Something from the Lancet that I think anyone should read before continuing to discuss pros/cons of what we "should" be doing...
How will country-based mitigation measures influence the course of the COVID-19 epidemic? Roy M Anderson, Hans Heesterbeek, Don Klinkenberg, T Déirdre Hollingsworth. Published March 09, 2020
This is a pretty much up-to-date must-read on mitigation measures. Anderson (who's at Imperial, for those who are partisan about these things) is a legend in the field of infectious disease modelling.
But interestingly, I don't think anyone who's been following PB closely over the past few days will find much new in it. Perhaps an indication of just how tricky the contact-tracing is? Indication of what the experts really think (as distinct from commentariat froth) and what uncertainties they face? Definitely the better comments below-the-line on PB have maintained a high quality of discussion and I don't think there's much here that's been missed.
Thanks - fascinating - well worth a read:
First among the important unknowns about COVID-19 is the case fatality rate (CFR), which requires information on the denominator that defines the number infected. We are unaware of any completed large-scale serology surveys to detect specific antibodies to COVID-19. Best estimates suggest a CFR for COVID-19 of about 0·3–1%, which is higher than the order of 0·1% CFR for a moderate influenza A season.
Once again an iceberg effect assumed. A very costly example of normalcy bias?
JERUSALEM (REUTERS) - Israel will require anyone arriving from overseas to self-quarantine for 14 days as a precaution against the spread of coronavirus, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday (March 9).
With 42 confirmed cases of the virus, Israel has already taken some tough counter-measures, forcing visitors from many countries in Asia and Europe into home isolation. The virus has hit travel and trade, with tourism in particular expected to suffer.
"Anyone who arrives in Israel from abroad will enter a 14-day isolation," Netanyahu said in a video statement. He said the new measures would be in effect for two weeks initially.
This point gets bandied about a lot, but it's utterly meaningless when you need 50-100x as many beds. Doubling it would be a drop in the ocean, and a waste of resources to have had them and not needed them for the past years.
I guess it's a view that this is 'utterly meaningless'. Adifferent view is that the existing capacities will in fact have to be multiplied, mostly not to the existing high standards, but as makeshift emergency solutions. And that this will be more easy the bigger the base that you can start from.
Having 8,000 beds vs 4,000 will make no difference if hundreds of thousands need one.
It will make a difference to 4,000 people. And the aggregate numbers will be a bit higher.
As I said, a rounding error. If there was a routine need for many more critical care beds, I could see an argument for increasing them. To double the number just for spare capacity in case something like this doesn't seem sensible, especially given that the NHS only has a finite budget.
That's the crucial point, of course. To have 4.5 times the capacity we have to pay roughly 3 times as much as you as % of GDP.
And in this current crisis the number of extra beds is insignificant compared to the number who will need it. I'm not sure that's worth paying 3x extra for (that seems awfully large, given the size of the NHS budget!)
I guess we will see how prudent that investment was.
I'm unsure what metrics have been used there. I would be somewhat astonished if it were possible to deliver more than 4 times as many hospital beds for basically the same money.
I thought the same but everywhere I look for information the numbers come up basically the same with the UK spending 10% of GDP and Germany and France spending 11%. In all cases this is taking into account private provision and insurance based systems as well as public provision.
It does seem that, all joking apart, you do seem to have a far more efficient health care system in Germany compared to the UK.
It's been a while since I have looked into this issue in detail. It's notoriously difficult to determine the real output and cost, due to the fractured and mixed nature of the German system.
The numbers that I had in the back of my mind were around 20% GDP (which will certainly have included the health cure, and care home and ambulant care sector, funded in Germany via compulsory care insurance on top of the regular health insurance) and in comparison to the UK numbers a ratio of either 1/2.6 or 1/2.8.
I really can't remember where I took these numbers from, my best guess for an explanation would be inconsistencies in the metrics applied to compile numbers like those from the world bank etc.
As much as I would appreciate such a feat of Teutonic efficiency, I hesitate to believe that it should be possible to generate that much more output per expenditure.
You are talking at cross-purposes. The figure is for critical care beds, not all hospital beds.
Something from the Lancet that I think anyone should read before continuing to discuss pros/cons of what we "should" be doing...
How will country-based mitigation measures influence the course of the COVID-19 epidemic? Roy M Anderson, Hans Heesterbeek, Don Klinkenberg, T Déirdre Hollingsworth. Published March 09, 2020
This is a pretty much up-to-date must-read on mitigation measures. Anderson (who's at Imperial, for those who are partisan about these things) is a legend in the field of infectious disease modelling.
But interestingly, I don't think anyone who's been following PB closely over the past few days will find much new in it. Perhaps an indication of just how tricky the contact-tracing is? Indication of what the experts really think (as distinct from commentariat froth) and what uncertainties they face? Definitely the better comments below-the-line on PB have maintained a high quality of discussion and I don't think there's much here that's been missed.
Thanks - fascinating - well worth a read:
First among the important unknowns about COVID-19 is the case fatality rate (CFR), which requires information on the denominator that defines the number infected. We are unaware of any completed large-scale serology surveys to detect specific antibodies to COVID-19. Best estimates suggest a CFR for COVID-19 of about 0·3–1%, which is higher than the order of 0·1% CFR for a moderate influenza A season.
Once again an iceberg effect assumed. A very costly example of normalcy bias?
Oh, who to believe? The Lancet, the WHO, epidemiologists or someone on the internet?
Something from the Lancet that I think anyone should read before continuing to discuss pros/cons of what we "should" be doing...
How will country-based mitigation measures influence the course of the COVID-19 epidemic? Roy M Anderson, Hans Heesterbeek, Don Klinkenberg, T Déirdre Hollingsworth. Published March 09, 2020
This is a pretty much up-to-date must-read on mitigation measures. Anderson (who's at Imperial, for those who are partisan about these things) is a legend in the field of infectious disease modelling.
But interestingly, I don't think anyone who's been following PB closely over the past few days will find much new in it. Perhaps an indication of just how tricky the contact-tracing is? Indication of what the experts really think (as distinct from commentariat froth) and what uncertainties they face? Definitely the better comments below-the-line on PB have maintained a high quality of discussion and I don't think there's much here that's been missed.
Thanks - fascinating - well worth a read:
First among the important unknowns about COVID-19 is the case fatality rate (CFR), which requires information on the denominator that defines the number infected. We are unaware of any completed large-scale serology surveys to detect specific antibodies to COVID-19. Best estimates suggest a CFR for COVID-19 of about 0·3–1%, which is higher than the order of 0·1% CFR for a moderate influenza A season.
Once again an iceberg effect assumed. A very costly example of normalcy bias?
FWIW the citation for that goes back to this WHO document from 19 Feb where there they cite the 0.3-1% figures to refs 10, 11 and 12 in that document.
But these studies are a few weeks old now. Bruce Aylward's comments about Chinese data not suggesting an "iceberg" effect came about a week later than that WHO update and therefore also later than those studies. But not everyone agrees with him (as you can see in previous link). I don't think this is going to get completely resolved until there's serological data that gives a better idea of the number of mild cases missed.
Even there the tweeter says "same sorts" which is subtly different from "the same people".
I've not watched either video because it is 3am and Cheltenham starts in a few hours. Is the editing unfair? Has Boris been hoist by his own petard after CCHQ was caught doing the same thing to Keir Starmer last year? And who will win the Supreme Novices Hurdle?
Yes. It cuts just before he goes on to say BUT....and talks about delaying the peak and the government's policy. To purport that "take it on the chin & get it over with" is government policy is dishonesty of the highest order.
Yes. It cuts just before he goes on to say BUT....and talks about delaying the peak and the government's policy. To purport that "take it on the chin & get it over with" is government policy is dishonesty of the highest order.
It is also twattishness of the highest order to do it on a public health matter.
