In Germany now wherever you go, even the bakery, you have to record all your details. Some places on screen, some on paper. Name, phone number, address, health status.
This will make contact tracing easy. Would folk do it here? Data protection etc?
I’ve heard they are using current STD staff for contact tracing as well as new recruits (I assume they have a lull in work at present!).
I saw, in passing, mention that STD rate is actually climbing. (Not sure in what locale.) Maybe someone should hand out free condoms outside of hospitals, essential businesses, etc.? Heck, even at gas stations.
It must be labour intensive, even with hi-tech aids..
The UK daily detected new case load is coming down but is still around 3,000. The US daily detected new case load is still over 20,000, falling for the time being in some epicentres, but rising in others.
I imagine contact trace work focusing on a local cluster requires more than one person per infected person and may take a few days to follow through. Presumably every contact tracer will need some form of PPE while carrying out interviews?
I think we need to learn from those countries who have been successful in its use. I hear we are looking to recruit and train 20,000 people. Who determined the recruiting target and what metrics did they use? Frankly, 20 thousand doesn't sound a lot given current numbers.
I've looked at a few sources. The German metrics seem to be based on a standard of one team of 5 for every 20,000 population. Their daily caseload when easing restrictions was about 600 (about one fifth of ours).
A back of the envelope calculation, allowing a bit for economies of scale, suggests that our current tracing need is say four times that of Germany (20 per 20 thousand or 1 per thousand,)
Our current population is about 66 million. So our estimated grossed up contact tracing need is about 66 thousand people.
Or put another way, we need the daily case load to get down to under a thousand to avoid swamping a team of 20 thousand tracers. We've got some time to go before that happens even if current favourable trends continue.
Sure, it's just "back of an envelope" arithmetic. And my basis may be wrong.
But are there any government estimates and targets re these kinds of metrics? I haven't found any yet despite a fair bit of Googling.
Sure, it's just "back of an envelope" arithmetic. And my basis may be wrong.
But are there any government estimates and targets re these kinds of metrics? I haven't found any yet despite a fair bit of Googling.
There are no government estimates that I've found, but there are other people who have done the same calculations and come to similar conclusions as you have. You get similar answers if you do it bottom up and make assumptions about numbers of contacts per day, amount of time spent with each contact on phone (you'd hope to minimise face to face interviews because you don't want contact tracers to spend most of their time travelling around) and so on.
I’ve heard they are using current STD staff for contact tracing as well as new recruits (I assume they have a lull in work at present!).
I enjoyed that comment - but orders of magnitude more difficult. Unless 'now, did I shag 20 or 30 people in the Co-op on Wednesday? Or was that Thursday?' - is a usual part of one's daily routine.
It must be labour intensive, even with hi-tech aids..
I imagine contact trace work focusing on a local cluster requires more than one person per infected person and may take a few days to follow through. Presumably every contact tracer will need some form of PPE while carrying out interviews?
They're talking about contact tracing by phone in Scotland; presumably OK if you say "I was at work with X, Y, Z " who are known individuals, but more difficult with "And the folk stood near me in the 20min queue for Asda on Thurs"
The "queue at Asda" thing is where you need boots on the ground. You assume most people who shop at a particular store always do so, and you have people out there asking people "were you here on Thursday between 3 and 5pm?", with a few more people there on Thursday between 3 and 5 because people are creatures of habit and likely to shop at the same time each week. With a van in the carpark where people can be tested if they say "yes".
FT citing 62 000 excess deaths. Chris Giles, who calculates this, calls it a cautious estimate. You can find him on twitter. Some of these are not directly from covid, for example, dementia deaths are rising, possibly indirectly linked to covid.
The next-door neighbours of a colleague of mine have moved out, finally able to take possession of the new house they'd purchased before lock down. This morning my colleague was out in his backyard and noticed (he assumed) his new neighbours, so he said "Hi" over the fence. Turns out they're not his new neighbours at all, but a family from Middlesbrough (300 miles away, not in this nation of the UK) who've come for a short break. Apparently they've rented the house on AirBnB.
I encouraged my colleague to report this to the cops but he doesn't want trouble. He's seething though.
