Corona Virus main thread

[Surfer 1,547]

3 minutes ago, Essjayess said:

But those early days...how many tourists in Northern Italy caught the virus, brought it home to their home nations and thus started the spread in their countries? This is just unknown, but this unknown factor could  be another of key importance in how  the original spread happened in Europe and if it played a part in making some nations affected  more badly than others. 

It's a good point. Which countries have the largest portion of vacationers at Italian ski resorts? Italy of course, and then countries that do not have skiing themselves - so UK, Holland, Belgium, but not Germany or Austria. So how does that explain France and Spain? 

[How I Wrote Elastic Man 1,187]

1 hour ago, The Real Buh said:

It’s definitely a contributor but I watched a team of scientists from Iceland the other day investigating the genetic link and they believe there is one. They also said the majority of their early cases were from Britain.

 

I believe we had this virus and had it bad early on. China knew and obstructed is from responding.

Iceland believe they got it from 3 primary sources.  Austria, Italy and an unnamed English football match 

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

The fact our primary aircraft carrier is rushing to sea trials even with coronavirus cases onboard tells you a lot about what might be just around the corner

Our soldiers are still on exercise in a famous area on the Norfolk/Suffolk border before they go off to some hotspots around the world. It doesn't make the news at the moment but the Middle East is still in the throes of mass murder and destruction.

[The Real Buh 3,432]

4 minutes ago, How I Wrote Elastic Man said:

Iceland believe they got it from 3 primary sources.  Austria, Italy and an unnamed English football match 

We need to fully investigate, among other things, how we were infected so quickly and so widespread so quickly.

business as usual with China after this is not an option. I’m very up for choking them financially.

[The Real Buh 3,432]

Just now, keelansgrandad said:

The fact our primary aircraft carrier is rushing to sea trials even with coronavirus cases onboard tells you a lot about what might be just around the corner

Our soldiers are still on exercise in a famous area on the Norfolk/Suffolk border before they go off to some hotspots around the world. It doesn't make the news at the moment but the Middle East is still in the throes of mass murder and destruction.

I suspect the Queen Elizabeth will be gingerly moving towards the South China Sea 

[Van wink 2,994]

2 minutes ago, keelansgrandad said:

The fact our primary aircraft carrier is rushing to sea trials even with coronavirus cases onboard tells you a lot about what might be just around the corner

Our soldiers are still on exercise in a famous area on the Norfolk/Suffolk border before they go off to some hotspots around the world. It doesn't make the news at the moment but the Middle East is still in the throes of mass murder and destruction.

Lots of them are training atm to do the swabbing and contact tracing KG

[T 190]

1 hour ago, Ian said:

I don't really disagree with anything you say there T. I don't doubt there are lessons to be learned in the UK response, and that tragically, preventable deaths are likely to have occurred in this country. Having listened to the expert modellers, I was expecting things certainly to have been a lot worse, and thankfully the predicted overwhelming of the NHS thankfully does not seem to have occurred.

It does indeed seem, on the face of it, that Germany has coped admirably well to this point. That said, I would like to wait for relatively calibrated figures, not only in terms of excess mortality, but the occurrence of second spikes and/or longer term deaths indirectly linked to the lock-down.

I'm still agreeiing with above that you have to be careful making compaarisons. However, it is clear that Germany and South Korea for instance were better prepared. Nothing is going to change that and that will not look any different at the end. Sadly the people who died are not going to be resurrected.  You are just not seeing significant excess deaths in Germany.

How countries manage the process from here is of course a different question and something that you can only assess in the future but nothing is going to change that the UK was poorly prepared which is ultimately down to political policies.. Going forward what I'm hearing coming out of Germany, the UK and other countries are very similar. Expand test, trace,isolate, developing apps, gradually lift restrictions, provide economic cover to allow the economy to recover quickly. I see no reason to suggest that the UK govt isn't trying to do the best they can now but that doesn't change past policy decisions. 

[Herman 9,765]

13 minutes ago, The Real Buh said:

I suspect the Queen Elizabeth will be gingerly moving towards the South China Sea 

Why does it want to go there? 

