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1 minute ago, ricardo said:

Difficult to equate with different countries at different stages of the pandemic.

agreed ricardo...and with different mutated strains of the virus to...its already known that the Chinese, European and South American Corvid 19 make ups are different, having  many mutations within each that differ from other areas of the world.

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Perhaps a return to having a properly funded science /biomed sector will be a major bonus if/as and when we come out of this as Hancock intimated. 

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19 minutes ago, ricardo said:

Also I understand PHE wanted to keep testing "in house" for far too long. In Germany they used the full gammut of public and private labs from the start. Thankfully we are now doing the same.

From what I read there has, I'm sure for very good reasons, namely a desire for consistency and quality assurance, been some resistance. That really is where the government needs to step in and bang a few heads together.

Of course the German health system is an integrated mix of public and private sector, the private sector element being driven by insurance. It's a lot easier I would imagine in a mixed system to welcome the support from the private labs.

 

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Watford General (my local hospital) has just closed its A&E department. That's about 800,000 extra people heading to Hillingdon and other areas if they get ill, whether with Covid 19 or something else.

For those of you who wanted evidence of actual government lying - I give you Mr Boris Johnson saying only yesterday on his 8th day of self-isolation that government advice was to continue in isolation if you still show symptoms. That is a lie. Government advice (and doctors advice) remains that after Day 7 from first showing symptoms you are no longer infectious and can end isolation. I was myself told this by the doctor I spoke to on NHS 111 on Day 6 of my own isolation, despite having continuing chest pain and other symptoms present.

I also give you the same Mr Johnson, on the same day, saying that testing was the way out of this situation as he had been saying for weeks and weeks. Another lie. Until a few days ago the governments policy was only to test those patients already in hospital.

Now that we are also testing some (not many) non-hospitalised people (who may or may not be NHS personnel) the numbers we declare of new cases will be incomparable to anything which went before. So to claim that numbers are reducing is simply nonsense, and is just for the likes of the DM to print so that we continue to avoid panic. We don't have any usable comparative data yet.

Finally, my sister-in-law is a nurse. She has been working 12 hour shifts, 7 days a week since this began. She still has limited PPE. Her hospital trust (over 5,000 staff, of whom about 40% are in isolation at any one time) have been given a 30 minute slot at a testing centre in the O2 (about a 30 minute journey, if you can get a bus or a tube) for between 15-20 people a day. This is to include the families of NHS personnel.

This is the reality of what our government is or is not doing. 

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Just now, Barbe bleu said:

What is this a chart of?  It looks hopeful though!

percentage increase in the previous days total of cases.

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4 hours ago, ron obvious said:

1. More borrowing rather than less? How robust is the model that leads to that conclusion?

I'll tell you now. Not at all. Economic theories have proven to be absolutely useless in predicting outcomes. I can only rely on my own experience, which tells me that it's very easy to borrow money on the basis that it'll be a good investment in the long term only to find that things rapidly change. And my experience of Labour governments is that the projects they spend on have little long term value.

Too much to deal with one one post Ron.

The model is very robust and highlights the dangers of reducing aggregate demand at the wrong stage of the economic cycle. It is fashionable to denigrate economists, but the broad thrust of mainstream economics is accurate. It is quite good at predicting outcomes, but poor at predicting the timings.

e.g.The trade cycle is well known, but the length of it varies. We know that when we are booming and there is a shortage of factors of production and prices are rising that a bust will come: it always does. It is timing it that is the hard thing. Ditto recoveries.

I don't want to be party political so shall ignore whether particular parties have better or worse records of investment (and encouraging it) but there is an almost universal recognition at a macro level that investment leads to growth in the long term. Of course, there is variation within this: individual schemes may fail - it is the same as personal investing in that respect. If you buy individual shares you may do far better than the market as a whole or far, far worse. Many therefore "buy the market." The market is dynamic and the infrastructure to support it, is likewise but "betting the market" and encouraging a wide rage of investment would bring benefits in terms of output. I think all economists see investment as a prerequisite to growth.

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4 minutes ago, sgncfc said:

Watford General (my local hospital) has just closed its A&E department. That's about 800,000 extra people heading to Hillingdon and other areas if they get ill, whether with Covid 19 or something else.

For those of you who wanted evidence of actual government lying - I give you Mr Boris Johnson saying only yesterday on his 8th day of self-isolation that government advice was to continue in isolation if you still show symptoms. That is a lie. Government advice (and doctors advice) remains that after Day 7 from first showing symptoms you are no longer infectious and can end isolation. I was myself told this by the doctor I spoke to on NHS 111 on Day 6 of my own isolation, despite having continuing chest pain and other symptoms present.

