WHY?

But weren’t all those tests done in the early days? There’s nothing to indicate the bulk of tests were recent[/quote]


UK is still doing almost a million tests every day. (980,000 on Friday and 6.5 million in the last week) compared to Spain doing about 75,000 a day.
Spain, though, made the decision to only test those with symptoms and those who require it for work purposes (such as health workers) plus the kids before going back to school.

The decision was taken so that health care services in health centres and hospitals could go back to something approaching normal without tying up so many people in the testing process.

Appears to be working.

(And, yes, marianna13, you can get those here. But paracetamol in UK at 16p for 16, Dettol at £3 and Deep Heat/Deep Freeze seems to work better than the ones I've tried here.
And a proper Melton Mowbray pork pie (not the supermarket ones) are a rare treat (I wrapped mine in tin foil and put it in the hold luggage)).

The enclosed chart clearly shows in top left corner todays date. Therefore yesterday’s figures. Previous days and weeks don’t make better reading.

Well said original post! Why? We are still in a pandemic for goodness sake, and recently we heard of another person here who has died, aged 30, who has had both jabs. Its not gone away.

A friend's neighbours, who live here as residents, travelled back to the UK two weeks ago on a short trip back, on a packed Ryanair aircraft, all seats taken. They were shocked that there was no space between passengers allowed. A lot of people were coughing during the flight and within two days they all became ill with the virus. Now they are stuck there with the Covid, one of them is not very well at all. How many on that aircraft now have Covid? Crazy. There is no need for travel unless it is absolutely urgent. It is how it has spread around the world. No nasty comments please as we have lost ten friends to the virus and my sister in the UK has been and still is very sick with it. I feel very strongly about this.

Benjy wrote:The enclosed chart clearly shows in top left corner todays date. Therefore yesterday’s figures. Previous days and weeks don’t make better reading.

Hmm, yesterday's figures. Somehow, I don't believe that the UK conducted 318 million tests yesterday. That figure is cumulative and that doesn't qualify the argument that their test regime is that tremendous

Obviously the test figures are cumulative, that’s why it says ‘TOTAL TESTS’ and not daily tests.

One of the problems in the U.K. is that Johnson only gave cabinet jobs to those MP’s who supported Brexit. Therefore he may not have picked the best team. Secondly, there are a lot of conservative MP’s who do not believe in restrictions. Javid was just one of them. So when Hancock was sacked, the ones who did not believe in restrictions moved in and relaxed the rules. It seems to me Johnson bends with the wind.
I walked into a pub in Leigh on Sea a few weeks back. It was packed and it looked like none of the patrons had ever heard of Covid. I am not surprised the infection is increasing.

An interesting comment, observation & point from Robert Colvile in The Times yesterday - and there is also fairly derogatory comment about the whole Test & Trace process

“On the face of it the headlines about soaring Covid case numbers are deeply alarming. But they miss out something important. Covid has, against all expectations, become a disease of the young. There are still tens of thousands of cases a day. But among those over 18 prevalence of the disease has barely budged since summer. What is fuelling the numbers is cases in schools, with 8.1 per cent of secondary-age children and 3.1 per cent of primary estimated to have been infected as of October 9 — both far, far higher than in any other demographic.“

This is not a defence of many poor UK policies. I am very comfortable with the cautious Spanish approach, but the points raised on age distribution and infection spread in the UK are well made.

The Times article is worth reading at
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/faith-in-the-state-it-only-took-a-short-call-from-test-and-trace-to-disillusion-me-all-over-again-fvxhclbdx

Interesting Redswoodsman.
Yet, here in Spain, the rise in the schoolchildren has not risen as expected and the number of cases in that age group has not risen above 2%. Mind you, most regions have now given the vaccine to some 80% with one dose from age 12 to 19 and the Valencia region has exceeded 83% in that age range with 2 doses.
They did open extra centres in the Summer to vaccinate those ages and all the teachers were treated as a special case at the outset.

Now they are preparing to vaccinate those aged between 5 and 11 if they get the go ahead from the EMA who are currently carrying out trials to see if they are necessary.

I came over last Tuesday I couldn’t believe everyone here are wearing masks
Very few people in Uk wear masks
I feel so much safer here and I love pork pies

Surely the numbers hospitalised and ICU figures are the real markers and despite the high numbers being recorded the hospital figures are very low. This is due to the high vaccination figures and the positive role the vaccine plays in supressing the Covid 19 virus and reducing the viral load. The UK are leading the way in showing how to live with the virus. Where some posters are concerned all tourists to Spain should be required to walk around ringing a bell to warn the natives of their presence. Sad way to live your life looking on foreigners as the cause of all evil.


https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulation ... /hospitals

Bee