Interesting - they're now routing their SYD>LHR via PER and not SIN - so they're upping the non-stop Perth to London flights to twice daily until mid-Sept. Flights to China cancelled until mid-July.
Even there the tweeter says "same sorts" which is subtly different from "the same people".
I've not watched either video because it is 3am and Cheltenham starts in a few hours. Is the editing unfair? Has Boris been hoist by his own petard after CCHQ was caught doing the same thing to Keir Starmer last year? And who will win the Supreme Novices Hurdle?
Johnson built a successful career on rank dishonesty so, as he would say, qui acceperint gladium, gladio peribunt.
South Korea reported 35 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday, bringing the country’s total infections to 7,513, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
The data came a day after South Korea showed the rate of increase in new infections fell to its lowest level in 11 days.
Mainland China had 19 new cases of coronavirus infections on Monday, the National Health Commission said on Tuesday, down from 40 cases a day earlier.
Of the new cases, 17 were in Wuhan, the provincial capital of Hubei which is under lockdown, while one was in Beijing and one other in Guangdong due to people arriving from abroad, according to the health authority.
The one case in Beijing on Monday was due to a traveller from Britain, and that in Guangdong was an imported case from Spain. As of Monday, there have been 69 imported cases.
Abe, who faced criticism for being too relaxed in his initial response to the outbreak, has sought the power to prepare for a “worst case scenario.”
The bill, a revision to a 2013 law for dealing with new types of influenza and other infectious diseases, would grant the power to the prime minister for two years.
Opposition parties, however, maintain that the existing law is sufficient for handling the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.
Motoi Suzuki, head of the Infectious Disease Surveillance Center at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, was referring Friday to estimates by a health ministry team....
Mainland China had 19 new cases of coronavirus infections on Monday, the National Health Commission said on Tuesday, down from 40 cases a day earlier.
Of the new cases, 17 were in Wuhan, the provincial capital of Hubei which is under lockdown, while one was in Beijing and one other in Guangdong due to people arriving from abroad, according to the health authority.
The one case in Beijing on Monday was due to a traveller from Britain, and that in Guangdong was an imported case from Spain. As of Monday, there have been 69 imported cases.
There's an irony, China importing Covid-19 from the UK.....
Motoi Suzuki, head of the Infectious Disease Surveillance Center at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, was referring Friday to estimates by a health ministry team....
I think this is probably true everywhere, except possibly South Korea? If you don't get very sick you're not going to get tested unless you know you're connected to somebody who did get sick, absent a totally humongous testing program.
Motoi Suzuki, head of the Infectious Disease Surveillance Center at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, was referring Friday to estimates by a health ministry team....
I think this is probably true everywhere, except possibly South Korea? If you don't get very sick you're not going to get tested unless you know you're connected to somebody who did get sick, absent a totally humongous testing program.
I think it is too - but someone was saying yesterday that Japan had this under control. I don’t think they do. (There was also a report of some schools deciding on their own to reopen.)
Looks like I chose the wrong week to come to Israel!
We did a couple of meetings yesterday, but contacted everyone we’d been scheduled to see to offer them the chance to cancel, saying we totally understood any concerns they might have - which we do. That means we now have just two meetings today and none tomorrow.
This trip was a mistake. But it has been a very valuable one. It’s brought home just how fragile everything is business-wise, but also at a personal level. Now is the time for all of us to be at home, with our families and not out and about, especially in the wider world.
My guess is that markets are heading for further falls and that the world is going to have to find a way of writing the US out of the picture for as long as Trump is President. I also think both the EU and the UK would be wise to announce sooner rather than later that this year’s extension will be rolled-over. That will remove a fair bit of short-term uncertainty from business planning. I doubt it will happen, but I cannot imagine many will object if it does.
Motoi Suzuki, head of the Infectious Disease Surveillance Center at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, was referring Friday to estimates by a health ministry team....
I think this is probably true everywhere, except possibly South Korea? If you don't get very sick you're not going to get tested unless you know you're connected to somebody who did get sick, absent a totally humongous testing program.
I think it is too - but someone was saying yesterday that Japan had this under control. I don’t think they do. (There was also a report of some schools deciding on their own to reopen.)
I'm saying that. (Tentatively, we only have a couple of days of data showing the curve moving in the right direction, and that only means "under control" under a fairly generous definition since it's still showing up unexpectedly, just less often). The point isn't the total number, it's the trend. So it doesn't matter if your numbers are missing young people now, as long as you were also missing them before.
(There was also a report of some schools deciding on their own to reopen.)
That was a school in Motegi, down the road from me. Either stay in school and brave the dreaded lurgy or roam the streets at risk from our marauding herds of radioactive wild boar, it's hard to balance the risks...
This also is now going to bite the Republicans in November: https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a31188323/supreme-court-obamacare-case-2020-election-democrats/ ...Under Obamacare, there's a tax penalty for people who fail to buy health insurance, a way of enforcing what's called the "individual mandate." This was the cornerstone of the conservative healthcare plans, like Mitt Romney's in Massachusetts, on which Obamacare is based. (But then Obama did it, so Republicans, including Romney, decided it was the devil's work.) Basically, you have to force healthy people into the insurance pool to offset the costs of covering sick people. The mandate was also the basis on which the Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, upheld the entire Affordable Care Act in 2012. The individual mandate, they ruled, constituted a legitimate exercise of Congress's power to levy taxes.
Once President Trump signed the tax law, which set the tax penalty at zero dollars—effectively ending the individual mandate—these red-state AGs responded with a suit suggesting the entire ACA was now unconstitutional. No mandate? No taxes. No constitutional. That is to say, Republicans sabotaged the law and then said the sabotaged law was unconstitutional because it had been sabotaged. In December 2019, a federal appeals court in New Orleans agreed with 18 red states that the law could now be thrown out wholesale. The Trump administration joined their side of the case, effectively putting the Executive Branch on the side of those seeking to destroy a written law of the land which the Executive is nominally tasked with enforcing....
The Supreme Court has agreed to start hearing the case in October (which in itself is an unconscionable delay as there will be no judgment before the election)... but this will be a (if not the) major campaign issue, which will unite Democrats from Sanders to Biden.
Motoi Suzuki, head of the Infectious Disease Surveillance Center at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, was referring Friday to estimates by a health ministry team....
I think this is probably true everywhere, except possibly South Korea? If you don't get very sick you're not going to get tested unless you know you're connected to somebody who did get sick, absent a totally humongous testing program.
I think it is too - but someone was saying yesterday that Japan had this under control. I don’t think they do. (There was also a report of some schools deciding on their own to reopen.)
I'm saying that. (Tentatively, we only have a couple of days of data showing the curve moving in the right direction, and that only means "under control" under a fairly generous definition since it's still showing up unexpectedly, just less often). The point isn't the total number, it's the trend.
I hope you’re right (and apologies for relegating you to ‘someone’), and should you be so, it would give me much greater optimism for how we might fare over here, but I fear you might not be.
2020 is shaping up even worse than last year for Boeing. (Guardian) Boeing Co. shares dropped more than 12% on Monday amid a broader market plunge as pressure mounted on global aviation from the spread of the coronavirus and U.S. regulators said they disagreed with Boeing’s argument about the safety of wiring bundles on the grounded 737 MAX jet.
Boeing Co said late on Monday an employee at its Everett facility in Washington state has tested positive for the coronavirus and has now been quarantined...
Motoi Suzuki, head of the Infectious Disease Surveillance Center at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, was referring Friday to estimates by a health ministry team....
I think this is probably true everywhere, except possibly South Korea? If you don't get very sick you're not going to get tested unless you know you're connected to somebody who did get sick, absent a totally humongous testing program.
I think it is too - but someone was saying yesterday that Japan had this under control. I don’t think they do. (There was also a report of some schools deciding on their own to reopen.)
