Track and Trace

[albie]

Looks like T+T is not making first base if it cannot persuade people to isolate as a result;
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/16/contact-tracing-alone-has-little-impact-on-curbing-covid-spread-report-finds

Now I would have thought giving financial support to those needing to isolate would be the best way to spend money on making the system effective.

To date Sunak has not given priority to this...anyone know why not?

[Filo]

Looks like T+T is not making first base if it cannot persuade people to isolate as a result;
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/16/contact-tracing-alone-has-little-impact-on-curbing-covid-spread-report-finds

Now I would have thought giving financial support to those needing to isolate would be the best way to spend money on making the system effective.

To date Sunak has not given priority to this...anyone know why not?

I’m sure some of the Tory fan boys on here can enlighten us

[SydneyRover]

Especially as it was a known problem flagged in Australia and therefore a similar risk factor elsewhere, not hard to predict aye?

[albie]

Thin end of the wedge for the poorest as well;
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/17/englands-poorest-areas-hit-by-covid-perfect-storm-leaked-report

Still, levelling up will sort that out, won't it?

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

Looks like T+T is not making first base if it cannot persuade people to isolate as a result;
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/16/contact-tracing-alone-has-little-impact-on-curbing-covid-spread-report-finds

Now I would have thought giving financial support to those needing to isolate would be the best way to spend money on making the system effective.

To date Sunak has not given priority to this...anyone know why not?

It's very difficult to do how would you make it effective?

1.  It assumes  People don't isolate for financial reasons.
2.  How do you set the financial figure that stops point 1 if finances are an issue?
3. How do you prevent abuse or prevent "oh I've got symptoms I'm isolating and paid for it" ie liars.

[Bentley Bullet]

Pref**kingcisely

[wilts rover]

Looks like T+T is not making first base if it cannot persuade people to isolate as a result;
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/16/contact-tracing-alone-has-little-impact-on-curbing-covid-spread-report-finds

Now I would have thought giving financial support to those needing to isolate would be the best way to spend money on making the system effective.

To date Sunak has not given priority to this...anyone know why not?

It's very difficult to do how would you make it effective?

1.  It assumes  People don't isolate for financial reasons.
2.  How do you set the financial figure that stops point 1 if finances are an issue?
3. How do you prevent abuse or prevent "oh I've got symptoms I'm isolating and paid for it" ie liars.

How do they do it elsewhere? It doesn't seem a problem in a lot of other countries.

We have one of the lowest, by a long way, sickness benefits rates in Europe. Is it then a coincidence we have one of the highest covid mortality rates?

[albie]

BFYP,

Your point 1 is not an assumption. We know from the data that many cannot afford to isolate, if they are in low wage or precarious employment.

Point 2...you pay them an equivalent amount to the earnings lost during isolation, up to the date they can resume work.

Point 3... they are isolating because the T+T system has required them to do so.
It it not an abuse to follow guidance to reduce infection to others.

Behind all this is the key pointy of reducing transmission. We do not know how effective the vaccines are at reducing transmission of the Kent variant, or emerging variants like the SA strain.

Preventing transmission by reducing contacts is the only way to clamp down on that until data is available.
Paying people to self isolate is the best buy that government can make at this point.

All this is covered in the article.;

"Dr Kit Yates, a senior lecturer in the department of mathematical sciences at the University of Bath, indicated the considerable resources set aside for NHS Test and Trace could be put to better use by focusing on isolation.

“One can’t help thinking that some of the £22bn – the figure widely quoted as having been earmarked for the operation thus far – might be better spent on providing support for isolation, which is likely to have a significant impact reducing transmission,” said Yates".

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

Looks like T+T is not making first base if it cannot persuade people to isolate as a result;
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/16/contact-tracing-alone-has-little-impact-on-curbing-covid-spread-report-finds

Now I would have thought giving financial support to those needing to isolate would be the best way to spend money on making the system effective.

To date Sunak has not given priority to this...anyone know why not?

It's very difficult to do how would you make it effective?

1.  It assumes  People don't isolate for financial reasons.
2.  How do you set the financial figure that stops point 1 if finances are an issue?
3. How do you prevent abuse or prevent "oh I've got symptoms I'm isolating and paid for it" ie liars.

How do they do it elsewhere? It doesn't seem a problem in a lot of other countries.

