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  • Pro_RataPro_Rata Posts: 5,288
    edited March 2020
    Nations by reported Coronavirus infection rate of over 1 per 100k population:

    >20 per 100k: Iceland
    >10 per 100k: Italy, SK
    >5 per 100k: China, Iran, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, Bahrain
    >2 per 100k: France, Spain, Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium, Austria, Singapore
    >1 per 100k: Germany, Hong Kong, Kuwait, Slovenia, Macau, Malta
    1 per 100k bar excludes UK, USA most SE Asia, Japan at present
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,119
    edited March 2020
    IshmaelZ said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    TOPPING said:

    IanB2 said:

    TOPPING said:

    Looking at the FTSE we are so Wall Street's bitches.

    Still little sign of a decisive assault on 24000, which is holding for now.

    Rishi will rescue us this afternoon (perhaps)
    I say it quite often that equities is really the only game in town for the majority of investors.

    A friend I was with yesterday bought puts (now sold at a profit!) on the Dow and FTSEa short while ago which sounds like the type of trading you are doing. But for almost everyone else buy and hold is their (usually outsourced) strategy.

    I'd be interested to know whether @Ishmael_Z had gone back into the markets again yet.
    Buy and hold is the right strategy in almost all circumstances, the exception being the type of large longer lasting crash that comes along once or twice in a generation.

    Given what the medical experts are telling us lies ahead - a period of lock down, then a significant (but hopefully less so than it might have been) epidemic, a gradual return to normal, with the probability of a further epidemic next winter, I don't think buying back in will make any sense at all in 2020.

    Especially as the US looks as if it is setting itself up to be worst affected, and as you said yourself, Wall Street leads the world markets.
    Im close to buying at these rates, especially the UK markets. My impression is the risks of big disaster have subsided a bit in the last week, even if the economic costs are becoming clearer. FTSE 6000 feels fair value and think year end could easily be back above 7000. We should get some volatility the next week or two to allow buying in around 5500 or lower.
    On the underlying economic substance, you may have a point. You may also have a point in that previous crises have seen the bottom well before any resolution is in sight. It is however sentiment that drives markets, at least in the short term, and AFAICS a stream of bad news is pretty much nailed on for the next few months at least. I guess the counter-argument is if a vaccine or cure is discovered, or if by some miracle the virus melts away during the summer.

    The latter case is likely pain deferred, of course, and not a case for a buy. But I wouldn't fancy being caught holding sell positions the day a vaccine is announced.
    It doesnt sound like a miracle that the virus melts away during the summer. The govt are expecting a 3 week peak around April/May so are expecting big declines by the summer. It is odds on imo.
    We don't know what this coronavirus does in summer.

    We do know that MERS, another coronavirus, comes from Saudi Arabian camels.
    We have to hope that because MERS was like that because it came from such a hot climate and that this will be less so because it has sprung up from the cold.

    I didn't realize that the idiots running these wet markets, it isn't just animals from that area, they literally imported and cage together animals from every continent.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,176
    Anyone doing buzzword bingo?
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    The UDI of Torbay is one of the minor puzzles of all this. It also pisses me off as it knocks God's own county off its rightful position at the top of the leader board.
  • Last year a pothole caused be over a grand's worth of damage to my vehicle.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,992

    Nigelb said:

    Sandpit said:


    HYUFD said:
    There seems little point in providing money for research into epidemiology, public health and transmission of infectious diseases.

    There are untrained experts on twitter that provide their insights & knowledge for free.
    "There seems little point in providing money for research into epidemiology, public health and transmission of infectious diseases."

    Well, Trump certainly agrees with that.
    The graph that Rory Stewart has tweeted showing a neat "40 percent difference" in red is ludicrous. Any serious modeller would have confidence limits, for a start.

    The graph was created by someone called Tomas Pueyo, who seems to be a journalist and author, but he knows enough to create a simple model. We might as well ask SeanT & Henrietta to make the graph and get Rory to tweet it.

    Rory is someone who is coming out of this badly. My opinion of him has diminished very substantially. Who would have thought he would handle this worse than Boris?

    I think Boris realises how very damaging it would be to do something against the advice of his scientific and medical advisors.

    And epidemiology is a mature science on which a lot of research has been done for decades, and sophisticated modelling techniques are possible. So, Boris is right to listen to his experts (who are not party political).
    Like yourself, I quite liked Rory until a couple of days ago, almost to the point of wondering if Shaun Bailey should stand aside and give him a free run at Sadiq.

    Not now, he's quickly turned into yet another of the amateur internet epidemiologists who think - without evidence - that their opinion is more important that those of the Chief Medical Officer and Chief Scientist.

