Corona Virus main thread

[Herman 9,777]

As more of the SAGE minutes come out the more redundant the phrase "following the science" is. 

[sonyc 5,526]

Just now, Herman said:

As more of the SAGE minutes come out the more redundant the phrase "following the science" is. 

Indeed. Used extremely selectively isn't it. Useful to cover your back and gain credibility but at other times quite inconvenient. Blo*dy experts.

[Barbe bleu 827]

 

3 hours ago, Yellow Fever said:

On the subject of the government making a complete fiasco  of Covid I think Jools and I are totally in agreement.

Either of us might have done something different and no doubt had different issues but at least we would of been consistent.

But I think that whilst both jools and you accept that  agree the government got it wrong you must also agree that the other would have got it more wrong than the government. 

Thats the problem with taking the middle ground, you make very peculiar allies of the diametrically opposed and get the flak from both sides.

Edited October 13, 2020 by Barbe bleu

[Barbe bleu 827]

31 minutes ago, sonyc said:

I believe (and it's a bit intuitive, so treat this view with caution) but localism is growing as a 'movement' in many spheres. People are searching for identity, belonging and meaning in their (increasingly digital) lives. Finding this in a local or a more personal context makes far more sense, achievable. Does this mean we may be seeing the last of centralism? No. Movements take time.

 

Blimey,  this is quite deep.  Perhaps humanism will find its ultimate expression in the digital world where the only value that anything has is in the eye of the beholder and where there is no meaning in life except that which the individual chooses to recognise.

After 300,000 years of evolution though we still can't rid ourselves of the deep psychological need for the alpha monkey tyrant of our past, even if the need for some form of central authority has found expression in God, or pharaoh or 'the party' or 'the soil' or NCFC.

 

[Well b back 3,209]

13 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

 

But I think that whilst both jools and you accept that  agree the government got it wrong you must also agree that the other would have got it more wrong than the government. 

Thats the problem with taking the middle ground, you make very peculiar allies of the diametrically opposed and get the flak from both sides.

This is correct, as I would say being a 60 year old type 2 diabetic I complain the rules are not going far enough, whereas a 25 year old owning an effected business would argue they have gone to far. For those 2 examples there is no middle ground, however there are many say 30 that consider the virus low risk and have a mortgage that would take that middle ground. We are probably in our own way all correct depending on what we are protecting.

I would however argue for the government to say they have followed the science, whichever of those you are in you would have to say that isn’t correct. I follow Oxford who regularly published their advice, which often told the government if you do that it wont bode well. To me the government have followed those that shout loudest, until hindsight shows it wasn’t necessarily the best idea then they U turn usually 3 weeks to late. 

[Yellow Fever 3,792]

7 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

 

But I think that whilst both jools and you accept that  agree the government got it wrong you must also agree that the other would have got it more wrong than the government. 

Thats the problem with taking the middle ground, you make very peculiar allies of the diametrically opposed and get the flak from both sides.

BB - I think you're over analysing that comical comment rather more than intended. I have very little in common with Jools'  but we simply both agree from any perspective that the current government has made an absolute mess of it's CV response.

Only a die-hard Johnson supporter could disagree with the observation. Economically disastrous, from a public health perspective disastrous and now we are going to do it all again! Hopeless floozy.

The true lesson from countries that acted swiftly and firmly with public 'buy-in', driving down the virus to negligible prevalence and with a TTI system that swiftly and again firmly deals with any flares ups (or reimposes restrictions with numbers unimaginably low compared to us) is that they endured a shorter 'lockdown', had less health issues overall and quicker and stronger economic recoveries. Largely already 'back to normal'.

Johnson and many others keep trying to place a 'sticking plaster' on or reacting to day by day numbers, never saying we need to deal with it once and for all. The 'Sage' call for a 'circuit break' be that 2,3 or 4 weeks around 1/2 term was correct but the opportunity is all but lost. We will endure into November and December the worst of all worlds. Perhap it's a feature of our 'western' government - unable to make the big calls - we've become soft and self satisfied and unable to adapt. 

[ricardo 7,395]

259k  tests

17234 - 143

positives and deaths jump (weekend effect additions from Sat and Sun)

Inpatients  4367 up by 530 since last update Thursday 8th Oct.

 

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/

Yesterdays European.

