22nd February - Roadmap out of the pandemic, lifting of restrictions.

[Bantamzen]

But (unlike the graphs provided by @Domh245) it may as well have said that there was a relationship between tea drinking and deaths - it didn't actually provide any enlightenment about whether there was any connection between the two.

Now you are just being daft.

 

[kez19]

But (unlike the graphs provided by @Domh245) it may as well have said that there was a relationship between tea drinking and deaths - it didn't actually provide any enlightenment about whether there was any connection between the two.

Staff - even in a crisis - are entitled to breaks, and to distractions. The coverage was appalling, and reflects an unpleasant view of our ownership of people working in public services.

I don't care - within reason - what someone does in their spare time; I do care that they are focused when working, and that their management provide sufficient staff to provide an effective service. It is irrelevant to that that I find Tik Tok repellent, and a video like that would at any time have me reaching for the off switch.

No one is denying breaks but to me it proves a point that in part media driven but still though who pitched the idea for it and thought it was a good idea?

Regardless there is some out there (Tik Tok videos) of people prancing about in certain departments (wouldn’t that in itself pose a health and safety issue?), why not if we want to look the other way do it in a staff canteen/waiting room?

I’m far from having a go at the NHS as I use it but the impression you get does make it look at it differently and question the narrative.

 

[WelshBluebird]

I can't help but feel those people complaining about staff having a bit of fun whilst on their breaks are doing so because they have a particular agenda.
Otherwise, comments like "wouldn’t that in itself pose a health and safety issue" wouldn't appear, because clearly staff dancing has literally zero health and safety consequences.

 

[MikeWM]

I’m far from having a go at the NHS as I use it but the impression you get does make it look at it differently and question the narrative.

I've seen it suggested that this was the mechanism they were using to communicate to the outside world that they weren't all as busy inside the hospitals as was being made out, given they've been banned from talking directly to the media [1]. I suspect that isn't really the case, but thought it quite an amusing idea nevertheless

[1] Oddly that never seems to stop people going on the BBC etc. and calling for more restrictions and masks and telling us how bad things are.

 

[NorthOxonian]

I can't help but feel those people complaining about staff having a bit of fun whilst on their breaks are doing so because they have a particular agenda.
Otherwise, comments like "wouldn’t that in itself pose a health and safety issue" wouldn't appear, because clearly staff dancing has literally zero health and safety consequences.

I can see both sides. I don't have any problem with staff doing whatever they like on their breaks, particularly given the amount of stress which they face every shift.

However, dancing and using their nurse status to try and get social media clout strikes me as tasteless and vain. It certainly doesn't come across well.

 

[kez19]

I can't help but feel those people complaining about staff having a bit of fun whilst on their breaks are doing so because they have a particular agenda.
Otherwise, comments like "wouldn’t that in itself pose a health and safety issue" wouldn't appear, because clearly staff dancing has literally zero health and safety consequences.

Well why would you do it near equipment, like x rays etc? I work in care and this is something I wouldn’t do let alone think about doing but I bet the media would use that as a negative spin? Positive for the NHS but negative elsewhere?

Why would I have an agenda just questioning but I guess you can’t these days because autopilot for some out there is you are a crackpot anti this or that but yet most just take things with an open mind but still believe what you want and I believe what I want

Why not just dance in the street? I’m sure that’s happened as well? Isn’t it odd then in all this time it’s been choreographed pretty well? I thought that hospitals are overwhelmed or are most just twiddling thumbs making Tik Tok to pass the time? Fine staff have fun nor denying that but it’s poor taste even for my liking

Yet if this was in the private sector or quite possibly anywhere else people would kick up but because it’s the NHS let’s not?

I've seen it suggested that this was the mechanism they were using to communicate to the outside world that they weren't all as busy inside the hospitals as was being made out, given they've been banned from talking directly to the media [1]. I suspect that isn't really the case, but thought it quite an amusing idea nevertheless

[1] Oddly that never seems to stop people going on the BBC etc. and calling for more restrictions and masks and telling us how bad things are.

Yet that’s what leads me to believe it’s media driven ie calling for restrictions but yet happy to dance about in a hospital? I wonder if a member of the public done that in hospital the police probably fine them?