I'm saying that. (Tentatively, we only have a couple of days of data showing the curve moving in the right direction, and that only means "under control" under a fairly generous definition since it's still showing up unexpectedly, just less often). The point isn't the total number, it's the trend. So it doesn't matter if your numbers are missing young people now, as long as you were also missing them before.
Much as I would dearly love you to be right, I am afraid there's nothing much optimistic in the actual statistics:
Motoi Suzuki, head of the Infectious Disease Surveillance Center at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, was referring Friday to estimates by a health ministry team....
I think this is probably true everywhere, except possibly South Korea? If you don't get very sick you're not going to get tested unless you know you're connected to somebody who did get sick, absent a totally humongous testing program.
I think it is too - but someone was saying yesterday that Japan had this under control. I don’t think they do. (There was also a report of some schools deciding on their own to reopen.)
I'm saying that. (Tentatively, we only have a couple of days of data showing the curve moving in the right direction, and that only means "under control" under a fairly generous definition since it's still showing up unexpectedly, just less often). The point isn't the total number, it's the trend. So it doesn't matter if your numbers are missing young people now, as long as you were also missing them before.
Much as I would dearly love you to be right, I am afraid there's nothing much optimistic in the actual statistics:
Japan is interesting because (apart from the fact that I live here): - They've been doing stuff most of the world hasn't been doing, for just about long enough to see if it works - It's mostly voluntary and not too economically devastating, so any other developed country could do it - as opposed to needing China-style welding-and-technological-dystopia measures, or even a really effective testing and quarantine program like South Korea.
Do you not think that if the government is planning for massive social changes, large scale lock downs, only certain individuals to work etc, that they will perhaps want to keep the number of people who know about it to a bare minimum and let things come out when they are ready?
I highly doubt they are going to ring up the Grocer and say hey you know we had all the supermarkets in yesterday and they have all agreed come April, they will work together and the nation will live on rations.
Even the report of the supermarkets know nothing about any meetings...well the press clearly ring up their contact in the PR department of Asda, Tescos etc and say are you meeting with the government....to the answer will be no. But do we really know where the MDs were in meetings and they were asked no to say anything about it?
I really see this now as we are on a war footing (I don't think the press have grasped it yet). It isn't normal operation of government leaking to their friendly journos, flying kites etc. Noticed how nobody knows anything about the budget.
I took from the PM press conference today is we are being primed for Wednesday, then primed for another step say Friday.
I am no fan of this government but they have an unenviable challenge.
I am prepared to believe they are doing the right things at present. Whatever they do they will be criticised and inevitably some of the decisions they make now in good faith will turn out to be misguided.
I am comforted by the feeling that they seem to be listening to experts and we do actually have a talented civil service to make things happen.
Fingers-crossed that between them they get it largely right. Picking over the mistakes can wait for later.
I am now firmly of the opinion it will be horrific whatever they do and they will be making decisions that they hope will transform 500,000 deaths to the 100,000 they are talking about.
Just as in war, lots of mistakes will be made, we just hope that ultimately we come through it and our experts have made as few as mistake as possible.
I can only imagine sitting there with their mathematical models tweaking parameters and running sims trying to find the balance that gets them the optimal number of deaths.
I used to have models and run sims as a professional gambler and that was hugely stressful, but ultimately all that was at stake was my money, not human life.
I still cannot see how current data supports crazy numbers , China after months is still only at 3000 deaths so how does anyone manage to get that to 500000 in UK with a fraction of the population. It just sounds like scaremongering.
Mainland China had 19 new cases of coronavirus infections on Monday, the National Health Commission said on Tuesday, down from 40 cases a day earlier.
Of the new cases, 17 were in Wuhan, the provincial capital of Hubei which is under lockdown, while one was in Beijing and one other in Guangdong due to people arriving from abroad, according to the health authority.
The one case in Beijing on Monday was due to a traveller from Britain, and that in Guangdong was an imported case from Spain. As of Monday, there have been 69 imported cases.
There's an irony, China importing Covid-19 from the UK.....
I pointed out this precise situation a few threads back...
Do you not think that if the government is planning for massive social changes, large scale lock downs, only certain individuals to work etc, that they will perhaps want to keep the number of people who know about it to a bare minimum and let things come out when they are ready?
I highly doubt they are going to ring up the Grocer and say hey you know we had all the supermarkets in yesterday and they have all agreed come April, they will work together and the nation will live on rations.
Even the report of the supermarkets know nothing about any meetings...well the press clearly ring up their contact in the PR department of Asda, Tescos etc and say are you meeting with the government....to the answer will be no. But do we really know where the MDs were in meetings and they were asked no to say anything about it?
I really see this now as we are on a war footing (I don't think the press have grasped it yet). It isn't normal operation of government leaking to their friendly journos, flying kites etc. Noticed how nobody knows anything about the budget.
I took from the PM press conference today is we are being primed for Wednesday, then primed for another step say Friday.
I am no fan of this government but they have an unenviable challenge.
I am prepared to believe they are doing the right things at present. Whatever they do they will be criticised and inevitably some of the decisions they make now in good faith will turn out to be misguided.
I am comforted by the feeling that they seem to be listening to experts and we do actually have a talented civil service to make things happen.
Fingers-crossed that between them they get it largely right. Picking over the mistakes can wait for later.
I am now firmly of the opinion it will be horrific whatever they do and they will be making decisions that they hope will transform 500,000 deaths to the 100,000 they are talking about.
Just as in war, lots of mistakes will be made, we just hope that ultimately we come through it and our experts have made as few as mistake as possible.
I can only imagine sitting there with their mathematical models tweaking parameters and running sims trying to find the balance that gets them the optimal number of deaths.
I used to have models and run sims as a professional gambler and that was hugely stressful, but ultimately all that was at stake was my money, not human life.
I still cannot see how current data supports crazy numbers , China after months is still only at 3000 deaths so how does anyone manage to get that to 500000 in UK with a fraction of the population. It just sounds like scaremongering.
It does need explanation. It’s all very well for people to chuck back “exponential growth” but we still need a hell of a lot of exponential growth to get the numbers of cases up to 100/500k let alone deaths. It does feel as if the economic consequences of what is happening might reduce standard of living and cause far more deaths in the medium term than the virus will. And we still don’t know what warmer weather will do.
Basically every government in the world: Shall we try doing what that one country that's not like the others is doing, since it's not all that costly or disruptive? Nah, let's just wash our hands and see how things go.
Lock down too tightly, too early and the economic impact will be disasterous and potentially people won't stand for it, leading to civil unrest.
Leave it too late and the health service will be overrun, leading to high fatalities and the risk of economic and civil disrpution.
Not an easy one to judge.
This is where the western take on what's happened in Asia has got all twisted. People are looking at the *Chinese* response, which was a complete lockdown in an authoritarian country, and thinking that they have to do that.
But that's not what Japan and South Korea are doing. "Please work from home if practical. Please consider cancelling public events. We're extending the school holidays." It's somewhat disruptive, but it's not a devastating shutdown of everything. And by doing it earlier, you reduce the risk that you will need to do a devastating shutdown of everything.
And it's almost entirely voluntary. People don't want to get sick, and they don't want other people to get sick. The government doesn't need to coerce. It needs to lead.
I'm +1ing this, because it's absolutely correct.
Modest measures make a big difference.
I agree entirely. We can reduce casualties by 30% or more via public health measures, if we choose.
The economic costs of just letting it rip are not inconsequential either.
Do you not think that if the government is planning for massive social changes, large scale lock downs, only certain individuals to work etc, that they will perhaps want to keep the number of people who know about it to a bare minimum and let things come out when they are ready?
I highly doubt they are going to ring up the Grocer and say hey you know we had all the supermarkets in yesterday and they have all agreed come April, they will work together and the nation will live on rations.
Even the report of the supermarkets know nothing about any meetings...well the press clearly ring up their contact in the PR department of Asda, Tescos etc and say are you meeting with the government....to the answer will be no. But do we really know where the MDs were in meetings and they were asked no to say anything about it?
