I’ve been told by an unimpeachable source that the government is going to lift the annual MOT requirement for cars over three years old.
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.
It is clear now, if it wasn't before, we are going to see the end of normal day to day life in the next month or two and it will be like that for months.
As part of the continuing process of political education (and a number on here seem to sorely need it based on their comments) it's time to head off to Norway which votes next September and we've had a couple of opinion polls.
The current Government is a centre-right minority headed by the Conservatives but supported by the Liberals and the Christian Democrats and they hold 61 seats in the Storting. Until the end of January, the Progress Party was in the Govenrment giving it an overall majority with 88 seats (the Opposition parties on 81).
However, Progress withdrew after the Conservative PM decided to repatriate a woman and her child with links to IS back to Norway.
On the Opposition benches sit the Social Democrats (known as the Arbejderparti or AP), the Greens and the Centre Party, which is the old Farmers' Party, a nordic agrarian party which is strongly anti-EU.
The current polls show the Conservatives (known as the Hojre or Right Party) down from 25% in 2017 to 18-20% now. The AP are also down from 27% to 25% but the big winners are Centre who have gone from 10% to 17%.
Centre served as junior partners in the AP led governments under Stoltenberg from 2005 to 2013 and it's quite possible the centre-left bloc will have enough support next time (AP+Centre+Greens+Socialist Left = 54% currently) to regain power but there's plenty of time for things to change.
Here's a strange thing (I hesitate to use the word 'fact'):
According to yesterday's WHO situation report (45) there are now more detected covid-19 cases outside China than there are within China but outside Hubei (14,062 v 13,099).
How can that be? Are the Chinese covering things up? (If so why?). Do more people travel from Hubei to the rest of the world than to other parts of China? Are the Chinese better at personal hygiene?
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
"Mad" Frankie Fraser joked, "It was a great time to be a thief. I'll never forgive that Mr Hitler for surrendering."
Not that airbrushed, surely? Dad's Army included a spiv as a main character. It has been said that rationing, and the consequent black market, effectively implicated almost everyone in minor crime which may have been a factor in the post-war rise in offending.
One thing that is overlooked is the inconvenience of being near an attack, as a bomb a couple of streets away could knock out electricity and water for a couple of days.
Here's a strange thing (I hesitate to use the word 'fact'):
According to yesterday's WHO situation report (45) there are now more detected covid-19 cases outside China than there are within China but outside Hubei (14,062 v 13,099).
How can that be? Are the Chinese covering things up? (If so why?). Do more people travel from Hubei to the rest of the world than to other parts of China? Are the Chinese better at personal hygiene?
It is more likely, the virus has run out of a wide population of people to infect after they locked everybody down.
Remember in Wuhan, they quarantined every positive case they found in massive makeshift "hospitals" at places like stadiums, regardless of if critical or not. And put the critical ones into the proper hospitals.
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.
I work at home quite a lot now. It's not without its issues. One of which is what I call socialisation - the social aspects of working, talking about non-work issues in the workplace, meeting for a pint after work etc.
I also find without the interruptions of an office, I can work intensely for around 2 hours but then need to take a break to refocus. That may just be me but the notion people can work uninterrupted for long periods and maintain concentration is one I would challenge.
I do enjoy the days when I'm not on the mobile germ warfare laboratory or at the mercy of South Western Railways (clean trains but several other issues).
Here's a strange thing (I hesitate to use the word 'fact'):
According to yesterday's WHO situation report (45) there are now more detected covid-19 cases outside China than there are within China but outside Hubei (14,062 v 13,099).
How can that be? Are the Chinese covering things up? (If so why?). Do more people travel from Hubei to the rest of the world than to other parts of China? Are the Chinese better at personal hygiene?
Here's a strange thing (I hesitate to use the word 'fact'):
According to yesterday's WHO situation report (45) there are now more detected covid-19 cases outside China than there are within China but outside Hubei (14,062 v 13,099).
How can that be? Are the Chinese covering things up? (If so why?). Do more people travel from Hubei to the rest of the world than to other parts of China? Are the Chinese better at personal hygiene?
Here's a strange thing (I hesitate to use the word 'fact'):
According to yesterday's WHO situation report (45) there are now more detected covid-19 cases outside China than there are within China but outside Hubei (14,062 v 13,099).
How can that be? Are the Chinese covering things up? (If so why?). Do more people travel from Hubei to the rest of the world than to other parts of China? Are the Chinese better at personal hygiene?
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.
I'm guessing you had a company phone. A lot of people working from home are going to get stuffed by huge mobile phone bills. At work the company pays for electricity, heat, internet and phone.
I’ve been told by an unimpeachable source that the government is going to lift the annual MOT requirement for cars over three years old.
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.
It is clear now, if it wasn't before, we are going to see the end of normal day to day life in the next month or two and it will be like that for months.
My father’s former colleagues expect the lockdown to kick in at the start of April.
Will coincide with the school holidays, so the first two weeks of the lockdown are kinda free.
As part of the continuing process of political education (and a number on here seem to sorely need it based on their comments) it's time to head off to Norway which votes next September and we've had a couple of opinion polls....