 

[Philip]

I can't help but feel those people complaining about staff having a bit of fun whilst on their breaks are doing so because they have a particular agenda.
Otherwise, comments like "wouldn’t that in itself pose a health and safety issue" wouldn't appear, because clearly staff dancing has literally zero health and safety consequences.

My own cynical opinion is that there is perhaps a bit of dislike in these parts towards NHS, since NHS staff that have spoken out in the media have generally leaned in favour of restrictions/being careful! *hush hush*

 

[joncombe]

Regardless there is some out there (Tik Tok videos) of people prancing about in certain departments (wouldn’t that in itself pose a health and safety issue?), why not if we want to look the other way do it in a staff canteen/waiting room?

Well I think most employers would take a dim view of employees posting videos to public websites of themselves not working, whilst on company premises and in work uniform (whether on a break or not), especially when that same employee was publicly stating it's overloaded. It's just not professional. I don't think anyone can argue they are not entitled to a break or that they shouldn't be enjoying themselves whilst on a break. At least, I'm not.

 

[Scotrail12]

The TikTok routines were just tone deaf. If the NHS was truly overwhelmed, how did they have the time to be doing them? We had to give up 3 months last spring so they weren't overwhelmed so do forgive me for not being a fan of those videos.

Nothing to do with safety, just badly judged at the time.

 

[kez19]

Well I think most employees would take a dim view of employees posting videos to public websites of themselves not working, whilst on company premises and in work uniform (whether on a break or not), especially when that same employee was publicly stating it's overloaded. It's just not professional. I don't think anyone can argue they are not entitled to a break or that they shouldn't be enjoying themselves whilst on a break. At least, I'm not.

Exactly

The TikTok routines were just tone deaf. If the NHS was truly overwhelmed, how did they have the time to be doing them? We had to give up 3 months last spring so they weren't overwhelmed so do forgive me for not being a fan of those videos.

Nothing to do with safety, just badly judged at the time.

The way I meant as in safety was the equipment in rooms such as x rays and other departments within a hospital, now you wouldn’t want one of your fellow staff members to have an accident within hospital grounds - whilst us the public have/had been told not too.

I agree however badly timed but it did fill the void for a little bit of coverage in the media.

My own cynical opinion is that there is perhaps a bit of dislike in these parts towards NHS, since NHS staff that have spoken out in the media have generally leaned in favour of restrictions/being careful! *hush hush*

Ok then let’s turn it around had this been a bus driver or anyone else would they have gotten this attention for doing this? The media would have pounced on them criticising that they should not do this and get on with the job but as I said as it was the NHS - look the other way/praise them etc

I have always used the NHS service wherever I go but I think in this case it changes the perception of the reality

 

[Philip]

Ok then let’s turn it around had this been a bus driver or anyone else would they have gotten this attention for doing this? The media would have pounced on them criticising that they should not do this and get on with the job but as I said as it was the NHS - look the other way/praise them etc

I have always used the NHS service wherever I go but I think in this case it changes the perception of the reality

Don't think people would really be that bothered whether nurses, bus drivers or train drivers posted a video of them dancing during their break; more likely to find it funny if anything. They were just having a bit of harmless fun. To suggest it was dangerous because of machinary is ridiculous clutching at straws.

 

[kez19]

Don't think people would really be that bothered whether nurses, bus drivers or train drivers posted a video of them dancing during their break; more likely to find it funny if anything. They were just having a bit of harmless fun. To suggest it was dangerous because of machinary is ridiculous clutching at straws.

No it’s not, so I guess equipment in hospitals no longer exist then? Health and Safety exists in the workplace for a reason but I guess recording on social media which is in a way ironic that no one should be doing during a shift but I guess these days it’s acceptable to be kitted out in uniform to prance about. (just did a random google search - you could find quite a few with the NHS one involving Radiology and its called a "dance off" supposedly ... wow even in these time they can have a dance off, may I suggest going to a B-Boy tournament if they wanted to do that instead? Just to also add further research into even some emergency services had done this as well as supermarket staff but point for me still stands..)

