Corona Virus main thread

[T 190]

BBC reporting that for the under 65s with no pre existing conditions the risk of death is the same as driving 185 miles so you can see the gradually lifting the restrictions  for the general population while shielding the  vulnerable is logical. 

[Aggy 748]

24 minutes ago, keelansgrandad said:

I am of the opinion that the prospect of people dying because of the economy is not proven. I do realise the economy plays the major part of most peoples lives. And a weak economy will cause some health problems especially for the poor.

But the BoE is forecasting a greater surge next year after a depression this. 14% down this year but 15% up next. And bearing that in mind, I don't think another three weeks in lockdown is going to cause too many mental health problems. I have always been a person to go the extra yard to make sure rather than just in time.

I wouldn’t be particularly worried about extending for another three weeks if the lifting is then gradually bought in. I’m not sure anybody would be particularly bothered. The government’s furlough scheme currently runs to the end of June - another three weeks takes us to early/mid June. I expect there’ll be some gradual lifting of lockdown by the start of June, with more to follow throughout June into early July, at which point the furlough scheme will likely be tweaked (various different suggestions - dropping to sixty per cent or allowing the furloughing of hours rather than whole members of staff). Guidance to keep social distancing in a less prescriptive manner likely to be in place much longer. 

People dying from poverty is entirely proven.

[Herman 9,700]

So, don't buy tests from China and don't buy PPE from Turkey. Or alternatively check the quality before buying. 

[Aggy 748]

48 minutes ago, It's Character Forming said:

Also I think the message has got out that although most people with Covid are older, there are still plenty of younger people getting seriously ill with it.  And most of us have older relatives or people with health conditions that put them into the high-risk category.  Yes, there are some selfish and stupid people who are not taking it as seriously as they should, but mostly I'm impressed with how well people are following the social distancing rules.

True.
 

On the older relatives point, I know of a few people in their seventies/eighties (family and others) who are getting fed up of the lockdown too - they have stuck to the lockdown / guidance so they can see the birth of their great grandkids, weddings of the grandchildren, or even just so they can spend more time with their families etc. All worth it for a couple of months if it means you survive to see all those things, but when you’re in your eighties, you’re at risk of dying soon from something anyway - spending a year/18 months of what time you have left locked up in doors not seeing any of your family isn’t ideal for anyone. It isn’t just youngsters being selfish who don’t want perpetual lockdown as some would suggest. 

[It's Character Forming 1,160]

Just done my daily update on the Covid tracker app.  It is projecting 255,000 active Covid infections today in the UK, down from 280,000 yesterday.

[Mark .Y. 351]

1 hour ago, It's Character Forming said:

Just done my daily update on the Covid tracker app.  It is projecting 255,000 active Covid infections today in the UK, down from 280,000 yesterday.

Is there a chart you can copy and paste ICF, be don't want to put too much store on one days data so would be interesting to see the bigger picture.

[It's Character Forming 1,160]

Sure I’ll do my best, here’s a link to the website 

 

https://covid.joinzoe.com/data

 

 

[It's Character Forming 1,160]

If you click on that link it’s shows the current estimated number of infections (255,000 ish) and there’s a nifty chart showing how that number has declined since the start of April. To recap my earlier post, this is an estimated number based on the 3m people who are entering their state of health on the app

[It's Character Forming 1,160]

This is a screenshot of the chart from that website, but it’s much better to look at the original itself 😀

 

 

[It's Character Forming 1,160]

So, when it says "predicted number of cases", my understanding is that's the projection for the total number of cases nationally, taking the 3m people with the App (and what they report each day - which is voluntary) as a sample. 

[Aggy 748]

2 minutes ago, It's Character Forming said:

So, when it says "predicted number of cases", my understanding is that's the projection for the total number of cases nationally, taking the 3m people with the App (and what they report each day - which is voluntary) as a sample. 

Downloaded the app this morning - couldn’t see the maths behind the prediction but presumably it is taking a percentage of users signed up and projecting that on to a national scale. Not sure if it’s just a simple percentage or if they go deeper into whether you live in urban/rural areas etc.

Only an estimate but interesting - all we hear about in the news is tests on frontline workers and people in hospital etc., so we don’t see what’s happening more generally.

[Surfer 1,547]

Some very good points in this thread - and RTB, heaven knows that we agree on very little, but your last post really has a ring of truth about it. 

The key question for me is, how do we restart the economy - which we must - while protecting the most vulnerable? And relevant to that is trust, which the government keeps eroding with it’s PR focused daily briefing disasters. Unless the public believe what they say is true, the only way to enforce a lock down, or to successfully open the economy is via physical or financial coercion. 