We have one of the lowest, by a long way, sickness benefits rates in Europe. Is it then a coincidence we have one of the highest covid mortality rates?

I don't know how it's done elsewhere it would be interesting to know ( and also how do they find that?)

I also agree on point two we should have better sickness policies though balanced to ensure its not employers that bear the brunt.

Albie, the problem I see with your points is how do you stop that being abused?  Do we then means test it and cause further resentment in society?

[wilts rover]

I don't know what the cost of us doing it BFYP is.

But I can tell you what the cost of us not doing it is - because you are living in it. And I reckon getting a few people to isolate for two weeks by mistake will be a heck of a lot chaeper than making several million people loose their lives, businesses or jobs and pay benefits to them whilst loosing out on that tax revenue - certainly for months but possibly for years to come.

The more covid there is in society - the longer there will be restrictions.

[albie]

Pudding,

Not sure who you think will abuse the system.....after all, the only people eligible would be those who have a positive test first!

Anyway, the best summary is the 4 tweets from Prof Reicher here;
https://twitter.com/ReicherStephen/status/1362068812464590850

Spending £22bn on testing then not doing the support work is missing the point.
There is no evidence that Dido has actually understood WHY T+T was set up in the first place!

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

Pudding,

Not sure who you think will abuse the system.....after all, the only people eligible would be those who have a positive test first!

Anyway, the best summary is the 4 tweets from Prof Reicher here;
https://twitter.com/ReicherStephen/status/1362068812464590850

Spending £22bn on testing then not doing the support work is missing the point.
There is no evidence that Dido has actually understood WHY T+T was set up in the first place!

Again another flaw.  The problem is not with those who test positive, in most cases it's those who've encountered a positive case but have to isolate.  To be fair you have to pay them all or it just has the same issue.

Wilts, I full agree with you it is a harsh cost this virus.  But again, do we means test it or apply it to all?  Do we set a level it applies to or give it to everyone? It is full of problems isn't it?

[SydneyRover]

Everyone has seen the cost of not doing it, billions and thousnds of lives and illness and it should have been done from the get go, it's a shame the pm is a narcissistic liar. Look back at the beginnings where the options were to go hard or go to water. One can see as bst points out a hard lockdown is producing a halving approx ea 14 days and a fully functioning T&T + provision to enable all those with covid and close contacts to isolate would have had this beat and maybe even not allowed it the chance to evolve. I think medical staff would have much preferred the sensible option than a weekly round of applause.

[albie]

BFYP,

I might have misunderstood, but I thought Bozo was hoping to mop up with mass testing using Lateral Flow tests.

So the need to isolate would be those showing positive alone on the Gov T+T, rather than all contacts, providing those other contacts then gave a negative LFT.

This is the big idea for opening schools up in March.
How it will be used in practice is open to debate!

[BillyStubbsTears]

Everyone has seen the cost of not doing it, billions and thousnds of lives and illness and it should have been done from the get go, it's a shame the pm is a narcissistic liar. Look back at the beginnings where the options were to go hard or go to water. One can see as bst points out a hard lockdown is producing a halving approx ea 14 days and a fully functioning T&T + provision to enable all those with covid and close contacts to isolate would have had this beat and maybe even not allowed it the chance to evolve. I think medical staff would have much preferred the sensible option than a weekly round of applause.

The halving issue brings into sharp focus just how bad a decision it was to delay the first lockdown by 10 days, when the virus cases were doubling every 3 days or so. It was estimated that by the time we finally did lock down in late March, we had probably 100,000 new infections per day. In lockdown, cases did halve pretty much once a fortnight. And as we kept the lockdown on until the end of June, that's about 7 fortnights, so by the end of June we were down to a few hundred cases per day (7 halvings means a fall to 1/128th of the peak.) That was hard going. And it cost us eyewatering amounts of economic damage.

If we'd have locked down immediately when Ferguson briefed the Govt about just how bad things were, 10 days or so before we did lock down, there were "only" 10,000 or so new cases a day. So we would have needed less than 4 halvings to get down to a few hundred cases per day. In other words, if we had acted promptly, the first lockdown could have ended in early May, not the end of June. 7 weeks extra lockdown required for 10 days delay.

Or, even more salient, if we had imposed the first lockdown promptly and THEN kept it on till late June, there would have been only a few tens of new cases per day. And then we really could have used test and trace to control it.