Italy   4619 - 39

France 8505 - 96

Spain  9286 - 65 first update for 3 days

Germany  4803 - 19

 

[ricardo 7,395]

[Van wink 2,994]

Sounds like hospitals in Liverpool are under a lot of pressure, doesn't bode well.
FT
"Liverpool is struggling to cope with a surge in coronavirus cases, with 95 per cent of intensive care beds in the city’s main hospitals full, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the situation. About half of the intensive care beds across the city’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (LUFT) have been taken by patients being treated for Covid-19. The surge in Liverpool, the area of England with the highest number of infections, is straining health services to the limit and forcing delays in some non-urgent treatment as critical care units approach capacity."

[Yellow Fever 3,792]

Saw this in Guardian when looking up the dailt figures.

Pretty good summary which is in line with my expressed thoughts as per earlier comments..

 

In an article for the Guardian, Stephen Reicher, a professor of psychology at the University of St Andrews and an adviser to the UK and Scottish governments, says Boris Johnson’s decision to ignore Sage’s call for a short, hard lockdown (a “circuit breaker”) has left the UK in “the worst of all worlds”. Here’s an extract.

We now find ourselves occupying the worst of all worlds: a limbo where the pandemic drags on and causes more damage, leaving us hopeless and praying for a vaccine. The government’s policy of continuous local lockdowns will disrupt everyday lives and damage businesses, but it won’t suppress the virus. England’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, conceded as much in a recent press briefing: in an extraordinary piece of political theatre, he followed the prime minister’s announcement of the three-tier system with a warning that these new measures won’t work …

In the end the problem is what it has always been. We have a government entirely without a strategy to deal with this pandemic. We have a cabinet entirely without a vision or a strength of purpose, reacting in panic to events as they arise rather than devising the means to get on top of them. And we have a prime minister who craves approval and wants to please everyone, who lacks the strength to face down his backbenchers and ends up with half-measures that help nobody. At a time when we need it most, the country has been saddled with a woeful lack of leadership.

 

[ricardo 7,395]

[Essjayess 307]

59 minutes ago, ricardo said:

259k  tests

17234 - 143

positives and deaths jump (weekend effect additions from Sat and Sun)

Inpatients  4367 up by 530 since last update Thursday 8th Oct.

 

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/

Yesterdays European.

Italy   4619 - 39

France 8505 - 96

Spain  9286 - 65 first update for 3 days

Germany  4803 - 19

 

It seems from statistics from our nearest neighbours, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, that the UK is pretty much in line with them as regards this 2nd wave, doing  neither better or worse than them. Starmer is calling for a 2 or 3 week total lockdown, now called circuit breaker for whatever reason, to get back some control over the virus,  saying this would be in line with Scientific callings.

It would seem to me, until the vaccine thats proven and mass produced arrives, that governments should adopt  a circuit breaker lockdown of 2 or 3 weeks once each season, just to keep the virus at manageable status.

[sonyc 5,526]

19 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

Saw this in Guardian when looking up the dailt figures.

Pretty good summary which is in line with my expressed thoughts as per earlier comments..

 

In an article for the Guardian, Stephen Reicher, a professor of psychology at the University of St Andrews and an adviser to the UK and Scottish governments, says Boris Johnson’s decision to ignore Sage’s call for a short, hard lockdown (a “circuit breaker”) has left the UK in “the worst of all worlds”. Here’s an extract.

We now find ourselves occupying the worst of all worlds: a limbo where the pandemic drags on and causes more damage, leaving us hopeless and praying for a vaccine. The government’s policy of continuous local lockdowns will disrupt everyday lives and damage businesses, but it won’t suppress the virus. England’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, conceded as much in a recent press briefing: in an extraordinary piece of political theatre, he followed the prime minister’s announcement of the three-tier system with a warning that these new measures won’t work …

In the end the problem is what it has always been. We have a government entirely without a strategy to deal with this pandemic. We have a cabinet entirely without a vision or a strength of purpose, reacting in panic to events as they arise rather than devising the means to get on top of them. And we have a prime minister who craves approval and wants to please everyone, who lacks the strength to face down his backbenchers and ends up with half-measures that help nobody. At a time when we need it most, the country has been saddled with a woeful lack of leadership.

 

I'm reading that Starmer is calling for a change in government policy and wants a 2 week circuit break. And soon.

[sonyc 5,526]

3 hours ago, Barbe bleu said:

Blimey,  this is quite deep.  Perhaps humanism will find its ultimate expression in the digital world where the only value that anything has is in the eye of the beholder and where there is no meaning in life except that which the individual chooses to recognise.

After 300,000 years of evolution though we still can't rid ourselves of the deep psychological need for the alpha monkey tyrant of our past, even if the need for some form of central authority has found expression in God, or pharaoh or 'the party' or 'the soil' or NCFC.

 

Less deep than your response BB!....