I really see this now as we are on a war footing (I don't think the press have grasped it yet). It isn't normal operation of government leaking to their friendly journos, flying kites etc. Noticed how nobody knows anything about the budget.
I took from the PM press conference today is we are being primed for Wednesday, then primed for another step say Friday.
I am no fan of this government but they have an unenviable challenge.
I am prepared to believe they are doing the right things at present. Whatever they do they will be criticised and inevitably some of the decisions they make now in good faith will turn out to be misguided.
I am comforted by the feeling that they seem to be listening to experts and we do actually have a talented civil service to make things happen.
Fingers-crossed that between them they get it largely right. Picking over the mistakes can wait for later.
I am now firmly of the opinion it will be horrific whatever they do and they will be making decisions that they hope will transform 500,000 deaths to the 100,000 they are talking about.
Just as in war, lots of mistakes will be made, we just hope that ultimately we come through it and our experts have made as few as mistake as possible.
I can only imagine sitting there with their mathematical models tweaking parameters and running sims trying to find the balance that gets them the optimal number of deaths.
I used to have models and run sims as a professional gambler and that was hugely stressful, but ultimately all that was at stake was my money, not human life.
I still cannot see how current data supports crazy numbers , China after months is still only at 3000 deaths so how does anyone manage to get that to 500000 in UK with a fraction of the population. It just sounds like scaremongering.
It does need explanation. It’s all very well for people to chuck back “exponential growth” but we still need a hell of a lot of exponential growth to get the numbers of cases up to 100/500k let alone deaths. It does feel as if the economic consequences of what is happening might reduce standard of living and cause far more deaths in the medium term than the virus will. And we still don’t know what warmer weather will do.
People talk about health services being “overwhelmed” but we hear about the NHS being overwhelmed to some extent every winter. But the media have almost given up reporting on it, pictures of patients backed up on trollies instead of beds etc it’s become so normal. This will no doubt “look” very similar but be reported upon as if it is unprecedented the moment it starts happening.
Basically every government in the world: Shall we try doing what that one country that's not like the others is doing, since it's not all that costly or disruptive? Nah, let's just wash our hands and see how things go.
Indeed.
And let's gather 1/4 million people together at a race course just because we're a bit frightened to cancel it.
Do you not think that if the government is planning for massive social changes, large scale lock downs, only certain individuals to work etc, that they will perhaps want to keep the number of people who know about it to a bare minimum and let things come out when they are ready?
I highly doubt they are going to ring up the Grocer and say hey you know we had all the supermarkets in yesterday and they have all agreed come April, they will work together and the nation will live on rations.
Even the report of the supermarkets know nothing about any meetings...well the press clearly ring up their contact in the PR department of Asda, Tescos etc and say are you meeting with the government....to the answer will be no. But do we really know where the MDs were in meetings and they were asked no to say anything about it?
I really see this now as we are on a war footing (I don't think the press have grasped it yet). It isn't normal operation of government leaking to their friendly journos, flying kites etc. Noticed how nobody knows anything about the budget.
I took from the PM press conference today is we are being primed for Wednesday, then primed for another step say Friday.
I am no fan of this government but they have an unenviable challenge.
I am prepared to believe they are doing the right things at present. Whatever they do they will be criticised and inevitably some of the decisions they make now in good faith will turn out to be misguided.
I am comforted by the feeling that they seem to be listening to experts and we do actually have a talented civil service to make things happen.
Fingers-crossed that between them they get it largely right. Picking over the mistakes can wait for later.
I am now firmly of the opinion it will be horrific whatever they do and they will be making decisions that they hope will transform 500,000 deaths to the 100,000 they are talking about.
Just as in war, lots of mistakes will be made, we just hope that ultimately we come through it and our experts have made as few as mistake as possible.
I can only imagine sitting there with their mathematical models tweaking parameters and running sims trying to find the balance that gets them the optimal number of deaths.
I used to have models and run sims as a professional gambler and that was hugely stressful, but ultimately all that was at stake was my money, not human life.
I still cannot see how current data supports crazy numbers , China after months is still only at 3000 deaths so how does anyone manage to get that to 500000 in UK with a fraction of the population. It just sounds like scaremongering.
It took 4 years for the Black Death to wipe out 30-50% of Europe's population. A lot will depend on if and when a vaccine for this is produced but at the moment we can expect this crisis to continue for at least the next 12 months.
2020 is shaping up even worse than last year for Boeing. (Guardian) Boeing Co. shares dropped more than 12% on Monday amid a broader market plunge as pressure mounted on global aviation from the spread of the coronavirus and U.S. regulators said they disagreed with Boeing’s argument about the safety of wiring bundles on the grounded 737 MAX jet.
Boeing Co said late on Monday an employee at its Everett facility in Washington state has tested positive for the coronavirus and has now been quarantined...
The airline industry is completely screwed by this virus, probably more than any other industry. No-one is going to be taking delivery of new planes, when they’ve got loads of existing ones parked up or flying around empty.
The EU need to relax their slot allocation rules that result in empty planes being flown around, and the Chancellor needs to cut APD in the budget to help airlines recover when they start flying again.
Lock down too tightly, too early and the economic impact will be disasterous and potentially people won't stand for it, leading to civil unrest.
Leave it too late and the health service will be overrun, leading to high fatalities and the risk of economic and civil disrpution.
Not an easy one to judge.
This is where the western take on what's happened in Asia has got all twisted. People are looking at the *Chinese* response, which was a complete lockdown in an authoritarian country, and thinking that they have to do that.
But that's not what Japan and South Korea are doing. "Please work from home if practical. Please consider cancelling public events. We're extending the school holidays." It's somewhat disruptive, but it's not a devastating shutdown of everything. And by doing it earlier, you reduce the risk that you will need to do a devastating shutdown of everything.
And it's almost entirely voluntary. People don't want to get sick, and they don't want other people to get sick. The government doesn't need to coerce. It needs to lead.
I'm +1ing this, because it's absolutely correct.
Modest measures make a big difference.
I agree entirely. We can reduce casualties by 30% or more via public health measures, if we choose.
The economic costs of just letting it rip are not inconsequential either.
2020 is shaping up even worse than last year for Boeing. (Guardian) Boeing Co. shares dropped more than 12% on Monday amid a broader market plunge as pressure mounted on global aviation from the spread of the coronavirus and U.S. regulators said they disagreed with Boeing’s argument about the safety of wiring bundles on the grounded 737 MAX jet.
Boeing Co said late on Monday an employee at its Everett facility in Washington state has tested positive for the coronavirus and has now been quarantined...
The airline industry is completely screwed by this virus, probably more than any other industry. No-one is going to be taking delivery of new planes, when they’ve got loads of existing ones parked up or flying around empty.
The EU need to relax their slot allocation rules that result in empty planes being flown around, and the Chancellor needs to cut APD in the budget to help airlines recover when they start flying again.
Somehow I think that the cruise ship industry will be harder hit (in reelative terms as the airline industry is so much larger). Travelling by air is very useful, a cruise is just one type of holiday.
Basically every government in the world: Shall we try doing what that one country that's not like the others is doing, since it's not all that costly or disruptive? Nah, let's just wash our hands and see how things go.
Indeed.
And let's gather 1/4 million people together at a race course just because we're a bit frightened to cancel it.
Utter and absolute insanity.
Bit of your usual grandstanding , it is four days and roughly 50K a day so not quite the way you put it as 1/4 million.
Basically every government in the world: Shall we try doing what that one country that's not like the others is doing, since it's not all that costly or disruptive? Nah, let's just wash our hands and see how things go.
Indeed.
And let's gather 1/4 million people together at a race course just because we're a bit frightened to cancel it.
Utter and absolute insanity.
Bit of your usual grandstanding , it is four days and roughly 50K a day so not quite the way you put it as 1/4 million.
