Track and Trace at the Gym and in Restaurants

[NewWave]

I go to the EA east Dulwich leisure centre where the directive is to scan QR code on the track and trace app upon entering the building.

I go most days but I have never ever seen anyone other than me do this-this bothers me.

I can see that the gym has taken steps to make the place as covid secure as is reasonably possible with social distancing and plentiful sanitiser stations BUT without users using the app to check in and out what is the point?

Ditto Restaurants;

They all have the QR codes on the doors or on tables but I rarely see people actually bothering to scan them.

In fact in one west end place on my lunch the staff asked a customer to scan and I saw he just pointed his phone at the QR but didn't actually use the app or safari to register.

I hate to sound boring but really unless people can somehow understand that every individual is responsible for tackling this pandemic, for stopping the spread for saving lives and livelihoods we are all going to be up the proverbial creek without a paddle.

[Blah Blah]

And there in a nutshell is the problem with unenforced or unenforceable measures. The app is pretty much useless for this reason. Some people can't use it at all (lacking a modern enough phone to do so) and others refuse to use it. We are ridiculously adverse to enforcement.

[edcam]

I've used it a lot and pretty much every day I get a message saying something along the lines of "you've been somewhere where you might be in trouble:, followed a few seconds by one that more or less says "oh don't worry, it's fine." It's an almost pointless exercise, even if you use it.

[OutOfFocus]

edcam Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I've used it a lot and pretty much every day I get

> a message saying something along the lines of

> "you've been somewhere where you might be in

> trouble:, followed a few seconds by one that more

> or less says "oh don't worry, it's fine." It's an

> almost pointless exercise, even if you use it.

This is one of reasons I do not want to use the app. Something clearly has not been thought through.I have been in situations where software produces false positive messages and they soon get ignored.

[fishbiscuits]

Blah Blah Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> We are ridiculously adverse to enforcement.

Yep... if we look at countries which have handled this well... it's generally a combination of stronger enforcement (i.e. tougher border measures, actual enforced quarantine, even electronic wristbands) and a general willingness amongst the public to take sensible measures (masks, social distancing, not travelling).

Whilst over here in the UK, people object to downloading an app and checking in at venues. Or wearing masks on public transport.

There's also a general attitude of "if I'm allowed to do something, I WILL do it". Look at how many people flew abroad on holiday over the summer.

[Penguin68]

it's generally a combination of stronger enforcement

I think 'stronger' is quite a weak term when it comes to what China did - 24 hour lock-down, cities and area sealed-off, violent arrests of 'transgressors' - it's amazing the control you can encourage in a totalitarian state where the army is an arm of the ruling party.

[Blah Blah]

China is the other end of the spectrum. What do you say about all the countries in between where people are better at doing as asked Penguin? Nothing to say about that?

[fishbiscuits]

Other island nations seemed to handle it well... New Zealand, Australia, Japan. Hong Kong and Taiwan on a smaller scale. We should have just closed the borders back in March.

Japan's an especially interesting case, they didn't need any hard lockdown or the threat of fines, because there's a much stronger sense of social responsibility and orderliness. And it's not full of complete fuckwits.

[Penguin68]

Japan's an especially interesting case, they didn't need any hard lockdown or the threat of fines, because there's a much stronger sense of social responsibility and orderliness.

Actually, 50% of the Japanese population at the time of the UK 'peak' would anyway have been wearing masks - as about half of the population is allergic to red cedar tree pollen (I was there two springs ago to see this, during the blossom season, when I would estimate 50% of those I saw outside were mask wearers) - as well as wearing them for colds etc. More now because of Covid-19. Other SE Asian populations are also much more relaxed and experienced in regular mask wearing if symptomatic. Recent studies have shown that it is aerosol exposure which is key to Covid-19 transmission and not so much through touching contaminated surfaces (nobody knew that then, but the Japanese were culturally pre-prepared). Also the Japanese bow to each other, at a slight distance, rather than shaking hands. Japan is orderly, certainly, but also naturally socially distanced (rush hour pictures of commuter on trains notwithstanding). And they didn't have an influx of people coming back from Austrian ski resorts.

