the coming days if this new "lockdown" has had any positive impact.
 
Doesn't really feel like a lockdown this time for me, work is mostly normal in education, traffic feels the same, busy as feck on way home tonight.

I'm in London and it doesn't feel like a lockdown at all. I go into the office once a week and the train gets packed in the morning, with a lot of traffic on the road.

Also, where I live, some shops and cafes have stayed opened throughout this and are not following the lockdown laws. The council in my area even sent out an email telling those business they have to close or may face fines, with little to no action taken.
 
Looks like increases across the regions, with the West Midlands showing the biggest daily increase.

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That's a massive increase in the UK. In Italy we're at nearly 38,000 cases and 623 new deaths. It's very depressing, but I have confidence in how the Government here are handling it.
 
I'm currently splitting my time between working from home and in the office. It must depend massively on the sort of work you do, but there is absolutely no way that working from home is more productive.
Well avoiding 2 hours a day of driving certainly means I spend more of the day actually working.

Not to mention the environmental benefits to that as mentioned by @Fluctuation0161
 
Guys, I feel like I’m living in a crazy world.

We locked down properly originally and it looked like we had it under control. Positive cases stayed low during eat out to help out.

We opened schools and a few weeks later the cases rose drastically.

Until last week when they seemed to plateau (following a week after half term). Just after this we see a significant jump in cases.

It just seems so obvious to me. Am I missing something?
 
Guys, I feel like I’m living in a crazy world.

We locked down properly originally and it looked like we had it under control. Positive cases stayed low during eat out to help out.

We opened schools and a few weeks later the cases rose drastically.

Until last week when they seemed to plateau (following a week after half term). Just after this we see a significant jump in cases.

It just seems so obvious to me. Am I missing something?

It's too early to make that call I would say, there's a slight lag on reporting (up to 2.9 days from test). However this is one days cases. We're only the 2nd week of a lockdown, if someone contracted and starting showing symptoms on day 9-10, then we would only be seeing the positive elements in the reporting now. If we're still seeing a curve upward in terms of cases by Wednesday next week, then that's where I would get worried.
 
Well avoiding 2 hours a day of driving certainly means I spend more of the day actually working.

Not to mention the environmental benefits to that as mentioned by @Fluctuation0161

Oh I definitely see lots of positives to working from home, and think it's worth splitting time between going in and not. But I certainly haven't found myself being more productive. I get stuff done, but it's more in my own time and less structured.
 
Oh I definitely see lots of positives to working from home, and think it's worth splitting time between going in and not. But I certainly haven't found myself being more productive. I get stuff done, but it's more in my own time and less structured.
Which in itself is a positive for your own well-being and mental health.
 
It definitely doesn't feel like the first lockdown in March/April. Obviously it was all new back then and there was a bit more of a sense of 'wow, this is really strange'.
 
Which in itself is a positive for your own well-being and mental health.

I don't think procrastinating to the point that I'm finishing up menial tasks at 9pm could be considered good for my mental health :lol:

But my job is heavily focussed on building a network across multiple sectors/getting out and about so really not tailored to wfh. Completely depends on the line of work people are in.
 
It definitely doesn't feel like the first lockdown in March/April. Obviously it was all new back then and there was a bit more of a sense of 'wow, this is really strange'.

Don't know if it's me, but what are people expecting to be the same? What we saw in March/April was reaction to cases in 6 figures daily, we're no where near that level now and I don't get why people expect the same style of restrictions as we had March/April. The only correlation is the naming convention in the term 'lockdown'.
 
Don't know if it's me, but what are people expecting to be the same? What we saw in March/April was reaction to cases in 6 figures daily, we're no where near that level now and I don't get why people expect the same style of restrictions as we had March/April. The only correlation is the naming convention in the term 'lockdown'.
I just feel there was a bit more goodwill around that time- whatever you may think about clapping for NHS and thank you key worker signs, it just felt people were in it together more, if that makes sense. As I said, that was a situation that was new and a period of adjustment was happening so it's understandable. There's just more of an awkward/irritable mood this time around now we're entering the winter period. Again, it's understandable but I kind of felt there was a bit more solidarity back then; It's gone from 'stay safe' to 'feck this!'
 
I just feel there was a bit more goodwill around that time- whatever you may think about clapping for NHS and thank you key worker signs, it just felt people were in it together more, if that makes sense. As I said, that was a situation that was new and a period of adjustment was happening so it's understandable. There's just more of an awkward/irritable mood this time around now we're entering the winter period. Again, it's understandable but I kind of felt there was a bit more solidarity back then; It's gone from 'stay safe' to 'feck this!'

It's the same where I am. People are not scared of it anymore, i think that's the big difference. They're just frustrated, and annoyed we've had 6 months to prepare yet here we are in the same place again.
 
Supposedly less hospital admissions relative to first wave so far but just seems like there's a whole lot more deaths at work. I think less people are being transferred to ITU as we now know what cohort of patients don't actually do well once intubated so I feel more people are being deemed "ward-ceiling of care" when they reach the point of being very unwell. Certainly a pessimistic topic.

Our hospital now have a strict "Requires a COVID swab result back" before a patient is transferred from A&E to a ward, in the aim of reducing hospital acquired COVID. It's a fantastic idea, the issue is it just slows the bedding situation while in A&E.
 
By the end of 2021??? That so far away...:(

I think the Australian plan is to vaccinate using the available vaccines from March then start using the UQ vaccine when available.

“It means that this vaccine will potentially be available, subject to the results of those trails, for delivery to Australians early in the third quarter of 2021. Our national goal is to ensure that all Australians who seek to be vaccinated are vaccinated by the end of 2021.”
 
161k cases in the US? wtf?

And with a daily positivity rate of above 10%, or a 7-day average of 8.7%, worse than at any point since May. It's double the rate of last month, and back in May they were testing 4x fewer people. The hospitalisation rate has now reached its highest on record too: 67k current hospitalised, and it's gone up by almost 1k every day this month. They plateaued at around 60k in the first and second peaks but this one just seems to be marching on up.

Could be the first country to get back to its death total peaks from the 1st wave, while hospitalising many, many more in the process. But then Italy doesn't seem far off that either: their positivity rate is at 25% and daily cases exploded from 4k to 30k in October. It'll be great to get 2020 over with but it'll be a bizarre way to start 2021, possibly in a worse position than ever across big chunks of the world.
 
I'm currently splitting my time between working from home and in the office. It must depend massively on the sort of work you do, but there is absolutely no way that working from home is more productive.

I am by a significant margin but as you say it does depend on the work you do.
 
I am by a significant margin but as you say it does depend on the work you do.
Besides the type of work you do, I guess it also depends on your conditions at home. I know of many colleagues with children at home who are screaming bloody murder as they find it hard to take care of their children while working and attending teams meetings.
 
Has anyone lost their smell through it at all?

Since last night, my smell has faded a lot. I can’t smell much. Only when I get REALLY close to something. Like if my nose is touching it

But for the virus, it would be a complete loss of smell wouldn’t it?