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IOM Covid removing restrictions


Filippo

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8 minutes ago, Manx Yeller said:

I wish they would but I doubt it. I'm surprised none of the journalists picked up on this and asked why it changed. It seemed very clear that this was the benchmark and so lockdown has been extended for no good reason that I can see. We also don't actually know how long it's been since the last "community transmission" since they've now linked 3 of them back to the source after the genomics from Liverpool. So we may actually already be 14 or 15 days free...

I’ll try not to be dismissive. Isn’t there a flaw in your suggestion? No briefing or press conference, who would the third estate ask, today, and who would be there to answer? It’s cancelled.

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3 minutes ago, John Wright said:

When they didn’t know that today’s briefing was cancelled?

I don't follow you. To clarify, last week, at the press conference when they announced that we'd be out of lockdown on Mon 1st Feb, I had hoped one of the journalists would have asked why it was no longer based on the 14 day rule and was being extended.

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2 minutes ago, Manx Yeller said:

I had hoped one of the journalists would have asked why it was no longer based on the 14 day rule and was being extended.

Presumably because 14 days has now been repeatedly shown to be not nearly long enough.

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38 minutes ago, horatiotheturd said:

Those numbers aren't remotely an issue.

Plenty of experts on island who could make it work as a case study and then sell the technology worldwide for lots of other applications.

There is a lot goes on under the radar over here.  This would be a doddle for some local businesses and they would welcome the opportunity to raise their local.lrofjle and then sell the tech.  Same as the track and trace app.  We have the skills and technology on island to build something phenomenal.

Takes foresight and desire from government though.

Better to all stay locked up than look.at chances to improve all our lives and raise the islands profile.

Just spend the money on shiny vaccination  centres that we don't need instead.

The kit already exists, in Abu Dhabi for example, you get a smart watch you're fitted with when you get off the plane. Note that the real-time aspect isn't as good as you'd think. When you go out to get tested, they grant you retrospective permission, you aren't being chased down. https://www.thenationalnews.com/uae/government/coronavirus-smart-bands-introduced-to-monitor-patients-in-self-isolation-1.1028370 From what I can gather, they rely on you texting them the watch number and your passport number when you get to wherever you're staying.

But, what do you do if the watch has no signal? GPS signal isn't great indoors anyway. Do you start sending the coppers round every time it misses a heartbeat signal? What's the heuristics here? Do you rely on cell triangulation, or do you buzz and make people go outside? I suppose you could rely on proximity to a wi-fi network, but even that isn't hard to fool. As far as I'm aware, the offender tags in the UK often rely on a box that's installed and has to remain plugged in at the address.

The track and trace app on the other hand is something we should already have. It's not like it's a hard thing to do when the APIs all already exist on devices. The rest is simply technical grunt work and some policy making.

1 hour ago, horatiotheturd said:

People seem very keen to dismiss everything without giving any alternative but to all live in a bubble.

I'm simply pointing out that there isn't any justification of the expense that'd be involved in setting it up. You're either making something work off the shelf or having to build something yourself. We've got the nosy neighbour factor which is enough to maintain compliance.

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20 minutes ago, Manx Yeller said:

I don't follow you. To clarify, last week, at the press conference when they announced that we'd be out of lockdown on Mon 1st Feb, I had hoped one of the journalists would have asked why it was no longer based on the 14 day rule and was being extended.

That was conditional, on there being no new community cases. The circuit breaker lockdown was for 21 days. Starting 7 January. They’ve always the ability to extend or to end early.

They don’t have crystal balls.

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2 hours ago, Capt_Mainwaring said:

Oh - also Guernsey have a testing regime like ours now (some may say we copied it) so how has their new outbreak occurred? Much more widespread community seeding than our recent community cases...

They haven't said yet but they seem happy that they have only one outbreak (the other four will almost certainly be arrivals in isolation - certainly at least two must be)

Monday 25th January - We currently have 52 (known) active cases of COVID-19. 38 new cases were identified yesterday. 48 of the active cases are related to the outbreak identified late on Friday evening. There has been one recovery overnight.

It would be nice to know why they are so certain, given that they were giving the impression that they didn't know if the Friday ones were related.  But it actually looks as if it may be that they have been able to pin then together through contact tracing - it would be a little soon for genomics if they had to get analysis off-Island.  That said they may have had quite a lot of spread from the one incident and they haven't really revealed what might have caused it - if they even know.

