As many as '60 to 70 per cent' of Germans will be infected with the deadly coronavirus, Chancellor Angela Merkel warned today, as the contagion threatened to rip through Europe.
So why have 80,000 Chinese rather than getting on for a billion been infected?
You believe that the infection has been all but eradicated in China?
26 new cases today, per Worldometer. And I have no idea whether to believe that or not, i genuinely don't know wtf is going on. With all the New Year movement in China every Chinese province must have had as many infected returnees as Iran or Lombardy, so why does every province look like them?
Anyone care to enlighten me about this 5G conspiracy?
Friend of mine (works in healthcare!!!!) has been going on about this supposed 5G-coronavirus link for ages, can't fathom what truth she sees in it. Thought she was just being "special" but turns it pops up on various places over the interwebs, I certainly see it in comments sections in places less educated than PB.com.
As levels of scientifically illiterate fake news go, this one is just spectacular. Electromagnetic radiation causes zoonotic viral epidemic? Seriously?
Part of me wonders if the whole rumour started as an elaborate joke by someone who should know better and it turned out there are enough daft folk around to propagate it. Or did it originate with a genuine conspiracy theorist/nutter?
I know the government needs to tackle coronavirus fake news, but stuff this fake almost doesn't deserve rebutting ... nobody who takes it half-seriously is going to be persuaded by an official government denying, they'd probably take that as the ultimate proof of its truth!
Cheers TSE, top linkage. So, QAnon, anti-vaxx, and even David Icke: whose popular Facebook and Twitter timelines link coronavirus to 5G, which he calls "a directed energy weapon".
"What if 5G is being used to open up the skin of those in Wuhan so as to allow the new bio-weapon coronavirus to infiltrate more easily?"
Part of me wonders if the whole rumour started as an elaborate joke by someone who should know better and it turned out there are enough daft folk around to propagate it. Or did it originate with a genuine conspiracy theorist/nutter?
It was heavily pushed by Russian trollfarms for a while, and seems to have taken on a life of its on. There are basically subcultures obsessed with it now.
Thanks for the high-information content responses.
Don't think there's any chance I can persuade my (I reiterate, healthcare worker!!) friend though. She thinks it's true because "British physicists say so"!
You get the impression that a lot of sensible things are being done (cancellations, restricted travel, more homeworking, less international travel, etc) despite the government instead of at its instance.
This is the infuriating thing. People *want* to do the right thing. But there are still a bunch of people out there who won't take it seriously until enough people have died to make it hard for a lot of people to start working from home or whatever in case they're thought badly of by their boss or whatever. They just need everybody to be told it's what they should be doing.
Why is your government so shit?
Perhaps the effect is so small at the moment that it's not worth it? They spent a lot of the previous press conference going on about how timing the response is critical.
Sorry, how can the effect be “so small” as to make a non-enforced WFH recommendation “not worth it”? What’s your logic here?
That the number of people infected because people are not working from home will be insignificant at the present stage of the outbreak? I don't know why they haven't made the recommendation, I am simply offering a reason why they might not have done so.
Scotland, an SNP government failing on the NHS and education.
Wales almost voted against having an Assembly let alone for independence and voted Leave just like England, it might make sense that Wales has a Tory majority but little more
Anyone would think you were implying that if each of these nations united with good old Tory-run England and accepted the benevolence of Conservative administration they would be happier, wealthier and no one would ever have the wobbles again.
Scotland, an SNP government failing on the NHS and education.
Wales almost voted against having an Assembly let alone for independence and voted Leave just like England, it might make sense that Wales has a Tory majority but little more
Anyone would think you were implying that if each of these nations united with good old Tory-run England and accepted the benevolence of Conservative administration they would be happier, wealthier and no one would ever have the wobbles again.
True for Wales
I have always been a firm opponent of Welsh Devolution and would be delighted to see the Assembly abolished - but it remains true that its purse strings are controlled by Westminster.
It is not that it is how they spend it
The inability to raise revenue clearly limits the services provided in terms of quality and quantity.
You obviously have no idea about the Welsh labour government on devolved tax
I don't doubt that there are many criticisms to be made of that Administration - as is true of all such authorities. My point nevertheless remains valid. Were I a voter in Wales, I would support the Abolish the Assembly party at the 2021 elections.
China (usual do you believe the figures issue) are currently suffering 56 cases per million people in total. The equivalent number for the UK would be 3,640 cases in total. I get the impression we are waiting to get somewhere near that figure before we act.
One reason to believe the Chinese figures is that I've not seen anyone report that the US government doubts them. To the best of my knowledge there have been no "sources in the intelligence community say" type of stories. And I'm sure Trump's adminstration would love to say that China is lying.
As many as '60 to 70 per cent' of Germans will be infected with the deadly coronavirus, Chancellor Angela Merkel warned today, as the contagion threatened to rip through Europe.
Just total fatalism from our Western leaders. 60% of China? What rubbish.
Something is seriously wrong with the decision making here.
It's hard to reconcile China closing temporary hospitals, as though the worst is over or at least they can take a breather, with forecasts of it eventually hitting such high numbers.
The Chinese do seem very confident at the moment. They're not only closing temporary hospitals, but donating medical equipment to the west.
I would guess the Chinese have definitely fiddled the figures and it was a hell of a lot more, and probably still have a lot more cases than reporting...but have got on top of it and now into the propaganda phase of we won the war because of the great leader, the party and the unity of the Chinese population.
You get the impression that a lot of sensible things are being done (cancellations, restricted travel, more homeworking, less international travel, etc) despite the government instead of at its instance.