Thanks stodge - I used to follow Norway closely but have not recently. Interesting stuff.
I’ve been told by an unimpeachable source that the government is going to lift the annual MOT requirement for cars over three years old.
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.
It is clear now, if it wasn't before, we are going to see the end of normal day to day life in the next month or two and it will be like that for months.
My father’s former colleagues expect the lockdown to kick in at the start of April.
Will coincide with the school holidays, so the first two weeks of the lockdown are kinda free.
Great - means St Patrick’s day celebrations can go ahead!
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.
Is your partner totally on board with your washing them very thoroughly with soap and hot water... ?
I’ve been told by an unimpeachable source that the government is going to lift the annual MOT requirement for cars over three years old.
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.
It is clear now, if it wasn't before, we are going to see the end of normal day to day life in the next month or two and it will be like that for months.
My father’s former colleagues expect the lockdown to kick in at the start of April.
Will coincide with the school holidays, so the first two weeks of the lockdown are kinda free.
The fee paying or the state school Easter holidays ?
I’m going skiing then - does this mean shorter queues on the lifts ?
I’ve been told by an unimpeachable source that the government is going to lift the annual MOT requirement for cars over three years old.
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.
It is clear now, if it wasn't before, we are going to see the end of normal day to day life in the next month or two and it will be like that for months.
My father’s former colleagues expect the lockdown to kick in at the start of April.
Will coincide with the school holidays, so the first two weeks of the lockdown are kinda free.
The fee paying or the state school Easter holidays ?
I’m going skiing then - does this mean shorter queues on the lifts ?
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.
I'm guessing you had a company phone. A lot of people working from home are going to get stuffed by huge mobile phone bills. At work the company pays for electricity, heat, internet and phone.
Ever head of MS Teams, Zoom or Slack?
And most mobile phone contracts offer insane included minutes
I’ve been told by an unimpeachable source that the government is going to lift the annual MOT requirement for cars over three years old.
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.
It is clear now, if it wasn't before, we are going to see the end of normal day to day life in the next month or two and it will be like that for months.
My father’s former colleagues expect the lockdown to kick in at the start of April.
Will coincide with the school holidays, so the first two weeks of the lockdown are kinda free.
The fee paying or the state school Easter holidays ?
I’m going skiing then - does this mean shorter queues on the lifts ?
State School Easter Holidays (where we are at least) are essentially the 6th to the 17th April.
Reusable cups banned at Starbucks and on some UK trains
I do wonder what impact this kind of stuff actually makes. If you get stuck in a queue with somebody coughing all over the place, the fact they use a reusable cup is going to be here nor there.
Lots of staff off sick and also if they put large parts of the country into lockdown for 2 months, how are you going to get your MOT done?
I think it is clearly signalling we expect the later to happen.
I got my old Merc done a couple of weeks ago. It passed with minor work but effectively cost me thousands because it was on the Friday before the market crash and getting embroiled in it meant I deferred my planned Footsie sell to the following week, thus missing the big initial plunge. Opposite of smug city.
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 talked my gf into riding with me on my RD250LC from Durham to London and Back on the same December day for this:
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.
I'm guessing you had a company phone. A lot of people working from home are going to get stuffed by huge mobile phone bills. At work the company pays for electricity, heat, internet and phone.
A competent Labour party would be all over this point right now.
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.
I'm guessing you had a company phone. A lot of people working from home are going to get stuffed by huge mobile phone bills. At work the company pays for electricity, heat, internet and phone.
A competent Labour party would be all over this point right now.
Do we think the internet is capable of handling us all working from home at the same time?
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.
I'm guessing you had a company phone. A lot of people working from home are going to get stuffed by huge mobile phone bills. At work the company pays for electricity, heat, internet and phone.
A competent Labour party would be all over this point right now.
They are too busy deciding which bit of the Trans Right pledge card they should sign up to or if they are willing to call themselves a Zionist.
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.
I'm guessing you had a company phone. A lot of people working from home are going to get stuffed by huge mobile phone bills. At work the company pays for electricity, heat, internet and phone.
A competent Labour party would be all over this point right now.
Do we think the internet is capable of handling us all working from home at the same time?
Will be a lot less demand from offices....I think a bigger problem, everybody trying to use Netflix at the same time, as it already accounts for a significant percentage of demand at any one time.
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.
Carry tissues for that itchy nose.
A lot of the face touching is entirely unconscious. On the radio this morning, the interviewee noted that his interviewer had touched his face 5 times over the past few minutes without thinking about it. Not touching your face at all is surprisingly difficult.
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.
The SPD has consolidated in national polls, but only very slightly, at the expense of the Linke. The Hamburg elections had their own specific dynamics, the SPD came out on top but still lost 10% to the Greens.
On the national stage a Conservative/Green coalition would still be the most stable option, and quite popular among utmost centrist voters like me. The mere possibility of such a coalition is not really in question anymore.
A CDU/CSU cooperation with the AfD is inconceivable for now, it would take probably a decade of 'normalisation' for this to occur. Polling evidence also suggests that the Conservatives would lose many more votes in the middle than they could ever hope to recover from the extreme right in such a scenario.