Most social commentators were surprised by the high levels of UK compliance in the first lock-down - the fact that there were such a high level of asymptomatic carriers meant that track and trace (based on those who had fallen ill) was doomed from the start - and a vast number of cases were hospital acquired or were forced into the community and out of hospitals by the NHS clearing the decks. Our NHS triage system, as reported in the Sunday Times, which started by excluding the 'vulnerable' - elderly, with co-morbidities etc. - from other than palliative treatment, where they were allowed into hospitals at all, also surely contributed to our high mortality rates - as did forcing the known (and unknown) infected elderly back into care homes.

[Blah Blah]

The point still remains though that where people comply with the social distancing, mask wearing and hand washing, infection rates are mitigated. The mistake the government made was in underestimating the extent to which people would comply when pubs opened for example, and protests restarted, and households were allowed to mix again etc. Now they are learning the hard way. Today at 4pm Boris will once again address the nation with an announcement of a national lockdown, starting at some point next week, and lasting for all of November probably, with only schools, essential shops and essential workplaces remaining open. The failure to get a working track and trace system going, with a high rate of compliance is also a failure. Instead, government ministers and advisors have ignored the rules they set, and got away with it, and they have failed to enforce the rules they set elsewhere. Meanwhile, bonkers conspiracy theories have taken hold and little has been done to mitigate that either. All entirely predictable.

[Penguin68]

The failure to get a working track and trace system going, with a high rate of compliance is also a failure.

(1) The actual numbers 'tracked and traced' are constantly going up - but as a proportion of the total number of identified infections this %age figure goes down as the reported infections rise.

(2) With what we know are a large number of asymptomatic carriers, - unless they form part of an existing track and trace network - these (and their contacts) will go untracked or traced.

There are now two sets of 'the science' - SAGE - which is arguing for total doom, and the Zoe app people (King's College et al) whose very large continuous survey is showing growth, but a doubling every 28, not every 7 days. And things worsening, but still 3 times better, in London than the North of England.

It is worth noting that SAGE's death rate figures assume a 0.7% mortality (leaked figures to The Spectator) - the actual run rate in the first wave was 0.3% (less than half that) and that was before numbers of beneficial treatments were introduced and whilst the quite savage triage system was in place which involved moving sick elderly people out of the hospitals and into the Care Community. And didn't offer any non-palliative treatment to many seen as old and with co-morbidities. That whilst the Nightingale hospitals stood empty. (Source, The Sunday Times).

The people bringing you this latest lockdown are the ones who forecast 500,000 'certain' deaths from BSE - and whose modelling saw the unnecessary destruction of millions of sheep and cows during the foot and mouth scare.

[Blah Blah]

0.3 per cent is still 30 times the mortality rate of Influenza A, and if half those over 70 years of age contract the virus (there are 9 million of those people in the UK), there could be as many as 400,000+ deaths, as current stats show that 1 in 20 in that age group die if they contract the virus. That is the reality of a highly infectious virus that has no vaccine.

These are not unfounded projections, They are based on the real data that we now have. How many would have to die in your mind before you begin to understand the risks?

[Penguin68]

as current stats show that 1 in 20 in that age group die if they contract the virus.

UK stats based on that group not being allowed into hospitals initially, and not being treated once in hospital if with almost any co-morbidity - the few that managed to get into intensive care were amazingly successfully treated (most of those didn't die). Also that group were forced out into Care Homes to be treated by mainly medically unqualified staff without ICU equipment. GPs rarely visited their Care Home patients.

0.3 per cent is still 30 times the mortality rate of Influenza A

Agreed - but if you plan (for no obvious reason that I can see, since treatment is now more effective) for a mortality rate twice that figure you must ponder why?

It should also be remembered that most who get influenza fall sick - if you get it you feel pretty rough - whereas perhaps as many as 30% of those 'catching' Covid-19 aren't aware they have done. So although the mortality rate of those falling ill with Covid-19 is higher, those figures are based on diagnosed and treated patients - which may well not form 100% of those infected.

I was just trying to point out that when mavens pray-in-aid 'the science' - there is a lot of that about, and by no means all of it (entirely valid internally as each study no doubt is) agree. And it is the interpretation of 'the science' which is at issue here. SAGE are not the only scientists in the game (even if they are the only ones HMG listens to)

[Blah Blah]

The 1 in 20 figure comes from a range of western countries with equitable health resources. But even 1 in 40 would be too high. This is why I expressly ask how many have to die before that is too many? It is all very well criticising restrictions, lockdowns etc, but the one thing detractors never address is the inevitable rise in infections and death when restrictions are relaxed, and when enough people will not comply with known methods of mitigation.

