Yet more failings in track & trace - leading to another surge in Covid

UK’s Indian Covid variant surge fuelled by test and trace failures, report finds
Eight local authorities starved of full data on positive tests in their areas - for three weeks

Rob Merrick
Deputy Political Editor
@Rob_Merrick
18 hours ago
comments

The surge in the Indian Covid-19 variant was fuelled by failures in England’s test and trace system, a report has found.

Eight local authorities did not have access to the full data on positive tests in their areas for three weeks in April and May, it says.

The number of missing cases was highest in Blackburn with Darwen, in Lancashire – where a recent rise in infections was linked to the Indian variant.

The other areas affected by the apparent technical glitch were Blackpool, York, Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol, North Somerset, Southend-on-Sea and Thurrock, the BBC revealed.

Officials at one of the councils affected said the centralised test and trace system failed to notify its staff of cases, meaning their contacts could not be traced locally.
The “rapid spread of Indian variant cases ... may be partially or largely attributable to risks in the international travel control system”, the report states.

But it adds: “These were exacerbated by the sporadic failure of the national test and trace system.”

Six of the local authorities affected told the BBC that they had experienced problems in tracing contacts.

Jonathan Ashworth, Labour’s shadow health secretary, seized on the revelation, saying: “This is deja vu and echoes the mistakes made last year with Boris Johnson’s ‘whack-a-mole’ approach.

“It beggars belief that yet again local health experts on ground have been left in the dark for two weeks when we know acting with speed is vital to containing an outbreak.

“Ministers need to explain what’s gone wrong and provide local health directors with all the resources they need to push infections down.”

But Mr Johnson’s spokesperson played down the impact of the problem, saying: “This issue was across a small number of local authority areas and was quickly resolved.”

Asked if the problem had helped the Indian variant spread, he said: “I don’t think it is possible to draw that conclusion from this.”

The government has continued to call the test and trace system “world-beating” – despite a parliamentary inquiry finding, in March, that it was making no “measurable difference”.

The MPs condemned an over-reliance on consultants paid up to £6,600 a day, a failure to meet the surge in demand for tests last September and never hitting a target to turn around face-to-face tests within 24 hours.

Contact tracers have consistently reported only having enough work to fill half their time, even when cases were rising.

Between 21 April and 11 May, the system only provided details of a limited number of positive cases of coronavirus to the eight local authorities, the BBC said.

On 11 May, they were told by the Department of Health and Social Care that, over that period, 734 positive tests had not been reported.

It meant that, in many cases, the councils were also unable to offer financial support to people isolating.

 

Since their is no viable test for natural immunity, track and trace is now a pointless waste of money.

Most people over 40 have been offered vaccination, along with anyone who is at risk of complications from covid.

I agree with maintain wearing masks on crowded public transport and busy shops and I hope that it will become a simple routine method of slowing down ALL future viruses.

The risk of covid overwhelming the hospitals is now virtually zero, so we should all return to a normal life.
Viruses have been with us since the dawn of time and will continue as long as their is life on our planet. Hopefully we now know how to avoid them causing additional and unnecessary early loss of life, so let's all stop worrying and talking about them..

 

Oh really ??? - guess you haven't been alerted to this then !!!


What we know about the 'triple mutant Yorkshire variant'

Emily Cleary
21 May 2021, 4:04 pm
A new coronavirus variant detected in Yorkshire is being investigated by Public Health England (PHE).

The AV.1 variant, which has caused 49 cases of infection in Yorkshire and the Humber region, was first detected in April.

The “Yorkshire variant” has been labelled "triple mutant" as it carries three mutations associated with other variants of concern: E484K, which is also found in the South African variant and can in theory lessen the effect of vaccines; N439K which is also associated with immune escape; and P681H, which is in the Kent variant and linked to greater transmissibility.

While new variants emerge all the time - such as the Indian variant which has surged in the UK over the past week - government sources said this particular one carries other features associated with variants of concern.

Dr Kev Smith, from PHE, said scientists had been watching and sequencing the variant since the "strange combination of mutations" were spotted a few weeks ago.

"So far the people that we have identified are not particularly infectious, they're not really getting more sick than other cases of coronavirus and we're not seeing anything particularly worrying about it," he said.

