Actually, the German model makes a lot of sense. It's pure maths, based on a rolling infection rate threshold of 50 people per 100,000 population in the last 7 days. So, it makes short-term decision making very simple and predictable. Wiki will happily tell you what the population of your region of interest is. You calculate the cases per 100,000 and draw the conclusions on whether they're anywhere close to the threshold. If you've been unlucky enough to find yourself somewhere where the numbers exceed the threshold, you're given the choice of either undergoing a compulsory test upon arrival to Germany or, if you feel that this is too much of an intrusion into your privacy, you may instead stay in quarantine for 14 days. Bloody good way of mitigating risk and keeping the economy running at the same time.

Some keen defenders of the UK model will now say that the test might not always detect infection. Fair enough, it can happen. But, in the UK version of things, people in "self-isolation" are nonetheless allowed to go shopping for essentials and participate in some other, albeit very limited activities. What's the chance that someone infected and untested will infect a whole bunch of people in his local Tesco? And what's the chance that they will also go elsewhere, using the excuse that they were going for essentials if stopped by the police? I think that it's more or less the same as that of someone with a false negative test doing the same. So, in terms of risk mitigation, "self-isolation" is no better than testing. It either has to be proper quarantine with zero contacts with the outer world - or it serves no practical purpose.

Now, the conspiracy theories that the government is deliberately destroying aviation in order to not have to deal with stuff like the LHR expansion - I cannot comment on that, it might be true or it might not be. But, for sure, there are alternatives which could keep many companies in business and many people employed. Why they are not being implemented is not for me to say.

These numbers are fairly meaningless though - if you’re testing more people, you’re going to find more people. The ONS figures are far more accurate and it says that 1 in 1900 people in the U.K. have the virus right now and only 6% of the population have had it. It’s just disappointing that governments/ ECDC are using these numbers as gospel and using it to decide policy such as travel. Monaco for example has tested 90% of their population whereas most countries are struggling to test 10%. Indonesia for example has tested 7 in 1000! Testing in a lot of countries is risible.

At the peak of the peak just before Easter, around 100,000 new cases were suspected a day in the UK. Officially there was only 5-6k cases a day hence why people are seeking headlines about second waves.

https://wizzair.com/en-gb/informatio...ny-information

Actually the holding company is based in Jersey as a tax dodge. Jersey is not officially part of the United Kingdom, but rather a British Crown Dependency which is self-governing.

Think people need to get their heads out of the aviation bubble - in the list of issues facing the country, how near the top do you think LHR expansions is that it needs special attention?

Lots of multinational companies are listed on the UK stock exchange.
And most tax dodging isn't illegal, unfortunately. Indeed it is the duty of the Board to minimise their tax bill, leaving more for the shareholders. It's been a failure of governments round the world to make sure that businesses pay taxes where they actually do business.

You have inside information? Please tell.

Actually significant infrastructure investment, which Heathrow surely is, was pre-Covid policy and has been reiterated very recently. Certainly provides more jobs than duelling of the A66....

You say you would like to know how the 17.4 cases per 100,000 population is calculated. It's a figure calculated by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control for all European countries. It's the cumulative number of daily infections per 100,000 population for a rolling 14 day period. If the UK had a constant daily infection rate of 666 over a 14 day period that would be one case per 100,000 population per day, so the 14 day cumulative number would be 14.0. If over the next fortnight the average daily new case rate is 1,332 (which could be possible given the trend) the EU figure for the UK would be 28.00. France at the moment is 34.0.

Agree with you Manx.

Thanks for that explanation On Today Grant Shapps said France was 20.5
Boris is always stating the infection rate in the U.K. is 1900 using the ONS figures down from 4000 I believe are his words So using that calculation that means the U.K. is circa 30, about 50% more than France
So who is right? or are we being given yet more dodgy numbers

Firstly the ONS figures normally cover England only, although they included Wales for the first time in their latest survey. This estimated the number of people in England who had COVID-19 during the week 3 to 8 August at 28,300 people, that is 1 in 1,900 people (not that only 1,900 people had it as your post seems to say) so presumably Boris said "1 in 1,900" as well. I would trust the ECDPC numbers rather than what any politician says as far as infection rate per 100,000 of population is concerned. All the daily numbers for infections are a function of the number of people being tested - test more people and you will pick up more infections, especially if the testing is focused on outbreak 'hotspots', that is obvious. As the UK has to date carried out 12 million tests compared to France's 6 million the raw number of daily infections for the UK is likely to be higher is it not? This week's 'More or Less' on Radio 4 is worth a listen as it discusses testing at some length.