I am far from boring either but I just find that the whole challenge has been a setup but its not for the greater good.

My point still stands we are in a pandemic supposedly so I don’t find it fun, I seen people die in my work but good god I wouldn’t be dancing if anything maybe it could have been left out? I’m far from clutching at straws to your nightclubs argument

How do we know if they did this on their break? If they are supposedly only Covid only patients in hospitals? It’s still unnecessary and Ill thought out but still let’s look them in the eyes..

The social media: during the shift you are meant to be not using a phone however yes during your breaks you can but this ain’t normal times in a hospital is it, if we are serious about it but still let’s make a dance about and laugh about it, after patients passing - is that really appropriate? No it’s not.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Chart from this weeks national flu and covid survey continues to improve week on week but still shows scale of the challenge to normalise whole country below 100cases/100k

 

[Bald Rick]

For some reason Corby is a particular hotspot. (Although that map isn’t fine enough to show it)

 

[Watershed]

Chart from this weeks national flu and covid survey continues to improve week on week but still shows scale of the challenge to normalise whole country below 100cases/100k

View attachment 91465

That is such a disparity in rates that it makes regional tiers look half appropriate again! Fascinating that Kent & the South East have recovered from the flare-up in cases they had at the end of last year, whilst much of the North and the Midlands still has higher case rates.

 

[MikeWM]

Peterborough now with the worst rate in the country then... Though apparently it is partly due to a fairly major set of cases in a prison.

 

[Pete_uk]

I forsee disagreements regarding the use of face masks. I see in today's Telegraph there are letters, one in particular, calling them 'dehumanising'.

Once they are no longer required mine is staying at home.

 

[ChrisC]

That is such a disparity in rates that it makes regional tiers look half appropriate again! Fascinating that Kent & the South East have recovered from the flare-up in cases they had at the end of last year, whilst much of the North and the Midlands still has higher case rates.

I find it difficult to understand why rates in parts of the Midlands and the North remain quite high and are still only falling very slowly. The new variant caused rates in London and the South East to rise extremely quickly just before Christmas but they have also fallen just as quickly. Yet in some areas of the country, where there have been varying degrees of local lockdowns for months, rates are only falling very slowly. I keep looking at the figures for my own relatively rural county of Nottinghamshire, and whilst levels are falling, it is frustratingly slowly.

The Government have set out the roadmap to lifting restrictions and this is planned to happen on a national level and not with regional tiers. Many people want this to happen more quickly and point to how quickly the infection rates, hospital admissions and death rates have fallen and continue to fall. That is definitely true for most of the country, especially London and the South East, but perhaps the fact that infection levels still remain high in some parts of the Midlands and the North is part of the reason for the cautious approach.

 

[yorksrob]

That is such a disparity in rates that it makes regional tiers look half appropriate again! Fascinating that Kent & the South East have recovered from the flare-up in cases they had at the end of last year, whilst much of the North and the Midlands still has higher case rates.

I think (and this was alluded to be the Director of Public Health for Wakefield on the radio a couple of days ago) that the steady rate of infections in areas in the North is likely down to structural issues, such as larger numbers of multi-generational families, and a higher proportion of work that can't be done from home.

This is why I don't think a tier system is justified because it is the same areas which will be hit as a result of their circumstances, not their behaviours.

 

[Ianno87]

I think (and this was alluded to be the Director of Public Health for Wakefield on the radio a couple of days ago) that the steady rate of infections in areas in the North is likely down to structural issues, such as larger numbers of multi-generational families, and a higher proportion of work that can't be done from home.

This is why I don't think a tier system is justified because it is the same areas which will be hit as a result of their circumstances, not their behaviours.

Also the argument that in spite of the Tier system and lockdown, these areas remain high, suggesting that these are not effective in tackling the specific issues in these areas.

 

[yorksrob]

Also the argument that in spite of the Tier system and lockdown, these areas remain high, suggesting that these are not effective in tackling the specific issues in these areas.

And if that's true for the tiers, it must also be true for many of the lockdown restrictions that the tier system (and National lockdowns) rely on.