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.
Yes, the alcohol attacks the lipids and proteins in the virus envelope. 60-90% is the required strength and water assists the breakdown. Adding hydrogen peroxide solution helps too, as does benzalkalonium. Isopropyl alcohol is probably better than ethanol as it dries more slowly, so longer contact time.
Soap and water is better when available, but rubs are good when out and about.
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.
I'm guessing you had a company phone. A lot of people working from home are going to get stuffed by huge mobile phone bills. At work the company pays for electricity, heat, internet and phone.
A competent Labour party would be all over this point right now.
Do we think the internet is capable of handling us all working from home at the same time?
Yes.
It is the all streaming Netflix/Amazon Prime/Disney+ at the same time that might be the issue.
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.
I'm guessing you had a company phone. A lot of people working from home are going to get stuffed by huge mobile phone bills. At work the company pays for electricity, heat, internet and phone.
A competent Labour party would be all over this point right now.
And where is Dominic Cummings? Surely this is when we need superforecasters, ARPA-lite research, and cross-government action.
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.
I'm guessing you had a company phone. A lot of people working from home are going to get stuffed by huge mobile phone bills. At work the company pays for electricity, heat, internet and phone.
Ever head of MS Teams, Zoom or Slack?
And most mobile phone contracts offer insane included minutes
Unlimited is the norm on almost all tariffs now, and if you are at home most workers will have Wi-Fi and broadband. The big issue is going to be the services themselves, whether they can cope with a higher than usual load. It's one thing to have 10-20% of your staff working from home at the same time, quite another to aim for as close to 100% as you can get.
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.
I'm guessing you had a company phone. A lot of people working from home are going to get stuffed by huge mobile phone bills. At work the company pays for electricity, heat, internet and phone.
A competent Labour party would be all over this point right now.
Do we think the internet is capable of handling us all working from home at the same time?
I would be interested in seeing any figures for the percentage of the workforce who could work from home.
I expect it is less than many think but I do not know
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.
I'm guessing you had a company phone. A lot of people working from home are going to get stuffed by huge mobile phone bills. At work the company pays for electricity, heat, internet and phone.
A competent Labour party would be all over this point right now.
Do we think the internet is capable of handling us all working from home at the same time?
I would be interested in seeing any figures for the percentage of the workforce who could work from home.
I expect it is less than many think but I do not know
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.
Yes, the alcohol attacks the lipids and proteins in the virus envelope. 60-90% is the required strength and water assists the breakdown. Adding hydrogen peroxide solution helps too, as does benzalkalonium. Isopropyl alcohol is probably better than ethanol as it dries more slowly, so longer contact time.
Soap and water is better when available, but rubs are good when out and about.
Can you explain why soap and water is better, like you've explained the role of alcohol?
Working from home isn't for everyone. Its very easy to eg think "I'll just log on to politicalbetting.com for a few minutes" and then think "Oh is that the time? Where has the day gone?"
A lot of the face touching is entirely unconscious. On the radio this morning, the interviewee noted that his interviewer had touched his face 5 times over the past few minutes without thinking about it. Not touching your face at all is surprisingly difficult.
True for me too. I'm a chronic toucher of myself pretty much everywhere. It takes a conscious effort not to, and even then I catch myself. Could do with handcuffs.
Working from home isn't for everyone. Its very easy to eg think "I'll just log on to politicalbetting.com for a few minutes" and then think "Oh is that the time? Where has the day gone?"
Yeah, because no one has ever done that in an office.
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.
I'm guessing you had a company phone. A lot of people working from home are going to get stuffed by huge mobile phone bills. At work the company pays for electricity, heat, internet and phone.
A competent Labour party would be all over this point right now.
Do we think the internet is capable of handling us all working from home at the same time?
I would be interested in seeing any figures for the percentage of the workforce who could work from home.
I expect it is less than many think but I do not know
Working from home isn't for everyone. Its very easy to eg think "I'll just log on to politicalbetting.com for a few minutes" and then think "Oh is that the time? Where has the day gone?"
I can multitask.
I’ve regularly worked from home and it is easy,
My strategy is to get my work done by 2pm then I’ve got the rest of the day to relax.
I was just about to post "I wonder if any sevices have seen increased demand?" when I saw this.
We’ve recently tested service continuity during a usage spike in China. Since January 31, we’ve seen a 500 percent increase in Teams meetings, calling, and conferences there, and a 200 percent increase in Teams usage on mobile devices. Despite this usage increase, service has been fluid there throughout the outbreak. Our approach to delivering a highly available and resilient service centers on the following things.
A lot of the face touching is entirely unconscious. On the radio this morning, the interviewee noted that his interviewer had touched his face 5 times over the past few minutes without thinking about it. Not touching your face at all is surprisingly difficult.
True for me too. I'm a chronic toucher of myself pretty much everywhere. It takes a conscious effort not to, and even then I catch myself. Could do with handcuffs.
Gives a surprisingly wholesome new meaning to the Weeknd's song "Can't Feel My Face".
"And I know she'll be the death of me, at least we'll both be numb..."