This is the infuriating thing. People *want* to do the right thing. But there are still a bunch of people out there who won't take it seriously until enough people have died to make it hard for a lot of people to start working from home or whatever in case they're thought badly of by their boss. They just need everybody to be told it's what they should be doing.
Why is your government so shit?
There appears to be groupthink among the advisers. They've decided that the virus can't be stopped, so instead of trying to stop the virus they're going to try to time the peak of the outbreak to be optimal. So they don't want us to be too successful in stopping the virus.
It's a bizarre combination of deliberate helplessness and an arrogance of remaining in control.
I am really not sure I get this wait till things get much worse before the lockdown. The idea that people are going to get bored or fed up seems, well, a bit far fetched, especially as it clearly won't stop the dying.
The indications from China, SK, Singapore, Japan and some others is that hyper aggressive approaches of various kinds work and produce a much smaller peak than we might otherwise expect.
I have no doubt people are doing their best and working very hard at this but have we got it right? I am not sure.
If no further policy change tomorrow then it's time to get the shotgun and head for the woods.
I have a choice between a hidden apartment in a posh Welsh seaside village or a primitive croft on Harris.
The latter is probably safer but God it would be tough.
Two weeks on Harris and you will be begging for the virus.
I am really not sure I get this wait till things get much worse before the lockdown. The idea that people are going to get bored or fed up seems, well, a bit far fetched, especially as it clearly won't stop the dying.
The indications from China, SK, Singapore, Japan and some others is that hyper aggressive approaches of various kinds work and produce a much smaller peak than we might otherwise expect.
I have no doubt people are doing their best and working very hard at this but have we got it right? I am not sure.
If no further policy change tomorrow then it's time to get the shotgun and head for the woods.
I have a choice between a hidden apartment in a posh Welsh seaside village or a primitive croft on Harris.
The latter is probably safer but God it would be tough.
Hebrides bloody depressing and the nearest sensible hospital is a long helicopter trip away. Wales sounds like The Prisoner.
As many as '60 to 70 per cent' of Germans will be infected with the deadly coronavirus, Chancellor Angela Merkel warned today, as the contagion threatened to rip through Europe.
Just total fatalism from our Western leaders. 60% of China? What rubbish.
Something is seriously wrong with the decision making here.
It's hard to reconcile China closing temporary hospitals, as though the worst is over or at least they can take a breather, with forecasts of it eventually hitting such high numbers.
The Chinese do seem very confident at the moment. They're not only closing temporary hospitals, but donating medical equipment to the west.
ANECDOTE ALERT
friend I was with at Cheltenham said he uses Chinese suppliers and that apart from Wuhan itself all other factories are open and producing.
I am really not sure I get this wait till things get much worse before the lockdown. The idea that people are going to get bored or fed up seems, well, a bit far fetched, especially as it clearly won't stop the dying.
The indications from China, SK, Singapore, Japan and some others is that hyper aggressive approaches of various kinds work and produce a much smaller peak than we might otherwise expect.
I have no doubt people are doing their best and working very hard at this but have we got it right? I am not sure.
I’m of your view David. Indeed so are many companies in London which have flipped to 80-100% homeworking. It needs to happen more widely.
You get the impression that a lot of sensible things are being done (cancellations, restricted travel, more homeworking, less international travel, etc) despite the government instead of at its instance.
Indeed so, that’s exactly the case David. Our company moved to an 80% remote model today and I have heard of several others today doing similarly.
Unfortunately my employer, despite being extremely large and extremely high risk, is waiting on government recommendations.
People are asking if I can attend a large event in two weeks time?
Normalcy bias for real.
Sorry, I missed your reply earlier. Yes, this is precisely the sort of case I’m talking about. There are hundreds more of them.
As many as '60 to 70 per cent' of Germans will be infected with the deadly coronavirus, Chancellor Angela Merkel warned today, as the contagion threatened to rip through Europe.
Just total fatalism from our Western leaders. 60% of China? What rubbish.
Something is seriously wrong with the decision making here.
It's hard to reconcile China closing temporary hospitals, as though the worst is over or at least they can take a breather, with forecasts of it eventually hitting such high numbers.
The Chinese do seem very confident at the moment. They're not only closing temporary hospitals, but donating medical equipment to the west.
ANECDOTE ALERT
friend I was with at Cheltenham said he uses Chinese suppliers and that apart from Wuhan itself all other factories are open and producing.
I am really not sure I get this wait till things get much worse before the lockdown. The idea that people are going to get bored or fed up seems, well, a bit far fetched, especially as it clearly won't stop the dying.
The indications from China, SK, Singapore, Japan and some others is that hyper aggressive approaches of various kinds work and produce a much smaller peak than we might otherwise expect.
I have no doubt people are doing their best and working very hard at this but have we got it right? I am not sure.
If no further policy change tomorrow then it's time to get the shotgun and head for the woods.
I have a choice between a hidden apartment in a posh Welsh seaside village or a primitive croft on Harris.
The latter is probably safer but God it would be tough.
Hebrides bloody depressing and the nearest sensible hospital is a long helicopter trip away. Wales sounds like The Prisoner.
Harris gin is very good, mind.
And the virus will still be in London, waiting, when you eventually come home.
I would guess the Chinese have definitely fiddled the figures and it was a hell of a lot more, and probably still have a lot more cases than reporting...but have got on top of it and now into the propaganda phase of we won the war because of the great leader, the party and the unity of the Chinese population.
I could believe it being two to three times as bad, maybe even 10 times, and China being able to hide it. But if only 1% of China's population had it there ought to be nearly 14 million cases, and somewhere over 100,000 deaths. I find it hard to believe China could hide that and nobody outside of the country being aware.
At 1% — over 100 times the cases that are currently claimed — China would still be the very start of the epidemic if you believe the scenarios being proposed, and yet China claims to be closing hospitals and removing restrictions on travel.