(for example shops just reopened in Texas and Georgia, and nobody is visiting because there is no trust it is safe to do so) 

Do we yet know who the vulnerable are? Do we know how to isolate them? Do we know what percentage of the population that is vulnerable have already been infected? Do we know what the remaining pool of potential victims is? This is where trust is going to be critical, will the UK government be trusted to deliver facts and not spin, can 80% of the country go back to work because we have isolated the other 20%? 

Edited May 7, 2020 by Surfer

[T 190]

I haven’t  read anywhere that has focused so much on protecting the vulnerable in the community outside of care homes as the UK and I’m hardly a government apologist that can’t see the abysmal failure of the UK government generally. 

Edited May 7, 2020 by T

[Van wink 2,994]

 

3 hours ago, Aggy said:

Downloaded the app this morning - couldn’t see the maths behind the prediction but presumably it is taking a percentage of users signed up and projecting that on to a national scale. Not sure if it’s just a simple percentage or if they go deeper into whether you live in urban/rural areas etc.

Only an estimate but interesting - all we hear about in the news is tests on frontline workers and people in hospital etc., so we don’t see what’s happening more generally.

Been using it for many weeks at the request of one of our posters, I think a member of his family was involved in the research project. Have been reporting in every day, you can share the app to increase the data base.

[Iwans Big Toe 312]

It's that time of the week again

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvGmOZ5T6_Y

 

 

 

[Bill 1,788]

11 hours ago, Yellow Fever said:

Is it me or has Johnson made another inept Boris Bumble - a clanger.

Why Oh why hint to everybody about a relaxation of the lockdown rules on Monday (the papers already running away with 'don't' stay at home etc) just before a hot bank holiday weekend ?

I expect loads will venture out , to the coast..... mixed messaging.

Total madness. Inept. Unconscionable. 

Because like Trump he is a pretty vacuous gobsh ite who has little understanding of his brief so has to wing it by spouting 'crowd pleasing' claims, that all too often have to be retracted shortly afterwards - see yesterdays guff about 200,000 tests

[Creative Midfielder 1,985]

7 minutes ago, Bill said:

Because like Trump he is a pretty vacuous gobsh ite who has little understanding of his brief so has to wing it by spouting 'crowd pleasing' claims, that all too often have to be retracted shortly afterwards - see yesterdays guff about 200,000 tests

Couldn't have put it better myself - I think we've also got the answer to the question as to whether he's learnt anything from his own encounter with the virus, clearly he hasn't.

Edited May 7, 2020 by Creative Midfielder

[Bill 1,788]

I'm not too sure whether some have been gazing at these astral charts for far too long. All the guff about numbers has yet again been blown wide open as the numbers rise to 539.

Far, far too many variables for this tea leaf gazing to be any more than a source of daily speculating.

As to the lockdown that has been easing quite noticeably, even only that there is now no sign of the police. I estimate there to have been around 60 sat out in the park today, and the number of cars has greatly increased,

Unfortunately as with adherents to www.saddo.com there those who want this to be measurable to be given the re-assurance. Just as with death some draw solace from knowing that " uncle percy is ok  and sends his best wishes to all......but he has to go now ".

It was always going to be a gentle easing off on the brake, plenty are back to work and that is how it will continue. It means those in vulnerable groups will have to judge for themselves the balance between risk and reward, For others it will also apply, though not at the same level of risk. There is not much else to be done as there are still a high level of deaths even with the lockdown.

As with the plague there are those who will contract the virus, and out of them those who will die. A grim lottery to be blunt. But no gazing at tea leaves will predict, or achieve anything bar some form of gratification to those disposed towards superstition.

If the coffin has your name on it, to paraphrase a soldiers thought. Don't do anything to shift the odds towards you or anyone else ending up in that coffin, but to a huge degree it is out of your hands

[PurpleCanary 5,553]

26 minutes ago, Creative Midfielder said:

Couldn't have put it better myself - I think we've also got the answer to the question as to whether he's learnt anything from his own encounter with the virus, clearly he hasn't.

Before becoming PM he'd only had one serious job, where what you did and said really mattered, and that was as foreign secretary, and by common consent he was the worst since the war, and that could well have been the Boer War. He either did nothing, or made matters worse. One of his ex-mistresses was asked about his lying and dissembling, and said this:

‘Boris never sets out to lie. It is just that he will do anything to avoid an argument, which leads to a degree of duplicity.'

