That was also the case in 2005 but the SPD did a deal with the CDU rather than the Linke.
At the last election CDU plus FDP plus AfD had a majority but the CDU did a deal with the SPD rather than the AfD.
If the SPD and Greens go into Government with Linke and abandon the centre, some in the CDU and CSU will start to open talks with the AfD post Merkel in response
The CDU will not do deals with the AfD in those or any other circumstances. The SPD and Greens are already governing with die Linke in 3 German states. CDU are in coalition with the Greens in 6 German states (3 along with SPD, 1 with FDP).
In Thurungia for the first time the CDU and FDP did a deal with the AfD before Merkel blocked it, once she is gone there will be more pushing for deals with the AfD if the SPD and Greens deal with the ex Stalinist Linke nationally.
Otherwise the German right will be neutered, the only governments either a far left Government with Linke or a centrist Government with the SPD or Greens if the CDU and FDP have no prospect of a majority ever again without dealing with the AfD
I love this “my country is better than your country at fighting coronavirus” schtick.
It’s like an antiviral Olympics.
I have thought of the casualty table like a grim medals table for some time.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m no different.
I’ll be cheering Blighty on all the way.
Blimey.
On the buy or sell side, as it were?
I think we’ll be relatively effective at containment. Nor do I think supply chains will break down - panic buying is overdone.
My concern is critical care for the 10-20%.
Remember the virus impact is on top of normal health care requirements, its March so I assume some of the winter pressure is easing off but it does not take an awful lot to rock the system. If the number of ICU attients increased by 10% can the system cope? If rationing is required who will make decisions, there is evidence from Spain that it is devastating in old people’s homes if it gets in. The virus cases number is irrelevant it’s the ability of a system to cope.
If the government has thought this through (and I’m sure they have) then they can requisition 30-40 large warehouses around the country for up to 6 months using the civil contingencies act and kit them out as emergency hospital inside 2-3 weeks.
They’d need to draft in extra emergency medical staff of course (they should be put on notice now) and procure/build/buy as many ventilation machines as they possibly can - now.
How many medical staff are there within the military? I'd think there's a fair few who could be made available as required?
That was also the case in 2005 but the SPD did a deal with the CDU rather than the Linke.
At the last election CDU plus FDP plus AfD had a majority but the CDU did a deal with the SPD rather than the AfD.
If the SPD and Greens go into Government with Linke and abandon the centre, some in the CDU and CSU will start to open talks with the AfD post Merkel in response
Post Merkel they Cdu will almost certainly move towards the AFD anyway. Elecotrally speaking moving towards accommodation with these far right/populist parties has been the trend pretty much everywhere in Europe, and normally allows the mainstream right wing party to end up stronger (like in Austria).
Yes and of course Kurz did a deal with the Freedom Party in his first term in Austria before dealing with the Greens in his second term
American man imprisoned for licking ice cream in a shop which he goes on to buy. Very uncouth but probably not worth adding to the worlds biggest prison population.....
I'm getting confused. Does soap and water work on this virus? Do standard carex hand washes work?
I seem to be seeing stuff now that talks about need for alcohol-based cleaners (60%+).
Neither 'works' on the virus, it's cleaning potentially infected surfaces of anything the virus can survive in. For that soap should be fine. To be an effective cleaning agent other products like hand sanitizer should have decent levels of alcohol. Thorough drying after is also important.
I'm getting confused. Does soap and water work on this virus? Do standard carex hand washes work?
I seem to be seeing stuff now that talks about need for alcohol-based cleaners (60%+).
I think, what they are saying is;
If you use alcohol-based sanitizes, (instead of soap), then it must be over 60% Alcohol to work.
Somebody correct me if wrong.
I think its soap works perfectly, but you need proper handwashing techniques - at least 20 seconds and scrub your entire hand on both hands.
If you're using hand sanitiser instead of soaps then over 60% works, but its wasteful if you've access to soap and water, its perfect for if you lack access to soap and water. You still need to scrub all over both hands with it.
Hopefully after this all the growing niche attempts to take alcohol out of stuff it belongs in will go away. There were increasing amounts of "alcohol free" hand sanitisers on the market for 'religious' or 'social' or 'conscious' reasons which are quite frankly useless junk. The reason alcohol is in hand sanitisers is because it works and its not like you're drinking the stuff.
So I heard two things yesterday about Coronavirus, one unsure how to view it and the other with quite worrying implications.
The first was from a contact at Oxford University who claimed the labs there have worked out a vaccine for Coronavirus but that it will be year end before it is fully tested etc etc. I genuinely don't know if this is new news, expected etc. I haven't been following very development about what is happening.
The second, and slightly more scary, one was about a firm that produces a disinfectant solution that protects against coronavirus-type viruses. There are apparently limited facilities globally that can produce this solution (less than 20). The Chinese Govt promised to send over three 747s ASAP to bring back everything they could (the firm apparently can't produce that much so said no).
Sending over 3x747s to bring back that stuff doesn't sound like a Government which believes it has on top of the problem.
That is absolute bollocks. The spend wasn't precisely 500 m, US population is 327m not 330 m, so we are dealing in loose and rhetorical approximations, and anyway if a pie costs £1 and I have £1 I have enough to buy one pie. If I have £2, I also have enough to buy one pie.
Britain should expect an outbreak similar to Hubei province in China, Mr Hunt said, where 20% of the population contracted Covid-19.
The most disruptive time is still to come, according to Mr Hunt, who said the peak is expected between three and nine weeks' time.
He said: "[We are] Approaching the moment have to intervene."
Clinician on R4 this morning said that mortality rate is most likely to be around 1%, maybe lower. So over 99% likely to survive the virus. More dangerous than influenza for sure, but flu is dangerous too. Look up TB deaths in the world (and UK). Should we be more concerned about TB?
The media is showing concern way in excess of the concern I get from asking the people I meet. I wouldn`t go as far as saying that the media are over the top on this, but it needs messaging regularly that over 99% will survive the virus if unfortunate enough to contract it. Will coronavirus reverse the gains in average life expectancy on the planet? I doubt it.
That is absolute bollocks. The spend wasn't precisely 500 m, US population is 327m not 330 m, so we are dealing in loose and rhetorical approximations, and anyway if a pie costs £1 and I have £1 I have enough to buy one pie. If I have £2, I also have enough to buy one pie.
Read it again.
It wasn't the approximation that was the issue, it was the order of magnitude.
That was also the case in 2005 but the SPD did a deal with the CDU rather than the Linke.
At the last election CDU plus FDP plus AfD had a majority but the CDU did a deal with the SPD rather than the AfD.
If the SPD and Greens go into Government with Linke and abandon the centre, some in the CDU and CSU will start to open talks with the AfD post Merkel in response
The CDU will not do deals with the AfD in those or any other circumstances. The SPD and Greens are already governing with die Linke in 3 German states. CDU are in coalition with the Greens in 6 German states (3 along with SPD, 1 with FDP).
In Thurungia for the first time the CDU and FDP did a deal with the AfD before Merkel blocked it, once she is gone there will be more pushing for deals with the AfD if the SPD and Greens deal with the ex Stalinist Linke nationally.
Otherwise the German right will be neutered, the only governments either a far left Government with Linke or a centrist Government with the SPD or Greens if the CDU and FDP have no prospect of a majority ever again without dealing with the AfD
Can I ask, what is the basis of your expertise about Germany? The CDU will cease to exist before doing any deals with the AfD.
The CDU and FDP hardly "did a deal" with the AfD in Thuringia - try reading some facts.