We don't really know how it compares with our cases because our authorities have given even less information.  We don't know if all the other cases stemmed from the 1886 cases and what really caused that very odd situation.

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33 minutes ago, AcousticallyChallenged said:

The kit already exists, in Abu Dhabi for example, you get a smart watch you're fitted with when you get off the plane. Note that the real-time aspect isn't as good as you'd think. When you go out to get tested, they grant you retrospective permission, you aren't being chased down. https://www.thenationalnews.com/uae/government/coronavirus-smart-bands-introduced-to-monitor-patients-in-self-isolation-1.1028370 From what I can gather, they rely on you texting them the watch number and your passport number when you get to wherever you're staying.

But, what do you do if the watch has no signal? GPS signal isn't great indoors anyway. Do you start sending the coppers round every time it misses a heartbeat signal? What's the heuristics here? Do you rely on cell triangulation, or do you buzz and make people go outside? I suppose you could rely on proximity to a wi-fi network, but even that isn't hard to fool. As far as I'm aware, the offender tags in the UK often rely on a box that's installed and has to remain plugged in at the address.

The track and trace app on the other hand is something we should already have. It's not like it's a hard thing to do when the APIs all already exist on devices. The rest is simply technical grunt work and some policy making.

I'm simply pointing out that there isn't any justification of the expense that'd be involved in setting it up. You're either making something work off the shelf or having to build something yourself. We've got the nosy neighbour factor which is enough to maintain compliance.

By the time the equipment had been procured, the majority of the Manx population, including high risk people will have been vaccinated. At that point isolation is not what we need. We need the virus in the community.

Otherwise the whole vaccination program would be pointless. So introduce the virus slowly.

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2 hours ago, AcousticallyChallenged said:

The more people you have coming in, the more likely you get one of those immaculate seedings of the virus, where someone suddenly becomes infectious after several weeks. This has happened twice so far in NZ.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/1/24/new-zealand-detects-first-community-virus-case-in-two-months

Actually both those New Zealand cases weren't due to long incubation.  It was announced earlier that the latest one was because of cross-contamination in the managed isolation facility:

Link to managed isolation

Whole genome sequencing has linked the case to another guest who was in the managed isolation facility. Their genome sequencing results are identical, leading us to suspect a managed isolation facility transmission.

Early information suggests the transmission occurred between 9 January and 13 January.  

Routine testing picked up COVID-19 in the other guest, and this person was transferred to the Auckland quarantine facility on 13 January.They have been classified as recovered and were due to be released but will be asked to stay on for now.  

As expected, there have been other cases in the same MIF and we are investigating any possible links between cases to exclude transmission within the MIF.

You'll notice that genomics, carried out as soon as possible, has proved vital in finding out what happened.  They haven't imposed any lockdowns or other measures, but have laid on extra testing facilities and are using their Covid tracker along with interviews to find out where the woman had been and notify those who might have come in contact.  Close contacts are already isolating.

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25 minutes ago, Cambon said:

Otherwise the whole vaccination program would be pointless. So introduce the virus slowly.

Only trouble with introducing it into the community is if the virus continues to mutate into a vaccine resistant strain, then we will be back to square one.

I do agree though, we can’t carry on with a lockdown/elimination strategy.

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2 minutes ago, Annoymouse said:

Only trouble with introducing it into the community is if the virus continues to mutate into a vaccine resistant strain, then we will be back to square one.

I do agree though, we can’t carry on with a lockdown/elimination strategy.

Resistance is relative. It’s unlikely, perhaps impossible, that the virus mutates such that it is completely unaffected by the immune response generated by current vaccines. 
I have thought that the optimum vaccination strategy would be a single dose followed by deliberate infection a few weeks later. Should cover all bases, but probably impractical ;)

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47 minutes ago, Cambon said:

By the time the equipment had been procured, the majority of the Manx population, including high risk people will have been vaccinated. At that point isolation is not what we need. We need the virus in the community.

Otherwise the whole vaccination program would be pointless. So introduce the virus slowly.

My point is that we need to be in a position where we can manage eventual outbreaks, rather than having to shut down every time we have a cluster.

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30 minutes ago, Max Power said:

I just thought I'd post this link re hotel isolation and how it works around the world.

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-how-do-hotel-quarantines-work-around-the-world-12198716?dcmp=snt-sf-twitter

I'd have thought that this would be a good way of supporting the hospitality sector whilst assisting in free movement?

Makes perfect sense. We were lucky last summer that everyone stuck go their self isolation. 

 

Not sure it will be the case this time around 

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