And is hardly a recipe for trustworthiness and coherent and decisve leadership, especially in a country in the grip of a pandemic.

[T 190]

And what led to the UK ending up with Boris as PM I wonder. 

[Herman 9,700]

Now is not the time.....😉

[Bill 1,788]

12 minutes ago, T said:

And what led to the UK ending up with Boris as PM I wonder. 

Very wealthy backers who know that a malleable fool is better as a placeman - than one who might be able (and willing) to think for himself

Unfortunately they have far different views on how things should be - to those of the not too bright who believe his lies

[Warren Vidic 3]

14 minutes ago, T said:

And what led to the UK ending up with Boris as PM I wonder. 

The left wing not being able to resonate with the majority of the people that have traditionally voted for them. Instead they have championed identity politics and it turned round and bit them in the ****.

 

 

[Warren Vidic 3]

1 minute ago, Warren Vidic said:

The left wing not being able to resonate with the majority of the people that have traditionally voted for them. Instead they have championed identity politics and it turned round and bit them in the ****.

 

 

a   s   s  

[Bill 1,788]

Let's see the righties try to lie their way out of this

"Millions of pieces of vital personal protective equipment in the UK's national pandemic stockpile were out of date when the coronavirus hit, an investigation has revealed.  Some 200 million articles of PPE had all expired from the national inventory before January 2020 "

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8298097/Millions-pieces-PPE-UK-pandemic-stockpile-date-coronavirus-hit.html

"The Channel 4 News investigation also revealed millions of out-of-date respirators were not cleared for release until they had been tested between March 10-19, at which point the UK was in the throes of a desperate lack of PPE. 

The national stockpile was formed in 2009 after an outbreak of Swine Flu, in which the government spent half a billion pounds amassing supplies. 

Evidence suggests the supply had diminished significantly over the last ten years."

Which backs the points previously made that the NHS was given the equipment it needed, before successive righty governments allowed those stocks to dwindle

how many of those were war veterans - a fitting end, or a damning indictment of incompetent government

so maybe excuse me if I don't hang out any bunting today as so many of that generation have been allowed to die through 

a warped ideological series pf cost cutting measures

I wonder how many being buried in those plague pits are the wealthy beneficiaries of that cost cutting

 

they died so others could get rich

 

 

[Herman 9,700]

20 hours ago, Yellow Fever said:

Is it me or has Johnson made another inept Boris Bumble - a clanger.

Why Oh why hint to everybody about a relaxation of the lockdown rules on Monday (the papers already running away with 'don't' stay at home etc) just before a hot bank holiday weekend ?

I expect loads will venture out , to the coast..... mixed messaging.

Total madness. Inept. Unconscionable. 

Lockdown to last until June now being reported by the Times. The mixed messaging is dangerous. They keep playing PR politics, spinning everything and keeping people confused. 

Showing proper leadership wouldn't have gone amiss at this time. 

[Van wink 2,994]

1 hour ago, Herman said:

Lockdown to last until June now being reported by the Times. The mixed messaging is dangerous. They keep playing PR politics, spinning everything and keeping people confused. 

Showing proper leadership wouldn't have gone amiss at this time. 

Press briefings from sources at number 10 really are dangerous, they still don’t seem to have grasped what they are dealing with here.

[FenwayFrank 2,450]

2 hours ago, Herman said:

Lockdown to last until June now being reported by the Times. The mixed messaging is dangerous. They keep playing PR politics, spinning everything and keeping people confused. 

Showing proper leadership wouldn't have gone amiss at this time. 

I know it will seem like I’m sticking up for them but I don’t remember them saying anything other than announcing the start of a plan on Sunday. The press have jumped all over it, made up/ guessed what will happen and reported it as fact. When the govt says what’s being reported is wrong the press then come out with a load of rubbish and even suggest they were lied too. The way journalists have reported some of what’s been going on has been one of the biggest problems in my opinion.

[Herman 9,700]

Johnson made some throwaway comment at PMQS which they have pounced on. 

[ricardo 7,336]

15 minutes ago, FenwayFrank said:

I know it will seem like I’m sticking up for them but I don’t remember them saying anything other than announcing the start of a plan on Sunday. The press have jumped all over it, made up/ guessed what will happen and reported it as fact. When the govt says what’s being reported is wrong the press then come out with a load of rubbish and even suggest they were lied too. The way journalists have reported some of what’s been going on has been one of the biggest problems in my opinion.

But Death Rigby wants to sunbathe during the weekend and cruel Boris has put the mockers on it 😥