    Politicians and journalists really need to shut up and listen to the genuine experts. As someone suggested here yesterday, the media should be sending their science or health correspondents to the government briefings, rather than the political correspondents.
    Sorry, but this is balls.
    You might just as well say we shouldn't comment on government economic policy.
    We all have broadly the same access to economic theories and data, there is tons of it out there, various policies have been tried in many countries over many different situations. People outside the govt can have close to as much knowledge as the Treasury. It is also not time critical.

    On Covid 19 there is a very limited amount of data and knowledge, which changes on a daily basis, and is not widely known. No single expert from any field can have good context of the impacts to other fields.

    The two scenarios are very different. As long as the govt response is science led, given access to all available resources, other politicians and media should be very reluctant to criticise.
    It is the role of the scientific experts to set out the options: if you do a, x will happen; if you do b, y will happen, etc. But is the role of the politicians, not the experts, to choose whether to do a or b, and that is why it is a cop out for a politician to say they are simply following expert advice. Any choice is (one would hope!) science led, but choices must still be made. And other people may reasonably disagree with those choices.
    I think that is very fair. And perhaps the govt decisions are all risk-adjusted and reflect that broad range of advice they are receiving from the scientific experts which would still make it "science led".
  • eristdooferistdoof Posts: 5,065

    Nigelb said:

    Sandpit said:


    HYUFD said:
    There seems little point in providing money for research into epidemiology, public health and transmission of infectious diseases.

    There are untrained experts on twitter that provide their insights & knowledge for free.
    "There seems little point in providing money for research into epidemiology, public health and transmission of infectious diseases."

    Well, Trump certainly agrees with that.
    The graph that Rory Stewart has tweeted showing a neat "40 percent difference" in red is ludicrous. Any serious modeller would have confidence limits, for a start.

    The graph was created by someone called Tomas Pueyo, who seems to be a journalist and author, but he knows enough to create a simple model. We might as well ask SeanT & Henrietta to make the graph and get Rory to tweet it.

    Rory is someone who is coming out of this badly. My opinion of him has diminished very substantially. Who would have thought he would handle this worse than Boris?

    I think Boris realises how very damaging it would be to do something against the advice of his scientific and medical advisors.

    And epidemiology is a mature science on which a lot of research has been done for decades, and sophisticated modelling techniques are possible. So, Boris is right to listen to his experts (who are not party political).
    Like yourself, I quite liked Rory until a couple of days ago, almost to the point of wondering if Shaun Bailey should stand aside and give him a free run at Sadiq.

    Not now, he's quickly turned into yet another of the amateur internet epidemiologists who think - without evidence - that their opinion is more important that those of the Chief Medical Officer and Chief Scientist.

    Politicians and journalists really need to shut up and listen to the genuine experts. As someone suggested here yesterday, the media should be sending their science or health correspondents to the government briefings, rather than the political correspondents.
    Sorry, but this is balls.
    You might just as well say we shouldn't comment on government economic policy.
    We all have broadly the same access to economic theories and data, there is tons of it out there, various policies have been tried in many countries over many different situations. People outside the govt can have close to as much knowledge as the Treasury. It is also not time critical.

    On Covid 19 there is a very limited amount of data and knowledge, which changes on a daily basis, and is not widely known. No single expert from any field can have good context of the impacts to other fields.

    The two scenarios are very different. As long as the govt response is science led, given access to all available resources, other politicians and media should be very reluctant to criticise.
    It is the role of the scientific experts to set out the options: if you do a, x will happen; if you do b, y will happen, etc. But is the role of the politicians, not the experts, to choose whether to do a or b, and that is why it is a cop out for a politician to say they are simply following expert advice. Any choice is (one would hope!) science led, but choices must still be made. And other people may disagree with those choices.
    I would agree with you. But... it is a decision by the government which experts they listen to, and how scientificallly and empricially based their advice ist. In short: some are like Ben Goldacre and others are like Goldacre's villain-in-chief (whose name rhymes with Dylan Muck-Teeth).

    For a while the British Government (both Labour and Conservative) was making great strides in improving the science behind their decisions, but it seems to me that they have been going backwards in the last few years
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,609

    Last year a pothole caused be over a grand's worth of damage to my vehicle.
    A new £120 tyre a few days back from a pothole. Made worse this year because it always bloody raining - you have no idea of the depth of a "puddle".
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,205

    Re Biden - which UK politician is he comparable to

    Ed Balls
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,609
    IshmaelZ said:

    The UDI of Torbay is one of the minor puzzles of all this. It also pisses me off as it knocks God's own county off its rightful position at the top of the leader board.
    School trip to Italy was the cause.....
  • tlg86 said:

    Anyone doing buzzword bingo?

