SCOUSERS LEAD THE WAY!
It’s THE NOVEMBER 2020 COVILICIOUS TIMES!
WELL NOW, as we head into a winter of lockdown almost everywhere in the UK (four weeks in England starting in a few days), it’s the SCOUSERS (aka The Residents of Liverpool, England) who from Friday will be TRIALLING the UK’s brand spanking new MASS TESTING system. According to the Independent:
“…..Health experts have criticised Boris Johnson for claiming the UK “now has a system of mass testing” – when a trial earmarked for a single city has yet to begin….Ministers hope most of the 500,000 residents of Liverpool will be tested for Covid-19 every seven to 10 days, as a possible route to ending England’s new lockdown on time on 2 December. But full details of the scheme are yet to be thrashed out. In a typically bullish message to the Cabinet, Mr Johnson said: “In addition to the better drugs that we now have, and the prospect of vaccine, we now have a system of mass testing. Rapid turnaround testing that I believe can be a massive and possibly decisive use to us in this country in defeating the virus…….”
What they’re going to have a bash at doing from this Friday is to get our MILITARY (2000 of them) to set up testing centres where a barrage of three different testing methods will be used on a daily basis to “mass-test” everyone in Liverpool who comes forward, symptoms or no symptoms, and should this produce results, as the Test/Trace system has largely failed, then hopefully a whole load more folks will be rapidly told to self-isolate if they’re Covid Positive, and hence the virus spread could be reduced significantly if introduced in many hotspot cities in the UK. Johnson says 500,000 will be tested in the first week…the Liverpool mayor says it will be 70,000 to 100,000.
The three tests to be used in Liverpool are the following:
The “New” and hardly used in the UK, Lateral-flow tests using nose-and-mouth swabs or saliva – producing results in 15 to 60 minutes. These tests are designed to identify asymptomatic people and will be used across Liverpool as part of the pilot to test the city's whole population. It uses similar technology to a pregnancy test.
A swab is inserted into the nose or throat, then the sample is inserted into a tube of liquid for a short time which extracts the molecule that determines if COVID-19 is present. No laboratory equipment is needed as a few drops of liquid are then dropped onto a small strip.
Within 15 minutes, the strip of paper will show up with two lines if it is positive, one line on the top if it is negative or one line on the bottom if the test is invalid.
The standard PCR Swab Tests are the most reliable and may be needed to back up the Lateral Flow results as confirmation. To remind you all. dear Blog Fans, a swab is used to collect an RNA sample (the nucleic acid that converts DNA into proteins) from the patient's tonsils and inside their nose….RNA is collected as it carries the genetic information of this specific virus.
This is then sent to a lab where the sample is heated and cooled so it multiplies into larger quantities of DNA…. Bioscientists can then see whether the SARS-CoV-2 virus (the virus that causes COVID-19) is present……it’s complicated, but there are fewer false positives than any other test. Because of the process, PCR test results take about two days.
LAMP testing…this is the hopefully best cross of very accurate and quite fast. Loop-mediated Isothermal Amplification (LAMP) is a similar process to PCR testing but produces many more viral RNA copies at a constant temperature instead of heating and cooling so can have a result much quicker - within a couple of hours or even faster. A swab is used to take samples from the nose or throat, or mucus from hard coughing can also be used. The swabbing does not need to be as vigorous as it is for the PCR test apparently. The samples are then placed in vials of reagents (substances that produce a chemical reaction to detect the RNA), then heated in a special machine for 20 minutes. The machine then analyses the sample and confirms if there is any SARS-CoV-2 RNA.
LAMP technology will be used to test NHS staff in Liverpool as part of a pilot in the city to "inform a blueprint for how mass testing can be achieved and how fast and reliable COVID-19 testing can be delivered at scale", the Department of Health and Social Care said. They kind of added too that in mid-September, LAMP testing was part of a £500m funding boost after a successful pilot across Hampshire hospitals, GP test hubs and care homes.
The other UK Tests available are the 4) 90-minute PCR swab test (as detailed in recent weeks on this blog) made in the UK using cartridge machines made by DnaNudge, which can also detect other viruses like Flu, the 5) Saliva Test (which is a home LAMP test which gets results in 48 hrs, 6) Antigen Tests (saliva tests) being currently trialled in Care Homes, and which take a matter of hours, 7) the Virolens Instant test (saliva tests) made by UK companies iAbra and TT Electronics, which has a lower accuracy sensitivity, but which is intended to be used at Airports, after a trial at Heathrow, and finally 8) Antibody tests (like the one I’ve had and paid £49 for) which is a 12 hour blood test available in private clinics. All other Antibody tests involving pinprick tests are said to be rather inaccurate currently…..