I think Sartre's thoughts are interesting though about the meaning of freedom being found in difficult circumstances.

https://psyche.co/ideas/in-a-pandemic-we-learn-again-what-sartre-meant-by-being-free

 

Edited October 13, 2020 by sonyc

[ricardo 7,395]

2 minutes ago, sonyc said:

I'm reading that Starmer is calling for a change in government policy and wants a 2 week circuit break. And soon.

I think we have learned two things from the use of lockdowns to control this virus.

1. They are ruinously expensive in jobs and lives

and

2. They appear to have little real effect in the long run.

Looking at todays figures it seems we are getting very close to topping out with positives. Hospitalisations are already slowing as people having been taking there own protective actions for some time now. Deaths as always are subject to a lag effect.

[Yellow Fever 3,792]

9 minutes ago, sonyc said:

I'm reading that Starmer is calling for a change in government policy and wants a 2 week circuit break. And soon.

It will be December and across Christmas / New Year I guess - not by design but forced by the virus. 

[The Real Buh 3,440]

Guy Fawkes had the right idea.

[Well b back 3,209]

4 minutes ago, sonyc said:

I'm reading that Starmer is calling for a change in government policy and wants a 2 week circuit break. And soon.

I’m afraid it’s all to late. I know I keep quoting Oxford but they are helping advise the government, and go public when they are constantly overruled. They told us where we would be and what would happen uncannily with amazing accuracy. There was no need for there to be another national lockdown ( and I never thought there would be any circumstance where the government would agree to one ) but I now believe it is a strong possibility. If you now listen to Boris his latest Uturn, you won’t necessarily get straight away, but he is now using again the phrase ‘ To Save Lives ‘ the phrase he was told not to drop 3 months by the experts but did.

[ricardo 7,395]

Quote

 

[sonyc 5,526]

36 minutes ago, ricardo said:

I think we have learned two things from the use of lockdowns to control this virus.

1. They are ruinously expensive in jobs and lives

and

2. They appear to have little real effect in the long run.

Looking at todays figures it seems we are getting very close to topping out with positives. Hospitalisations are already slowing as people having been taking there own protective actions for some time now. Deaths as always are subject to a lag effect.

It's a difficult one. Arguably the rates are so high now that a circuit break may not be that effective over 2/3 weeks. On the other hand, say even 2 to 3 months of being in tier 3 may be ruinous to businesses and lives.

The epidemiologists /scientists have made their advisories principally based on health criteria. Whitty too acknowledged other societal and economic costs.

 

[sonyc 5,526]

37 minutes ago, Well b back said:

I’m afraid it’s all to late. I know I keep quoting Oxford but they are helping advise the government, and go public when they are constantly overruled. They told us where we would be and what would happen uncannily with amazing accuracy. There was no need for there to be another national lockdown ( and I never thought there would be any circumstance where the government would agree to one ) but I now believe it is a strong possibility. If you now listen to Boris his latest Uturn, you won’t necessarily get straight away, but he is now using again the phrase ‘ To Save Lives ‘ the phrase he was told not to drop 3 months by the experts but did.

You might be right, if, and I suppose it's a significant if, death rates start to rise quickly. As someone in the same age category as you, of course it's worrying. I do think our greatest opportunity came around July time as VW has intimated, to regionalise T & T and embed it as deeply as possible. Yet we just heard about the fiasco with school algorithms, the world changing operation moonshot changing lives,  the planned reductions in furlough, whether masks should be worn (incredible that decision was taken so late and only after Scotland made it mandatory) plus interminable holiday quarantine stories.

 

[How I Wrote Elastic Man 1,189]

21 hours ago, How I Wrote Elastic Man said:

 

I have a test tomorrow, hopefully back at work Wednesday, latest Thursday 

Excellent service. The test centre was a 10 minute drive away (I chose to walk)

In and out in 5 minutes 

4 hours later, and just 10 minutes after the local 3 hour happy hour had started, I get the all clear text

😀🍺

[ricardo 7,395]

1 minute ago, sonyc said:

It's a difficult one. Arguably the rates are so high now that a circuit break may not be that effective over 2/3 weeks. On the other hand, say even 2 to 3 months of being in tier 3 may be ruinous to businesses and lives.

The epidemiologists /scientists have made their advisories principally based on health criteria. Whitty too acknowledged other societal and economic costs.

 

I was originally an advocate of shut downs but having seen the evidence it has changed my views on the matter. No other country in Europe is entertaining the idea either and even the WHO have not recommended it for anything other than preventing health services from collapse. I see very high numbers of cases in France, Spain etc and they don't appear to be thinking about it either. If lockdowns had any lasting effect then everyone would be doing them everytime cases rose.