Blair was on TV last night, and although I don't like him, I couldn't help thinking he would organize testing etc., while Boris is still lolling under his duvet. Strange.
Is it true that right wing govts, e.g., US, UK, Brazil, are averse to planning and investment, and have therefore made a bollocks of the pandemic? Against that, you can argue that some govts in Asia have coped well, because of planning, and they are not left wing, e.g. Taiwan.
It's becoming a theme among some left people, but then it could turn into another culture war. Maybe Trump, Boris and Bolsonaro are just poor at most things.
@Miffy - it's pretty much what I reckon - if they'd tested me back in March they might have found something, but it would probably take an antibody test to see if I had had it to check now. I'd think it was something else, other than my daughter's symptoms and the trip into London.
And guess what? It’s negative. What a surprise. 😎 Well, whatever I had, I wouldn’t wish it on anybody..
I assume it was taken too late to show a positive.
I was given a test in casualty because I had symptoms of covid but, unfortunately, they had started 3 weeks previously so a test was pointless as it was too late, as the doctors acknowledged.
I have a dumb question: why are we in the U.K. trying to make a contact app from scratch - why can’t we just buy South Korea’s and translate it into English with a few modifications ?
(I assume there is a reason, I just don’t know what it is.)
I have a dumb question: why are we in the U.K. trying to make a contact app from scratch - why can’t we just buy South Korea’s and translate it into English with a few modifications ?
The decision not to use the framework set up by Apple/Google and to write something entirely from scratch seems to owe more to ideology, the British state seems to be addicted to creating centralised databases.
Is it true that right wing govts, e.g., US, UK, Brazil, are averse to planning and investment, and have therefore made a bollocks of the pandemic? Against that, you can argue that some govts in Asia have coped well, because of planning, and they are not left wing, e.g. Taiwan.
It's becoming a theme among some left people, but then it could turn into another culture war. Maybe Trump, Boris and Bolsonaro are just poor at most things.
It's not just that, as as you point out there are plenty of right-wing governments that did well (including one that had been shit against an earlier disaster), plenty of countries we haven't seen the full outcome yet. And for that matter Sweden hasn't done that great (Spain is technically a left wing coalition as well), but isn't stirring things up so much.
On the other hand the outcomes seem to follow naturally from their decisions and nature. Another aspect might be that they are non-co-operative and zero sum. If America or England end up sending 2nd, 3rd and 4th waves to Germany then Germany's lock down will have been wasted ()and vice versa), even if we'd both do better by mutually keeping it.
I assume it was taken too late to show a positive.
I was given a test in casualty because I had symptoms of covid but, unfortunately, they had started 3 weeks previously so a test was pointless as it was too late, as the doctors acknowledged.
Yes, way too late. A few weeks in, I consulted 111 online, to find that I was ineligible for a test as I’d not travelled to or from, nor had known contact with anybody from affected countries. By the time I spoke (over the phone) to a Dr several weeks later, by which time I’d (as I mistakenly thought, recovered) and then relapsed, my dry cough had turned wet and had moved down into my chest, which concerned me, as I’ve had pneumonia several times in the past. Nobody suggested a test then, and a course of antibiotics began to shift the infection, I was too weak to push it; as it was, it took until at least the beginning of April for me to feel halfway normal.
I’d be very interested in seeing whether an antibody test flagged up anything, even as I can see it likely wouldn’t make much difference for me personally.
We had our first zero day yesterday. No new diagnoses. Active cases 123. Total cases 599. Population 1.1 million. Sask Dashboard.
I just don't get it. How we're not openning schools. Most businesses are still closed. Those open have either physical distance rule or PPE requirements for both customers and staff.
How the hell is it that some of your jurisdictions are openning up more?