"At the moment, we don't think it's more infectious than the other coronaviruses that we are seeing around."

When was it found?

PHE has been aware of the new strain since April.

Greg Fell, director of public health in Sheffield, said his team had been monitoring the variant – referred to as VUI-21MAY-01 or AV.1 – after PHE announced 49 cases were identified, mostly in Yorkshire and the Humber region.

He said: “We work very closely with NHS Test and Trace and Public Health England on these matters to make sure all appropriate public health interventions are being carried out, including any additional contact tracing and targeted testing.

“Where cases have been identified, additional follow-up of cases, testing of contacts and targeted case finding will be used to limit the spread of variants."

Where has it been found?

There have been 49 cases of AV.1 clustered in the Yorkshire and Humber region. It has also been detected in Greece and Chad.

Why are people monitoring it?

The Yorkshire variant appears to have properties of concern that could in theory lead to reduced effectiveness of vaccines, and higher transmissibility. This has not yet been proven but is being studied.

Why are some experts worried?

Professor Francois Balloux of University College London Tweeted that as variants develop they naturally increase in transmissibility. He added that 'evolution' of the virus could lead to the possibility of variants emerging that could reinfect people who have been vaccinated.

"Eventually, there will likely be emergence of 'immune escape' lineages that can readily reinfect hosts who have been previously infected or vaccinated," he wrote.

"Though, the hosts should still benefit from their cellular immunity reducing symptom severity."

Prof Balloux warned that booster vaccinations could be required as the virus evolves.

He said: "Regularly updated vaccines and boosters may be required at least for the more vulnerable in society to minimise the burden. Though, given the extraordinary surveillance in place and our ability to update vaccines promptly, this should be manageable."

What has the government said?

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “There have been a number of variants throughout the pandemic and there will continue to be so.

"There are three mutations of the B1617 strain, as I think has been discussed previously, but as we do with all variants where we spot and identify them through our genomic sequencing programme, we will continue to monitor them and we will designate them as variants under investigation, and then variants of concern if we deem them to be of greater risk.

“But again, as you’ve seen throughout the pandemic, that’s what we’ve done and we won’t hesitate to put in measures that we think are necessary to try and tackle the transmission of any variants.”

Asked whether the discovery of the new variant would have an impact on the next stage of restrictions lifting on June 21, the spokesman said the five-week gap between measures relaxing would allow the variant to be monitored.

He added: “As the Prime Minister has said, we will continue to look at all the statistical evidence and data, and we’ll set out our plans as soon as the data allows.”

 

This sort of thing happens all the time with every virus and outside medical research no one would ever even bother to publish it in the local paper.

Their was a scare with Beijing flue a few years ago and it just took one journalist to here a comment saying that covid could be even worse to spark the fire that resulted in the media storm.

If you look back over the WHA (world health authority) figures, you will notice spikes in the daily death rate as the virus brings death forward in terminally sick patients
This is at it's worse in care homes where it can cause a run of deaths over a few weeks. However once these people have died, the death rate over following months plummets.
Any death is sad, but we have been painted a very distorted picture.
No one has published the total 2020 mortality, which was 1.7% above average, It is highly likely that 2021 will see a drop to compensate it. History has verified this several times.

Regarding healthy young people dying suddenly.
It is a situation where a combination of medical events shuts the body down, it is recorded as "sudden unexplained death". Among our 1,500 daily mortality figures, we see about 1 case a week in the UK.

Covid is a nasty virus, so we needed some action to avoid overwhelming the NHS, but much of what we are seeing now is unnecessary scaremongering.
Whatever nature throws at us. their is little to be gained by frightening people, since we are powerless.
If we reacted to every viral mutation and development in pathogenic bacteria, the entire world would be in almost permanent lockdown.

PS
The country in the world that is most affected by mutations is India. Even today we see large mortality peaks during the monsoon season and back in the 17th century, in certain poor areas the monsoon claimed 1 in 4 lives.
You obviously enjoy reading, so you may already know how all the English staff at the birth of the east India trading company returned returned home to avoid the deaths during the monsoon.

 

What does all of this mean to FREE testing? Is FREE testing going to be worth it??

 

It means that the scumbag 'nasty party have f**ked up yet again with their abysmal track and trace system !!!