Something doesn't add up, either China is deceiving the whole world, or the rest of the world, bar perhaps South Korea, are not paying due attention.
No, the people he's describing aren't. I am not condoning using Twitter idiots to try and caricature your opponents. But I've seen repeated remainers on Twitter, and one on Any Answers trying to delay Brexit using Coronavirus. So it's clearly not just Leavers who can be 'low information'.
How can you delay something that has already happened?
You get the impression that a lot of sensible things are being done (cancellations, restricted travel, more homeworking, less international travel, etc) despite the government instead of at its instance.
This is the infuriating thing. People *want* to do the right thing. But there are still a bunch of people out there who won't take it seriously until enough people have died to make it hard for a lot of people to start working from home or whatever in case they're thought badly of by their boss. They just need everybody to be told it's what they should be doing.
Why is your government so shit?
There appears to be groupthink among the advisers. They've decided that the virus can't be stopped, so instead of trying to stop the virus they're going to try to time the peak of the outbreak to be optimal. So they don't want us to be too successful in stopping the virus.
It's a bizarre combination of deliberate helplessness and an arrogance of remaining in control.
What was sensible caution a week or so back has become inertia.
As many as '60 to 70 per cent' of Germans will be infected with the deadly coronavirus, Chancellor Angela Merkel warned today, as the contagion threatened to rip through Europe.
She is therefore predicting that, on a conservative estimate, 480,000 Germans will die, and 4 million will require critical care in hospital. In the next few weeks.
Depends on the timescale surely? There is thinking that there could be two or three waves of this before it just becomes a seasonal problem.
Unfortunately my employer, despite being extremely large and extremely high risk, is waiting on government recommendations.
Yes, this is what concerns me. There's a lot of "judge things for yourself", "you're best placed to assess your own risks", "people can look at the information and make their own decisions" kind of attitude from authorities at the moment. This applies in spades to travel advice as well as to working from home and various other issues.
In reality we are largely not well-placed to make decisions because what's going on is uncertain and the government are the ones with the best information and advice (and even they lack certainty!). Government is choosing, presumably for carefully considered reasons, not to release all of the information and advice they know - for example I presume their caution in revealing their "most likely" scenario, rather than their "worst case" one, is that they want people to take this thing seriously. But sometimes the rest of us would like a tip in the right direction.
I fear decision-making in a lot of companies and organisations is very much "we'll do it when we get officially prodded to do it", and that may be exacerbated by factors like nobody wanting to take a hit from being first-mover in their sector. As individuals we have a very substantial degree of freedom in this country (I'm especially lucky being self-employed and able to do most of my work remotely anyway) but important decisions for employees are often largely in the hands of their managers.
As many as '60 to 70 per cent' of Germans will be infected with the deadly coronavirus, Chancellor Angela Merkel warned today, as the contagion threatened to rip through Europe.
She is therefore predicting that, on a conservative estimate, 480,000 Germans will die, and 4 million will require critical care in hospital. In the next few weeks.
83 million living in Germany and by my maths 70% of that is 58 million
Am I missing something or is she predicting 58 million Germans will be infected ?
Have you seen the videos of Chinese police brutally arresting people for not wearing masks?
I get why they did it, now. They are one of the single best ways of stopping spreading, if people HAVE to go out. If you're infected, you won't cough and sneeze over everyone, you will cough and sneeze into your mask.
It's so fucking absurdly pathetically surreally simple. We deserve to lose global leadership to the Asians if we can't grasp something that basic.
People will eventually demand Chinese style government, and happily wave goodbye to liberal democracy, when they believe it will make them wealthier and stop their families dying of the plague.
I am really not sure I get this wait till things get much worse before the lockdown. The idea that people are going to get bored or fed up seems, well, a bit far fetched, especially as it clearly won't stop the dying.
The indications from China, SK, Singapore, Japan and some others is that hyper aggressive approaches of various kinds work and produce a much smaller peak than we might otherwise expect.
I have no doubt people are doing their best and working very hard at this but have we got it right? I am not sure.
I’m of your view David. Indeed so are many companies in London which have flipped to 80-100% homeworking. It needs to happen more widely.
You get the impression that a lot of sensible things are being done (cancellations, restricted travel, more homeworking, less international travel, etc) despite the government instead of at its instance.
I've generally been satisfied with Hancock's performance at a very difficult time though part of me wonders if Hunt would have been a safer pair of hands.
But his wishy-washy answers to anything involving home-working, and a couple of other relatively low-cost individual or business-led actions, have been unconvincing I think. There is some stuff that is only going to happen at full tilt e.g. at smaller firms (rather than the better-prepared MNCs which already have secure alternative locations etc) when government gives a more positive green or red light. For example "now's a time when it would be good to take action X if you can, even if right now we're not dictating that you absolutely must; moreover, even if you decide not to go ahead with it right now, you really need to get prepared and investigate how you will do it soon, because we may be pushing it firmly in the near future".
This. Social distancing well short of draconian lockdowns has a chance of working when the numbers are as low as they currently are. I get the feeling the government are being somewhat tardy in their advice.
I understand the difficulty, as large scale following of such advice is going to kill retail and leisure business for a period of time. But if they don’t act that is going to happen in any event.
Too slow. It's immensely frustrating.
Government following not leading.
Two things which ought to be possible without unacceptable costs are ramping up the official social distancing advice, and greatly increasing the rate of testing.
AND MAKE EVERYONE WEAR A MASK ALL THE TIME
Have you seen the videos of Chinese police brutally arresting people for not wearing masks?