United Arab Emirates - 25,063 (14,045 / 10,791 / 227)
Ireland - 24,251 (3,220 / 19,470 / 1,561) 7.4%
Poland - 19,268 (10,417 / 7,903 / 948)
Ukraine - 18,876 (12,696 / 5,632 / 548)
Indonesia - 18,496 (12,808 / 4,467 / 1,221)
South Africa - 17,200 (8,928 / 7,960 / 312)
Romania - 17,191 (5,888 / 10,166 / 1,137)
Colombia - 16,935 (12,272 / 4,050 / 613)
Kuwait - 16,764 (11,962 / 4,681 / 121)
Israel - 16,659 (2,946 / 13,435 / 278) 2.0%
Japan - 16,367 (4,035 / 11,564 / 768) 6.2%
Austria - 16,321 (1,011 / 14,678 / 632) 4.1%
Egypt - 13,484 (9,083 / 3,742 / 659)
Dominican Republic - 13,223 (6,169 / 6,613 / 441)
Philippines - 12,942 (9,262 / 2,843 / 837)
South Korea - 11,110 (781 / 10,066 / 263) 2.5%
Denmark - 11,044 (1,077 / 9,416 / 551) 5.5%
Serbia - 10,733 (5,595 / 4,904 / 234)
The listings are in the format:
X. Country - [# of known cases] ([active] / [recovered] / [dead]) [%fatality rate]
Fatality rates are only listed for countries where the number of resolved cases (recovered + dead) exceeds the number of known active cases by a ratio of at least 2:1.
Italics indicate authoritarian countries whose official statistics are suspect. Other country's statistics are suspect if their testing regimes are substandard.
If American states were treated as individual countries twenty-nine of them would be on that list. New York would be ranked at #2, between "everywhere in the U.S. except New York" (#1) and Spain (#3). New Jersey would be between Turkey and Iran.
No countries have joined the 10,000 case club since the last compilation.
I heard Hancock last night explaining how we were acting as an individual state. I hadn't heard what came before, and felt moved to turn it off and wait to read it, because it seemed to me that arguing that that wasa GOOD THING (see 1066 and all that) was totally missing the point.
(Now that clip gives away my vintage - I remember watching that particular show live). Tony Hancock was good at lugubrious confusion, Matt Hancock can't even claim that.
Another doleful milestone reached. The global total of recorded cases just topped 5 million. Horrifying totals and supporting information coming out of Brazil.
We had our first zero day yesterday. No new diagnoses. Active cases 123. Total cases 599. Population 1.1 million. Sask Dashboard.
I just don't get it. How we're not openning schools. Most businesses are still closed. Those open have either physical distance rule or PPE requirements for both customers and staff.
How the hell is it that some of your jurisdictions are openning up more?
The incubation period of the virus is up to 2 weeks. You think everything's resolved after ONE zero day?
Because outsourcing is a crock of shit that has created a kind of oligarchy of incompetence - there are only a handful of companies that have the scale to tackle large-scale government projects, and so each one knows that as long as they're not significantly more incompetent than their rivals, the government has nowhere else to spaff the cash,
Because outsourcing is a crock of shit that has created a kind of oligarchy of incompetence - there are only a handful of companies that have the scale to tackle large-scale government projects, and so each one knows that as long as they're not significantly more incompetent than their rivals, the government has nowhere else to spaff the cash,
And the government has outsourced expertise to the point where they are unable to create good contracts, and so most projects initially turn out something unfit for purpose and then roll into change control at which point the cost climbs rapidly.
Because outsourcing is a crock of shit that has created a kind of oligarchy of incompetence - there are only a handful of companies that have the scale to tackle large-scale government projects, and so each one knows that as long as they're not significantly more incompetent than their rivals, the government has nowhere else to spaff the cash,
And the government has outsourced expertise to the point where they are unable to create good contracts, and so most projects initially turn out something unfit for purpose and then roll into change control at which point the cost climbs rapidly.
ISTM there is a basic flaw in outsourcing, which is that:
If the contractor understands the thing being outsourced better than the Government, it can use its superior knowledge to screw over the Government, rather than to provide a good service;
If the Government understands the thing being outsourced better than the contractor, then not only is outsourcing pointless, but the Government is likely to end up having to bail out the contractor anyway.
And the government has outsourced expertise to the point where they are unable to create good contracts, and so most projects initially turn out something unfit for purpose and then roll into change control at which point the cost climbs rapidly.
Indeed. If you lack expertise in both initiation and specification, then design, development and implementation are bound to go disastrously wrong. You never reach the maintenance phase.