[Barbe bleu 826]

14 minutes ago, The Real Buh said:

I suspect the Queen Elizabeth will be gingerly moving towards the South China Sea 

Let's hope not. I dont suppose that they will have enough food on board to last the voyage

[The Real Buh 3,432]

1 minute ago, Herman said:

Why does it want to go there? 

I mean, it’s not due to be operational until 2021 but if I was a betting man I’d say that’s where the action will be in the not too distant future.

[Bill 1,788]

The reality is that in 2019 the attention was focussed on preparations for a possible brexit. So all warehouse space was taken as food and medicines were stockpiled - hence there being no shortage now

Advice about possible pandemics was weighed against advice of certain panic when Brexit did bring about shortages. So the culpability is not so much one of negligence but having to deal with a problem of their own making. This was compounded by a slow salami slicing of funding of the NHS, it's staff and equipment.

Which meant that the slowness to take action in February may equate to Chamberlain's supposed 'dithering' in 1938 - which some claim was to allow Britain time to re-arm. Hence Cummings attending meetings of Cobra so as to skew advice by using any figures that would serve that purpose. It is that information that would determine much of the advice ie what would have been their advice if Cummings had said there was absolutely no testing equipment, or there was enough for every person /  Exactly the same ? I think not. That was why he was there.

So folk can continue to gaze at the tea leaves (death numbers0 but they still don't tell us any more than what they are. The numbers who have dies, that's all.

[The Real Buh 3,432]

1 minute ago, Bill said:

The reality is that in 2019 the attention was focussed on preparations for a possible brexit. So all warehouse space was taken as food and medicines were stockpiled - hence there being no shortage now

Advice about possible pandemics was weighed against advice of certain panic when Brexit did bring about shortages. So the culpability is not so much one of negligence but having to deal with a problem of their own making. This was compounded by a slow salami slicing of funding of the NHS, it's staff and equipment.

Which meant that the slowness to take action in February may equate to Chamberlain's supposed 'dithering' in 1938 - which some claim was to allow Britain time to re-arm. Hence Cummings attending meetings of Cobra so as to skew advice by using any figures that would serve that purpose. It is that information that would determine much of the advice ie what would have been their advice if Cummings had said there was absolutely no testing equipment, or there was enough for every person /  Exactly the same ? I think not. That was why he was there.

So folk can continue to gaze at the tea leaves (death numbers0 but they still don't tell us any more than what they are. The numbers who have dies, that's all.

“The reality is”

**proceeds to make a statement about what has “clearly happened” based on personal bias**
 

as I said before, you can tell who on this thread has a scientific background and who hasn’t.

 

[Aggy 755]

1 minute ago, The Real Buh said:

“The reality is”

**proceeds to make a statement about what has “clearly happened” based on personal bias**
 

as I said before, you can tell who on this thread has a scientific background and who hasn’t.

 

What’s your point? Loads of people haven’t got a scientific background? So what?

[TIL 1010 4,746]

Macron now admits France was not prepared for the pandemic according to Sky News and there was me thinking it was just the UK Govt.

[The Real Buh 3,432]

Just now, Aggy said:

What’s your point? Loads of people haven’t got a scientific background? So what?

I think the fact there aren’t more people in this country with a scientific background needs to be another part of the large scale inquiry at the end of this.

[Aggy 755]

Just now, The Real Buh said:

I think the fact there aren’t more people in this country with a scientific background needs to be another part of the large scale inquiry at the end of this.

Excellent. I can tell you’ve used your evidently incredible scientific knowledge to carry out a detailed analysis of the state of scientific knowledge in the whole country using the highly scientific method of reading a few posts on a football messageboard. Did you need a science degree to do that?

[Bill 1,788]

4 minutes ago, TIL 1010 said:

Macron now admits France was not prepared for the pandemic according to Sky News and there was me thinking it was just the UK Govt.

oh dear, poor plod never the brightest

the criticism of the UK government was that it Ignored warnings

when you can show that the French did the same then add another bleat

[Yellow Fever 3,785]

28 minutes ago, T said:

I'm still agreeiing with above that you have to be careful making compaarisons. However, it is clear that Germany and South Korea for instance were better prepared. Nothing is going to change that and that will not look any different at the end. Sadly the people who died are not going to be resurrected.  You are just not seeing significant excess deaths in Germany.