Working from home isn't for everyone. Its very easy to eg think "I'll just log on to politicalbetting.com for a few minutes" and then think "Oh is that the time? Where has the day gone?"
Yeah, because no one has ever done that in an office.
As I said its not the same for everyone. Some offices people have better self control, or some people in an office might have colleagues wondering why you're logged onto a forum etc . . . its different for different people.
The SPD has consolidated in national polls, but only very slightly, at the expense of the Linke. The Hamburg elections had their own specific dynamics, the SPD came out on top but still lost 10% to the Greens.
On the national stage a Conservative/Green coalition would still be the most stable option, and quite popular among utmost centrist voters like me. The mere possibility of such a coalition is not really in question anymore.
A CDU/CSU cooperation with the AfD is inconceivable for now, it would take probably a decade of 'normalisation' for this to occur. Polling evidence also suggests that the Conservatives would lose many more votes in the middle than they could ever hope to recover from the extreme right in such a scenario.
Thank you for the local analysis, my friend.
Chasing to the right did the PP no good in Spain as they lost votes to Citizens and when they tacked back to the centre to regain those lost votes they lost another tranche to VOX so it becomes difficult for centre right parties when they are challenged from BOTH the centre AND the right.
I suspect a centrist CDU leader could do a deal with the Greens but I can't see Merz being that person in all honesty.
A lot of the face touching is entirely unconscious. On the radio this morning, the interviewee noted that his interviewer had touched his face 5 times over the past few minutes without thinking about it. Not touching your face at all is surprisingly difficult.
True for me too. I'm a chronic toucher of myself pretty much everywhere. It takes a conscious effort not to, and even then I catch myself. Could do with handcuffs.
That reminds me of another potential drawback of working from home...
The suggestion seems to be that coughs and sneezes are still a major source of spreading, but that the virus doesn't endure in air for any length of time, which would be a contrast from flu and measles. Thus the being within 2m of someone for 15 mins being a cited threshold level of contact.
This would explain the relatively low case rates in communities so far - it has not gone through 40-70% of the population as pandemic flu sometimes can. The Italy outbreak looks to be mirroring the China one (we are at day 14 with 25% increase in cases per day, China was 28%), so it looks like in the most affected provinces the incidence will settle at around 2-3% by outbreak end.
Second wave outbreaks can be, on average, 3 times worse, so we could see 10% in future (20% of workers off at same time was HMGs worst case, which seems fair).
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.
Or alternatively commuting by car could be seen as less necessary, so encouraging electrics.
Working from home isn't for everyone. Its very easy to eg think "I'll just log on to politicalbetting.com for a few minutes" and then think "Oh is that the time? Where has the day gone?"
Yeah, because no one has ever done that in an office.
As I said its not the same for everyone. Some offices people have better self control, or some people in an office might have colleagues wondering why you're logged onto a forum etc . . . its different for different people.
In jobs where employees can be judged by the quality and quantity of what they deliver, ensuring 100% forcus on the job for a set number of hours becomes less important, as does 'presenteeism'.
Here's a strange thing (I hesitate to use the word 'fact'):
According to yesterday's WHO situation report (45) there are now more detected covid-19 cases outside China than there are within China but outside Hubei (14,062 v 13,099).
How can that be? Are the Chinese covering things up? (If so why?). Do more people travel from Hubei to the rest of the world than to other parts of China? Are the Chinese better at personal hygiene?
The SPD has consolidated in national polls, but only very slightly, at the expense of the Linke. The Hamburg elections had their own specific dynamics, the SPD came out on top but still lost 10% to the Greens.
On the national stage a Conservative/Green coalition would still be the most stable option, and quite popular among utmost centrist voters like me. The mere possibility of such a coalition is not really in question anymore.
A CDU/CSU cooperation with the AfD is inconceivable for now, it would take probably a decade of 'normalisation' for this to occur. Polling evidence also suggests that the Conservatives would lose many more votes in the middle than they could ever hope to recover from the extreme right in such a scenario.
Thank you for the local analysis, my friend.
Chasing to the right did the PP no good in Spain as they lost votes to Citizens and when they tacked back to the centre to regain those lost votes they lost another tranche to VOX so it becomes difficult for centre right parties when they are challenged from BOTH the centre AND the right.
I suspect a centrist CDU leader could do a deal with the Greens but I can't see Merz being that person in all honesty.
Spot on, which is why the party leadership is trying their best to thwart a Merz chairmanship/candidature.
Here's a strange thing (I hesitate to use the word 'fact'):
According to yesterday's WHO situation report (45) there are now more detected covid-19 cases outside China than there are within China but outside Hubei (14,062 v 13,099).
How can that be? Are the Chinese covering things up? (If so why?). Do more people travel from Hubei to the rest of the world than to other parts of China? Are the Chinese better at personal hygiene?
It is more likely, the virus has run out of a wide population of people to infect after they locked everybody down.
Remember in Wuhan, they quarantined every positive case they found in massive makeshift "hospitals" at places like stadiums, regardless of if critical or not. And put the critical ones into the proper hospitals.
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.