I'm getting confused. Does soap and water work on this virus? Do standard carex hand washes work?
I seem to be seeing stuff now that talks about need for alcohol-based cleaners (60%+).
I think, what they are saying is;
If you use alcohol-based sanitizes, (instead of soap), then it must be over 60% Alcohol to work.
Somebody correct me if wrong.
I think its soap works perfectly, but you need proper handwashing techniques - at least 20 seconds and scrub your entire hand on both hands.
If you're using hand sanitiser instead of soaps then over 60% works, but its wasteful if you've access to soap and water, its perfect for if you lack access to soap and water. You still need to scrub all over both hands with it.
Hopefully after this all the growing niche attempts to take alcohol out of stuff it belongs in will go away. There were increasing amounts of "alcohol free" hand sanitisers on the market for 'religious' or 'social' or 'conscious' reasons which are quite frankly useless junk. The reason alcohol is in hand sanitisers is because it works and its not like you're drinking the stuff.
With the hand washing it's mostly the hot water that either kills the virus or gets it off your hands. With the sanitizer it's the alcohol, because the liquid evaporates and nothing leaves your skin. Yes this needs to be at 60%. The stuff flying off the shelves is mostly way short.
That is absolute bollocks. The spend wasn't precisely 500 m, US population is 327m not 330 m, so we are dealing in loose and rhetorical approximations, and anyway if a pie costs £1 and I have £1 I have enough to buy one pie. If I have £2, I also have enough to buy one pie.
And a one-pie calorie reduction for the average American is probably a good thing.
That is absolute bollocks. The spend wasn't precisely 500 m, US population is 327m not 330 m, so we are dealing in loose and rhetorical approximations, and anyway if a pie costs £1 and I have £1 I have enough to buy one pie. If I have £2, I also have enough to buy one pie.
Erm.... if you have 500 million pies and 327 million people, you can give them one pie each and have some left over - not a million pies...
American man imprisoned for licking ice cream in a shop which he goes on to buy. Very uncouth but probably not worth adding to the worlds biggest prison population.....
Licking the ice cream he bought wasn't the problem.
Putting the licked ice cream back into the freezer, thus contaminating everything in the entire freezer was the issue!
What he did was no different to deliberately unplugging a freezer causing it all to melt.
Still a fine and community service should have been enough IMO.
The ice cream was in a carton or tub, so he did not contaminate the rest. The problem is the shop cannot be 100 per cent sure the carton he licked was the same one he bought.
On contamination from licking ice cream and unwashed hands: will this mean an end to unwrapped fruit and bread products in supermarkets? #Covid-19 #SodThePlastic.
That is absolute bollocks. The spend wasn't precisely 500 m, US population is 327m not 330 m, so we are dealing in loose and rhetorical approximations, and anyway if a pie costs £1 and I have £1 I have enough to buy one pie. If I have £2, I also have enough to buy one pie.
Read it again.
It wasn't the approximation that was the issue, it was the order of magnitude.
Nice to see some sunshine today after a thoroughly grim day weather wise in London yesterday which has led to the loss of Imperial Cup day at Sandown.
The Imperial Cup was once the second or third most valuable and important race in the jump calendar but that was before the rise of Cheltenham. I also note from a racing perspective the big Trials meeting at Meydan tomorrow will be behind closed doors.
Having Cheltenham without the crowds is unthinkable but there must be risks attached to having so many people together over a four day period but we'll see.
I thought the star of Tuesday's press conference was Chris Whitty who basically upstaged Boris Johnson. Whitty talked a huge amount of sense arguing against measures such as closing schools when the infection rate among children seems so low.
I am concerned if the virus gets into the residential care community it could be very bad locally and that would be my main cause of concern. The short term disruption of having large numbers of people sick will also be inconvenient as transport and other key services are involuntarily cut back but there will be fewer people travelling.
An excellent post by the way from @Black Rock yesterday on the implications for those on lower pay or with less secure work and pay arrangements for whom being sick is literally something they cannot afford.
Mr. Password, I'm sure they have. It's their business to sell papers, although we must hope they report in a responsible fashion.
If they were playing it down or, worse, covering it up then there'd be a bigger outcry.
The dissenting voices are fading as the gravity of this sinks in.
Doom merchant alert
The model produced by the PB Maths Brain Trust implies hundreds of thousands dying each day at peak, since everyone in the UK essentially catches it within a matter of days, it only lasts a few weeks, and the death rate is so high.
That was also the case in 2005 but the SPD did a deal with the CDU rather than the Linke.
At the last election CDU plus FDP plus AfD had a majority but the CDU did a deal with the SPD rather than the AfD.
If the SPD and Greens go into Government with Linke and abandon the centre, some in the CDU and CSU will start to open talks with the AfD post Merkel in response
The CDU will not do deals with the AfD in those or any other circumstances. The SPD and Greens are already governing with die Linke in 3 German states. CDU are in coalition with the Greens in 6 German states (3 along with SPD, 1 with FDP).
In Thurungia for the first time the CDU and FDP did a deal with the AfD before Merkel blocked it, once she is gone there will be more pushing for deals with the AfD if the SPD and Greens deal with the ex Stalinist Linke nationally.
Otherwise the German right will be neutered, the only governments either a far left Government with Linke or a centrist Government with the SPD or Greens if the CDU and FDP have no prospect of a majority ever again without dealing with the AfD
Can I ask, what is the basis of your expertise about Germany? The CDU will cease to exist before doing any deals with the AfD.
The CDU and FDP hardly "did a deal" with the AfD in Thuringia - try reading some facts.
If you think the CDU right and the CSU are just going to stand back and allow far left Governments with Linke in Germany because Merkel refused to deal with the AfD and no prospect of a right of centre Government ever again in Germany you are the deluded one.
Merkel has already had to fire one minister who welcomed the Thurungia AfD deal, more will move that way. It was AfD support in Thurungia which initially enabled an FDP and CDU Government
Anyone tempted to dismiss the effects on young people will find this a rather graphic wake-up. The first British sufferer, aged 25, describes what it felt like:
"I was feeling achy," says Connor "I just wanted to curl up into a ball and I had ear problems and sinus problems where it felt like there was a balloon being blown up in my face. And that was probably the worst symptom. It really bothered me.
"I also had a raking cough. It was terrible. And it was happening so much, I lost my voice. Sometimes, I couldn't make any sound at all. Sometimes, I sounded like a frog."
He actually felt like he was recovering from the flu and was feeling optimistic about going back to work when one morning he woke up struggling to breathe.
"It scared me because breathing is a necessity of life, like if you have the flu, you really feel like you're going to die, but you're really not. But when your lungs get affected, that's where it scared me. And I couldn't take a full breath. And the breaths I did take, it sounded like I was breathing through a bag. It was very crackly, and I could only take half breaths. If I walked to the kitchen, for instance, I'd be breathing really shallow and really fast."
In case we didn't know, it's clearly a bloody nasty virus
34x suggests a level of knowledge which simply isn’t there. All you can say for sure is that it’s likely an order of magnitude more deadly.
As for infection rates, it would seem (though again there is considerable uncertainty) to be extremely contagious, but not particularly transmissible via any airborne route. Assuming that proves true, R0 is likely to be significantly ameliorable by various public health measures.
What that means for the total of infected or dead over the next twelve months is for now sheer guesswork. Even if some of those guesses are more educated than others.
LONDON — Ventilators in short supply. Intensive care beds already overflowing. Some health workers buying their own face masks or hoods. And if cases of the deadly coronavirus surge in anything like the numbers some experts have predicted, doctors say they would have to consider denying lifesaving care to the frailest patients to prioritize those with better chances of surviving.