How countries manage the process from here is of course a different question and something that you can only assess in the future but nothing is going to change that the UK was poorly prepared which is ultimately down to political policies.. Going forward what I'm hearing coming out of Germany, the UK and other countries are very similar. Expand test, trace,isolate, developing apps, gradually lift restrictions, provide economic cover to allow the economy to recover quickly. I see no reason to suggest that the UK govt isn't trying to do the best they can now but that doesn't change past policy decisions. 

I think you nailed the  country by country omparisons by looking at excess death figures. 

If you want to compare countries or reality check any numbers see if they stack up against excess death figures. So yes Germany has clearly done a lot better as have some others. We are likely still under reporting.

Italy got little warning but we did.

All that said, clearly we are finally winning which is excellent news.

[Rock The Boat 1,332]

4 hours ago, Creative Midfielder said:

It's definitely a convenient soundbite but its a big deal when the Prime Minister and other senior ministers who are supposed to be briefing us all (not fight an election campaign as you might suppose from the way they go about it)

Why do you think they are still fighting a general election?

[Bill 1,788]

2 minutes ago, yellowrider120 said:

So I was mistaken then when the shelves were bare of pasta and bread a few weeks back and are bare of flour now!! Suggest you take a wander round Sainsburys or Tesco or my local Co-op or my local One Stop and see how thin some of the shelves are now. These shortages are due to panic buying / hoarding + interruptions in supply chains / change in demand (lack of usual size bags for traditional 3lb Flour for example). I agree there was some lack of preparation by the Govt. but to blame it on 'stockpiling for Brexit' is just trying to play the pro EU Remain card.     

so you contradicting yourself

makes me wrong

dear oh dear

[The Real Buh 3,432]

14 minutes ago, Aggy said:

Excellent. I can tell you’ve used your evidently incredible scientific knowledge to carry out a detailed analysis of the state of scientific knowledge in the whole country using the highly scientific method of reading a few posts on a football messageboard. Did you need a science degree to do that?

You need to understand science to act in a logical manner and understand the world around you. It’s a tool to enable you to make smart decisions.

My observations on this website alone indicate to me we have a problem in this area.

Maybe if we had more UK kids becoming doctors or researchers or engineers rather than becoming failed art students we’d be much better off on the whole.

Edited April 30, 2020 by The Real Buh

[Herman 9,765]

12 minutes ago, TIL 1010 said:

Macron now admits France was not prepared for the pandemic according to Sky News and there was me thinking it was just the UK Govt.

Therein lies our problem. If our goverment had come out and held their hands up and admitted some of their mistakes it'd be probably appreciated. As it is they are still obfuscating, changing numbers, getting compliant journalists to pretend nothing is going on and even getting their MPs to join in on pile-ons to journalists that are asking too many questions. As I've said before, if the government wants everyone on side then they have to start treating people with respect and not like mugs.

[Rock The Boat 1,332]

3 hours ago, The Real Buh said:

The amount of “hidden deaths” will be massive as well. Suicides etc and in developing countries I suspect asking people to not leave their houses for weeks on end will lead to starvation and all sorts of other disease risks. This is a pretty huge issue and the data is huge but we should focus on our data as I really think it’s accurate. I don’t trust politicians but I do trust our scientists and data gatherers/analysers.

Nobody is going to sit at home until they starve. Try to keep a sense of proportion. 

[The Real Buh 3,432]

Just now, Rock The Boat said:

Nobody is going to sit at home until they starve. Try to keep a sense of proportion. 

If you live in a Brazilian favella and if you leave your house armed police will come after you what is going to happen?