The six phases for far too many government projects are as follows.
Wild enthusiasm
Confusion
Disillusion
Search for the Guilty
Punishment of the Innocent
Promotion of the Non-participants.
The blame game seems to be off and running. The politicians are rounding on the scientists, for bad advice, I thought Angela MacLean seemed tetchy yesterday at the press conference, (science advisor). The press will enjoy this, a kind of soap opera. I guess also everyone is covering their backs, ahead of the inevitable public enquiry.
Because outsourcing is a crock of shit that has created a kind of oligarchy of incompetence - there are only a handful of companies that have the scale to tackle large-scale government projects, and so each one knows that as long as they're not significantly more incompetent than their rivals, the government has nowhere else to spaff the cash,
And the government has outsourced expertise to the point where they are unable to create good contracts, and so most projects initially turn out something unfit for purpose and then roll into change control at which point the cost climbs rapidly.
ISTM there is a basic flaw in outsourcing, which is that:
If the contractor understands the thing being outsourced better than the Government, it can use its superior knowledge to screw over the Government, rather than to provide a good service;
If the Government understands the thing being outsourced better than the contractor, then not only is outsourcing pointless, but the Government is likely to end up having to bail out the contractor anyway.
Wow, no. If a governmental agency does a task with great frequency, then hiring permanent staff makes sense. When they do not, it doesn't.
No government agency can have every person it needs to do everything it needs having done. It simply isn't cost effective. Outsourcing, properly done, uses resources for occasional/specialised jobs and is overseen by staff who understand the process. There is a balance between in-house and outsourcing, but government being government, it is often got wrong.
The idea that contractors always screw the government is both cynical and wrong.* The idea that the government, which constantly prove they completely know how to fuck up, will not fuck up if they do every job, is mind-numbing.
*Because we are in a phase of over-reaction here on SOF: Yes, some contractors take advantage of the system.
Because outsourcing is a crock of shit that has created a kind of oligarchy of incompetence - there are only a handful of companies that have the scale to tackle large-scale government projects, and so each one knows that as long as they're not significantly more incompetent than their rivals, the government has nowhere else to spaff the cash,
And the government has outsourced expertise to the point where they are unable to create good contracts, and so most projects initially turn out something unfit for purpose and then roll into change control at which point the cost climbs rapidly.
ISTM there is a basic flaw in outsourcing, which is that:
If the contractor understands the thing being outsourced better than the Government, it can use its superior knowledge to screw over the Government, rather than to provide a good service;
If the Government understands the thing being outsourced better than the contractor, then not only is outsourcing pointless, but the Government is likely to end up having to bail out the contractor anyway.
Wow, no. If a governmental agency does a task with great frequency, then hiring permanent staff makes sense. When they do not, it doesn't.
No government agency can have every person it needs to do everything it needs having done. It simply isn't cost effective. Outsourcing, properly done, uses resources for occasional/specialised jobs and is overseen by staff who understand the process. There is a balance between in-house and outsourcing, but government being government, it is often got wrong.
The idea that contractors always screw the government is both cynical and wrong.* The idea that the government, which constantly prove they completely know how to fuck up, will not fuck up if they do every job, is mind-numbing.
*Because we are in a phase of over-reaction here on SOF: Yes, some contractors take advantage of the system.
However, the idea that Serco, Capita and G4S always screw the government does seem to be supported by the evidence. "Government being government" isn't an excuse. If we want to stop outsourcing fuckups we have to stop electing politicians who think the answer to everything is outsourcing. Serco is built around bidding for government contracts, and they don't seem to be specialised in anything much except that. I mean, they were awarded the contract to run the ferries to Orkney and Shetland a few years back, then couldn't source a replacement ferry when the Hamnavoe broke down. Not surprising for a company with no experience of the industry.
Boris seems to have promised contact tracing to start 1 June, in response to Starmer's questions. What could go wrong?
This reminds me of Donald Trump's "Operation Warp Speed", a program to fast-track vaccine development and other treatments for COVID-19. It started its work in May. Maybe starting in March would have projected a greater sense of speed and urgency?