“If we haven’t got ventilatory support to offer them, it’s going to end in death,” said Dr. George Priestley, an intensive care doctor and anesthesiologist in Yorkshire in northern England. “I don’t want to be alarmist. I just want someone to pay attention.”
Having observed the correlation between Coronavirus denialists, climate change sceptics and Brexitism for a couple of weeks, this virus does look likely to have selective mortality. Sadly likely to affect many innocent bystanders though.
Just follow the instructions from the bloody experts you idiots! This is not a drill.
Having observed the correlation between Coronavirus denialists, climate change sceptics and Brexitism for a couple of weeks, this virus does look likely to have selective mortality. Sadly likely to affect many innocent bystanders though.
Just follow the instructions from the bloody experts you idiots! This is not a drill.
Students aren't obliged to invite Amber Rudd if they don't want to hear from her. Inviting her then disinviting her when she is on the train to speak to them is bloody rude.
Having observed the correlation between Coronavirus denialists, climate change sceptics and Brexitism for a couple of weeks, this virus does look likely to have selective mortality. Sadly likely to affect many innocent bystanders though.
Just follow the instructions from the bloody experts you idiots! This is not a drill.
Nice to see some sunshine today after a thoroughly grim day weather wise in London yesterday which has led to the loss of Imperial Cup day at Sandown.
The Imperial Cup was once the second or third most valuable and important race in the jump calendar but that was before the rise of Cheltenham. I also note from a racing perspective the big Trials meeting at Meydan tomorrow will be behind closed doors.
Having Cheltenham without the crowds is unthinkable but there must be risks attached to having so many people together over a four day period but we'll see.
I thought the star of Tuesday's press conference was Chris Whitty who basically upstaged Boris Johnson. Whitty talked a huge amount of sense arguing against measures such as closing schools when the infection rate among children seems so low.
I am concerned if the virus gets into the residential care community it could be very bad locally and that would be my main cause of concern. The short term disruption of having large numbers of people sick will also be inconvenient as transport and other key services are involuntarily cut back but there will be fewer people travelling.
An excellent post by the way from @Black Rock yesterday on the implications for those on lower pay or with less secure work and pay arrangements for whom being sick is literally something they cannot afford.
That's the penalty working people pay for 40 years of Thatcherism.
Having observed the correlation between Coronavirus denialists, climate change sceptics and Brexitism for a couple of weeks, this virus does look likely to have selective mortality. Sadly likely to affect many innocent bystanders though.
Just follow the instructions from the bloody experts you idiots! This is not a drill.
Maybe it`s an act of God - to smite those (typically older) folk who supported Brexit and deny climate change! I like it. I think I`ve at last found God.
The sort of person who comes on here, complains about how bored they are with the "Shanghai Sniffle" and basically wants everyone to rejoice about how lucky we are living in the golden age of Johnson's Britain.
Go back to the 60s and you see exactly rhee same complaints about students.
The early 80s was surely the best time to be a student? No fees, full grants for many. Housing benefit, a good supply of holiday jobs, contraception, no HIV, no internet, lots of political activity but no riots (by students at least). Cheap-ish foreign travel. Happy times
Students aren't obliged to invite Amber Rudd if they don't want to hear from her. Inviting her then disinviting her when she is on the train to speak to them is bloody rude.
It also doesn’t make any sense. Can’t those who don’t want to hear her speak just go to the pub instead?
So I heard two things yesterday about Coronavirus, one unsure how to view it and the other with quite worrying implications.
The first was from a contact at Oxford University who claimed the labs there have worked out a vaccine for Coronavirus but that it will be year end before it is fully tested etc etc. I genuinely don't know if this is new news, expected etc. I haven't been following very development about what is happening.
The second, and slightly more scary, one was about a firm that produces a disinfectant solution that protects against coronavirus-type viruses. There are apparently limited facilities globally that can produce this solution (less than 20). The Chinese Govt promised to send over three 747s ASAP to bring back everything they could (the firm apparently can't produce that much so said no).
Sending over 3x747s to bring back that stuff doesn't sound like a Government which believes it has on top of the problem.
I disagree on the final paragraph. China may be on top of the problem w.r.t. outside of Hubei - but with this now becoming a global pandemic they're going to get reinfected just as much as we will. They're now outside of Hubei more concerned about people entering the country I believe.
LONDON — Ventilators in short supply. Intensive care beds already overflowing. Some health workers buying their own face masks or hoods. And if cases of the deadly coronavirus surge in anything like the numbers some experts have predicted, doctors say they would have to consider denying lifesaving care to the frailest patients to prioritize those with better chances of surviving.
“If we haven’t got ventilatory support to offer them, it’s going to end in death,” said Dr. George Priestley, an intensive care doctor and anesthesiologist in Yorkshire in northern England. “I don’t want to be alarmist. I just want someone to pay attention.”
Sounds like we need those death panels Sarah Palin warned us about.
More seriously, in the longer term we should reconsider the tension between increased efficiency and retaining adequate spare capacity.
Dr. Foxy, I have a reasonable claim to be amongst the earliest here to correctly predict how things would go (due, perhaps oddly, to a bet on the F1 season).
I don't see any correlation, and I see neither the wisdom nor the usefulness of just grouping together people who disagree with you on two issues with those who are being either complacent or ill-informed about the spread of a disease which we know is happening.
So I heard two things yesterday about Coronavirus, one unsure how to view it and the other with quite worrying implications.
The first was from a contact at Oxford University who claimed the labs there have worked out a vaccine for Coronavirus but that it will be year end before it is fully tested etc etc. I genuinely don't know if this is new news, expected etc. I haven't been following very development about what is happening.
The second, and slightly more scary, one was about a firm that produces a disinfectant solution that protects against coronavirus-type viruses. There are apparently limited facilities globally that can produce this solution (less than 20). The Chinese Govt promised to send over three 747s ASAP to bring back everything they could (the firm apparently can't produce that much so said no).
Sending over 3x747s to bring back that stuff doesn't sound like a Government which believes it has on top of the problem.
Conducting clinical trials, even during an outbreak, is necessarily time consuming. First you have to demonstrate safety (China probably have an advantage here, as they seem happy to play fast and loose with ethical restrictions we can’t ignore). But that doesn’t just mean the vaccine on its own is safe - you also have to be sure it’s immune effects won’t cause ADE on exposure to the live virus). Demonstrating effectiveness is going to be equally difficult, as you need a significant population exposed to the virus after they’ve been vaccinated - which exposure your health services are doing everything in their power to avoid...
For now, any such trial in the UK simply isn’t going to happen.
Students aren't obliged to invite Amber Rudd if they don't want to hear from her. Inviting her then disinviting her when she is on the train to speak to them is bloody rude.
I probably am with Toby Young on this particular case. Amber is hardly the Poison Queen of Hatemongers.
The debate on the coronavirus seems to have become polarised to the point that unless hardly anyone else dies from it, one side will claim that the "deniers" have been proved wrong, and unless it wipes out at least half the world, the other side will claim that the "fearmongerers" have been proved wrong.
The reality is of course that it will almost certainly be somewhere in the middle of those two scenarios. Both sides will then spend the next several months claiming that the other predicted something much more extreme than they actually did.
Still, it makes a change from Brexit. Albeit that didn't actually directly kill anyone.
Go back to the 60s and you see exactly rhee same complaints about students.