Carry tissues for that itchy nose.
A lot of the face touching is entirely unconscious. On the radio this morning, the interviewee noted that his interviewer had touched his face 5 times over the past few minutes without thinking about it. Not touching your face at all is surprisingly difficult.
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.
Carry tissues for that itchy nose.
A lot of the face touching is entirely unconscious. On the radio this morning, the interviewee noted that his interviewer had touched his face 5 times over the past few minutes without thinking about it. Not touching your face at all is surprisingly difficult.
Gloves :-)
About face-touching. Perhaps one way of dealing with this is this. After washing hands, wear a left glove and remove it (with the contaminated ungloved right hand) when you go to touch your face, and train yourself to use only the left hand for face-touching.
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.
I'm guessing you had a company phone. A lot of people working from home are going to get stuffed by huge mobile phone bills. At work the company pays for electricity, heat, internet and phone.
Ever head of MS Teams, Zoom or Slack?
And most mobile phone contracts offer insane included minutes
Unlimited is the norm on almost all tariffs now, and if you are at home most workers will have Wi-Fi and broadband. The big issue is going to be the services themselves, whether they can cope with a higher than usual load. It's one thing to have 10-20% of your staff working from home at the same time, quite another to aim for as close to 100% as you can get.
I guess the problem is less the people working from home, but all the people in quarantine watching QHD Netflix movies. The govt might have to force people to only stream HD quality...
I would be interested in seeing any figures for the percentage of the workforce who could work from home.
I expect it is less than many think but I do not know
The key word is "could". Redefining how businesses operate will change the numbers being able to work remotely or flexibly. The decline of traditional retail is one such factor.
Moving to a fully digital and paper-light (or even paperless) environment also reduces the need for expensive premises with all that flows from that.
As for costs, yes, I pay to have the heating and lighting on but the lunch is cheaper and I'm not paying travel costs. Nor do I need so many "work" clothes as I don't wear a suit and tie to work at home.
Working at home attire is much more casual though never TOO casual - one must try to retain a vaguely professional veneer so never feel tempted to work in your Rupert Bear jimjams.
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.
I'm guessing you had a company phone. A lot of people working from home are going to get stuffed by huge mobile phone bills. At work the company pays for electricity, heat, internet and phone.
A competent Labour party would be all over this point right now.
And where is Dominic Cummings? Surely this is when we need superforecasters, ARPA-lite research, and cross-government action.
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.
Carry tissues for that itchy nose.
A lot of the face touching is entirely unconscious. On the radio this morning, the interviewee noted that his interviewer had touched his face 5 times over the past few minutes without thinking about it. Not touching your face at all is surprisingly difficult.
Gloves :-)
Do absolutely nothing to protect you unless they're disposable and used properly.
You touch infected surface with gloves on, you touch face with gloves on, you're now infected.
In fact gloves make things worse because the virus can only survive on your hands for a limited time period but can live for longer on surfaces which can include your gloves.
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.
Interestingly (or not), 250k is my current best estimate. Based on 25-50% getting infected, and 1% mortality rate. Based on mostly gut instinct. I don't think more sophisticated models are much use in this case unless you have a whole lot of data not usually available to the general public.
Working from home isn't for everyone. Its very easy to eg think "I'll just log on to politicalbetting.com for a few minutes" and then think "Oh is that the time? Where has the day gone?"
I worked for over 40 years. For only about 4 of them was it not essential to be in regular face-to-face contact with the public for some at least of the time. I was in the same profession all the time, but in different areas of activity.
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.
Carry tissues for that itchy nose.
A lot of the face touching is entirely unconscious. On the radio this morning, the interviewee noted that his interviewer had touched his face 5 times over the past few minutes without thinking about it. Not touching your face at all is surprisingly difficult.
Gloves :-)
About face-touching. Perhaps one way of dealing with this is this. After washing hands, wear a left glove and remove it (with the contaminated ungloved right hand) when you go to touch your face, and train yourself to use only the left hand for face-touching.
Or better, train yourself to use only the back of your hand to face-touch.
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.
Carry tissues for that itchy nose.
A lot of the face touching is entirely unconscious. On the radio this morning, the interviewee noted that his interviewer had touched his face 5 times over the past few minutes without thinking about it. Not touching your face at all is surprisingly difficult.
Gloves :-)
About face-touching. Perhaps one way of dealing with this is this. After washing hands, wear a left glove and remove it (with the contaminated ungloved right hand) when you go to touch your face, and train yourself to use only the left hand for face-touching.
I can't see how this helps for face touching that's unconscious.
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.
Pretending that unsavoury people don’t exist by banning them from speaking is almost always counter-productive. The beginning of the end of Nick Griffin was his appearance on Question Time, giving him enough rope to metaphorically hang himself with his own words.
Student Unions have always being weird places politically, I once recall a three hour meeting with over 100 participants arguing over whether or not the Union snack shop should sell KitKat bars.
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.
Carry tissues for that itchy nose.
A lot of the face touching is entirely unconscious. On the radio this morning, the interviewee noted that his interviewer had touched his face 5 times over the past few minutes without thinking about it. Not touching your face at all is surprisingly difficult.
