COVID-19

It was 25th highest last week, and its up to 20th highest this week. Its a 7% rise on the week but a significant drop from where we were a few weeks ago.

 

From Tory MPs outside the area, they all feed into the lie that this was announced as it should have been but it clearly wasn't. Literally nobody knew this guidance existed.

It's telling that a Tory MP from the area has spoken out about this and that is as close to the truth about what a shambles this is.

In Bolton which is far and away the highest rate of infection in the whole country, infact yesterday it was about twice the rate of the next highest areas Blackburn which is significantly higher than Bedford. Two weeks ago Bolton had 14 people in hospital, it now has 24 people in hospital, in those 2 weeks they have had over 2000 new cases. If anything there is proof that the vaccine is working, surely the hospital figures would have skyrocketed with such rates without a vaccine.

 

Copied from @Thelittlegerman in the (now closed) Season Ticket thread:
"It was 25th highest last week, and its up to 20th highest this week. Its a 7% rise on the week but a significant drop from where we were a few weeks ago".

It's true that it's not up to the 4000+ levels of February time, but it is rising pretty rapidly according to the Zoe app, which is usually accurate and ahead of the official figures, which are a week behind. A couple of weeks ago the Zoe app was citing about 120 active cases in Bradford. Its 1368 now.

 

when I looked at the weekend we were dropping down the table rather than up

 

Didn’t they say previously that hospital admissions are usually about two weeks behind infection and then deaths two or three after that?

 

Well we are about 2 weeks in since the Indian Variant as that was the week before the next stage of unlocking.

 

Well we are about 2 weeks in since the Indian Variant as that was the week before the next stage of unlocking.

The latest data states,

• Bradford, 51.5, (278), 39.3, (212)

So 278 up from 212 the week before during a week where household mixing and hospitality was reintroduced.

Lets deal with actual facts rather than an unoffical app which states a 1000% increase.

 

Good! The move from enforced regulations to simple advice is a positive step. It doesn't even look like they're designed to be enforceable in the slightest.

Will some people listen to the advice? No. Did they listen to the restrictions anyway? Also no.

The media focus on the communications - specifically that there was no massive song and dance about the government giving people advice, rather than just communicating the advice themselves, is exactly what has been their failing in this whole process.

"The people haven't been told!" they scream. If only there were some organisations within society whose role was to actually tell people what was going on. Disseminate the news so to speak. Suppose that's a pipe dream.

 

I don’t think the complaint is that there was no song and dance, it was literally just added to a web page. Not a front page web page but deep down. Think in the end someone just saw it by accident and then it got passed around until local media and the. National media found out.

even the councils involved were not told

 

Another vaguely helpful article on the BBC - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57157496 - even if I don't love the scaling of the map in the middle!

Cut's through some of the headlines to actual numbers for example -

• Just because the Indian Variant is reported as the most common strain in some places doesn't mean there's actually lots of it about.
• For example In Croydon, the variant is reported to account for 87% of the cases which were analysed but in reality this is only 14 individual infections in the past week, out of over 100 confirmed coronavirus cases. In West Oxfordshire it was reported as responsible for 100% of the authority's Covid cases but only 4 were analysed.
• While the variant is driving an increase in cases in Bolton, in pockets of London it appears to just be replacing the Kent variant but not leading to an increase in cases overall.
• Transmission rates for the Indian strain have been quoted as 50% higher than for the Kent version which is mathmatically correct. However that represents the fact that 12% of contacts of people with the Indian variant went on to develop coronavirus compared with 8% of contacts of people who had the Kent variant

Ovareal it's helpful in pointing out that when we're dealing with small numbers reporting things in purely percentage terms can be misleading. Very important context when looking through things.

 

Do the councils need to be told? They're not being asked to do anything different, it's just advice for people.

I'm not sure it's buried deep either. This is the main page https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus and the link to the advice is the very top of the rules for England, literally in the second paragraph. I don't know where it was on Friday when they first put it up but that's not hidden to me.

People seeing new information and spreading that information around is literally what we want isn't it? The more low key this advice actually is actually communicated the better - all this talk of "restrictions" in the media is purposely confusing.

 

Just looked at your link and no where does it say there was an update on 21st? So how would I know by looking at that page that one of the pages had an unspecified update after the date the front page was changed.

even if you go to the link for Announcements there isn’t anything to say anything had changed

 

You wouldn't know the date but the comment is fairly self explanatory - "A new COVID-19 variant is spreading in some parts of England. Find out what you should do"

Nothing has changed, isn't that the whole point? They're just clarifying how people in higher risk areas can choose to protect themselves and restrict the spread if they wish to do so.....but after 14 months of this it's hardly new news.

 

Lets be honest who looks at the website on a daily basis? No one.

If the government wanted this guidance to be used then they should have let people know it was there. There is no law to following it but if they want it to be seen as guidance at least make it widely known, then if people want to either ignore it or follow it then it is up to them.

According to the date the guidance was updated it was actually on the same day that Nicola Sturgeon advised against travel to these areas, and that was picked up because it was put out there.

I haven't checked that guidance in the last hour, so if Bradford has been added to the list I won't know unless someone highlights that to me, I won't be clicking on refresh to see who has or hasn't been added or taken off that list.

 

You wouldn't need to look at the website - it's not that important,

However once the media are made aware of it they have two choices. They can calmly pass the new information around so that everyone knows, or they can talk about "new restrictions" when there is none of the sort and get labour politicians and Councillors to show predictable confusion. i shouldn't be surprised they picked option 2 when option 1 would have been more helpful.

 

Look I'm all for the relaxation of lockdown and I think a few cases here and there is an over reaction and I am dead against localised lockdowns, but if you are going to change the guidance then at the very least you have to make people aware that the guidance has changed. If local councils had been told but hadn't passed that on I would put the blame at their door, however it seems that the local councils haven't been told, as a Tory MP said he had no idea and various directors of public health who are not politically sided have also said they were not made aware.

There was a clear change in guidance but no one was told, it was simply picked up.

If the guidance isn't deemed required to be passed onto the people who are being advised to follow it, then why even have it?

 

They haven't changed any guidance though. It's the exact same guidance as we've had for months and just asking people to be mindful.

This is hopefully the first step in moving to a lighter touch method of communicating.

We've got used to restrictions being beemed directly into our eyes but that couldn't go on forever. At some point there has to be a move away from making a big deal about about changes to a more low key method of giving advice and this is probably it.

It's just advice and it's advice everyone already knows.

 

So is the travel guidance for Bradford too?

 

Being advised against moving outside the district you live is a little more than asking people to be mindful.

 

Don't know, don't particularly care since I have no plans to go there but if it is I expect I could find out with 1 Google search or hopefully being told through the T&A.