I get why they did it, now. They are one of the single best ways of stopping spreading, if people HAVE to go out. If you're infected, you won't cough and sneeze over everyone, you will cough and sneeze into your mask.
It's so fucking absurdly pathetically surreally simple. We deserve to lose global leadership to the Asians if we can't grasp something that basic.
Brilliant post. Whatever this is for I'm sure the product will be excellent.
As many as '60 to 70 per cent' of Germans will be infected with the deadly coronavirus, Chancellor Angela Merkel warned today, as the contagion threatened to rip through Europe.
She is therefore predicting that, on a conservative estimate, 480,000 Germans will die, and 4 million will require critical care in hospital. In the next few weeks.
Its utter tosh. Probably out by a factor of 100 (which will be bad enough).
I would guess the Chinese have definitely fiddled the figures and it was a hell of a lot more, and probably still have a lot more cases than reporting...but have got on top of it and now into the propaganda phase of we won the war because of the great leader, the party and the unity of the Chinese population.
I could believe it being two to three times as bad, maybe even 10 times, and China being able to hide it. But if only 1% of China's population had it there ought to be nearly 14 million cases, and somewhere over 100,000 deaths. I find it hard to believe China could hide that and nobody outside of the country being aware.
At 1% — over 100 times the cases that are currently claimed — China would still be the very start of the epidemic if you believe the scenarios being proposed, and yet China claims to be closing hospitals and removing restrictions on travel.
Something doesn't add up, either China is deceiving the whole world, or the rest of the world, bar perhaps South Korea, are not paying due attention.
China of course is twice the land area of the eu, and there's places there twice as far from Wuhan as London is from Milan. So perhaps it just hasn't spread yet.
As many as '60 to 70 per cent' of Germans will be infected with the deadly coronavirus, Chancellor Angela Merkel warned today, as the contagion threatened to rip through Europe.
She is therefore predicting that, on a conservative estimate, 480,000 Germans will die, and 4 million will require critical care in hospital. In the next few weeks.
83 million living in Germany and by my maths 70% of that is 58 million
Am I missing something or is she predicting 58 million Germans will be infected ?
Yes, she is predicting that
Maybe I misread your post - you seemed to say 4 million
I am really not sure I get this wait till things get much worse before the lockdown. The idea that people are going to get bored or fed up seems, well, a bit far fetched, especially as it clearly won't stop the dying.
The indications from China, SK, Singapore, Japan and some others is that hyper aggressive approaches of various kinds work and produce a much smaller peak than we might otherwise expect.
I have no doubt people are doing their best and working very hard at this but have we got it right? I am not sure.
I’m of your view David. Indeed so are many companies in London which have flipped to 80-100% homeworking. It needs to happen more widely.
You get the impression that a lot of sensible things are being done (cancellations, restricted travel, more homeworking, less international travel, etc) despite the government instead of at its instance.
I've generally been satisfied with Hancock's performance at a very difficult time though part of me wonders if Hunt would have been a safer pair of hands.
But his wishy-washy answers to anything involving home-working, and a couple of other relatively low-cost individual or business-led actions, have been unconvincing I think. There is some stuff that is only going to happen at full tilt e.g. at smaller firms (rather than the better-prepared MNCs which already have secure alternative locations etc) when government gives a more positive green or red light. For example "now's a time when it would be good to take action X if you can, even if right now we're not dictating that you absolutely must; moreover, even if you decide not to go ahead with it right now, you really need to get prepared and investigate how you will do it soon, because we may be pushing it firmly in the near future".
This. Social distancing well short of draconian lockdowns has a chance of working when the numbers are as low as they currently are. I get the feeling the government are being somewhat tardy in their advice.
I understand the difficulty, as large scale following of such advice is going to kill retail and leisure business for a period of time. But if they don’t act that is going to happen in any event.
Too slow. It's immensely frustrating.
Government following not leading.
Two things which ought to be possible without unacceptable costs are ramping up the official social distancing advice, and greatly increasing the rate of testing.
AND MAKE EVERYONE WEAR A MASK ALL THE TIME
Have you seen the videos of Chinese police brutally arresting people for not wearing masks?
I get why they did it, now. They are one of the single best ways of stopping spreading, if people HAVE to go out. If you're infected, you won't cough and sneeze over everyone, you will cough and sneeze into your mask.
It's so fucking absurdly pathetically surreally simple. We deserve to lose global leadership to the Asians if we can't grasp something that basic.
Yeah but then we'd look like we care about stuff and we can't be having that.
China of course is twice the land area of the eu, and there's places there twice as far from Wuhan as London is from Milan. So perhaps it just hasn't spread yet.
It has spread, but if you believe the Chinese government NOT within China to the same degree that we are seeing elsewhere.
I would guess the Chinese have definitely fiddled the figures and it was a hell of a lot more, and probably still have a lot more cases than reporting...but have got on top of it and now into the propaganda phase of we won the war because of the great leader, the party and the unity of the Chinese population.
I could believe it being two to three times as bad, maybe even 10 times, and China being able to hide it. But if only 1% of China's population had it there ought to be nearly 14 million cases, and somewhere over 100,000 deaths. I find it hard to believe China could hide that and nobody outside of the country being aware.
At 1% — over 100 times the cases that are currently claimed — China would still be the very start of the epidemic if you believe the scenarios being proposed, and yet China claims to be closing hospitals and removing restrictions on travel.
Something doesn't add up, either China is deceiving the whole world, or the rest of the world, bar perhaps South Korea, are not paying due attention.
Such a level of deceit, undetected, is highly unlikely. And in any event, it’s not that the Chinese leadership isn’t entirely capable of such a thing; it’s just hard to see the point in the current circumstances.