Gloves :-)
About face-touching. Perhaps one way of dealing with this is this. After washing hands, wear a left glove and remove it (with the contaminated ungloved right hand) when you go to touch your face, and train yourself to use only the left hand for face-touching.
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.
Yes, the alcohol attacks the lipids and proteins in the virus envelope. 60-90% is the required strength and water assists the breakdown. Adding hydrogen peroxide solution helps too, as does benzalkalonium. Isopropyl alcohol is probably better than ethanol as it dries more slowly, so longer contact time.
Soap and water is better when available, but rubs are good when out and about.
Can you explain why soap and water is better, like you've explained the role of alcohol?
Soap and water are pretty effective antiseptic when done for 30 seconds and every hand crevice covered, with the advantage of ready availability.
Alcohol rubs are also good, but do irritate skin and poor use can leave missed areas on hands. Good for fomites too, like mobile phones!
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.
Carry tissues for that itchy nose.
A lot of the face touching is entirely unconscious. On the radio this morning, the interviewee noted that his interviewer had touched his face 5 times over the past few minutes without thinking about it. Not touching your face at all is surprisingly difficult.
Gloves :-)
About face-touching. Perhaps one way of dealing with this is this. After washing hands, wear a left glove and remove it (with the contaminated ungloved right hand) when you go to touch your face, and train yourself to use only the left hand for face-touching.
Or better, train yourself to use only the back of your hand to face-touch.
Was thinking about this while in the gym this morning. The management has put out a couple of bottles of high-alcohol disinfectant, but we're all holding the weights, the handles and so on.
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.
Carry tissues for that itchy nose.
A lot of the face touching is entirely unconscious. On the radio this morning, the interviewee noted that his interviewer had touched his face 5 times over the past few minutes without thinking about it. Not touching your face at all is surprisingly difficult.
Gloves :-)
About face-touching. Perhaps one way of dealing with this is this. After washing hands, wear a left glove and remove it (with the contaminated ungloved right hand) when you go to touch your face, and train yourself to use only the left hand for face-touching.
I can't see how this helps for face touching that's unconscious.
With self-training your unconscious movement become automatic after a while.
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.
Interestingly (or not), 250k is my current best estimate. Based on 25-50% getting infected, and 1% mortality rate. Based on mostly gut instinct. I don't think more sophisticated models are much use in this case unless you have a whole lot of data not usually available to the general public.
I would go lower than that, provided we use proper public health measures.
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.
Carry tissues for that itchy nose.
A lot of the face touching is entirely unconscious. On the radio this morning, the interviewee noted that his interviewer had touched his face 5 times over the past few minutes without thinking about it. Not touching your face at all is surprisingly difficult.
I would be interested in seeing any figures for the percentage of the workforce who could work from home.
I expect it is less than many think but I do not know
The key word is "could". Redefining how businesses operate will change the numbers being able to work remotely or flexibly. The decline of traditional retail is one such factor.
Moving to a fully digital and paper-light (or even paperless) environment also reduces the need for expensive premises with all that flows from that.
As for costs, yes, I pay to have the heating and lighting on but the lunch is cheaper and I'm not paying travel costs. Nor do I need so many "work" clothes as I don't wear a suit and tie to work at home.
Working at home attire is much more casual though never TOO casual - one must try to retain a vaguely professional veneer so never feel tempted to work in your Rupert Bear jimjams.
Plenty do wfh in the jimjams or similar I suspect. One of the reasons the roll-out of video teleconferencing is unpopular whereas audio teleconferencing is ubiquitous in large organisations.
I have completed my virus preparations. We are now properly hand washing and have separate towels. We have laid in enough dry supplies to last a few weeks. I have spoken with neighbours and we have agreed a way of supporting elderly people nearby. I have a few bottles of good whisky that can be used for medicinal purposes. I am not reading alarmist web posts and am avoiding twitter. Now just carrying on.
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.
Carry tissues for that itchy nose.
A lot of the face touching is entirely unconscious. On the radio this morning, the interviewee noted that his interviewer had touched his face 5 times over the past few minutes without thinking about it. Not touching your face at all is surprisingly difficult.
Student Unions have always being weird places politically, I once recall a three hour meeting with over 100 participants arguing over whether or not the Union snack shop should sell KitKat bars.
I'm still reflexively boycotting Nestle 25 years later. I can't remember what Nestle were doing to make me boycott them and I have no idea if they're still doing it but I just see a Nestle thing and I'm like nope, not that one, I'll get the other one
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.
Carry tissues for that itchy nose.
A lot of the face touching is entirely unconscious. On the radio this morning, the interviewee noted that his interviewer had touched his face 5 times over the past few minutes without thinking about it. Not touching your face at all is surprisingly difficult.
Gloves :-)
About face-touching. Perhaps one way of dealing with this is this. After washing hands, wear a left glove and remove it (with the contaminated ungloved right hand) when you go to touch your face, and train yourself to use only the left hand for face-touching.
I can't see how this helps for face touching that's unconscious.
With self-training your unconscious movement become automatic after a while.