And as the Chief Medical Officer said yesterday it makes little difference for transmission if there's people outside in a 70,000 seater stadium or inside in a pub or church, if they're not isolating they would spread it to a comparable number of people either way.
Basically every government in the world: Shall we try doing what that one country that's not like the others is doing, since it's not all that costly or disruptive? Nah, let's just wash our hands and see how things go.
Indeed.
And let's gather 1/4 million people together at a race course just because we're a bit frightened to cancel it.
Utter and absolute insanity.
Bit of your usual grandstanding , it is four days and roughly 50K a day so not quite the way you put it as 1/4 million.
If there are 1000 people at large with the virus, it would be about 50:50 that there’s one in the audience.
Basically every government in the world: Shall we try doing what that one country that's not like the others is doing, since it's not all that costly or disruptive? Nah, let's just wash our hands and see how things go.
British government scientist said yesterday that they weren't aiming to stop the virus, only to time the outbreak. Sounded astonishingly fatalistic and irresponsible to me.
Basically every government in the world: Shall we try doing what that one country that's not like the others is doing, since it's not all that costly or disruptive? Nah, let's just wash our hands and see how things go.
Indeed.
And let's gather 1/4 million people together at a race course just because we're a bit frightened to cancel it.
Utter and absolute insanity.
Bit of your usual grandstanding , it is four days and roughly 50K a day so not quite the way you put it as 1/4 million.
And as the Chief Medical Officer said yesterday it makes little difference for transmission if there's people outside in a 70,000 seater stadium or inside in a pub or church, if they're not isolating they would spread it to a comparable number of people either way.
You're supposed to close the pub as well...
PS I don't know but I'd have thought the contact tracing would be way easier with the pub or church.
Do you not think that if the government is planning for massive social changes, large scale lock downs, only certain individuals to work etc, that they will perhaps want to keep the number of people who know about it to a bare minimum and let things come out when they are ready?
I highly doubt they are going to ring up the Grocer and say hey you know we had all the supermarkets in yesterday and they have all agreed come April, they will work together and the nation will live on rations.
Even the report of the supermarkets know nothing about any meetings...well the press clearly ring up their contact in the PR department of Asda, Tescos etc and say are you meeting with the government....to the answer will be no. But do we really know where the MDs were in meetings and they were asked no to say anything about it?
I really see this now as we are on a war footing (I don't think the press have grasped it yet). It isn't normal operation of government leaking to their friendly journos, flying kites etc. Noticed how nobody knows anything about the budget.
I took from the PM press conference today is we are being primed for Wednesday, then primed for another step say Friday.
I am no fan of this government but they have an unenviable challenge.
I am prepared to believe they are doing the right things at present. Whatever they do they will be criticised and inevitably some of the decisions they make now in good faith will turn out to be misguided.
I am comforted by the feeling that they seem to be listening to experts and we do actually have a talented civil service to make things happen.
Fingers-crossed that between them they get it largely right. Picking over the mistakes can wait for later.
I am now firmly of the opinion it will be horrific whatever they do and they will be making decisions that they hope will transform 500,000 deaths to the 100,000 they are talking about.
Just as in war, lots of mistakes will be made, we just hope that ultimately we come through it and our experts have made as few as mistake as possible.
I can only imagine sitting there with their mathematical models tweaking parameters and running sims trying to find the balance that gets them the optimal number of deaths.
I used to have models and run sims as a professional gambler and that was hugely stressful, but ultimately all that was at stake was my money, not human life.
I still cannot see how current data supports crazy numbers , China after months is still only at 3000 deaths so how does anyone manage to get that to 500000 in UK with a fraction of the population. It just sounds like scaremongering.
It took 4 years for the Black Death to wipe out 30-50% of Europe's population. A lot will depend on if and when a vaccine for this is produced but at the moment we can expect this crisis to continue for at least the next 12 months.
Despite Sean’s beach book, I don’t think you can draw many useful comparisons with a plague that was carried about Europe by rats on ship.. Even though that one too happened to arrive in Europe through Italy.
2020 is shaping up even worse than last year for Boeing. (Guardian) Boeing Co. shares dropped more than 12% on Monday amid a broader market plunge as pressure mounted on global aviation from the spread of the coronavirus and U.S. regulators said they disagreed with Boeing’s argument about the safety of wiring bundles on the grounded 737 MAX jet.
Boeing Co said late on Monday an employee at its Everett facility in Washington state has tested positive for the coronavirus and has now been quarantined...
The airline industry is completely screwed by this virus, probably more than any other industry. No-one is going to be taking delivery of new planes, when they’ve got loads of existing ones parked up or flying around empty.
The EU need to relax their slot allocation rules that result in empty planes being flown around, and the Chancellor needs to cut APD in the budget to help airlines recover when they start flying again.
Somehow I think that the cruise ship industry will be harder hit (in reelative terms as the airline industry is so much larger). Travelling by air is very useful, a cruise is just one type of holiday.
Yes, fair point. No-one is getting on a cruise ship any time soon, and their fixed costs of leases, fuel and staff are the same whether they’re 10% occupied or 100% occupied.
Basically every government in the world: Shall we try doing what that one country that's not like the others is doing, since it's not all that costly or disruptive? Nah, let's just wash our hands and see how things go.
Indeed.
And let's gather 1/4 million people together at a race course just because we're a bit frightened to cancel it.
Utter and absolute insanity.
Bit of your usual grandstanding , it is four days and roughly 50K a day so not quite the way you put it as 1/4 million.
And as the Chief Medical Officer said yesterday it makes little difference for transmission if there's people outside in a 70,000 seater stadium or inside in a pub or church, if they're not isolating they would spread it to a comparable number of people either way.
Yes, any behind-closed-doors sporting event needs to go on free-to-air TV, otherwise everyone just congregates in pubs or bookies to watch.
Do you not think that if the government is planning for massive social changes, large scale lock downs, only certain individuals to work etc, that they will perhaps want to keep the number of people who know about it to a bare minimum and let things come out when they are ready?
I highly doubt they are going to ring up the Grocer and say hey you know we had all the supermarkets in yesterday and they have all agreed come April, they will work together and the nation will live on rations.
Even the report of the supermarkets know nothing about any meetings...well the press clearly ring up their contact in the PR department of Asda, Tescos etc and say are you meeting with the government....to the answer will be no. But do we really know where the MDs were in meetings and they were asked no to say anything about it?
I really see this now as we are on a war footing (I don't think the press have grasped it yet). It isn't normal operation of government leaking to their friendly journos, flying kites etc. Noticed how nobody knows anything about the budget.
I took from the PM press conference today is we are being primed for Wednesday, then primed for another step say Friday.
I am no fan of this government but they have an unenviable challenge.
I am prepared to believe they are doing the right things at present. Whatever they do they will be criticised and inevitably some of the decisions they make now in good faith will turn out to be misguided.
I am comforted by the feeling that they seem to be listening to experts and we do actually have a talented civil service to make things happen.
Fingers-crossed that between them they get it largely right. Picking over the mistakes can wait for later.
I am now firmly of the opinion it will be horrific whatever they do and they will be making decisions that they hope will transform 500,000 deaths to the 100,000 they are talking about.
Just as in war, lots of mistakes will be made, we just hope that ultimately we come through it and our experts have made as few as mistake as possible.
I can only imagine sitting there with their mathematical models tweaking parameters and running sims trying to find the balance that gets them the optimal number of deaths.
I used to have models and run sims as a professional gambler and that was hugely stressful, but ultimately all that was at stake was my money, not human life.
I still cannot see how current data supports crazy numbers , China after months is still only at 3000 deaths so how does anyone manage to get that to 500000 in UK with a fraction of the population. It just sounds like scaremongering.