As many as '60 to 70 per cent' of Germans will be infected with the deadly coronavirus, Chancellor Angela Merkel warned today, as the contagion threatened to rip through Europe.
She is therefore predicting that, on a conservative estimate, 480,000 Germans will die, and 4 million will require critical care in hospital. In the next few weeks.
83 million living in Germany and by my maths 70% of that is 58 million
Am I missing something or is she predicting 58 million Germans will be infected ?
Yes, she is predicting that
Maybe I misread your post - you seemed to say 4 million
China (usual do you believe the figures issue) are currently suffering 56 cases per million people in total. The equivalent number for the UK would be 3,640 cases in total. I get the impression we are waiting to get somewhere near that figure before we act.
One reason to believe the Chinese figures is that I've not seen anyone report that the US government doubts them. To the best of my knowledge there have been no "sources in the intelligence community say" type of stories. And I'm sure Trump's adminstration would love to say that China is lying.
Would he though. When he is working on the rather excellent policy of sticking his fingers in his ears and saying, "I can't hear you"? Is it in his interests to admit that this virus that is just going to go away is even worse?
As many as '60 to 70 per cent' of Germans will be infected with the deadly coronavirus, Chancellor Angela Merkel warned today, as the contagion threatened to rip through Europe.
She is therefore predicting that, on a conservative estimate, 480,000 Germans will die, and 4 million will require critical care in hospital. In the next few weeks.
83 million living in Germany and by my maths 70% of that is 58 million
Am I missing something or is she predicting 58 million Germans will be infected ?
Yes, she is predicting that
Maybe I misread your post - you seemed to say 4 million
She was referring to the WHO worst case scenario: - up to 70% infected - 5-10% in critical care i.e. 4 million - 1% fatalities
Have you seen the videos of Chinese police brutally arresting people for not wearing masks?
I get why they did it, now. They are one of the single best ways of stopping spreading, if people HAVE to go out. If you're infected, you won't cough and sneeze over everyone, you will cough and sneeze into your mask.
It's so fucking absurdly pathetically surreally simple. We deserve to lose global leadership to the Asians if we can't grasp something that basic.
People will eventually demand Chinese style government, and happily wave goodbye to liberal democracy, when they believe it will make them wealthier and stop their families dying of the plague.
As I've been saying on PB for a while, the vast majority of people would far rather live in Singapore than anywhere else.
Good healthcare, great economy, clever government, nice shopping, lovely food, not so much individual freedom, but individual freedom, it turns out, means you die of plague
Have you seen the videos of Chinese police brutally arresting people for not wearing masks?
I get why they did it, now. They are one of the single best ways of stopping spreading, if people HAVE to go out. If you're infected, you won't cough and sneeze over everyone, you will cough and sneeze into your mask.
It's so fucking absurdly pathetically surreally simple. We deserve to lose global leadership to the Asians if we can't grasp something that basic.
People will eventually demand Chinese style government, and happily wave goodbye to liberal democracy, when they believe it will make them wealthier and stop their families dying of the plague.
As I've been saying on PB for a while, the vast majority of people would far rather live in Singapore than anywhere else...
China (usual do you believe the figures issue) are currently suffering 56 cases per million people in total. The equivalent number for the UK would be 3,640 cases in total. I get the impression we are waiting to get somewhere near that figure before we act.
One reason to believe the Chinese figures is that I've not seen anyone report that the US government doubts them. To the best of my knowledge there have been no "sources in the intelligence community say" type of stories. And I'm sure Trump's adminstration would love to say that China is lying.
Would he though. When he is working on the rather excellent policy of sticking his fingers in his ears and saying, "I can't hear you"? Is it in his interests to admit that this virus that is just going to go away is even worse?
OTOH the WHO seemed convinced.
WHO do seem to believe China, but as to my point it doesn't really matter what Trump says, if the the intelligence community believed China was misleading the world I'm sure it would have leaked by now. Stuff leaks all the time, I can't see why this would be different.
As many as '60 to 70 per cent' of Germans will be infected with the deadly coronavirus, Chancellor Angela Merkel warned today, as the contagion threatened to rip through Europe.
She is therefore predicting that, on a conservative estimate, 480,000 Germans will die, and 4 million will require critical care in hospital. In the next few weeks.
83 million living in Germany and by my maths 70% of that is 58 million
Am I missing something or is she predicting 58 million Germans will be infected ?
Yes, she is predicting that
Maybe I misread your post - you seemed to say 4 million
*require critical care* not just be infected.
Thanks for the clarification but 58 million Germans infected is another matter
Perhaps the effect is so small at the moment that it's not worth it? They spent a lot of the previous press conference going on about how timing the response is critical.
Why do you need to time *working from home where practical*? You do it until you don't need to do it any more.
Have you seen the videos of Chinese police brutally arresting people for not wearing masks?
I get why they did it, now. They are one of the single best ways of stopping spreading, if people HAVE to go out. If you're infected, you won't cough and sneeze over everyone, you will cough and sneeze into your mask.
It's so fucking absurdly pathetically surreally simple. We deserve to lose global leadership to the Asians if we can't grasp something that basic.
People will eventually demand Chinese style government, and happily wave goodbye to liberal democracy, when they believe it will make them wealthier and stop their families dying of the plague.
As I've been saying on PB for a while, the vast majority of people would far rather live in Singapore than anywhere else.
Good healthcare, great economy, clever government, nice shopping, lovely food, not so much individual freedom, but individual freedom, it turns out, means you die of plague
As many as '60 to 70 per cent' of Germans will be infected with the deadly coronavirus, Chancellor Angela Merkel warned today, as the contagion threatened to rip through Europe.
She is therefore predicting that, on a conservative estimate, 480,000 Germans will die, and 4 million will require critical care in hospital. In the next few weeks.