It can be done quite quickly when necessary. I'd always considered sneezing to often be unconscious which it often is until I was the victim of an unprovoked assault. I woke up in hospital blind in one eye but was told I'd gain the vision back tomorrow but was also told by the nurse - repeatedly - before I was discharged that I must not under any circumstances sneeze.
I was told my eye socket had been shattered, that it should heal after a fortnight but if I was to sneeze within a fortnight it would mean me going permanently blind in that eye.
Being told you'll go blind if you sneeze suddenly makes sneezing a very conscious action.
Student Unions have always being weird places politically, I once recall a three hour meeting with over 100 participants arguing over whether or not the Union snack shop should sell KitKat bars.
I'm still reflexively boycotting Nestle 25 years later. I can't remember what Nestle were doing to make me boycott them and I have no idea if they're still doing it but I just see a Nestle thing and I'm like nope, not that one, I'll get the other one
From memory it was advertising baby formula to people who could breastfeed?
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.
Carry tissues for that itchy nose.
A lot of the face touching is entirely unconscious. On the radio this morning, the interviewee noted that his interviewer had touched his face 5 times over the past few minutes without thinking about it. Not touching your face at all is surprisingly difficult.
Gloves :-)
About face-touching. Perhaps one way of dealing with this is this. After washing hands, wear a left glove and remove it (with the contaminated ungloved right hand) when you go to touch your face, and train yourself to use only the left hand for face-touching.
If someone could quickly design and distribute a ring that made a sound when it went near your face they could make a fortune. Well beyond my capabilities but think it should be quite feasible with modern tech. It would obviously need an off setting for eating, brushing teeth etc.
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.
Carry tissues for that itchy nose.
A lot of the face touching is entirely unconscious. On the radio this morning, the interviewee noted that his interviewer had touched his face 5 times over the past few minutes without thinking about it. Not touching your face at all is surprisingly difficult.
Gloves :-)
Do absolutely nothing to protect you unless they're disposable and used properly.
You touch infected surface with gloves on, you touch face with gloves on, you're now infected.
In fact gloves make things worse because the virus can only survive on your hands for a limited time period but can live for longer on surfaces which can include your gloves.
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.
Interestingly (or not), 250k is my current best estimate. Based on 25-50% getting infected, and 1% mortality rate. Based on mostly gut instinct. I don't think more sophisticated models are much use in this case unless you have a whole lot of data not usually available to the general public.
I would go lower than that, provided we use proper public health measures.
Weirdly a big factor for me is how bad it gets in Italy. The worse it gets over there the more drastic the measures people take over here will be. Buying a few weeks of delay could be very good in the long run.
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.
Carry tissues for that itchy nose.
A lot of the face touching is entirely unconscious. On the radio this morning, the interviewee noted that his interviewer had touched his face 5 times over the past few minutes without thinking about it. Not touching your face at all is surprisingly difficult.
Gloves :-)
About face-touching. Perhaps one way of dealing with this is this. After washing hands, wear a left glove and remove it (with the contaminated ungloved right hand) when you go to touch your face, and train yourself to use only the left hand for face-touching.
I can't see how this helps for face touching that's unconscious.
With self-training your unconscious movement become automatic after a while.
It can be done quite quickly when necessary. I'd always considered sneezing to often be unconscious which it often is until I was the victim of an unprovoked assault. I woke up in hospital blind in one eye but was told I'd gain the vision back tomorrow but was also told by the nurse - repeatedly - before I was discharged that I must not under any circumstances sneeze.
I was told my eye socket had been shattered, that it should heal after a fortnight but if I was to sneeze within a fortnight it would mean me going permanently blind in that eye.
Being told you'll go blind if you sneeze suddenly makes sneezing a very conscious action.
Blimey. Not sure I could go a fortnight without sneezing. How did you manage ?
Comments
Thankfully the likes of Breivik are very few and far between.
I think it is clearly signalling we expect the later to happen.
The current Government is a centre-right minority headed by the Conservatives but supported by the Liberals and the Christian Democrats and they hold 61 seats in the Storting. Until the end of January, the Progress Party was in the Govenrment giving it an overall majority with 88 seats (the Opposition parties on 81).
However, Progress withdrew after the Conservative PM decided to repatriate a woman and her child with links to IS back to Norway.
On the Opposition benches sit the Social Democrats (known as the Arbejderparti or AP), the Greens and the Centre Party, which is the old Farmers' Party, a nordic agrarian party which is strongly anti-EU.
The current polls show the Conservatives (known as the Hojre or Right Party) down from 25% in 2017 to 18-20% now. The AP are also down from 27% to 25% but the big winners are Centre who have gone from 10% to 17%.
Centre served as junior partners in the AP led governments under Stoltenberg from 2005 to 2013 and it's quite possible the centre-left bloc will have enough support next time (AP+Centre+Greens+Socialist Left = 54% currently) to regain power but there's plenty of time for things to change.
According to yesterday's WHO situation report (45) there are now more detected covid-19 cases outside China than there are within China but outside Hubei (14,062 v 13,099).