I also give you the same Mr Johnson, on the same day, saying that testing was the way out of this situation as he had been saying for weeks and weeks. Another lie. Until a few days ago the governments policy was only to test those patients already in hospital.

Now that we are also testing some (not many) non-hospitalised people (who may or may not be NHS personnel) the numbers we declare of new cases will be incomparable to anything which went before. So to claim that numbers are reducing is simply nonsense, and is just for the likes of the DM to print so that we continue to avoid panic. We don't have any usable comparative data yet.

Finally, my sister-in-law is a nurse. She has been working 12 hour shifts, 7 days a week since this began. She still has limited PPE. Her hospital trust (over 5,000 staff, of whom about 40% are in isolation at any one time) have been given a 30 minute slot at a testing centre in the O2 (about a 30 minute journey, if you can get a bus or a tube) for between 15-20 people a day. This is to include the families of NHS personnel.

This is the reality of what our government is or is not doing. 

Thank you for reporting about what you are experiencing. It is a terrible worry for you and your sister in law. 15-20 people per day sounds pathetic in terms of testing capacity. How long does each test take? Thought it might only be a matter of minutes. Obviously not.

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23 minutes ago, sgncfc said:

 

For those of you who wanted evidence of actual government lying - I give you Mr Boris Johnson saying only yesterday on his 8th day of self-isolation that government advice was to continue in isolation if you still show symptoms. That is a lie. Government advice (and doctors advice) remains that after Day 7 from first showing symptoms you are no longer infectious and can end isolation. I was myself told this by the doctor I spoke to on NHS 111 on Day 6 of my own isolation, despite having continuing chest pain and other symptoms present.

I

 

 

Main messages

  • if you live alone and you have symptoms of coronavirus illness (COVID-19), however mild, stay at home for 7 days from when your symptoms started. (The ending isolation section below has more information)
  • after 7 days, if you do not have a high temperature, you do not need to continue to self-isolate. If you still have a high temperature, keep self-isolating until your temperature returns to normal. You do not need to self-isolate if you just have a cough after 7 days, as a cough can last for several weeks after the infection has gone

 

 

This is what the Gov website says. If you do not have a high temperature you do not have to continue to self isolate so Boris is actually following the advice that is posted on the site because he still had a temperature.

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I do wonder if he managed to read himself given his low attention span. Lots of good information from NHS BBC and imperial College and other main sources. 

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38 minutes ago, ricardo said:

Main messages

  • if you live alone and you have symptoms of coronavirus illness (COVID-19), however mild, stay at home for 7 days from when your symptoms started. (The ending isolation section below has more information)
  • after 7 days, if you do not have a high temperature, you do not need to continue to self-isolate. If you still have a high temperature, keep self-isolating until your temperature returns to normal. You do not need to self-isolate if you just have a cough after 7 days, as a cough can last for several weeks after the infection has gone

 

 

This is what the Gov website says. If you do not have a high temperature you do not have to continue to self isolate so Boris is actually following the advice that is posted on the site because he still had a temperature.

Allegedly. Or just like the prorogation and the fridge, he’s hiding from scrutiny again. Wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest, he’s a full on coward.

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1 hour ago, sgncfc said:

Watford General (my local hospital) has just closed its A&E department. That's about 800,000 extra people heading to Hillingdon and other areas if they get ill, whether with Covid 19 or something else.

For those of you who wanted evidence of actual government lying - I give you Mr Boris Johnson saying only yesterday on his 8th day of self-isolation that government advice was to continue in isolation if you still show symptoms. That is a lie. Government advice (and doctors advice) remains that after Day 7 from first showing symptoms you are no longer infectious and can end isolation. I was myself told this by the doctor I spoke to on NHS 111 on Day 6 of my own isolation, despite having continuing chest pain and other symptoms present.

I also give you the same Mr Johnson, on the same day, saying that testing was the way out of this situation as he had been saying for weeks and weeks. Another lie. Until a few days ago the governments policy was only to test those patients already in hospital.

Now that we are also testing some (not many) non-hospitalised people (who may or may not be NHS personnel) the numbers we declare of new cases will be incomparable to anything which went before. So to claim that numbers are reducing is simply nonsense, and is just for the likes of the DM to print so that we continue to avoid panic. We don't have any usable comparative data yet.

Finally, my sister-in-law is a nurse. She has been working 12 hour shifts, 7 days a week since this began. She still has limited PPE. Her hospital trust (over 5,000 staff, of whom about 40% are in isolation at any one time) have been given a 30 minute slot at a testing centre in the O2 (about a 30 minute journey, if you can get a bus or a tube) for between 15-20 people a day. This is to include the families of NHS personnel.

