Today, every media outlet carries shots of young people partying in Nottingham before Tier 3 came into force
In reality, confirmed cases in the city have been falling since early October, including among the young
This may well be because testing isn't picking up infections - and it seems as if cases in Nottinghamshire are rising among older people, which is a real concern
But the picture from pillars 1 and 2 doesn't seem to bear out the idea that young people are flouting restrictions
A graph to illustrate that point, using a fantastic app from @VictimOfMaths (ht @Telstar22995931). A huge spike among 15-to-24-year-olds (okay, students) which flattened off several weeks ago
The worry is the upward drift among other ages
Cases by age in Manchester. Same pattern, although with steeper rises among older age groups
There's been a lot made about some decisions during this pandemic: lockdown, 100,000 tests a day etc
Sending students back to university was a decision of huge significance, yet it seemed to pass without much debate
And we *still* don't know how we'll get them back...
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Incredible story in The Times, which I'm told is definitely true. For most of its existence, the contact tracing app for England and Wales has been using the wrong risk threshold, so it's hardly been sending out any alerts telling people to self-isolate thetimes.co.uk/article/softwa…
One of the biggest complaints about the app has been ghost messages saying "you've been near someone with covid-19". If the risk threshold hadn't been artificially high, many of those alerts would have been instructions to isolate
As it was, people were told to ignore them
The Times has described this as a software bungle. I understand the issue was incredibly human. There was meant to be a change to the risk threshold on the app, but no-one went in and made the update
Test and Trace is a strange, ephemeral organisation. The staff are largely consultants. The bosses are execs on secondment
If you're working there - or indeed any part of government - I'd love to know what you make of it. What's the rationale? How did it come to be that way?
The response to our story from DHSC emphasises the immense scale of T&T, which should never be underestimated. But the most common complain I hear about it is the lack of coordination. Wouldn't a permanent leadership team help with that? I'd genuinely like to know
Yes it's a hellsite, but here's why I love Twitter. Someone I've never met gets in touch to say his son has tested positive, but even though his whole family has the app, none of them have got a proximity warning. Twenty minutes later we're conducting a joint experiment
We're giving it half an hour. I'll let you know how it goes
It's now been 40 minutes and there's no alert. BUT... I forgot that the notifications aren't instant. They're sent out two-hourly to phones
Sorry if you were waiting for the result. It will be along as soon as I get it
MPs in the north of England are being told that pubs and bars are driving outbreaks. Mass closures are expected in parts of the country. Isn't this the the venue check-in system on the app is for?
This is a huge story. One source tells me that Roche supplies 1 in 5 labs in the UK. The implications of shortages are terrifying news.sky.com/story/thousand…
The focus will be on coronavirus, but this goes far far beyond that. Roche supplies everything from cancer tests to home monitoring systems for patients with heart conditions
At a moment when the NHS is under intense pressure, this will only intensify it
What's the issue? Roche is building new automated warehouse to increase capacity ahead of Brexit
The new warehouse isn’t working, but they haven’t got a backup warehouse - and most labs don't hold their own stock. It's a just-in-time nightmare