The real problem is getting people to stick by the rules. I walk into the City with a mask and practice social distancing but large numbers of people I pass seem to have a total disregard. As for contact tracing, many don't bother to self isolate even when they know they have tested positive. We have just had the case in Norwich with students holding a house party for a hundred people even though many of them knew they were positive.

 

[ricardo 7,395]

3 minutes ago, How I Wrote Elastic Man said:

Excellent service. The test centre was a 10 minute drive away (I chose to walk)

In and out in 5 minutes 

4 hours later, and just 10 minutes after the local 3 hour happy hour had started, I get the all clear text

😀🍺

Di you wait outside the pub until you got the all clear?😉

[The Real Buh 3,440]

Boris and his buddies have dithered and messed this up. It’s cost lives, there’s no doubt about it. I do have some sympathy for them, this is an unprecedented situation definitely, but things could and should have been done differently. Hopefully there’s a big old report into this once the dust settles

But the political point scoring. My god. My GOD. I expect it from sturgeon, she’s a shameless waste of human skin who runs a third world country. Literally “Englands hat”. They’ll get around to dealing with the current health crisis after it’s dealt with the obesity and heroin addiction. Operation “blame England” in full swing again, it has just ramped up. Big surprise. What a shocker eh? Nice haircut btw you cave troll.

And now Kier Starmer has decided he needs to have an opinion as he’s been accused of being a failure as a leader, something he achieved massively at CPS by the way. Total professional lifetime failure on everything he’s ever done. Remember when labour was the workers party? Now he wants to devastate the economy even more than it is already and it’s got absolutely zero to do with “public health” the guy would sell his grandma for 50p he’s scum, he’s just red scum rather than blue scum. I mean SIR Kier Starmer? He’s literally posher than Boris. He’s got the personality and intelligence of a flattened saucepan. And absolute total pleb.

Just in case anybody needed to know this groundbreaking information you are in this on your own. You’ve got your own wits and it’s your responsibility to take care of yourself and the ones you care about. These people in “power” hate you and would trample on your neck to get 1 single vote. Take them for what they are. I look at a politician, any politician, and they aren’t even human to me. Literally sub-human. Please take care guys, because they don’t care about you. At all. Rant very much over.

Edited October 13, 2020 by The Real Buh

[ricardo 7,395]

And experts wonder why they are mocked. With error bars that wide I will predict Norwich City will finish the season somewhere between 1st and 24th.

Edited October 13, 2020 by ricardo

[How I Wrote Elastic Man 1,189]

4 minutes ago, ricardo said:

Di you wait outside the pub until you got the all clear?😉

"Pubs" are closed, Ricardo. I'm in my local "Restaurant" 🤗

And, yes I did wait, actually I had to run a quick errand once out of quarantine, so didn't get in until half hour ago 😉

[sonyc 5,526]

31 minutes ago, ricardo said:

https://www.frenchentree.com/news/french-news-digest-macron-to-address-the-nation/?utm_source=FrenchEntrée.com&utm_campaign=11fc76c9bc-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2016_23_05_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_ab17a1e6b0-11fc76c9bc-266150037&mc_cid=11fc76c9bc&mc_eid=2ef25f7fa7 

View from France here Ricardo. More changes tomorrow expected but no lockdown. Hospitals are under pressure. Worth watching France as they appear a week or two ahead in terms of the evolution of their 'second' wave.

[ricardo 7,395]

Just now, How I Wrote Elastic Man said:

"Pubs" are closed, Ricardo. I'm in my local "Restaurant" 🤗

And, yes I did wait, actually I had to run a quick errand once out of quarantine, so didn't get in until half hour ago 😉

Just checking😉

[ricardo 7,395]

Just now, sonyc said:

https://www.frenchentree.com/news/french-news-digest-macron-to-address-the-nation/?utm_source=FrenchEntrée.com&utm_campaign=11fc76c9bc-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2016_23_05_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_ab17a1e6b0-11fc76c9bc-266150037&mc_cid=11fc76c9bc&mc_eid=2ef25f7fa7 

View from France here Ricardo. More changes tomorrow expected but no lockdown. Hospitals are under pressure. Worth watching France as they appear a week or two ahead in terms of the evolution of their 'second' wave.

Yes I've been keeping an eye on the numbers from all our major European neighbours since they seem slightly ahead in the curve. Difficult to make head or tailof Spain as the reporting does not seem to be updated daily. France seems very similar to us but again numbers bounce a lot. Italy and Germany steadier but slowly rising.