83 million living in Germany and by my maths 70% of that is 58 million
Am I missing something or is she predicting 58 million Germans will be infected ?
Yes, she is predicting that
Maybe I misread your post - you seemed to say 4 million
She was referring to the WHO worst case scenario: - up to 70% infected - 5-10% in critical care i.e. 4 million - 1% fatalities
She didn't make a prediction.
Why did she say it in the first place. Hostage to fortune
I think the government should be changing its policy sooner rather than later.
Tomorrow would be good.
Doubt it. The Budget is tomorrow. More likely either a) Thursday, if the papers have spotted some absolute fuckup, such as a tax on white vans or pasties or owners of football scarves. Or b) Friday.
I think when I get back home tomorrow it is time to WFH every day and minimise leaving the house.
At some point this week I'm going to have a difficult conversation with my boss about why I'm not travelling 100 miles there and back for a small celebratory team lunch. It's already technically against corporate guidance but...
As many as '60 to 70 per cent' of Germans will be infected with the deadly coronavirus, Chancellor Angela Merkel warned today, as the contagion threatened to rip through Europe.
She is therefore predicting that, on a conservative estimate, 480,000 Germans will die, and 4 million will require critical care in hospital. In the next few weeks.
83 million living in Germany and by my maths 70% of that is 58 million
Am I missing something or is she predicting 58 million Germans will be infected ?
Yes, she is predicting that
Maybe I misread your post - you seemed to say 4 million
She was referring to the WHO worst case scenario: - up to 70% infected - 5-10% in critical care i.e. 4 million - 1% fatalities
She didn't make a prediction.
Why did she say it in the first place. Hostage to fortune
Are you suggesting that the political leadership of the country stays silent about the impending crisis? She had refrained from comment thus far, largely.
News from Italy tonight is horrible with fighting breaking out
Civil disorder is inevitable. It's one reason why I am getting out of London
Bravo!
Certain things are indeed inevitable...
My $0.02? He's doing it as an academic exercise to see what reaction he gets. He might then write it all up or if not just get some kind of satisfaction from it.
As many as '60 to 70 per cent' of Germans will be infected with the deadly coronavirus, Chancellor Angela Merkel warned today, as the contagion threatened to rip through Europe.
She is therefore predicting that, on a conservative estimate, 480,000 Germans will die, and 4 million will require critical care in hospital. In the next few weeks.
83 million living in Germany and by my maths 70% of that is 58 million
Am I missing something or is she predicting 58 million Germans will be infected ?
Yes, she is predicting that
Maybe I misread your post - you seemed to say 4 million
She was referring to the WHO worst case scenario: - up to 70% infected - 5-10% in critical care i.e. 4 million - 1% fatalities
She didn't make a prediction.
Why did she say it in the first place. Hostage to fortune
Are you suggesting that the political leadership of the country stays silent about the impending crisis? She had refrained from comment thus far, largely.
She already caused chaos with her open invitation to migrants when prudence would have been wise, so the same with this
I think the government should be changing its policy sooner rather than later.
Tomorrow would be good.
Doubt it. The Budget is tomorrow. More likely either a) Thursday, if the papers have spotted some absolute fuckup, such as a tax on white vans or pasties or owners of football scarves. Or b) Friday.
I think (hope) that the budget will be a part of a larger strategy announced at the COBRA meeting tomorrow. We are at stage 2, this is what we need to do, this is how we are going to pay for it.
I think when I get back home tomorrow it is time to WFH every day and minimise leaving the house.
At some point this week I'm going to have a difficult conversation with my boss about why I'm not travelling 100 miles there and back for a small celebratory team lunch. It's already technically against corporate guidance but...
If only you had a government who could help you with that discussion by switching the defaults towards WFH / no unnecessary meetings in person.
Perhaps the effect is so small at the moment that it's not worth it? They spent a lot of the previous press conference going on about how timing the response is critical.
Why do you need to time *working from home where practical*? You do it until you don't need to do it any more.
As many as '60 to 70 per cent' of Germans will be infected with the deadly coronavirus, Chancellor Angela Merkel warned today, as the contagion threatened to rip through Europe.
She is therefore predicting that, on a conservative estimate, 480,000 Germans will die, and 4 million will require critical care in hospital. In the next few weeks.
83 million living in Germany and by my maths 70% of that is 58 million
Am I missing something or is she predicting 58 million Germans will be infected ?
Yes, she is predicting that
Maybe I misread your post - you seemed to say 4 million
She was referring to the WHO worst case scenario: - up to 70% infected - 5-10% in critical care i.e. 4 million - 1% fatalities
She didn't make a prediction.
Why did she say it in the first place. Hostage to fortune
Are you suggesting that the political leadership of the country stays silent about the impending crisis? She had refrained from comment thus far, largely.
She already caused chaos with her open invitation to migrants when prudence would have been wise, so the same with this
Why did her open invitation to migrants cause chaos?
News from Italy tonight is horrible with fighting breaking out
Civil disorder is inevitable. It's one reason why I am getting out of London
Bravo!
Certain things are indeed inevitable...
My $0.02? He's doing it as an academic exercise to see what reaction he gets. He might then write it all up or if not just get some kind of satisfaction from it.
There's nowt as queer as folk.
Have I missed something with the London reference?
As many as '60 to 70 per cent' of Germans will be infected with the deadly coronavirus, Chancellor Angela Merkel warned today, as the contagion threatened to rip through Europe.
She is therefore predicting that, on a conservative estimate, 480,000 Germans will die, and 4 million will require critical care in hospital. In the next few weeks.
83 million living in Germany and by my maths 70% of that is 58 million
Am I missing something or is she predicting 58 million Germans will be infected ?