 

[Philip]

I find it difficult to understand why rates in parts of the Midlands and the North remain quite high and are still only falling very slowly. The new variant caused rates in London and the South East to rise extremely quickly just before Christmas but they have also fallen just as quickly. Yet in some areas of the country, where there have been varying degrees of local lockdowns for months, rates are only falling very slowly. I keep looking at the figures for my own relatively rural county of Nottinghamshire, and whilst levels are falling, it is frustratingly slowly.

The Government have set out the roadmap to lifting restrictions and this is planned to happen on a national level and not with regional tiers. Many people want this to happen more quickly and point to how quickly the infection rates, hospital admissions and death rates have fallen and continue to fall. That is definitely true for most of the country, especially London and the South East, but perhaps the fact that infection levels still remain high in some parts of the Midlands and the North is part of the reason for the cautious approach.

It's also possible that more people are getting tested in the Midlands and the North; this is logical if taking into account the fact that more people have to go out to work in these areas (aside from higher risk of picking up an infection because of this). More people WFH in London and the SE than other areas, and I think it's more likely these will not bother with a test even if they have symptoms.

 

[kristiang85]

Or maybe the Kent variant was more transmissible so it's quickly pushed southern areas towards herd immunity?

(pure just-woken-up speculation there)

 

[Bantamzen]

There is data on regional testing here. A very brief glance doesn't reveal higher testing numbers in the areas seeing slower reductions, actually on face value those areas with higher test figures are the ones seeing the quickest reductions. This might explain why the government is putting a lot of stock into mass testing. However this data doesn't have population densities for each region, so its actually not as easy to calculate a x in 100,000 rate of testing, something that is needed in order to make a meaningful comparison.

So its not as clear cut as to why some regions see slower reductions than others. One possible reason could be the methodology of testing. For example here in Bradford there is still door-to-door testing, but that seems to be targeted to certain areas (I've never seen or heard from any such teams where I live), so maybe we are seeing the effects of concentrating less testing to higher density areas?

 

[takno]

Or maybe the Kent variant was more transmissible so it's quickly pushed southern areas towards herd immunity?

(pure just-woken-up speculation there)

I don't think that's a particularly unreasonable hypothesis. It is highly transmissible and clearly had some ability to reinfect people who already had other strains, albeit not generally making them seriously ill. It was allowed to burn through a large proportion of the population in the southeast very quickly with minimal testing and low levels of restrictions standing in the way. Obviously there were consequences in terms of hospitalisations and deaths, but because a lot of the cases were reinfections, it wasn't as extreme as it otherwise might have been.

Now it's up North, the spread has been slowed but not at all prevented by lockdown, and so it's still doing the rounds. Meanwhile targeted mass testing, which was foisted on those areas in a misguided belief that track and trace is useful, is accurately tracking it around the place and giving high numbers.

 

[Crossover]

and a higher proportion of work that can't be done from home.

This is a good point - there are pockets of industry such as manufacturing that are focussed on certain areas. To take the City of London specifically, it doesn't tend to feature much (if any) of this kind of industry and is more based around office work which can largely be done elsewhere. My employer has remained largely working on site because, funnily enough, one can't generally move product through a production line from home!

 

[Tracked]

Peterborough now with the worst rate in the country then... Though apparently it is partly due to a fairly major set of cases in a prison.

Similar thing here in Doncaster, an ongoing outbreak at HMP Moorland, did wonder if that was the case as looking at gov.uk interactive map the area of town that's based in was something like 800+ cases per thousand. Did eventually get mentioned once by the local paper, along with a couple of workplace outbreaks (there's a lot of distribution centres/warehouses around here). Looks like we've levelled off in the drop in cases and been around 180-210 cases per hundred-thousand for the last week or two as a result of these.

 

[Whistler40145]

Would I be stopped from going on holiday with my girlfriend to Spain in late September?

 

[Bald Rick]

Would I be stopped from going on holiday with my girlfriend to Spain in late September?

Way to early to say. You probably need to worry more about Spanish restrictions than UK restrictions at that point.

 

[Whistler40145]

Way to early to say. You probably need to worry more about Spanish restrictions than UK restrictions at that point.

The way we're going with bumbling Boris, he'd have us on a life long lockdown