MEANWHILE.
USA Election Day is here, and after the current President caught the virus then “got cured in 4 days”, that country is in the grip of truth, lies, misinformation, mask denying and a huge continuing and rising of rates of infection, with the corresponding number of deaths associated. US Press has reported estimates of 20,000-40,000 additional Covid infections during Trump non-mask rallies , while Iran, Russia and Brazil have had their daily infections rocket to their highest rates yet. Also in the News this week, Slovakia had a mass testing of 50% of its population tested over two days (2.58 million) and results indicated that 1% of the population was infected, and have to go into immediate isolation…phew.
In Britain the strange croneyism carries on….the disgracefully incompetent Baroness Dido Harding STILL hasn’t resigned after her Privatised Test and Track system managed to reach all time lows in terms of contacts traced (45%) and times of contact (as long as 7 days to trace people). All data © ONS. In addition, her husband, Tory minister John Penrose is on a right wing committee the 1828, which had called for Public Health England to be scrapped. Interestingly, it IS being replaced by a new body called the Institute for Health Protection, to be run by, yup, Dido Harding.
DISGUST continues.
IN ADDITION, the Government’s entire VACCINATION plan is out for tender! Read on, from The Sunday Times, November 1st, 2020:
Vaccine taskforce head Kate Bingham shared UK plans with private firms
The head of Britain’s vaccine taskforce is facing calls to resign after disclosing “official sensitive” government documents to a $200-a-head conference in America last week. Kate Bingham, a venture capitalist who is married to a Conservative minister, was appointed to the role by Boris Johnson in May despite having no vaccines expertise. She reports directly to him. Last week Bingham, 55, spent an hour explaining the government’s strategy to a “premier webinar and networking event” for women in private equity hosted by a Massachusetts company. According to a video of the event, she showed financiers a detailed list of vaccines which the UK government is closely monitoring and could later invest in. Bingham said: “We haven’t necessarily signed contracts with all of them so far. But they’re all in our sights.”
Several of the vaccines are owned or funded by publicly traded companies that those attending the conference could invest in, based on her insight. It is understood that ministers did not sign off her appearance. Bingham, who combines her job leading the vaccine taskforce with her role as managing director of SV Health Investors, a private equity firm, also said she expects all over-50s to have a vaccine available to them by Easter. However, she also produced official documents predicting that up to 40% of adults will never take a vaccine. Bingham used the talk to say that the government had “continued concern” over whether the vaccines would “actually work” — and emphasised that she did not have “any data” on whether they work at all for those with flu.
As head of the taskforce, Bingham is responsible for billions of pounds of public investment in vaccine programmes to protect the elderly and vulnerable first, followed by the wider population. Since Sage, the government’s scientific advisers, concluded that testing had had only a “marginal” impact on transmission, some ministers have privately concluded that a vaccine is the only “exit strategy” from restrictions that could last into the new year. That makes Bingham more influential in shaping Britain’s response to the pandemic than most of the politicians around the cabinet table.
Yet she is far from an ordinary public servant. Like Dido Harding, head of NHS Test and Trace, Bingham spent her career in the private sector and is married to a Tory MP. Jesse Norman, 58, is financial secretary to the Treasury and attended Eton at the same time as Johnson. Bingham went to private school with Johnson’s sister Rachel.
With the prospect of millions of orders from the British state when those vaccines are developed, such companies could look like smart investments.
Last night Sir Alistair Graham, a former chairman of the committee on standards in public life, said Bingham appeared to be the latest example of “pretty shocking” recruitment practices in government. “Members of the Conservative government are looking after their friends by putting them in big appointments without any due process,” he said, adding that Bingham was “seriously ill-advised” in giving the talk: “It must raise a question as to whether she is a suitable person to be chairing a taskforce like that.”
Jon Ashworth, the Labour health secretary, said: “There are serious questions as to why this information was shared at an international conference where attendees paid for access. This information should be shared with the public.”
Sigh.
Finally, the Vaccine news is that these ten have reached close to the end of their large Phase 3 Trials:
The University of Oxford and AstraZeneca vaccine in the UK
Pfizer and BioNTech in Germany
Moderna in the US
CanSino with the Beijing Institute of Biotechnology in China
Gamaleya Research Institute in Russia
Janssen
Beijing Institute of Biological Products and Sinopharm in China
Sinovac and Instituto Butantan in Brazil
Wuhan Institute of Biological Products and Sinopharm in China
Novavax in the US, currently also being trialled in London
STAY SAFE wherever you are, folks x
November 2nd, 2020