It all comes back to those lost 10 days last March. That is why we have just about the worst death rate and the worst economic hit in Europe.

[drfchound]

I’m sure I have read that somewhere before.

[SydneyRover]

Better read than dead.

[albie]

Looks like Dido and friends have been even less competent than anyone could imagine;
https://news.sky.com/story/test-and-trace-barely-used-check-in-data-from-pubs-and-restaurants-with-thousands-not-warned-of-infection-risk-12235392

Blimey!
So will the companies involved in this disaster be paying back the fees they charged, or will they need to be prosecuted?

[SydneyRover]

Can't get much clearer than that aye? .............. ''Pref**kingcisely'' said Simon

''Covid-19: NHS Test and Trace 'no clear impact' despite £37bn budget''

But the MPs' report questioned:

An over-reliance on consultants with some paid more than £6,600 a day

A failure to be ready for the surge in demand for tests seen last September

Never meeting its target to turn around tests done face-to-face within 24 hours

Contact tracers only having enough work to fill half their time even when cases were rising

A splurge on rapid tests with no clear evidence they will help

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-56340831

''Committee chairwoman Meg Hillier said it was hard to point to a "measurable difference" the test-and-trace system had made''

[BillyStubbsTears]

TTTI has failed primarily because there was a political decision right at the start to develop an entirely new, centralised tracing system, and by-pass the well-established and successful tracing systems that local authorities have run for years. And that centralised system has never worked anything like it needed to do to make any difference.

So, as I posted the other day, of the 100,000,000 times the Serco App has been used to check in to shops, cafes, hotels etc, only 285 warnings of close encounter with an infection have been followed up. Because they don't have the staffed organisation to follow them up.

[SydneyRover]

The politicisation of the health system is verging on criminal when lives lost and damage is taken into consideration.

A comparison between a good T&T and not good system played out here with NSW having a well funded health system (still partially privatised) enabling it to quickly build a solid T&T system and Victoria which had run down the health system over 20 years or so and couldn't fund it's T&T with all the associated problems. Vic is labor and NSW is Liberal.

[bobjimwilly]

Add to the fact the government never enforced Track and Trace, and still don't!

Most other countries with similar systems e.g. scanning a QR code before you enter, enforce using it to enter a premises by law. We don't.

During the "fantastic" idea that was Eat out to help out, I could have gone to 2 different restaurants, nipped to a garage for petrol, then gone for a big shop and ALDI and Asda, before nipping out to collect a takeaway, all without scanning my app at a single stop! TTTI would have thought I was at home all day, yet I could have infected many, many people. Brilliant.

The LEAST they should do is make people scan their app when they enter a supermarket, or take details of those who don't have the app. This is done in China, Thailand, UAE, Germany - everywhere!

[albie]

Only just realised that the hopeless Sunak has given a further £15 billion to this failing system in the budget last week;
https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/10/pac_test_and_trace/

Oh my days!

[BillyStubbsTears]

Albie.

In fairness, I'd be interested to see how much of that £37bn is for the TEST part of TTTI. That part seems to be working well, although of course it's not much help if you don't effectively TTI the people who you have T'd.

[albie]

BST,

Nothing of significance in the budget to support isolation, so adding to the front end is just more money pissed away after bad.

As I said in post 270, if you can't afford to isolate, there is no incentive to act on the findings of T+T even if it does identify you. It perversely becomes a reason for some to sidestep testing altogether.

The Lateral Flow tests they are using in schools stumble at the same hurdle.
How many will do the home follow up correctly if it means a potential loss of earnings in the house?

[Donnywolf]

Only just realised that the hopeless Sunak has given a further £15 billion to this failing system in the budget last week;
https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/10/pac_test_and_trace/

Oh my days!

Incidentally - what does 37 billion equate to per man woman and child in the population it serves

HELL it must be a huge amount

[BillyStubbsTears]

£550 Hound. It's almost equivalent to the entire Defence budget.

[drfchound]

£550 Hound. It's almost equivalent to the entire Defence budget.

Is a wolf a hound BST.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Easy mistake to make. My apologies. Been a busy few days.

[drfchound]

Easy mistake to make. My apologies. Been a busy few days.

Not too busy to make 15 posts so far today and 18 the day before.