All mortality figures are based from known cases and deaths. They are then adjusted for estimations of wider infection. This is as true for flu as it is for covid. The main difference between flu and covid however, is that flu symptoms appear 2-3 days after contracting the virus, whereas with covid it can be up to 14 days. THIS is what makes it a much harder virus to track.

The other big unknown at this stage is the impact and rate of reinfection. Data on that front is likely to emerge over the Winter.

Most epidemiologists are pretty pragmatic about the challenge of epidemics, because they understand that viruses, like bacteria, will sadly kill some people. That is just a fact of life. Politicians however, have other considerations, because they are elected and want to be re-elected. Providing health care that prevents death where it can, is part of that contract they have with the public. Doctors and nurses depend on those politicians to provide the resources they need to prevent as much death as possible.

In reality, none of this is an easy debate to have. We all know that people are dying, just as we can all see the livelihoods being destroyed around us too. If we argue that we should let the virus run its course and take the death figures 'on the chin', that is insensitive to all those people who have lost parents, partners and loved ones, often unable to say goodbye or have the funeral they would have wanted to have. Their pain is real. Similarly, locking everything down, without regard to how people will survive in other ways, financially and mentally, is insensitive to all those people who are going to have to rebuild their lives when and if this is ever all over. None of if is easy to balance, and I suspect the world is going to have to change, starting by changing the fractional reserve banking system we use and cancelling a lot of debt. But that is another debate for another time.

[JohnL]

There was apparently an error in the App that made it pretty much useless - just been rectified now.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/software-bungle-meant-nhs-covid-app-failed-to-warn-users-to-self-isolate-6tzstqnr9

[NewWave]

The App worked for me this week but a few hours AFTER my manager had phoned me to tell me a colleague had tested positive for Covid and that I must self isolate and book a test.

shortly after I went to the walk in test centre in Crystal Palace park where a few other people in separate cubbicles were also taking their tests I got inundated with alerts that I may have been in contact with someone with Covid...er..yes..that would have been in the Covid test facility!

Warning to other lone females having tests here!!!

-its a long dark largely unsignposted walk through the park to the testing tent if like me you are on foot and have to go after dark..actually really scary especially as you have to go armed with photo ID and Mobile phone for them to scan the QR code!

Then to get back to public transport its another unlit walk back again....They could have at least turned on the lights in the pathways and vicinity but they were all off-horrible on a dark wet night when you can barely see in front of yourself I was slipping on the grass and all sorts!

[tomskip]

Track and trace is for parcels.

Test and trace is for humans in the time of C-19.

[NewWave]

tomskip Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Track and trace is for parcels.

>

> Test and trace is for humans in the time of C-19.

My mistake but hopefully people know what I mean.

[No40]

Some people are just pointing their phone at the QR code and pausing for a moment, but don't actually have the app. Was amazed when I saw someone I know do that.

[Penguin68]

A study, which I read a couple of days ago but now can't lay my hands on, suggested that the primary locations of infection were homes and places of work - and were likely to have followed 30 minutes+ of conversation/ contact. Short duration contact, contact outside etc. were less likely sources (although of course no contact but subsequent transfer of trace material is an entirely possible source of infection - just not that common).

So, in a gym, a trainer working closely with someone, or at home close friends or relatives (or couples) are likely to have sufficient time for contact to infect one another, as are work colleagues if unmasked and in close and long contact, say in a meeting - but, other than those sharing your table - in a restaurant even if someone on an adjacent table is infectious, your chances of then becoming infected are quite slight.

It is quite likely therefore that if you are contacted through test and trace from e.g. a restaurant contact with whom you weren't sharing a table, even though you should self isolate, the chances are that you will be clear.

The figures for infection location identification will significantly have 2 things in common - they are indoors and it is quite likely that masks weren't being worn - although that is now changing in offices and places of business. It is still true that people won't be wearing masks in their own homes.

Although we have created wide pavements for social distancing it is possible (I would think probable) that fleeting open-air contact with fellow mask wearers as you pass in the street, even closely, will be a low risk activity.

We should be cautious, of course, but not terrified.

[Bony Fido]

Like me, most people don't like the idea of being tracked electronically but, also like me, they use smart phones - my iPhone tracks me where-ever I go, so the objection is pretty pointless.