It does need explanation. It’s all very well for people to chuck back “exponential growth” but we still need a hell of a lot of exponential growth to get the numbers of cases up to 100/500k let alone deaths. It does feel as if the economic consequences of what is happening might reduce standard of living and cause far more deaths in the medium term than the virus will. And we still don’t know what warmer weather will do.
Lock down too tightly, too early and the economic impact will be disasterous and potentially people won't stand for it, leading to civil unrest.
Leave it too late and the health service will be overrun, leading to high fatalities and the risk of economic and civil disrpution.
Not an easy one to judge.
This is where the western take on what's happened in Asia has got all twisted. People are looking at the *Chinese* response, which was a complete lockdown in an authoritarian country, and thinking that they have to do that.
But that's not what Japan and South Korea are doing. "Please work from home if practical. Please consider cancelling public events. We're extending the school holidays." It's somewhat disruptive, but it's not a devastating shutdown of everything. And by doing it earlier, you reduce the risk that you will need to do a devastating shutdown of everything.
And it's almost entirely voluntary. People don't want to get sick, and they don't want other people to get sick. The government doesn't need to coerce. It needs to lead.
I'm +1ing this, because it's absolutely correct.
Modest measures make a big difference.
I agree entirely. We can reduce casualties by 30% or more via public health measures, if we choose.
The economic costs of just letting it rip are not inconsequential either.
Basically every government in the world: Shall we try doing what that one country that's not like the others is doing, since it's not all that costly or disruptive? Nah, let's just wash our hands and see how things go.
Indeed.
And let's gather 1/4 million people together at a race course just because we're a bit frightened to cancel it.
Utter and absolute insanity.
Bit of your usual grandstanding , it is four days and roughly 50K a day so not quite the way you put it as 1/4 million.
And as the Chief Medical Officer said yesterday it makes little difference for transmission if there's people outside in a 70,000 seater stadium or inside in a pub or church, if they're not isolating they would spread it to a comparable number of people either way.
You're supposed to close the pub as well...
PS I don't know but I'd have thought the contact tracing would be way easier with the pub or church.
But not the Underground.
The point is that the “all in one place” line is a bit misleading because it implies 250,000 people making 250,000 contacts. When actually most will have a pretty small number of contacts. It almost certainly will have some impact on transmission rate (and the four day nature with people visiting on multiple days probably makes it worse - I guess increasing the chance of some body catching it on day one and passing it on by day four (can that happen?). but whether it would be statistically significant is another matter.
At the end of the day if Cheltenham was cancelled then the same logic would cancel (remove spectators from) all large sporting events immediately.
To combat this the Govt is going to need public buy in, and that inevitably not being perceived to act proportionately. And that means something a bit more than a c50% chance that one person at such events will have it. (Although obviously the cumulative effect of cancelling everything is greater).
2020 is shaping up even worse than last year for Boeing. (Guardian) Boeing Co. shares dropped more than 12% on Monday amid a broader market plunge as pressure mounted on global aviation from the spread of the coronavirus and U.S. regulators said they disagreed with Boeing’s argument about the safety of wiring bundles on the grounded 737 MAX jet.
Boeing Co said late on Monday an employee at its Everett facility in Washington state has tested positive for the coronavirus and has now been quarantined...
The airline industry is completely screwed by this virus, probably more than any other industry. No-one is going to be taking delivery of new planes, when they’ve got loads of existing ones parked up or flying around empty.
The EU need to relax their slot allocation rules that result in empty planes being flown around, and the Chancellor needs to cut APD in the budget to help airlines recover when they start flying again.
Somehow I think that the cruise ship industry will be harder hit (in reelative terms as the airline industry is so much larger). Travelling by air is very useful, a cruise is just one type of holiday.
Yes, fair point. No-one is getting on a cruise ship any time soon, and their fixed costs of leases, fuel and staff are the same whether they’re 10% occupied or 100% occupied.
Just on R4 that Italian government has advised that all tourists returning from anywhere in Italy should self-isolate in their home country for two weeks.
Lock down too tightly, too early and the economic impact will be disasterous and potentially people won't stand for it, leading to civil unrest.
Leave it too late and the health service will be overrun, leading to high fatalities and the risk of economic and civil disrpution.
Not an easy one to judge.
This is where the western take on what's happened in Asia has got all twisted. People are looking at the *Chinese* response, which was a complete lockdown in an authoritarian country, and thinking that they have to do that.
But that's not what Japan and South Korea are doing. "Please work from home if practical. Please consider cancelling public events. We're extending the school holidays." It's somewhat disruptive, but it's not a devastating shutdown of everything. And by doing it earlier, you reduce the risk that you will need to do a devastating shutdown of everything.
And it's almost entirely voluntary. People don't want to get sick, and they don't want other people to get sick. The government doesn't need to coerce. It needs to lead.
I'm +1ing this, because it's absolutely correct.
Modest measures make a big difference.
I agree entirely. We can reduce casualties by 30% or more via public health measures, if we choose.
The economic costs of just letting it rip are not inconsequential either.
Basically every government in the world: Shall we try doing what that one country that's not like the others is doing, since it's not all that costly or disruptive? Nah, let's just wash our hands and see how things go.
Indeed.
And let's gather 1/4 million people together at a race course just because we're a bit frightened to cancel it.
Utter and absolute insanity.
Bit of your usual grandstanding , it is four days and roughly 50K a day so not quite the way you put it as 1/4 million.
And as the Chief Medical Officer said yesterday it makes little difference for transmission if there's people outside in a 70,000 seater stadium or inside in a pub or church, if they're not isolating they would spread it to a comparable number of people either way.
Yes, any behind-closed-doors sporting event needs to go on free-to-air TV, otherwise everyone just congregates in pubs or bookies to watch.
There is a difference though. People go to their local pub to watch football rather than travel from Bradford to Liverpool to watch it live (and that's a "Home supporter"). The spread throughout the country, from hotspot to hotspot, would be significantly slower.
Basically every government in the world: Shall we try doing what that one country that's not like the others is doing, since it's not all that costly or disruptive? Nah, let's just wash our hands and see how things go.
Indeed.
And let's gather 1/4 million people together at a race course just because we're a bit frightened to cancel it.
Utter and absolute insanity.
Bit of your usual grandstanding , it is four days and roughly 50K a day so not quite the way you put it as 1/4 million.
And as the Chief Medical Officer said yesterday it makes little difference for transmission if there's people outside in a 70,000 seater stadium or inside in a pub or church, if they're not isolating they would spread it to a comparable number of people either way.
Still a good amount of the people at Cheltenham are there every day , so it will be nowhere near 1/4 million individuals.
Basically every government in the world: Shall we try doing what that one country that's not like the others is doing, since it's not all that costly or disruptive? Nah, let's just wash our hands and see how things go.
Indeed.
And let's gather 1/4 million people together at a race course just because we're a bit frightened to cancel it.
Utter and absolute insanity.
Bit of your usual grandstanding , it is four days and roughly 50K a day so not quite the way you put it as 1/4 million.
And as the Chief Medical Officer said yesterday it makes little difference for transmission if there's people outside in a 70,000 seater stadium or inside in a pub or church, if they're not isolating they would spread it to a comparable number of people either way.
Yes, any behind-closed-doors sporting event needs to go on free-to-air TV, otherwise everyone just congregates in pubs or bookies to watch.
There is a difference though. People go to their local pub to watch football rather than travel from Bradford to Liverpool to watch it live (and that's a "Home supporter"). The spread throughout the country, from hotspot to hotspot, would be significantly slower.
And there's a massive international element to something like Cheltenham which means thousands of those in attendance have been through airports, in close proximity in planes etc which I suspect means that the "average" of maybe 1 infected person is probably not meaningful. I think it is a mistake but hopefully not too an expensive one.
But if we are really going to slow things down we are going to need to do more than wash our hands of the problem.