This is the reality of what our government is or is not doing. 

That’s pretty bad, Hillingdon was the first hospital to announce that it couldn’t cope. Mind you, WGH has had a poor reputation for years. Where do you live SGNCFC? I had lived in the Watford area all of my life until a couple of years ago.

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3 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

So boris isn't lying and is following advice then?

 

 

Dominic Cummings advised him to stay in the fridge for a few more days or weeks. Just to lower his temperature mind.😉

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5 minutes ago, Herman said:

Dominic Cummings advised him to stay in the fridge for a few more days or weeks. Just to lower his temperature mind.😉

He will be able to tell us if the light stays on when you close the door😉

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3 hours ago, Essjayess said:

Any graph, taken from 1 day, or 2 or 3, are indicators of nothing. The only graph that really matters is Deaths. Since March 21st, thats about 2 weeks, Italy has averaged around 750 deaths a day, with a peak around 900 and trough of 600, but most days 700ish..thats a fairly decent time period to see Italy deaths have stabilised...not decrease...just stabilised.

Spain deaths, since about March 24th, have shown a slight rise..from around the Italy type 700+ to about 800 now..so Spain has as yet not  stabilised in the way Italy has.

The UK has today joined Italy and Spain in  the 700-900 deaths a day, but our daily deaths are still steadily increasing..which means we dont know yet whether we will be in the Italy / Spain category or go higher...i.e. averaging 1k or more deaths a day..its quite possible considering Spains population is 20 million lower than the UK's. It only shows that as yet we are not at the peak.

I prefer to look from the peak deaths in Italy on March 27th (919), there looks to be a distinct downward trend, even allowing for a bit of "noise" in the figures since then.

The Spanish authoritises, according to what they say on Spanish TV, feel that they have stabilised now.

So there is some good news out there  🙂

 

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28 minutes ago, ricardo said:

He will be able to tell us if the light stays on when you close the door😉

He'll be "lying" there next to the cold ham.

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3 minutes ago, Van wink said:

He'll be "lying" there next to the cold ham.

He should be quite comfortable next to the gammon

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4 minutes ago, kick it off said:

He should be quite comfortable next to the gammon

Bit slow but got there in the end😉

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54 minutes ago, Mr Angry said:

That’s pretty bad, Hillingdon was the first hospital to announce that it couldn’t cope. Mind you, WGH has had a poor reputation for years. Where do you live SGNCFC? I had lived in the Watford area all of my life until a couple of years ago.

BBC news reporting that watford general closed due to oxygen system failure. Not related to demand

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6 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

BBC news reporting that watford general closed due to oxygen system failure. Not related to demand

That’s good to hear-most of my friends still live around Watford.

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Just to chuck some more stats in (as I’m sure we’ve not seen enough already), the government website link at the bottom of the post discusses total number of deaths (related to covid and not related to covid).

Still some issues with how and when deaths are recorded (which the link acknowledges at the start). The latest publication ends week ending 20 March, so it’s a fortnight out of date, but we had our first cases of coronavirus in the UK in January and the first recorded transmission case (as opposed to case caught abroad and brought back by a traveller) at the end of February. So it’s far from perfect, but interesting perhaps all the same.

Week 12 of 2020 (ending 20 March) had only 72 more total deaths than the five year average. The period 1 Jan - 20th March 2020 had 4,869 fewer deaths than the five year average. 

In week 12 of 2020 eighteen per cent of deaths were linked to “influenza, pneumonia or covid”. That’s actually lower than the five year average for week 12 - which has twenty per cent of deaths related to influenza or pneumonia.

The number of deaths from influenza (ie; excluding covid) is lower than the five year average, which suggests that a proportion of the people dying from coronavirus would perhaps have died from influenza in any other year.

Of course, the deaths related to coronavirus have started to go up since March 20th, so it’s likely to be a slightly different picture now. However, also worth remembering that a five year average means that in some of those years the numbers would have been even higher. I haven’t got the figures for each of the individual five years.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending20march2020#deaths-registered-by-week

 

 

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Aggy That is good information. There are c1800 deaths a day on average in the UK so it is the increase in deaths compared to the normal level which is the true impact. Another way of thinking about it would be the reduction in average age of death to show real impact. I think Ferguson mentioned that you would expect half to two thirds of those dying to die shortly in any case so it is debatable  how many people are dying of Covid 19 compared to dying with Covid 19. I think it will increase the death rate rate and reduce life expectancy but it is important to see in context.
 

The news should also be putting the numbers in context, talking more about recovery rates, expansion in capacity, the amazing speed of work in developing testing, treatments and vaccines. This is horrible and tragic but there are also reasons for longer term optimism. 

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