Boris seems to have promised contact tracing to start 1 June, in response to Starmer's questions. What could go wrong?
If he'd said he wasn't going to do contact tracing at all that would be worse. And if he'd said a later date he'd be panned for not doing enough soon enough.
Get contact tracing in place, as the only alternative we currently have to lockdown, before he shoves R back above 1 and lets the pandemic kick off again?
Comments
This will make contact tracing easy. Would folk do it here? Data protection etc?
I saw, in passing, mention that STD rate is actually climbing. (Not sure in what locale.) Maybe someone should hand out free condoms outside of hospitals, essential businesses, etc.? Heck, even at gas stations.
The UK daily detected new case load is coming down but is still around 3,000. The US daily detected new case load is still over 20,000, falling for the time being in some epicentres, but rising in others.
I imagine contact trace work focusing on a local cluster requires more than one person per infected person and may take a few days to follow through. Presumably every contact tracer will need some form of PPE while carrying out interviews?
I think we need to learn from those countries who have been successful in its use. I hear we are looking to recruit and train 20,000 people. Who determined the recruiting target and what metrics did they use? Frankly, 20 thousand doesn't sound a lot given current numbers.
A back of the envelope calculation, allowing a bit for economies of scale, suggests that our current tracing need is say four times that of Germany (20 per 20 thousand or 1 per thousand,)
Our current population is about 66 million. So our estimated grossed up contact tracing need is about 66 thousand people.
Or put another way, we need the daily case load to get down to under a thousand to avoid swamping a team of 20 thousand tracers. We've got some time to go before that happens even if current favourable trends continue.
Sure, it's just "back of an envelope" arithmetic. And my basis may be wrong.
But are there any government estimates and targets re these kinds of metrics? I haven't found any yet despite a fair bit of Googling.
There are no government estimates that I've found, but there are other people who have done the same calculations and come to similar conclusions as you have. You get similar answers if you do it bottom up and make assumptions about numbers of contacts per day, amount of time spent with each contact on phone (you'd hope to minimise face to face interviews because you don't want contact tracers to spend most of their time travelling around) and so on.
I enjoyed that comment - but orders of magnitude more difficult. Unless 'now, did I shag 20 or 30 people in the Co-op on Wednesday? Or was that Thursday?' - is a usual part of one's daily routine.
They're talking about contact tracing by phone in Scotland; presumably OK if you say "I was at work with X, Y, Z " who are known individuals, but more difficult with "And the folk stood near me in the 20min queue for Asda on Thurs"
Very sorry to hear it. But deaths of young people are supposed to be going down, possibly fewer reckless activities going on?
I encouraged my colleague to report this to the cops but he doesn't want trouble. He's seething though.
(Well, not quite - but I could tell you stories of 100s of miles covered in just one 12-hour shift...).
It's becoming a theme among some left people, but then it could turn into another culture war. Maybe Trump, Boris and Bolsonaro are just poor at most things.
And guess what? It’s negative. What a surprise. 😎 Well, whatever I had, I wouldn’t wish it on anybody..
I was given a test in casualty because I had symptoms of covid but, unfortunately, they had started 3 weeks previously so a test was pointless as it was too late, as the doctors acknowledged.
(I assume there is a reason, I just don’t know what it is.)
I think it's partly because a lot of the apps that have been created in the Far East are meant to work alongside the other measures they have in place in those countries.
The decision not to use the framework set up by Apple/Google and to write something entirely from scratch seems to owe more to ideology, the British state seems to be addicted to creating centralised databases.
It's not just that, as as you point out there are plenty of right-wing governments that did well (including one that had been shit against an earlier disaster), plenty of countries we haven't seen the full outcome yet. And for that matter Sweden hasn't done that great (Spain is technically a left wing coalition as well), but isn't stirring things up so much.
On the other hand the outcomes seem to follow naturally from their decisions and nature. Another aspect might be that they are non-co-operative and zero sum. If America or England end up sending 2nd, 3rd and 4th waves to Germany then Germany's lock down will have been wasted ()and vice versa), even if we'd both do better by mutually keeping it.
