The horror, the horror (187/365)

[white_hart]

I'd thought that nothing this government does could shock me any more, but I'm still flabbergasted that Boris Johnson could stand up and in one breath say that daily case numbers might be at 50,000 by 19 July and in the next that they're still going to lift all restrictions.

Case numbers round here have been soaring in the last couple of weeks, to the point that the council are now running surge testing and pop-up vaccination centres for 18-29 year olds (and a van advertising this trundled past my office window at least twice today). Hospitalisations do seem to be lower than they were last time case numbers were this high, but lots of people have friends and neighbours who have tested positive despite being vaccinated. It's no surprise that literally every conversation and meeting I had today included some variant of "what the fuck does Boris Johnson think he's doing?".

And now we wait to find out what the university's response will be.

Comments

[perennialanna]

I am sitting at home waiting for a PCR result right now. I am 99% sure I have the same kind of chest infection I have been getting for 30ish years now, but the GP quite rightly sees my double jabbing and weeks of clear lateral flow tests as irrelevant. I have a cough that needs treatment, I get a PCR. The cough is leaving me light-headed, so enforced seclusion is not entirely unwelcome.

[cmcmck]

They must have purchased gazillions of these tests and lord alone knows at what cost and seem to see them as the answer to all ills!

[perennialanna]

The one message that does not seem to have got across is that they are not for anyone with any symptoms. I am utterly fed up of sending home feverish coughing children (who are not really fit for school in any circumstances) who 'passed' a lateral flow test in the car on the way to school. Most PCR results seem to be coming through in 24 hours or slightly less now, so getting a proper test is not massively disruptive.

[cmcmck]

I'm a retired teacher myself and I know what you mean. Even without covid, parents would send clearly unwell children to school to spread colds and other nasties.

[perennialanna]

I leave you to guess whether the parent who reluctantly removed their child from the foyer, threatening to complain that we were sending home a perfectly healthy child for no reason, apologised to us later that day when the child was admitted to hospital...

[antisoppist]

Using them as "negative means my child is fit for school" when they're standing there snotty with a temperature or bleeding to death or something seems particularly daft. The message I got was that they were supposed to be for regular testing of the symptom-free anyway.

Enjoy your isolation.

[white_hart]

We're seeing the same thing - our testing service report that they have seen numerous cases of people taking multiple tests on consecutive days and eventually getting a positive, rather than booking a PCR as soon as they have symptoms.