The early 80s was surely the best time to be a student? No fees, full grants for many. Housing benefit, a good supply of holiday jobs, contraception, no HIV, no internet, lots of political activity but no riots (by students at least). Cheap-ish foreign travel. Happy times
Lots of riots by non-students iirc. And in the early 80s a lot of colleges were facing cuts and closures following government spending cuts. Maybe the late 60s and 70s would have been better.
Students aren't obliged to invite Amber Rudd if they don't want to hear from her. Inviting her then disinviting her when she is on the train to speak to them is bloody rude.
It also doesn’t make any sense. Can’t those who don’t want to hear her speak just go to the pub instead?
You can’t signal your virtue so easily in the pub.
Go back to the 60s and you see exactly rhee same complaints about students.
The early 80s was surely the best time to be a student? No fees, full grants for many. Housing benefit, a good supply of holiday jobs, contraception, no HIV, no internet, lots of political activity but no riots (by students at least). Cheap-ish foreign travel. Happy times
Lots of riots by non-students iirc. And in the early 80s a lot of colleges were facing cuts and closures following government spending cuts. Maybe the late 60s and 70s would have been better.
The 80s is also when you see right wing groups suing universities demanding they give a platform to Racist South Africans.
LONDON — Ventilators in short supply. Intensive care beds already overflowing. Some health workers buying their own face masks or hoods. And if cases of the deadly coronavirus surge in anything like the numbers some experts have predicted, doctors say they would have to consider denying lifesaving care to the frailest patients to prioritize those with better chances of surviving.
“If we haven’t got ventilatory support to offer them, it’s going to end in death,” said Dr. George Priestley, an intensive care doctor and anesthesiologist in Yorkshire in northern England. “I don’t want to be alarmist. I just want someone to pay attention.”
Sounds like we need those death panels Sarah Palin warned us about.
More seriously, in the longer term we should reconsider the tension between increased efficiency and retaining adequate spare capacity.
Boy is that going to be a debate later in the year when the worst is over.
Students aren't obliged to invite Amber Rudd if they don't want to hear from her. Inviting her then disinviting her when she is on the train to speak to them is bloody rude.
It also doesn’t make any sense. Can’t those who don’t want to hear her speak just go to the pub instead?
Those objecting to her presence got bonus negative marks for saying "These ["intersectionality" and "diversity"] are not just words to be thrown about performatively to seem inclusive". What a dismal way of expressing a simple idea.
That is absolute bollocks. The spend wasn't precisely 500 m, US population is 327m not 330 m, so we are dealing in loose and rhetorical approximations, and anyway if a pie costs £1 and I have £1 I have enough to buy one pie. If I have £2, I also have enough to buy one pie.
The sort of person who comes on here, complains about how bored they are with the "Shanghai Sniffle" and basically wants everyone to rejoice about how lucky we are living in the golden age of Johnson's Britain.
I would guess...
Ah, so a parody of someones post here rather than a real person or a real opinion.
Anyone tempted to dismiss the effects on young people will find this a rather graphic wake-up. The first British sufferer, aged 25, describes what it felt like:
"I was feeling achy," says Connor "I just wanted to curl up into a ball and I had ear problems and sinus problems where it felt like there was a balloon being blown up in my face. And that was probably the worst symptom. It really bothered me.
"I also had a raking cough. It was terrible. And it was happening so much, I lost my voice. Sometimes, I couldn't make any sound at all. Sometimes, I sounded like a frog."
He actually felt like he was recovering from the flu and was feeling optimistic about going back to work when one morning he woke up struggling to breathe.
"It scared me because breathing is a necessity of life, like if you have the flu, you really feel like you're going to die, but you're really not. But when your lungs get affected, that's where it scared me. And I couldn't take a full breath. And the breaths I did take, it sounded like I was breathing through a bag. It was very crackly, and I could only take half breaths. If I walked to the kitchen, for instance, I'd be breathing really shallow and really fast."
In case we didn't know, it's clearly a bloody nasty virus
34x suggests a level of knowledge which simply isn’t there. All you can say for sure is that it’s likely an order of magnitude more deadly.
As for infection rates, it would seem (though again there is considerable uncertainty) to be extremely contagious, but not particularly transmissible via any airborne route. Assuming that proves true, R0 is likely to be significantly ameliorable by various public health measures.
What that means for the total of infected or dead over the next twelve months is for now sheer guesswork. Even if some of those guesses are more educated than others.
The 34x claim is very bad maths IMHO and relies upon a number of false assumptions. Firstly you're basing it upon countries with poor healthcare which might not match what we would see.
But secondly surely the big difference between flu and COVID19 is that we vaccinate the at risk (the young, the old, pregnant, diabetics, health concerns etc) from the flu while the healthy who can get it and shrug it off are not vaccinated so they get it then recover.
If we didn't vaccinate for the flu it would kill a lot more people and the death rate would shoot up from the 0.1% that gets quoted.
Students aren't obliged to invite Amber Rudd if they don't want to hear from her. Inviting her then disinviting her when she is on the train to speak to them is bloody rude.
I probably am with Toby Young on this particular case. Amber is hardly the Poison Queen of Hatemongers.
No one is entitled to a platform. It doesn't reflect well on students to have too long a list of views that they consider disqualifying, but that's utimately their business.
What is unacceptable is withdrawing an invitation in this way. That is plain bad manners.
Go back to the 60s and you see exactly rhee same complaints about students.
The early 80s was surely the best time to be a student? No fees, full grants for many. Housing benefit, a good supply of holiday jobs, contraception, no HIV, no internet, lots of political activity but no riots (by students at least). Cheap-ish foreign travel. Happy times
Lots of riots by non-students iirc. And in the early 80s a lot of colleges were facing cuts and closures following government spending cuts. Maybe the late 60s and 70s would have been better.
The 80s is also when you see right wing groups suing universities demanding they give a platform to Racist South Africans.
Best way to tackle a bad idea is to face it and fight it full on. Expose it.
Having observed the correlation between Coronavirus denialists, climate change sceptics and Brexitism for a couple of weeks
I was one of the first on here to post the science of this virus, back in january and long before Eadric got all panicky. It seems to be largely the liberals, left and right, that are complacent. Conservatives are by nature concerned about borders, threats to security. (which is why I said badly handling this could be particularly bad for Trump with his base)
I was on a telecon yesterday with a bunch of highly educated yanks who I would bet are very Dem-voting, they are just as in denial as Trump.
The sort of person who comes on here, complains about how bored they are with the "Shanghai Sniffle" and basically wants everyone to rejoice about how lucky we are living in the golden age of Johnson's Britain.
I would guess...
Have you eaten your way through your tinned food from your Hard Brexit safety room ?
Not wishing to spend weeks in a state of abject fear every time there is a global event is hardly denialism - it’s common sense.
If you think the CDU right and the CSU are just going to stand back and allow far left Governments with Linke in Germany because Merkel refused to deal with the AfD and no prospect of a right of centre Government ever again in Germany you are the deluded one.
The "winners" from the Thuringia episode seem to be the SPD who did well in Hamburg and have recovered to a clear third in the national polls (latest Infratest poll has them on 16%). The CDU/CSU/SPD coalition has dropped from 54% to 43% since 2017 with the Greens up from 9 to 23%. The other big losers are the FDP who were badly damaged by the Thuringia episode and are on just 6% nationally.
The question for me is whether a CDU/CSU/Green Government is possible - it would likely have or be very close to a majority on current numbers. The Austrian centre-right party did a deal with the Austrian Greens so I just wonder if the equivalent German parties might.