2020 is shaping up even worse than last year for Boeing. (Guardian) Boeing Co. shares dropped more than 12% on Monday amid a broader market plunge as pressure mounted on global aviation from the spread of the coronavirus and U.S. regulators said they disagreed with Boeing’s argument about the safety of wiring bundles on the grounded 737 MAX jet.
Boeing Co said late on Monday an employee at its Everett facility in Washington state has tested positive for the coronavirus and has now been quarantined...
The airline industry is completely screwed by this virus, probably more than any other industry. No-one is going to be taking delivery of new planes, when they’ve got loads of existing ones parked up or flying around empty.
The EU need to relax their slot allocation rules that result in empty planes being flown around, and the Chancellor needs to cut APD in the budget to help airlines recover when they start flying again.
Somehow I think that the cruise ship industry will be harder hit (in reelative terms as the airline industry is so much larger). Travelling by air is very useful, a cruise is just one type of holiday.
Yes, fair point. No-one is getting on a cruise ship any time soon, and their fixed costs of leases, fuel and staff are the same whether they’re 10% occupied or 100% occupied.
They could offer themselves up as hospitals...
That’s not a silly comment a P &O liner was used as a hospital ship during the falklands
Just on R4 that Italian government has advised that all tourists returning from anywhere in Italy should self-isolate in their home country for two weeks.
Barnesian?
Which would seem sensible.
I note Hancock was asked directly about this yesterday, and completely avoided (or completely missed the point of) the question with some crap about temperature testing not being diagnostic...
As a general point, I can understand the government’s reluctance to rush into shutting everything down immediately. But their refusal to take even low cost measures right now is just stupid.
Just on R4 that Italian government has advised that all tourists returning from anywhere in Italy should self-isolate in their home country for two weeks.
Barnesian?
Which would seem sensible.
I note Hancock was asked directly about this yesterday, and completely avoided (or completely missed the point of) the question with some crap about temperature testing not being diagnostic...
Will Austria allow Barnesian across the border to catch his flight in Innsbruck? If I were Barnesian I would have fleed Italy by now and spent the last few days of my skiing holiday in Austria. Maybe he has.
I haven’t been following closely but reports on what Italy are actually doing to combat this are very confusing. It sounds as if they are implementing grandiose measures (“self isolating the country”) cancelling football matches, closing schools) which may actually be doing very little to control it. Maybe this is what was meant by UK “govt sources” saying that Italy are pursuing “populist” measures (and very important to distinguish populist from “popular”) here, but not actually following the science or evidence on what is important.
As a general point, I can understand the government’s reluctance to rush into shutting everything down immediately. But their refusal to take even low cost measures right now is just stupid.
Such as? They are taking low cost and even high cost measures right now. They're just not hyperventilating panicking headless chickens.
In other news international flights continue in and out of Milan Malpensa and every other Italian airport, but do be careful not to shake hands with your best friend when you meet at the South pole.
2020 is shaping up even worse than last year for Boeing. (Guardian) Boeing Co. shares dropped more than 12% on Monday amid a broader market plunge as pressure mounted on global aviation from the spread of the coronavirus and U.S. regulators said they disagreed with Boeing’s argument about the safety of wiring bundles on the grounded 737 MAX jet.
Boeing Co said late on Monday an employee at its Everett facility in Washington state has tested positive for the coronavirus and has now been quarantined...
The airline industry is completely screwed by this virus, probably more than any other industry. No-one is going to be taking delivery of new planes, when they’ve got loads of existing ones parked up or flying around empty.
The EU need to relax their slot allocation rules that result in empty planes being flown around, and the Chancellor needs to cut APD in the budget to help airlines recover when they start flying again.
Somehow I think that the cruise ship industry will be harder hit (in reelative terms as the airline industry is so much larger). Travelling by air is very useful, a cruise is just one type of holiday.
Yes, fair point. No-one is getting on a cruise ship any time soon, and their fixed costs of leases, fuel and staff are the same whether they’re 10% occupied or 100% occupied.
They could offer themselves up as hospitals...
That’s not a silly comment a P &O liner was used as a hospital ship during the falklands
Was actually semi serious. Trouble is people might refuse to go on them given the headlines about the danger of contagion on the ships in “normal” operation.
Laying Trump for Rep nominee is a low risk lay. I mentioned this two weeks ago - worth repeating I think.
Is it? How do you figure?
Value at the odds I think. I`ve layed him at 1.08 and 1.09. He may choose not to run (if he thinks he won`t win), he may develop health problems (virus or other).
On German radio (Deutschlandfunk like Radio 4) the SPD MP responsible for health Karl Lauterbach said, that the german federal system means plans by the Federal Health Ministry cannot be compulsory, as health is a mattter for the German States. The federal advice that events with more than 1000 participants should be cancelled can only be enforced at a state or even a local level, and he asked that all heatlh offices work together.
He suggested that after this crisis there would be a case for reconsidering this, to allow for the federal health system to have more compulsory powers for future health crises.
NB. This is not a word for word translation, but I have tried to give a fair summary of what he said, from part of a longer interview.
I think they have limited incentive to respond until they know there is a big market for sales. That's obviously not ideal from a societal perspective.
My view would be that rather than blowing billions on defence toys we don't need and which don't keep us safe, the govt should instead spend much more money researching the next pandemic.
As a bonus, if we already had a vaccine for coronavirus we could probably now make our money back by licensing it cheaply to the rest of the world.
As a silly back of the envelope comparison, 2 aircraft carriers cost 6 billion quid, plus 600m in an operating costs. The medical research council spends around 800m a year on research. Let's nearly double their budget and be more prepared next time.
I've just told my daughter (who lives in Sydney) to stop fighting over toilet rolls. It looks embarrassing. My granny used squares of the Daily Express in her outside toilet (the only one she ever had).
Is it a sign of modernity to panic about everything? No matter how trivial. If you're under sixty and fit, it's not any sort of Armageddon.
How are Atalanta playing the Champions League tonight if Italy is in shut down? Is this like the Ferrari exception?
From reading F1 forums, it sounds like Ferrari got a couple of days’ notice of the lockdown, and managed to get everyone circuit-based out of Italy in time. Most are in Melbourne already, and probably not planning on going back home for a couple of months.
I've just told my daughter (who lives in Sydney) to stop fighting over toilet rolls. It looks embarrassing. My granny used squares of the Daily Express in her outside toilet (the only one she ever had).
Is it a sign of modernity to panic about everything? No matter how trivial. If you're under sixty and fit, it's not any sort of Armageddon.
It`s utterly ridiculous. The madness of crowds. My local plumbing outlet is running out of bidets.
Basically every government in the world: Shall we try doing what that one country that's not like the others is doing, since it's not all that costly or disruptive? Nah, let's just wash our hands and see how things go.
Indeed.
And let's gather 1/4 million people together at a race course just because we're a bit frightened to cancel it.
Utter and absolute insanity.
Bit of your usual grandstanding , it is four days and roughly 50K a day so not quite the way you put it as 1/4 million.
And as the Chief Medical Officer said yesterday it makes little difference for transmission if there's people outside in a 70,000 seater stadium or inside in a pub or church, if they're not isolating they would spread it to a comparable number of people either way.
Yes, any behind-closed-doors sporting event needs to go on free-to-air TV, otherwise everyone just congregates in pubs or bookies to watch.
Free for those TV at have bought match tickets maybe - not free for tightwads.
Comments
JERUSALEM (REUTERS) - Israel will require anyone arriving from overseas to self-quarantine for 14 days as a precaution against the spread of coronavirus, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday (March 9).
With 42 confirmed cases of the virus, Israel has already taken some tough counter-measures, forcing visitors from many countries in Asia and Europe into home isolation. The virus has hit travel and trade, with tourism in particular expected to suffer.