It's good to see that more on here are starting to see the light and question the official narrative. Perhaps it's the effective ban by OFCOM on the broadcast of anything that dissents from the government's line that means that so many have been brainwashed by the constant drip-drip of the message into their homes and brains (it's known as gaslighting).

It's a simple question, and perhaps one of you scientists can answer it? If this lethal virus is infecting so many new people every day, why aren't they dying in massive numbers?

I'm certainly no scientist but I can think of three reasons:

1. Many among the more threatened section of the population, the elderly or those with underlying health problems, are still cautious about socialising while the young are fed up with the restrictions and are more reckless in their behaviour. The upshot is that the average age of those infected may be lower than previously so fewer hospitalisations and deaths.
2. The time from infection to death is likely to be two or three weeks at least so the increase in deaths hasn't materialised yet.
3. Treatments for those hospitalised have become more effective and better targeted so more are surviving the infection than previously.

The FCO this morning have clarified that if you've transited through BSL, being on French soil, you have to self isolate!

Care to expand on that? Examples?

Some sensible discussion in between the conspiracy theories on this thread

The issue is we are using tests that have a significant false negative - up to 40% - and then extrapolating using different methods and assumptions. You cant compare apples with pears. In addition most young infected individuals are asymptomatic or parsi symptomatic and dont get tested. We can follow the same figure over time, but the politicians are changing the goal posts making even that difficult

The attack rate (number of people infected) is increasing in the UK and most of Europe and India. It is falling in the US. I am sceptical there is a second wave, a term coined in 1918 for a second year of infection when science couldnt identify the virus and government control was patchy. What we see is a balance between the degree of lockdown and attack rate. Reduce lockdown, get more cases, and vice versa.

The worry is we are seeing a repeat of the US when they stopped lockdown. The elderly and at risk populations stayed in isolation but the young went partying. The attack rate rose but hospitals remained empty for some weeks until the number of cases hit a level where the virus spilled into the older and more at risk populations. Result - a rapid increase in deaths and hospitalisations.

The obvious answer is to maintain restrictions on high risk activities such as pubs, restaurants and sporting events and concentrate grants, loans and furlough on these industries instead of waving money around at people who can safely work. Some people and businesses I regret have done well from the pandemic although we cant blame people for accepting taxpayers' money when they are offered it

As for aviation, it seems unlikely load factors can become profitable pre vaccine except for a minority of routes so money needs to be concentrated there as well.

You think the Government has a sensible policy that it will stick to on anything??????????????

Express freight suggests that an estimated 1 in 1900 infections as reported by the ONS does not bust the Grant Shapps criteria of infections of over 20 per 100000 will lead to Q.
It most certainly does at 39.7 over the 14 days rolling average it puts the U.K. miles over, this being the established criteria as used by the EU
What Shapps has slipped in is his measure is now over 7 days which obviously halves the reported number, putting the U.K. just below the 20 boundary
He justifies this change by saying it alerts the government more quickly to a virus increase
its just smoke and mirrors, as his methodology is not WHO? Practice
politicians will say anything to save face

I want to know why ( if this virus is so deadly ) do we need to be tested to see if we have or haven't had it?

You are well illustrating the difficulty of trying to compare apples with pears and come up with a meaningful result.

There are two sets of figures derived from two different methodologies:

1. The ONS data estimates the likely number of people who have COVID-19 during a particular week AND the likely number of people actually infected in that week. Those are obviously two different numbers. They estimate that 1 in 1,900 (that's 28,300 people) had the disease in the week 3rd to 9th August. They separately estimate that 26,600 were infected during that week. Those estimates are not based upon testing those presenting with symptoms or who are tested in health care environments etc. as are those produced by Public Health England, but ONS random testing of 122,000 people resulting in 58 positives. They extrapolate that number to give an estimate of the total cases in England.

2. The EU's ECDPC collates data from all the European countries health authorities, such as the Public Health Authorities in UK, to produce an infection rate among those tested under each country's testing scheme with the aim of giving reasonable comparisons between countries and some sort of bench mark for imposing travel restrictions etc.. As I said previously the vast differences in the percentage of the population tested in each country casts doubt over the validity of the figures for each, but it does seem that their figures are used in that way in the absence of anything better.

Are you not using the ONS numbers for England as a comparison with the ECDPC Europe wide numbers to produce your figure of 39.7? I would suggest that this is just not a valid comparison.