How can that be? Are the Chinese covering things up? (If so why?). Do more people travel from Hubei to the rest of the world than to other parts of China? Are the Chinese better at personal hygiene?
Curious.
https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200305-sitrep-45-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=ed2ba78b_2
Also is a criminal offence to drive a car without a valid MOT.
Not that airbrushed, surely? Dad's Army included a spiv as a main character. It has been said that rationing, and the consequent black market, effectively implicated almost everyone in minor crime which may have been a factor in the post-war rise in offending.
One thing that is overlooked is the inconvenience of being near an attack, as a bomb a couple of streets away could knock out electricity and water for a couple of days.
Remember in Wuhan, they quarantined every positive case they found in massive makeshift "hospitals" at places like stadiums, regardless of if critical or not. And put the critical ones into the proper hospitals.
I also find without the interruptions of an office, I can work intensely for around 2 hours but then need to take a break to refocus. That may just be me but the notion people can work uninterrupted for long periods and maintain concentration is one I would challenge.
I do enjoy the days when I'm not on the mobile germ warfare laboratory or at the mercy of South Western Railways (clean trains but several other issues).
Will coincide with the school holidays, so the first two weeks of the lockdown are kinda free.
I’m going skiing then - does this mean shorter queues on the lifts ?
And most mobile phone contracts offer insane included minutes
I do wonder what impact this kind of stuff actually makes. If you get stuck in a queue with somebody coughing all over the place, the fact they use a reusable cup is going to be here nor there.
I talked my gf into riding with me on my RD250LC from Durham to London and Back on the same December day for this:
https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-smiths/1986/brixton-academy-london-england-4bd6c396.html
She chucked me at the Leeming Bar services at 4am and wouldn't get back on the bike. She could still be there for all I know.
The 250LC pissed it in, that thing had heart.
The Hamburg elections had their own specific dynamics, the SPD came out on top but still lost 10% to the Greens.
On the national stage a Conservative/Green coalition would still be the most stable option, and quite popular among utmost centrist voters like me. The mere possibility of such a coalition is not really in question anymore.
A CDU/CSU cooperation with the AfD is inconceivable for now, it would take probably a decade of 'normalisation' for this to occur. Polling evidence also suggests that the Conservatives would lose many more votes in the middle than they could ever hope to recover from the extreme right in such a scenario.
Soap and water is better when available, but rubs are good when out and about.
It is the all streaming Netflix/Amazon Prime/Disney+ at the same time that might be the issue.
I expect it is less than many think but I do not know
I’ve regularly worked from home and it is easy,
My strategy is to get my work done by 2pm then I’ve got the rest of the day to relax.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2020/03/05/our-commitment-to-customers-during-covid-19/
"And I know she'll be the death of me, at least we'll both be numb..."
Chasing to the right did the PP no good in Spain as they lost votes to Citizens and when they tacked back to the centre to regain those lost votes they lost another tranche to VOX so it becomes difficult for centre right parties when they are challenged from BOTH the centre AND the right.
I suspect a centrist CDU leader could do a deal with the Greens but I can't see Merz being that person in all honesty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co_DNpTMKXk
This would explain the relatively low case rates in communities so far - it has not gone through 40-70% of the population as pandemic flu sometimes can. The Italy outbreak looks to be mirroring the China one (we are at day 14 with 25% increase in cases per day, China was 28%), so it looks like in the most affected provinces the incidence will settle at around 2-3% by outbreak end.
Second wave outbreaks can be, on average, 3 times worse, so we could see 10% in future (20% of workers off at same time was HMGs worst case, which seems fair).
But now we mention it, is it really such a ludicrous idea? Caring and sharing.
But not all jobs are like that of course.
Even so, it still beggars belief imo.
Moving to a fully digital and paper-light (or even paperless) environment also reduces the need for expensive premises with all that flows from that.
As for costs, yes, I pay to have the heating and lighting on but the lunch is cheaper and I'm not paying travel costs. Nor do I need so many "work" clothes as I don't wear a suit and tie to work at home.
Working at home attire is much more casual though never TOO casual - one must try to retain a vaguely professional veneer so never feel tempted to work in your Rupert Bear jimjams.
You touch infected surface with gloves on, you touch face with gloves on, you're now infected.
In fact gloves make things worse because the virus can only survive on your hands for a limited time period but can live for longer on surfaces which can include your gloves.
I was in the same profession all the time, but in different areas of activity.
Student Unions have always being weird places politically, I once recall a three hour meeting with over 100 participants arguing over whether or not the Union snack shop should sell KitKat bars.
Alcohol rubs are also good, but do irritate skin and poor use can leave missed areas on hands. Good for fomites too, like mobile phones!
Most unfair of Dad's Army to make the Scottish corporal the doom monger.
Perhaps an e-book for maximum hygiene?
Returned from S Korea.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Shayler#9/11_Truth_movement
I was told my eye socket had been shattered, that it should heal after a fortnight but if I was to sneeze within a fortnight it would mean me going permanently blind in that eye.
Being told you'll go blind if you sneeze suddenly makes sneezing a very conscious action.
Not sure I could go a fortnight without sneezing. How did you manage ?