If Merz becomes CDU leader, I certainly think a deal with the AfD would be possible but less so under Laschet or Rottgen.
LONDON — Ventilators in short supply. Intensive care beds already overflowing. Some health workers buying their own face masks or hoods. And if cases of the deadly coronavirus surge in anything like the numbers some experts have predicted, doctors say they would have to consider denying lifesaving care to the frailest patients to prioritize those with better chances of surviving.
“If we haven’t got ventilatory support to offer them, it’s going to end in death,” said Dr. George Priestley, an intensive care doctor and anesthesiologist in Yorkshire in northern England. “I don’t want to be alarmist. I just want someone to pay attention.”
Sounds like we need those death panels Sarah Palin warned us about.
More seriously, in the longer term we should reconsider the tension between increased efficiency and retaining adequate spare capacity.
Boy is that going to be a debate later in the year when the worst is over.
Belated hat-tip to OGH who made the same point as the NYT re shortages in this very thread header.
34x suggests a level of knowledge which simply isn’t there. All you can say for sure is that it’s likely an order of magnitude more deadly.
As for infection rates, it would seem (though again there is considerable uncertainty) to be extremely contagious, but not particularly transmissible via any airborne route. Assuming that proves true, R0 is likely to be significantly ameliorable by various public health measures.
What that means for the total of infected or dead over the next twelve months is for now sheer guesswork. Even if some of those guesses are more educated than others.
Ah, OK, I was wondering about the "infectious vs contagious" angle. It's mainly the latter then. About touching things.
My plan therefore - do not go out much and when I do, do not touch anything that I do not have to, and do not on any account touch my own face. Then, on return, wash my hands very thoroughly with soap and hot water. Ditto my partner.
This ought to work by the sounds of it.
Course, we can only do this because we don't HAVE to go out much.
Having observed the correlation between Coronavirus denialists, climate change sceptics and Brexitism for a couple of weeks
I was one of the first on here to post the science of this virus, back in january and long before Eadric got all panicky. It seems to be largely the liberals, left and right, that are complacent. Conservatives are by nature concerned about borders, security. (which is why I said badly handling this could be particularly bad for Trump with his base)
I was on a telecon yesterday with a bunch of highly educated yanks who I would bet are very Dem-voting, they are just as in denial as Trump.
We have taken the decsion to call off three upcoming events because of the virus. It's cost us about £500,000. But it was definitely the right thing to do. Luckily, we're big enough to absorb the cost, but for a lot of smaller businesses in a wide number of sectors this is existential.
This crisis is literally that - a turning point. People are ggoing to see the world very differently. I think that the role of the state - and the importance of that - is going to become a lot more prominent. The free market will once again be seen to have significant limitations.
Mr. Flashman (deceased), the method makes me wonder if it's the likes of the IRA, or if Al Qaeda/ISIS and associated lunatics have shifted their strategy somewhat.
The debate on the coronavirus seems to have become polarised to the point that unless hardly anyone else dies from it, one side will claim that the "deniers" have been proved wrong, and unless it wipes out at least half the world, the other side will claim that the "fearmongerers" have been proved wrong.
The reality is of course that it will almost certainly be somewhere in the middle of those two scenarios. Both sides will then spend the next several months claiming that the other predicted something much more extreme than they actually did.
Still, it makes a change from Brexit. Albeit that didn't actually directly kill anyone.
Given the scale of the predictions made, I am not so sure. Weve seen repeated warnings, backed by cod calculations, that millions of Brits will die. A bad winter flu sees 20-30,000 at most die with flu (many of whom on their way out already). There is a stark difference between these scenarios - an order of magnitude greater than normal flu might get you to 100-150,000, whereas scaling back the SeanT apocalypse might give you an estimate of half a million. The no man's land zone is around 250,000: very much worse than normal flu but nowhere near the end of civilisation as we know it.
I'm getting confused. Does soap and water work on this virus? Do standard carex hand washes work?
I seem to be seeing stuff now that talks about need for alcohol-based cleaners (60%+).
I think, what they are saying is;
If you use alcohol-based sanitizes, (instead of soap), then it must be over 60% Alcohol to work.
Somebody correct me if wrong.
I think its soap works perfectly, but you need proper handwashing techniques - at least 20 seconds and scrub your entire hand on both hands.
If you're using hand sanitiser instead of soaps then over 60% works, but its wasteful if you've access to soap and water, its perfect for if you lack access to soap and water. You still need to scrub all over both hands with it.
Hopefully after this all the growing niche attempts to take alcohol out of stuff it belongs in will go away. There were increasing amounts of "alcohol free" hand sanitisers on the market for 'religious' or 'social' or 'conscious' reasons which are quite frankly useless junk. The reason alcohol is in hand sanitisers is because it works and its not like you're drinking the stuff.
With the hand washing it's mostly the hot water that either kills the virus or gets it off your hands. With the sanitizer it's the alcohol, because the liquid evaporates and nothing leaves your skin. Yes this needs to be at 60%. The stuff flying off the shelves is mostly way short.
I have a tin of 99.7% isopropyl alcohol for cleaning PCBs, but apparently that is too strong for use as an anitviral. It seems there needs to be some water in there to optimise penetration of the viral envelope. About 70% is best, from what I've read.
The sort of person who comes on here, complains about how bored they are with the "Shanghai Sniffle" and basically wants everyone to rejoice about how lucky we are living in the golden age of Johnson's Britain.
I would guess...
Have you eaten your way through your tinned food from your Hard Brexit safety room ?
Not wishing to spend weeks in a state of abject fear every time there is a global event is hardly denialism - it’s common sense.
I have to travel to work on London's very own mobile germ warfare laboratory on a daily basis so I'm a long way from being worried for myself.
It's just when someone tries to condescendingly handwave the whole thing away with a comment about the "Shanghai Sniffle". It is serious and anyone who has a relative or a friend with an existing pulmonary or respiratory condition has a very real right to be concerned.
This "stiff upper lip, we carried on as though nothing was happening during the Blitz" attitude, while also a complete distortion of what really happened in London in 1940-41 and illustrative of how the romanticised misrepresentation of how London coped with aerial bombardment has become embedded in popular culture, isn't helpful. I agree just a few sensible precautions will help rather than panic but let's not underplay how this may be for some of the most vulnerable in our society.
Go back to the 60s and you see exactly rhee same complaints about students.
The early 80s was surely the best time to be a student? No fees, full grants for many. Housing benefit, a good supply of holiday jobs, contraception, no HIV, no internet, lots of political activity but no riots (by students at least). Cheap-ish foreign travel. Happy times
I first heard about HIV in early 1982, so better to delete that one from your list, Mr IanB2.
Anyone tempted to dismiss the effects on young people will find this a rather graphic wake-up. The first British sufferer, aged 25, describes what it felt like:
"I was feeling achy," says Connor "I just wanted to curl up into a ball and I had ear problems and sinus problems where it felt like there was a balloon being blown up in my face. And that was probably the worst symptom. It really bothered me.
"I also had a raking cough. It was terrible. And it was happening so much, I lost my voice. Sometimes, I couldn't make any sound at all. Sometimes, I sounded like a frog."
He actually felt like he was recovering from the flu and was feeling optimistic about going back to work when one morning he woke up struggling to breathe.
"It scared me because breathing is a necessity of life, like if you have the flu, you really feel like you're going to die, but you're really not. But when your lungs get affected, that's where it scared me. And I couldn't take a full breath. And the breaths I did take, it sounded like I was breathing through a bag. It was very crackly, and I could only take half breaths. If I walked to the kitchen, for instance, I'd be breathing really shallow and really fast."