    Ladbrokes are

    https://sports.ladbrokes.com/event/politics/uk/uk-politics/2020-budget/230013741/all-markets

    I like Yorkshire Tea at 5/1
  • TrèsDifficileTrèsDifficile Posts: 1,729
    Very strange twitter trends in London at the mo..

    1·#virüstürkiyede
    55.2K Tweets
    2·センバツ中止
    95.6K Tweets
    3·あなたのサークル
    288K Tweets
    4·#Hの文字でわかる性欲診断
    8,430 Tweets
    5·あなたの性欲
    8,543 Tweets
    6·#odwolajcieszkoleXD
    12.8K Tweets
    7·消費税0
    26.5K Tweets
    8·#キティちゃんのお絵かき
    28.7K Tweets
    9·#BerkinElvan
    18.3K Tweets
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,119

    tlg86 said:

    Anyone doing buzzword bingo?

    Ladbrokes are

    https://sports.ladbrokes.com/event/politics/uk/uk-politics/2020-budget/230013741/all-markets

    I like Yorkshire Tea at 5/1
    For the sake of the nation, surely he needs to have a Sport Direct sized mug with Yorkshire Tea plastered on it from which he drinks during the speech.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,482

    OllyT said:

    Essexit said:

    A video I saw on Reddit yesterday showed Biden shouting at a man who asked him a question about the second amendment, and telling him (the questioner) that he was 'full of shit'. Biden also seems confused and frankly out of it in every video. Maybe he's a better shot than Sanders, but it's hard to believe he's the best the Democrats have to offer.

    Biden is not ideal (who is?) but the consensus across the political spectrum on PB seems to be that just about anybody would be better than Trump.

    Let's hope that the covid-19 crisis opens the eyes of even some of the dimest Trumptons in the US.

    Biden might sound a little confused at times but Trump actually believes the bullshit he comes out with on a daily basis.

    Yes, I think the Trumptons on here are now limited to the hard right TGOHF and perhaps the Putinite crank Lucky Guy.

    Even HYUFD is relaxing his Trumptonite position.
    I am not a Trump supporter, or a 'Putinite' whatever that means, though why I should care what a malevolent sack of shit like you thinks is a mystery.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,176

    tlg86 said:

    Anyone doing buzzword bingo?

    Ladbrokes are

    https://sports.ladbrokes.com/event/politics/uk/uk-politics/2020-budget/230013741/all-markets

    I like Yorkshire Tea at 5/1
    I quite like paternity leave - but I don't think this will be a joke filled budget.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,838
    IshmaelZ said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    TOPPING said:

    IanB2 said:

    TOPPING said:

    Looking at the FTSE we are so Wall Street's bitches.

    Still little sign of a decisive assault on 24000, which is holding for now.

    Rishi will rescue us this afternoon (perhaps)
    I say it quite often that equities is really the only game in town for the majority of investors.

    A friend I was with yesterday bought puts (now sold at a profit!) on the Dow and FTSEa short while ago which sounds like the type of trading you are doing. But for almost everyone else buy and hold is their (usually outsourced) strategy.

    I'd be interested to know whether @Ishmael_Z had gone back into the markets again yet.
    Buy and hold is the right strategy in almost all circumstances, the exception being the type of large longer lasting crash that comes along once or twice in a generation.

    Given what the medical experts are telling us lies ahead - a period of lock down, then a significant (but hopefully less so than it might have been) epidemic, a gradual return to normal, with the probability of a further epidemic next winter, I don't think buying back in will make any sense at all in 2020.

    Especially as the US looks as if it is setting itself up to be worst affected, and as you said yourself, Wall Street leads the world markets.
    Im close to buying at these rates, especially the UK markets. My impression is the risks of big disaster have subsided a bit in the last week, even if the economic costs are becoming clearer. FTSE 6000 feels fair value and think year end could easily be back above 7000. We should get some volatility the next week or two to allow buying in around 5500 or lower.
    On the underlying economic substance, you may have a point. You may also have a point in that previous crises have seen the bottom well before any resolution is in sight. It is however sentiment that drives markets, at least in the short term, and AFAICS a stream of bad news is pretty much nailed on for the next few months at least. I guess the counter-argument is if a vaccine or cure is discovered, or if by some miracle the virus melts away during the summer.

    The latter case is likely pain deferred, of course, and not a case for a buy. But I wouldn't fancy being caught holding sell positions the day a vaccine is announced.
    It doesnt sound like a miracle that the virus melts away during the summer. The govt are expecting a 3 week peak around April/May so are expecting big declines by the summer. It is odds on imo.
    We don't know what this coronavirus does in summer.