[Rock The Boat 1,332]

3 hours ago, Surfer said:

In earlier posts I said that Belgium was "off the chart bad" and that's why I left them off these comparisons. However with the updated deaths reported there is a spike in UK data so they are no longer the outlier. This spike should decline as it is averaged out over the coming days, however these two charts show how poorly the UK has done against similar countries. Note the US average deaths curve is starting to trend back up, that is because New York has been getting on top of it's major outbreak but several Republican led states like Florida and Georgia and Texas are now re-opening their economies as "the cure is worse than the disease" 

 

 

You forgot to add that Germany, too, has crept up in the past few days as it too re-opens its economy 

[Creative Midfielder 1,996]

48 minutes ago, Ian said:

My point was simply that it's far too early to make any sort of judgement about why outbreaks have differed so radically between countries, even ones that seem similar socially and culturally, when we know so little, and the figures we do have are sketchy as best.  Certainly, it's misleading to make these sort of comparisons with any real level of certainty.

I would suggest that it would be more appropriate to measure "success" over a longer time period; what is not to say that European countries who locked down early will continue to suffer with outbreaks later on, which hampers them massively economically and causes extreme hardship and excess deaths? And that's before we even consider the Swedish approach...

Whilst I agree with you that overall 'success' will ultimately be evaluated over a much longer period and indeed some aspects of success (e.g. limiting the economic damage) we can't even begin to evaluate yet. Nevertheless the focus at the moment all over the world is primarily on preserving lives and I really still don't understand why you are so reluctant to make judgements about the current situation.

We (and hopefully the various governments themselves) are trying to evaluate not just minor differences in not especially reliable statistics but why differing countries' strategies and actions have produced very tangible differences in outcomes. If you believe it is not possible to make such judgements at the moment then I don't understand how you expect the strategies going forward to adapt and improve, especially as we all attempt to move out of the lockdown in various ways and at varying speeds.

Surely it's just plain common sense to try to assess what has worked well, what hasn't gone well and what might work well in the future, and that necessitates making judgements imperfect though they may turn out to be in the final analysis. That is certainly what governments have to do and I would suggest that on a much smaller scale that is what most of us do regularly in our working lives. I would love to be in a position where I delayed making a decision about a problem until I had a perfect understanding of the problem itself and the potential solutions but in the real world you have often have to make a decision based on your current knowledge and experience and naturally you get judged on the quality and outcome of your decisions.

[Surfer 1,547]

14 minutes ago, Rock The Boat said:

You forgot to add that Germany, too, has crept up in the past few days as it too re-opens its economy 

Ah yes Germany again RTB. Yes that is what the latest reporting said and it will show up in the data eventually. What is unavoidable is looking at these two charts and going “WTF?, why is the UK the worst in Europe for daily death rate and worst in Europe for the number of tests run”? 

[Creative Midfielder 1,996]

52 minutes ago, TIL 1010 said:

Macron now admits France was not prepared for the pandemic according to Sky News and there was me thinking it was just the UK Govt.

Think Sky News are also well behind the curve then, it was about a fortnight ago he actually made that speech.

He provided an object lesson in how effective it can be for a political leader to show a bit of humility and honesty - a lesson that our bunch of incompetent chancers would be well advised to follow but have, of course, completely ignored - par for the course really as taking good advice, especially from other countries, is definitely not something this government could ever be accused of.

Edited April 30, 2020 by Creative Midfielder

[Bill 1,788]

55 minutes ago, TIL 1010 said:

Macron now admits France was not prepared for the pandemic according to Sky News and there was me thinking it was just the UK Govt.

Now ?

CM has it as 2 weeks ago -- I wonder which of you is telling the truth ?

However more important is whether you read this damning article (below)which might have suggested you posting up that absurd 'righty' bleat was not the best of ideas. - as it merely highlights your lots attempts to distract from what happened

Read it if you dare, rightys

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/apr/28/matt-hancock-urged-to-publish-secret-review-of-pandemic-plans

[Rock The Boat 1,332]

35 minutes ago, The Real Buh said:

If you live in a Brazilian favella and if you leave your house armed police will come after you what is going to happen?

They are still receiving food. Nobody sits around and voluntary starves unless they are senile or similar. Would you?

I understand it is a time of uncertainty but no need to be unnecessarily alarmist.