In case we didn't know, it's clearly a bloody nasty virus
34x suggests a level of knowledge which simply isn’t there. All you can say for sure is that it’s likely an order of magnitude more deadly.
As for infection rates, it would seem (though again there is considerable uncertainty) to be extremely contagious, but not particularly transmissible via any airborne route. Assuming that proves true, R0 is likely to be significantly ameliorable by various public health measures.
What that means for the total of infected or dead over the next twelve months is for now sheer guesswork. Even if some of those guesses are more educated than others.
The 34x claim is very bad maths IMHO and relies upon a number of false assumptions. Firstly you're basing it upon countries with poor healthcare which might not match what we would see.
Our healthcare is if anything worse equipped for this. Regardless, the level of healthcare in a country will become irrelevant if this isn't contained, because it just won't be able to cope.
Having observed the correlation between Coronavirus denialists, climate change sceptics and Brexitism for a couple of weeks
I was one of the first on here to post the science of this virus, back in january and long before Eadric got all panicky. It seems to be largely the liberals, left and right, that are complacent. Conservatives are by nature concerned about borders, security. (which is why I said badly handling this could be particularly bad for Trump with his base)
I was on a telecon yesterday with a bunch of highly educated yanks who I would bet are very Dem-voting, they are just as in denial as Trump.
I'm wrong about what? That the Liberal Dems I know were complaining about how while they were in the UK a couple of days ago we were all crazy panicked apparently and they couldn't understand it?
Trump and the GOP machine have a (badly thought through) reason to play down the virus, doesn't mean his base agrees with the message.
34x suggests a level of knowledge which simply isn’t there. All you can say for sure is that it’s likely an order of magnitude more deadly.
As for infection rates, it would seem (though again there is considerable uncertainty) to be extremely contagious, but not particularly transmissible via any airborne route. Assuming that proves true, R0 is likely to be significantly ameliorable by various public health measures.
What that means for the total of infected or dead over the next twelve months is for now sheer guesswork. Even if some of those guesses are more educated than others.
Ah, OK, I was wondering about the "infectious vs contagious" angle. It's mainly the latter then. About touching things.
My plan therefore - do not go out much and when I do, do not touch anything that I do not have to, and do not on any account touch my own face. Then, on return, wash my hands very thoroughly with soap and hot water. Ditto my partner.
This ought to work by the sounds of it.
Course, we can only do this because we don't HAVE to go out much.
What I was surprised to learn and didn't know before seeing Prof Whitty explain it on the news yesterday is that you can't get coronavirus from touch alone.
Unless I misunderstood what he said it seems that even if you get coronavirus on your hands from touching a contaminated surface it won't get through the skin on your hands and you won't get the illness from that alone. You only get infected if you touch your face with contaminated hands.
I had always assumed touch alone was enough to get a contagion.
Anyone tempted to dismiss the effects on young people will find this a rather graphic wake-up. The first British sufferer, aged 25, describes what it felt like:
"I was feeling achy," says Connor "I just wanted to curl up into a ball and I had ear problems and sinus problems where it felt like there was a balloon being blown up in my face. And that was probably the worst symptom. It really bothered me.
"I also had a raking cough. It was terrible. And it was happening so much, I lost my voice. Sometimes, I couldn't make any sound at all. Sometimes, I sounded like a frog."
He actually felt like he was recovering from the flu and was feeling optimistic about going back to work when one morning he woke up struggling to breathe.
"It scared me because breathing is a necessity of life, like if you have the flu, you really feel like you're going to die, but you're really not. But when your lungs get affected, that's where it scared me. And I couldn't take a full breath. And the breaths I did take, it sounded like I was breathing through a bag. It was very crackly, and I could only take half breaths. If I walked to the kitchen, for instance, I'd be breathing really shallow and really fast."
In case we didn't know, it's clearly a bloody nasty virus
34x suggests a level of knowledge which simply isn’t there. All you can say for sure is that it’s likely an order of magnitude more deadly.
As for infection rates, it would seem (though again there is considerable uncertainty) to be extremely contagious, but not particularly transmissible via any airborne route. Assuming that proves true, R0 is likely to be significantly ameliorable by various public health measures.
What that means for the total of infected or dead over the next twelve months is for now sheer guesswork. Even if some of those guesses are more educated than others.
The 34x claim is very bad maths IMHO and relies upon a number of false assumptions. Firstly you're basing it upon countries with poor healthcare which might not match what we would see.
Our healthcare is if anything worse equipped for this. Regardless, the level of healthcare in a country will become irrelevant if this isn't contained, because it just won't be able to cope.
Sorry to go John McEnroe but you can not be serious.
Our healthcare is far better prepared than Hubei or Iran. Only an ignorant fool would seriously think its worse.
Mr. Observer, perhaps. But the lesson I'd draw is more around remote working and flexibility, as well as security of supply referring not only to energy but making manufacturing chains less dependent on a single nation.
The role of the state looms largest on sick pay, and the difficulty of squaring that circle for the self-employed in a situation like this.
Incidentally, that's also the sort of reason why Hammond was so wrong to try and make the self-employed pay NI at the same rate as the employed. There are swings and roundabouts to being self-employed, and the lack of a company pension and sick pay/paid leave are significant drawbacks.
This sort of situation may be seen as exceptional but in general terms those drawbacks are balanced by greater flexibility and freedom.
In the next few weeks a lot of people are going to be working full-time from home and finding out that it is entirely doable. That's going to transform people's ideas of what an office is for. Instead of being a home for working, it's going to be a convention centre.
Some of the large scale infrastructure projects being mooted are going to look very old-fashioned.
Go back to the 60s and you see exactly rhee same complaints about students.
The early 80s was surely the best time to be a student? No fees, full grants for many. Housing benefit, a good supply of holiday jobs, contraception, no HIV, no internet, lots of political activity but no riots (by students at least). Cheap-ish foreign travel. Happy times
I first heard about HIV in early 1982, so better to delete that one from your list, Mr IanB2.
Yes but the risk back then for the average student was negligible and the fear didn't get going until the mid 80s
Mr. Borough, not really my area, but the pound's rising against the dollar (now $1.30). Would've thought in times of crisis the international reserve currency would strengthen... which shows what I know about it.
The sort of person who comes on here, complains about how bored they are with the "Shanghai Sniffle" and basically wants everyone to rejoice about how lucky we are living in the golden age of Johnson's Britain.
I would guess...
Have you eaten your way through your tinned food from your Hard Brexit safety room ?
Not wishing to spend weeks in a state of abject fear every time there is a global event is hardly denialism - it’s common sense.
I have to travel to work on London's very own mobile germ warfare laboratory on a daily basis so I'm a long way from being worried for myself.
It's just when someone tries to condescendingly handwave the whole thing away with a comment about the "Shanghai Sniffle". It is serious and anyone who has a relative or a friend with an existing pulmonary or respiratory condition has a very real right to be concerned.
This "stiff upper lip, we carried on as though nothing was happening during the Blitz" attitude, while also a complete distortion of what really happened in London in 1940-41 and illustrative of how the romanticised misrepresentation of how London coped with aerial bombardment has become embedded in popular culture, isn't helpful. I agree just a few sensible precautions will help rather than panic but let's not underplay how this may be for some of the most vulnerable in our society.
Diseases culling populations has happened since time began.
We like to believe we cause and can control everything from ameobas to the weather.