Yes, she is predicting that
Maybe I misread your post - you seemed to say 4 million
She was referring to the WHO worst case scenario: - up to 70% infected - 5-10% in critical care i.e. 4 million - 1% fatalities
She didn't make a prediction.
Why did she say it in the first place. Hostage to fortune
Are you suggesting that the political leadership of the country stays silent about the impending crisis? She had refrained from comment thus far, largely.
She already caused chaos with her open invitation to migrants when prudence would have been wise, so the same with this
Merkel is a scientist. She almost certainly has more direct insight than Trump, Johnson et al. and consequently may not be able to wrap it in bullshit to quite the same degree.
As many as '60 to 70 per cent' of Germans will be infected with the deadly coronavirus, Chancellor Angela Merkel warned today, as the contagion threatened to rip through Europe.
She is therefore predicting that, on a conservative estimate, 480,000 Germans will die, and 4 million will require critical care in hospital. In the next few weeks.
83 million living in Germany and by my maths 70% of that is 58 million
Am I missing something or is she predicting 58 million Germans will be infected ?
Yes, she is predicting that
Maybe I misread your post - you seemed to say 4 million
She was referring to the WHO worst case scenario: - up to 70% infected - 5-10% in critical care i.e. 4 million - 1% fatalities
She didn't make a prediction.
Why did she say it in the first place. Hostage to fortune
Are you suggesting that the political leadership of the country stays silent about the impending crisis? She had refrained from comment thus far, largely.
She already caused chaos with her open invitation to migrants when prudence would have been wise, so the same with this
Why did her open invitation to migrants cause chaos?
Did your life become more chaotic?
It is accepted that she made a huge error which continues to be played out on the Greek border
Or maybe the Government does, in fact, know best/what it is doing? More so than the keyboard warriors.
As I said, the gvt knows better than all of us what's going on. Their information chain is more complete (e.g. they know much than us re how cases are clustering, how much community transmission is being detected) and the eggheads processing this all and turning it into actionable advice to HMG are top-notch. Ministers are not hunting down twitter threads and preprint papers to work out what on Earth is going on. They have a rather dim electric torch while the rest of us are operating by candle-light.
But there's a lot they don't know for sure. They don't know what's going to happen next. They don't know how effective interventions are going to be. Even if they get the epidemiological modelling right, they can't predict the fickleness of popular emotions, in a free society they can't control either media-driven panic or media-driven ostrich-with-head-in-sand impersonation. If you look at How will country-based mitigation measures influence the course of the COVID-19 epidemic? by Roy Anderson in the Lancet (a massively important academic in infectious disease modelling) it's clear a lot of his answers are "even we, the top experts in the field, don't really know how well things will work and don't even understand some basics of what's going on e.g. whether kids and presymptomatic people are going to be significant spreaders, which significantly undermines our attempts to make predictions of what should work, but here are our best guesses".
If this is the uncertainty the top guys have, what hope for us little guys? And I've got postgrad training in epidemiology, modelling, stats, economic evaluation. And enough time to read research papers. What's an individual or company with a more typical background going to do when government tells them to "judge their own risk"? Since the gvt have the better information, however uncertain, I wish they would
(1) TELL US WHAT TO DO TO REDUCE OUR RISKS. Like Edmund says, some of us would listen (esp those in high-risk groups!). Clearly we can, as individuals and organisations, do more than just "don't panic and wash your hands". And gvt knows what some of these are likely to be. Why not tell us? Information vacuum can lead to panicked and ineffective responses.
On the other hand, given all the uncertainties in even their own knowledge....
Perhaps the effect is so small at the moment that it's not worth it? They spent a lot of the previous press conference going on about how timing the response is critical.
(2) PLEASE DON'T TRY TO BE CLEVER-DICKS. If you don't know what's going to work, or how well it's going to work, how people are going to respond and so on, then I question their ability to somehow "get the timing right" for release of information, application of interventions etc. I appreciate they'll do as good a job as they can, but there's no point trying to be too smart about it. I hope that given uncertainties, they will err on the side of (a) prioritising the defeat of COVID-19 over other considerations, (b) where not in conflict with the above, being transparent with us all. Perhaps this is already baked in to their plans.
Have you seen the videos of Chinese police brutally arresting people for not wearing masks?
I get why they did it, now. They are one of the single best ways of stopping spreading, if people HAVE to go out. If you're infected, you won't cough and sneeze over everyone, you will cough and sneeze into your mask.
It's so fucking absurdly pathetically surreally simple. We deserve to lose global leadership to the Asians if we can't grasp something that basic.
People will eventually demand Chinese style government, and happily wave goodbye to liberal democracy, when they believe it will make them wealthier and stop their families dying of the plague.
It was the Chinese government which created the plague by allowing live animal meat markets and experiments on bats
BREAKING Nadine Dorries health minister has coronavirus
Blimey.... I didn’t realise she was a minister.
More seriously, so much for government led social distancing: The paper’s reporting that Dorries has “met hundreds of people in parliament in the past week and attended a reception at No 10 with Boris Johnson”. She is said to be recovering. This is the first case of an MP testing positive and the news comes amid discussions over whether parliament should be temporarily shut down....
Oh God we could have half the government out ill at crucial time. I did wonder if it was wise to have the two egg heads leading this out and about meeting so many politicians, journos etc.
Was meeting a friend for dinner tonight, we went to a local independent restaurant that I go to about once a month on average. For the first time ever, completely empty, the entire time we were there. Its a restaurant that gets a lot of business through big Asian tourist groups. They said 100% of these reservations cancelled for March, 75% cancelled for April already. Hard to see how many of these smaller places will survive a sustained crisis. The economic damage will be huge.