"Anyone who arrives in Israel from abroad will enter a 14-day isolation," Netanyahu said in a video statement. He said the new measures would be in effect for two weeks initially.
https://www.straitstimes.com/world/middle-east/israel-orders-14-day-self-quarantine-for-anyone-entering-country
But these studies are a few weeks old now. Bruce Aylward's comments about Chinese data not suggesting an "iceberg" effect came about a week later than that WHO update and therefore also later than those studies. But not everyone agrees with him (as you can see in previous link). I don't think this is going to get completely resolved until there's serological data that gives a better idea of the number of mild cases missed.
https://www.liberation.fr/direct/
I've not watched either video because it is 3am and Cheltenham starts in a few hours. Is the editing unfair? Has Boris been hoist by his own petard after CCHQ was caught doing the same thing to Keir Starmer last year? And who will win the Supreme Novices Hurdle?
So no doubt the Labour Party will be behind it.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1237239192222158848?s=20
The data came a day after South Korea showed the rate of increase in new infections fell to its lowest level in 11 days.
Of the new cases, 17 were in Wuhan, the provincial capital of Hubei which is under lockdown, while one was in Beijing and one other in Guangdong due to people arriving from abroad, according to the health authority.
The one case in Beijing on Monday was due to a traveller from Britain, and that in Guangdong was an imported case from Spain. As of Monday, there have been 69 imported cases.
Cabinet OKs bill to give Abe ability to declare emergency amid virus outbreak
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/03/10/national/politics-diplomacy/cabinet-bill-shinzo-abe-state-of-emergency-coronavirus/#.XmcfCy-nyhA
The Cabinet on Tuesday approved a bill that would enable Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to declare a state of emergency, if needed, as Japan scrambles to curb coronavirus infections.
Abe, who faced criticism for being too relaxed in his initial response to the outbreak, has sought the power to prepare for a “worst case scenario.”
The bill, a revision to a 2013 law for dealing with new types of influenza and other infectious diseases, would grant the power to the prime minister for two years.
Opposition parties, however, maintain that the existing law is sufficient for handling the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/03/07/national/japans-covid-19-infections-much-higher-reported-niid/#.XmcfuS-nyhA
The real number of COVID-19 infections in Japan is likely several times higher than government reports are indicating nationwide, a specialist in infectious diseases says.
Motoi Suzuki, head of the Infectious Disease Surveillance Center at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, was referring Friday to estimates by a health ministry team....
(There was also a report of some schools deciding on their own to reopen.)
We did a couple of meetings yesterday, but contacted everyone we’d been scheduled to see to offer them the chance to cancel, saying we totally understood any concerns they might have - which we do. That means we now have just two meetings today and none tomorrow.
This trip was a mistake. But it has been a very valuable one. It’s brought home just how fragile everything is business-wise, but also at a personal level. Now is the time for all of us to be at home, with our families and not out and about, especially in the wider world.
My guess is that markets are heading for further falls and that the world is going to have to find a way of writing the US out of the picture for as long as Trump is President. I also think both the EU and the UK would be wise to announce sooner rather than later that this year’s extension will be rolled-over. That will remove a fair bit of short-term uncertainty from business planning. I doubt it will happen, but I cannot imagine many will object if it does.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a31188323/supreme-court-obamacare-case-2020-election-democrats/
...Under Obamacare, there's a tax penalty for people who fail to buy health insurance, a way of enforcing what's called the "individual mandate." This was the cornerstone of the conservative healthcare plans, like Mitt Romney's in Massachusetts, on which Obamacare is based. (But then Obama did it, so Republicans, including Romney, decided it was the devil's work.) Basically, you have to force healthy people into the insurance pool to offset the costs of covering sick people. The mandate was also the basis on which the Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, upheld the entire Affordable Care Act in 2012. The individual mandate, they ruled, constituted a legitimate exercise of Congress's power to levy taxes.
Once President Trump signed the tax law, which set the tax penalty at zero dollars—effectively ending the individual mandate—these red-state AGs responded with a suit suggesting the entire ACA was now unconstitutional. No mandate? No taxes. No constitutional. That is to say, Republicans sabotaged the law and then said the sabotaged law was unconstitutional because it had been sabotaged. In December 2019, a federal appeals court in New Orleans agreed with 18 red states that the law could now be thrown out wholesale. The Trump administration joined their side of the case, effectively putting the Executive Branch on the side of those seeking to destroy a written law of the land which the Executive is nominally tasked with enforcing....
The Supreme Court has agreed to start hearing the case in October (which in itself is an unconscionable delay as there will be no judgment before the election)... but this will be a (if not the) major campaign issue, which will unite Democrats from Sanders to Biden.
I think the US could end up being hit the worst by this of any nation and a large part of the blame for that will, rightly, fall on the President.
(Guardian) Boeing Co. shares dropped more than 12% on Monday amid a broader market plunge as pressure mounted on global aviation from the spread of the coronavirus and U.S. regulators said they disagreed with Boeing’s argument about the safety of wiring bundles on the grounded 737 MAX jet.
Boeing Co said late on Monday an employee at its Everett facility in Washington state has tested positive for the coronavirus and has now been quarantined...
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-cases/#case-tot-outchina
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-09/top-virus-doctor-says-high-blood-pressure-is-major-death-risk
https://twitter.com/jasonscampbell/status/1237167642412187648?s=21
https://covid19japan.com/
Japan is interesting because (apart from the fact that I live here):
- They've been doing stuff most of the world hasn't been doing, for just about long enough to see if it works
- It's mostly voluntary and not too economically devastating, so any other developed country could do it - as opposed to needing China-style welding-and-technological-dystopia measures, or even a really effective testing and quarantine program like South Korea.
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1232058127740174339?s=21
And let's gather 1/4 million people together at a race course just because we're a bit frightened to cancel it.
Utter and absolute insanity.
The EU need to relax their slot allocation rules that result in empty planes being flown around, and the Chancellor needs to cut APD in the budget to help airlines recover when they start flying again.
PS I don't know but I'd have thought the contact tracing would be way easier with the pub or church.
Like, Bravo-20.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-09/coronavirus-confirmed-patient-long-beach
The point is that the “all in one place” line is a bit misleading because it implies 250,000 people making 250,000 contacts. When actually most will have a pretty small number of contacts. It almost certainly will have some impact on transmission rate (and the four day nature with people visiting on multiple days probably makes it worse - I guess increasing the chance of some body catching it on day one and passing it on by day four (can that happen?). but whether it would be statistically significant is another matter.
At the end of the day if Cheltenham was cancelled then the same logic would cancel (remove spectators from) all large sporting events immediately.
To combat this the Govt is going to need public buy in, and that inevitably not being perceived to act proportionately. And that means something a bit more than a c50% chance that one person at such events will have it. (Although obviously the cumulative effect of cancelling everything is greater).
Barnesian?
(Thread advising stricter measures sooner than later, which goes more than a bit eadric... though from direct experience.)
https://twitter.com/jasonvanschoor/status/1237142891077697538
But if we are really going to slow things down we are going to need to do more than wash our hands of the problem.
I note Hancock was asked directly about this yesterday, and completely avoided (or completely missed the point of) the question with some crap about temperature testing not being diagnostic...
But their refusal to take even low cost measures right now is just stupid.
He suggested that after this crisis there would be a case for reconsidering this, to allow for the federal health system to have more compulsory powers for future health crises.
NB. This is not a word for word translation, but I have tried to give a fair summary of what he said, from part of a longer interview.
My view would be that rather than blowing billions on defence toys we don't need and which don't keep us safe, the govt should instead spend much more money researching the next pandemic.
As a bonus, if we already had a vaccine for coronavirus we could probably now make our money back by licensing it cheaply to the rest of the world.
As a silly back of the envelope comparison, 2 aircraft carriers cost 6 billion quid, plus 600m in an operating costs. The medical research council spends around 800m a year on research. Let's nearly double their budget and be more prepared next time.
Is it a sign of modernity to panic about everything? No matter how trivial. If you're under sixty and fit, it's not any sort of Armageddon.