Mr. Flashman (deceased), the method makes me wonder if it's the likes of the IRA, or if Al Qaeda/ISIS and associated lunatics have shifted their strategy somewhat.
Probably neither. Recent bombings in this country have used improvised devices rather than the classic IRA commercial explosive plus detonator bombs which required access to explosives and some expertise, and been carried out by lone wolves rather than organised groups, whether Islamist or home-grown right-wing nutters.
A generally forgotten (aka believed only by me) factor in Theresa May's lost majority was the Manchester Arena (Ariana Grande concert) bombing during the 2017 election campaign.
No one is entitled to a platform. It doesn't reflect well on students to have too long a list of views that they consider disqualifying, but that's utimately their business.
What is unacceptable is withdrawing an invitation in this way. That is plain bad manners.
Well yes. Whilst having Amber Rudd on a "no platform" list does seem a bit snowflakey, the much bigger outrage would be if organized Amber Rudd talks were to become a compulsory aspect of student life.
Anyone tempted to dismiss the effects on young people will find this a rather graphic wake-up. The first British sufferer, aged 25, describes what it felt like:
"I was feeling achy," says Connor "I just wanted to curl up into a ball and I had ear problems and sinus problems where it felt like there was a balloon being blown up in my face. And that was probably the worst symptom. It really bothered me.
"I also had a raking cough. It was terrible. And it was happening so much, I lost my voice. Sometimes, I couldn't make any sound at all. Sometimes, I sounded like a frog."
He actually felt like he was recovering from the flu and was feeling optimistic about going back to work when one morning he woke up struggling to breathe.
"It scared me because breathing is a necessity of life, like if you have the flu, you really feel like you're going to die, but you're really not. But when your lungs get affected, that's where it scared me. And I couldn't take a full breath. And the breaths I did take, it sounded like I was breathing through a bag. It was very crackly, and I could only take half breaths. If I walked to the kitchen, for instance, I'd be breathing really shallow and really fast."
In case we didn't know, it's clearly a bloody nasty virus
34x suggests a level of knowledge which simply isn’t there. All you can say for sure is that it’s likely an order of magnitude more deadly.
As for infection rates, it would seem (though again there is considerable uncertainty) to be extremely contagious, but not particularly transmissible via any airborne route. Assuming that proves true, R0 is likely to be significantly ameliorable by various public health measures.
What that means for the total of infected or dead over the next twelve months is for now sheer guesswork. Even if some of those guesses are more educated than others.
The 34x claim is very bad maths IMHO and relies upon a number of false assumptions. Firstly you're basing it upon countries with poor healthcare which might not match what we would see.
Our healthcare is if anything worse equipped for this. Regardless, the level of healthcare in a country will become irrelevant if this isn't contained, because it just won't be able to cope.
Sorry to go John McEnroe but you can not be serious.
Our healthcare is far better prepared than Hubei or Iran. Only an ignorant fool would seriously think its worse.
It's obviously better than Iran. Hubei with 40,000 medics imported? Maybe not. However as I said it's all irrelevant quite early on, because as we go past a couple 10s of thousands of cases there won't be any spare capacity, and hence the new level of healthcare will be next to none.
The sort of person who comes on here, complains about how bored they are with the "Shanghai Sniffle" and basically wants everyone to rejoice about how lucky we are living in the golden age of Johnson's Britain.
I would guess...
Have you eaten your way through your tinned food from your Hard Brexit safety room ?
Not wishing to spend weeks in a state of abject fear every time there is a global event is hardly denialism - it’s common sense.
I have to travel to work on London's very own mobile germ warfare laboratory on a daily basis so I'm a long way from being worried for myself.
It's just when someone tries to condescendingly handwave the whole thing away with a comment about the "Shanghai Sniffle". It is serious and anyone who has a relative or a friend with an existing pulmonary or respiratory condition has a very real right to be concerned.
This "stiff upper lip, we carried on as though nothing was happening during the Blitz" attitude, while also a complete distortion of what really happened in London in 1940-41 and illustrative of how the romanticised misrepresentation of how London coped with aerial bombardment has become embedded in popular culture, isn't helpful. I agree just a few sensible precautions will help rather than panic but let's not underplay how this may be for some of the most vulnerable in our society.
Yes. I read once an account of the explosion in petty crime (tons of theft and looting), selfish behaviour and panic during the bombing, which is all airbrushed from history
34x suggests a level of knowledge which simply isn’t there. All you can say for sure is that it’s likely an order of magnitude more deadly.
As for infection rates, it would seem (though again there is considerable uncertainty) to be extremely contagious, but not particularly transmissible via any airborne route. Assuming that proves true, R0 is likely to be significantly ameliorable by various public health measures.
What that means for the total of infected or dead over the next twelve months is for now sheer guesswork. Even if some of those guesses are more educated than others.
Ah, OK, I was wondering about the "infectious vs contagious" angle. It's mainly the latter then. About touching things.
My plan therefore - do not go out much and when I do, do not touch anything that I do not have to, and do not on any account touch my own face. Then, on return, wash my hands very thoroughly with soap and hot water. Ditto my partner.
This ought to work by the sounds of it.
Course, we can only do this because we don't HAVE to go out much.
Easier said than done. That's exactly what we've been trying to do for the last week, but it is astonishingly difficult not to touch your face. Especially when sitting in a traffic jam on the way back from the supermarket, hands potentially covered in bugs from the trolley handle, and your nose starts to itch. And don't forget mobile phones! These are getting wiped down with isopropanol on entry to our house.
In the next few weeks a lot of people are going to be working full-time from home and finding out that it is entirely doable. That's going to transform people's ideas of what an office is for. Instead of being a home for working, it's going to be a convention centre.
Some of the large scale infrastructure projects being mooted are going to look very old-fashioned.
Comments
Otherwise the German right will be neutered, the only governments either a far left Government with Linke or a centrist Government with the SPD or Greens if the CDU and FDP have no prospect of a majority ever again without dealing with the AfD
https://twitter.com/juniordrblog/status/1235132407386341376
Britain should expect an outbreak similar to Hubei province in China, Mr Hunt said, where 20% of the population contracted Covid-19.
The most disruptive time is still to come, according to Mr Hunt, who said the peak is expected between three and nine weeks' time.
He said: "[We are] Approaching the moment have to intervene."
Putting the licked ice cream back into the freezer, thus contaminating everything in the entire freezer was the issue!
What he did was no different to deliberately unplugging a freezer causing it all to melt.
Still a fine and community service should have been enough IMO.
If you use alcohol-based sanitizes, (instead of soap), then it must be over 60% Alcohol to work.
Somebody correct me if wrong.
If you're using hand sanitiser instead of soaps then over 60% works, but its wasteful if you've access to soap and water, its perfect for if you lack access to soap and water. You still need to scrub all over both hands with it.
Hopefully after this all the growing niche attempts to take alcohol out of stuff it belongs in will go away. There were increasing amounts of "alcohol free" hand sanitisers on the market for 'religious' or 'social' or 'conscious' reasons which are quite frankly useless junk. The reason alcohol is in hand sanitisers is because it works and its not like you're drinking the stuff.
The first was from a contact at Oxford University who claimed the labs there have worked out a vaccine for Coronavirus but that it will be year end before it is fully tested etc etc. I genuinely don't know if this is new news, expected etc. I haven't been following very development about what is happening.
The second, and slightly more scary, one was about a firm that produces a disinfectant solution that protects against coronavirus-type viruses. There are apparently limited facilities globally that can produce this solution (less than 20). The Chinese Govt promised to send over three 747s ASAP to bring back everything they could (the firm apparently can't produce that much so said no).