As many as '60 to 70 per cent' of Germans will be infected with the deadly coronavirus, Chancellor Angela Merkel warned today, as the contagion threatened to rip through Europe.
She is therefore predicting that, on a conservative estimate, 480,000 Germans will die, and 4 million will require critical care in hospital. In the next few weeks.
83 million living in Germany and by my maths 70% of that is 58 million
Am I missing something or is she predicting 58 million Germans will be infected ?
Yes, she is predicting that
Maybe I misread your post - you seemed to say 4 million
She was referring to the WHO worst case scenario: - up to 70% infected - 5-10% in critical care i.e. 4 million - 1% fatalities
She didn't make a prediction.
Why did she say it in the first place. Hostage to fortune
Are you suggesting that the political leadership of the country stays silent about the impending crisis? She had refrained from comment thus far, largely.
She already caused chaos with her open invitation to migrants when prudence would have been wise, so the same with this
Why did her open invitation to migrants cause chaos?
Did your life become more chaotic?
It is accepted that she made a huge error which continues to be played out on the Greek border
Comments
"What if 5G is being used to open up the skin of those in Wuhan so as to allow the new bio-weapon coronavirus to infiltrate more easily?" Ah indeed https://monitoring.bbc.co.uk/product/c2015h7e
Thanks for the high-information content responses.
Don't think there's any chance I can persuade my (I reiterate, healthcare worker!!) friend though. She thinks it's true because "British physicists say so"!
It's a bizarre combination of deliberate helplessness and an arrogance of remaining in control.
Harris gin is very good, mind.
friend I was with at Cheltenham said he uses Chinese suppliers and that apart from Wuhan itself all other factories are open and producing.
12 Monkeys
Bumped into Rich Ricci. Chacun Pour Soi will win tomorrow.
DYOR blah blah this was from the (owner of the) horse's mouth.
At 1% — over 100 times the cases that are currently claimed — China would still be the very start of the epidemic if you believe the scenarios being proposed, and yet China claims to be closing hospitals and removing restrictions on travel.
Something doesn't add up, either China is deceiving the whole world, or the rest of the world, bar perhaps South Korea, are not paying due attention.
Am I missing something or is she predicting 58 million Germans will be infected ?
https://youtu.be/B6IgMdsZHbM
And in any event, it’s not that the Chinese leadership isn’t entirely capable of such a thing; it’s just hard to see the point in the current circumstances.
OTOH the WHO seemed convinced.
- up to 70% infected
- 5-10% in critical care i.e. 4 million
- 1% fatalities
She didn't make a prediction.
I braved my GP's surgery yesterday. Seemed very quiet to me. Only three of us in the waiting room at a peak, just after school, hour.
He wanted a non-urgent blood test.
I think I'll wait a week or so and see where we are headed.
Night all.
Incl. Germany: 0.32
Excl. Germany: 0.45
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GvO77Q1O49d0m4lQdBNdus3H8wdf3s-vLPE8c4cntsI/edit#gid=0
She had refrained from comment thus far, largely.
This perhaps goes some way to explain the numbers ?
“ The health ministry says the average age of deaths from the coronavirus is 81.4 years.”
There's nowt as queer as folk.
Just my usual sunny optimism shining through.
Did your life become more chaotic?
https://twitter.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1237503494325559296
But there's a lot they don't know for sure. They don't know what's going to happen next. They don't know how effective interventions are going to be. Even if they get the epidemiological modelling right, they can't predict the fickleness of popular emotions, in a free society they can't control either media-driven panic or media-driven ostrich-with-head-in-sand impersonation. If you look at How will country-based mitigation measures influence the course of the COVID-19 epidemic? by Roy Anderson in the Lancet (a massively important academic in infectious disease modelling) it's clear a lot of his answers are "even we, the top experts in the field, don't really know how well things will work and don't even understand some basics of what's going on e.g. whether kids and presymptomatic people are going to be significant spreaders, which significantly undermines our attempts to make predictions of what should work, but here are our best guesses".
If this is the uncertainty the top guys have, what hope for us little guys? And I've got postgrad training in epidemiology, modelling, stats, economic evaluation. And enough time to read research papers. What's an individual or company with a more typical background going to do when government tells them to "judge their own risk"? Since the gvt have the better information, however uncertain, I wish they would
(1) TELL US WHAT TO DO TO REDUCE OUR RISKS. Like Edmund says, some of us would listen (esp those in high-risk groups!). Clearly we can, as individuals and organisations, do more than just "don't panic and wash your hands". And gvt knows what some of these are likely to be. Why not tell us? Information vacuum can lead to panicked and ineffective responses.
On the other hand, given all the uncertainties in even their own knowledge.... (2) PLEASE DON'T TRY TO BE CLEVER-DICKS. If you don't know what's going to work, or how well it's going to work, how people are going to respond and so on, then I question their ability to somehow "get the timing right" for release of information, application of interventions etc. I appreciate they'll do as good a job as they can, but there's no point trying to be too smart about it. I hope that given uncertainties, they will err on the side of (a) prioritising the defeat of COVID-19 over other considerations, (b) where not in conflict with the above, being transparent with us all. Perhaps this is already baked in to their plans.
https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1237501689906835457?s=21
More seriously, so much for government led social distancing:
The paper’s reporting that Dorries has “met hundreds of people in parliament in the past week and attended a reception at No 10 with Boris Johnson”. She is said to be recovering. This is the first case of an MP testing positive and the news comes amid discussions over whether parliament should be temporarily shut down....
On the buzzword bingo have gone for Fishing, Hard Working Families and No need to panic.
HOC closed soon ?
How did your life become more chaotic?