Yes, way too late. A few weeks in, I consulted 111 online, to find that I was ineligible for a test as I’d not travelled to or from, nor had known contact with anybody from affected countries. By the time I spoke (over the phone) to a Dr several weeks later, by which time I’d (as I mistakenly thought, recovered) and then relapsed, my dry cough had turned wet and had moved down into my chest, which concerned me, as I’ve had pneumonia several times in the past. Nobody suggested a test then, and a course of antibiotics began to shift the infection, I was too weak to push it; as it was, it took until at least the beginning of April for me to feel halfway normal.
I’d be very interested in seeing whether an antibody test flagged up anything, even as I can see it likely wouldn’t make much difference for me personally.
I just don't get it. How we're not openning schools. Most businesses are still closed. Those open have either physical distance rule or PPE requirements for both customers and staff.
How the hell is it that some of your jurisdictions are openning up more?
The listings are in the format:
X. Country - [# of known cases] ([active] / [recovered] / [dead]) [%fatality rate]
Fatality rates are only listed for countries where the number of resolved cases (recovered + dead) exceeds the number of known active cases by a ratio of at least 2:1.
Italics indicate authoritarian countries whose official statistics are suspect. Other country's statistics are suspect if their testing regimes are substandard.
If American states were treated as individual countries twenty-nine of them would be on that list. New York would be ranked at #2, between "everywhere in the U.S. except New York" (#1) and Spain (#3). New Jersey would be between Turkey and Iran.
No countries have joined the 10,000 case club since the last compilation.
(Now that clip gives away my vintage - I remember watching that particular show live). Tony Hancock was good at lugubrious confusion, Matt Hancock can't even claim that.
Another doleful milestone reached. The global total of recorded cases just topped 5 million. Horrifying totals and supporting information coming out of Brazil.
The incubation period of the virus is up to 2 weeks. You think everything's resolved after ONE zero day?
Because outsourcing is a crock of shit that has created a kind of oligarchy of incompetence - there are only a handful of companies that have the scale to tackle large-scale government projects, and so each one knows that as long as they're not significantly more incompetent than their rivals, the government has nowhere else to spaff the cash,
And the government has outsourced expertise to the point where they are unable to create good contracts, and so most projects initially turn out something unfit for purpose and then roll into change control at which point the cost climbs rapidly.
ISTM there is a basic flaw in outsourcing, which is that:
If the contractor understands the thing being outsourced better than the Government, it can use its superior knowledge to screw over the Government, rather than to provide a good service;
If the Government understands the thing being outsourced better than the contractor, then not only is outsourcing pointless, but the Government is likely to end up having to bail out the contractor anyway.
The six phases for far too many government projects are as follows.
Wild enthusiasm
Confusion
Disillusion
Search for the Guilty
Punishment of the Innocent
Promotion of the Non-participants.
(Yes, I've said so before.)
No government agency can have every person it needs to do everything it needs having done. It simply isn't cost effective. Outsourcing, properly done, uses resources for occasional/specialised jobs and is overseen by staff who understand the process. There is a balance between in-house and outsourcing, but government being government, it is often got wrong.
The idea that contractors always screw the government is both cynical and wrong.* The idea that the government, which constantly prove they completely know how to fuck up, will not fuck up if they do every job, is mind-numbing.
*Because we are in a phase of over-reaction here on SOF: Yes, some contractors take advantage of the system.
However, the idea that Serco, Capita and G4S always screw the government does seem to be supported by the evidence. "Government being government" isn't an excuse. If we want to stop outsourcing fuckups we have to stop electing politicians who think the answer to everything is outsourcing. Serco is built around bidding for government contracts, and they don't seem to be specialised in anything much except that. I mean, they were awarded the contract to run the ferries to Orkney and Shetland a few years back, then couldn't source a replacement ferry when the Hamnavoe broke down. Not surprising for a company with no experience of the industry.
This reminds me of Donald Trump's "Operation Warp Speed", a program to fast-track vaccine development and other treatments for COVID-19. It started its work in May. Maybe starting in March would have projected a greater sense of speed and urgency?
If he'd said he wasn't going to do contact tracing at all that would be worse. And if he'd said a later date he'd be panned for not doing enough soon enough.
What would you have him do?