Sending over 3x747s to bring back that stuff doesn't sound like a Government which believes it has on top of the problem.
The media is showing concern way in excess of the concern I get from asking the people I meet. I wouldn`t go as far as saying that the media are over the top on this, but it needs messaging regularly that over 99% will survive the virus if unfortunate enough to contract it. Will coronavirus reverse the gains in average life expectancy on the planet? I doubt it.
It wasn't the approximation that was the issue, it was the order of magnitude.
The CDU and FDP hardly "did a deal" with the AfD in Thuringia - try reading some facts.
Nice to see some sunshine today after a thoroughly grim day weather wise in London yesterday which has led to the loss of Imperial Cup day at Sandown.
The Imperial Cup was once the second or third most valuable and important race in the jump calendar but that was before the rise of Cheltenham. I also note from a racing perspective the big Trials meeting at Meydan tomorrow will be behind closed doors.
Having Cheltenham without the crowds is unthinkable but there must be risks attached to having so many people together over a four day period but we'll see.
I thought the star of Tuesday's press conference was Chris Whitty who basically upstaged Boris Johnson. Whitty talked a huge amount of sense arguing against measures such as closing schools when the infection rate among children seems so low.
I am concerned if the virus gets into the residential care community it could be very bad locally and that would be my main cause of concern. The short term disruption of having large numbers of people sick will also be inconvenient as transport and other key services are involuntarily cut back but there will be fewer people travelling.
An excellent post by the way from @Black Rock yesterday on the implications for those on lower pay or with less secure work and pay arrangements for whom being sick is literally something they cannot afford.
Merkel has already had to fire one minister who welcomed the Thurungia AfD deal, more will move that way. It was AfD support in Thurungia which initially enabled an FDP and CDU Government
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-51427957
All you can say for sure is that it’s likely an order of magnitude more deadly.
As for infection rates, it would seem (though again there is considerable uncertainty) to be extremely contagious, but not particularly transmissible via any airborne route.
Assuming that proves true, R0 is likely to be significantly ameliorable by various public health measures.
What that means for the total of infected or dead over the next twelve months is for now sheer guesswork. Even if some of those guesses are more educated than others.
LONDON — Ventilators in short supply. Intensive care beds already overflowing. Some health workers buying their own face masks or hoods. And if cases of the deadly coronavirus surge in anything like the numbers some experts have predicted, doctors say they would have to consider denying lifesaving care to the frailest patients to prioritize those with better chances of surviving.
“If we haven’t got ventilatory support to offer them, it’s going to end in death,” said Dr. George Priestley, an intensive care doctor and anesthesiologist in Yorkshire in northern England. “I don’t want to be alarmist. I just want someone to pay attention.”
Just follow the instructions from the bloody experts you idiots! This is not a drill.
https://twitter.com/foxinsoxuk/status/1235695655693307904?s=19
I would guess...
Germany up to 534, over 100 overnight.
More seriously, in the longer term we should reconsider the tension between increased efficiency and retaining adequate spare capacity.
I don't see any correlation, and I see neither the wisdom nor the usefulness of just grouping together people who disagree with you on two issues with those who are being either complacent or ill-informed about the spread of a disease which we know is happening.
Mr. Meeks, indeed, it's needlessly obnoxious.
Demonstrating effectiveness is going to be equally difficult, as you need a significant population exposed to the virus after they’ve been vaccinated - which exposure your health services are doing everything in their power to avoid...
For now, any such trial in the UK simply isn’t going to happen.
The reality is of course that it will almost certainly be somewhere in the middle of those two scenarios. Both sides will then spend the next several months claiming that the other predicted something much more extreme than they actually did.
Still, it makes a change from Brexit. Albeit that didn't actually directly kill anyone.
https://twitter.com/bbcnews/status/1235870568370417665?s=21
But secondly surely the big difference between flu and COVID19 is that we vaccinate the at risk (the young, the old, pregnant, diabetics, health concerns etc) from the flu while the healthy who can get it and shrug it off are not vaccinated so they get it then recover.
If we didn't vaccinate for the flu it would kill a lot more people and the death rate would shoot up from the 0.1% that gets quoted.
What is unacceptable is withdrawing an invitation in this way. That is plain bad manners.
I was on a telecon yesterday with a bunch of highly educated yanks who I would bet are very Dem-voting, they are just as in denial as Trump.
Not wishing to spend weeks in a state of abject fear every time there is a global event is hardly denialism - it’s common sense.
The question for me is whether a CDU/CSU/Green Government is possible - it would likely have or be very close to a majority on current numbers. The Austrian centre-right party did a deal with the Austrian Greens so I just wonder if the equivalent German parties might.
If Merz becomes CDU leader, I certainly think a deal with the AfD would be possible but less so under Laschet or Rottgen.
My plan therefore - do not go out much and when I do, do not touch anything that I do not have to, and do not on any account touch my own face. Then, on return, wash my hands very thoroughly with soap and hot water. Ditto my partner.
This ought to work by the sounds of it.
Course, we can only do this because we don't HAVE to go out much.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8057433/Don-Jr-accuses-Democrats-hoping-coronavirus-kills-millions-hurt-Donald-Trump.html
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/28/house-coronavirus-trump-response-118121
This crisis is literally that - a turning point. People are ggoing to see the world very differently. I think that the role of the state - and the importance of that - is going to become a lot more prominent. The free market will once again be seen to have significant limitations.
It's just when someone tries to condescendingly handwave the whole thing away with a comment about the "Shanghai Sniffle". It is serious and anyone who has a relative or a friend with an existing pulmonary or respiratory condition has a very real right to be concerned.
This "stiff upper lip, we carried on as though nothing was happening during the Blitz" attitude, while also a complete distortion of what really happened in London in 1940-41 and illustrative of how the romanticised misrepresentation of how London coped with aerial bombardment has become embedded in popular culture, isn't helpful. I agree just a few sensible precautions will help rather than panic but let's not underplay how this may be for some of the most vulnerable in our society.
Trump and the GOP machine have a (badly thought through) reason to play down the virus, doesn't mean his base agrees with the message.
Unless I misunderstood what he said it seems that even if you get coronavirus on your hands from touching a contaminated surface it won't get through the skin on your hands and you won't get the illness from that alone. You only get infected if you touch your face with contaminated hands.
I had always assumed touch alone was enough to get a contagion.
Our healthcare is far better prepared than Hubei or Iran. Only an ignorant fool would seriously think its worse.
The role of the state looms largest on sick pay, and the difficulty of squaring that circle for the self-employed in a situation like this.
Incidentally, that's also the sort of reason why Hammond was so wrong to try and make the self-employed pay NI at the same rate as the employed. There are swings and roundabouts to being self-employed, and the lack of a company pension and sick pay/paid leave are significant drawbacks.
This sort of situation may be seen as exceptional but in general terms those drawbacks are balanced by greater flexibility and freedom.
What will this do to pensions industry?
Will instruct insurers to not automatically cancel the insurance.
Will last whilst the coronavirus is out in the wild.
The logic is to keep the rest of the UK moving.
Some of the large scale infrastructure projects being mooted are going to look very old-fashioned.
Edited extra bit: was $1.28 a few days ago.
We like to believe we cause and can control everything from ameobas to the weather.
Maybe we do and can a bit - but not a lot.
21st century problems - and reactions..
A generally forgotten (aka believed only by me) factor in Theresa May's lost majority was the Manchester Arena (Ariana Grande concert) bombing during the 2017 election campaign.