    We do know that MERS, another coronavirus, comes from Saudi Arabian camels.
    I agree we dont know, that is why i gave a probability estimate and stated it was my opinion. If I was under the apprehension it was a fact neither would have applied.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,119

    Very strange twitter trends in London at the mo..

    1·#virüstürkiyede
    55.2K Tweets
    2·センバツ中止
    95.6K Tweets
    3·あなたのサークル
    288K Tweets
    4·#Hの文字でわかる性欲診断
    8,430 Tweets
    5·あなたの性欲
    8,543 Tweets
    6·#odwolajcieszkoleXD
    12.8K Tweets
    7·消費税0
    26.5K Tweets
    8·#キティちゃんのお絵かき
    28.7K Tweets
    9·#BerkinElvan
    18.3K Tweets

    You aren't using a VPN are you and it done some weird re-route?
  • Last year a pothole caused be over a grand's worth of damage to my vehicle.
    A new £120 tyre a few days back from a pothole. Made worse this year because it always bloody raining - you have no idea of the depth of a "puddle".
    It's that bloody loss of control straight after a blowout that really scares me, and the dashboard event management screaming at me.
  • TrèsDifficileTrèsDifficile Posts: 1,729

    Very strange twitter trends in London at the mo..

    1·#virüstürkiyede
    55.2K Tweets
    2·センバツ中止
    95.6K Tweets
    3·あなたのサークル
    288K Tweets
    4·#Hの文字でわかる性欲診断
    8,430 Tweets
    5·あなたの性欲
    8,543 Tweets
    6·#odwolajcieszkoleXD
    12.8K Tweets
    7·消費税0
    26.5K Tweets
    8·#キティちゃんのお絵かき
    28.7K Tweets
    9·#BerkinElvan
    18.3K Tweets

    It seems to have already reverted to proper London trends now, but I've noticed a lot of Chinese(?) in it a few times lately.
  • philiphphiliph Posts: 4,704
    Barnesian said:

    Arrived back from Northern Italy in the early hours to find my flat stocked with flowers and food by my daughters in anticipation of my self isolation for 14 days.

    Fantastic skiing for two days but empty slopes and hotels. Didn't visit bars or use gondalas. Alone on chair lifts. Sometimes couldn't see another person on the slopes.


    Inghams did a great job getting us home (the Austrians prevented us getting to Innsbruck). Flew out of Verona on a rescue flight.

    Glad you made it back, and hopefully healthy.

    There has been some talk about how hard it is mentally to self isolate for 14 days. Be fascinating to have your personal experience on here as you go through the days.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,838

    Nigelb said:

    Sandpit said:


    HYUFD said:
    There seems little point in providing money for research into epidemiology, public health and transmission of infectious diseases.

    There are untrained experts on twitter that provide their insights & knowledge for free.
    "There seems little point in providing money for research into epidemiology, public health and transmission of infectious diseases."

    Well, Trump certainly agrees with that.
    The graph that Rory Stewart has tweeted showing a neat "40 percent difference" in red is ludicrous. Any serious modeller would have confidence limits, for a start.

    The graph was created by someone called Tomas Pueyo, who seems to be a journalist and author, but he knows enough to create a simple model. We might as well ask SeanT & Henrietta to make the graph and get Rory to tweet it.

    Rory is someone who is coming out of this badly. My opinion of him has diminished very substantially. Who would have thought he would handle this worse than Boris?

    I think Boris realises how very damaging it would be to do something against the advice of his scientific and medical advisors.

    And epidemiology is a mature science on which a lot of research has been done for decades, and sophisticated modelling techniques are possible. So, Boris is right to listen to his experts (who are not party political).
    Like yourself, I quite liked Rory until a couple of days ago, almost to the point of wondering if Shaun Bailey should stand aside and give him a free run at Sadiq.

    Not now, he's quickly turned into yet another of the amateur internet epidemiologists who think - without evidence - that their opinion is more important that those of the Chief Medical Officer and Chief Scientist.

    Politicians and journalists really need to shut up and listen to the genuine experts. As someone suggested here yesterday, the media should be sending their science or health correspondents to the government briefings, rather than the political correspondents.
    Sorry, but this is balls.
    You might just as well say we shouldn't comment on government economic policy.
    We all have broadly the same access to economic theories and data, there is tons of it out there, various policies have been tried in many countries over many different situations. People outside the govt can have close to as much knowledge as the Treasury. It is also not time critical.

    On Covid 19 there is a very limited amount of data and knowledge, which changes on a daily basis, and is not widely known. No single expert from any field can have good context of the impacts to other fields.

    The two scenarios are very different. As long as the govt response is science led, given access to all available resources, other politicians and media should be very reluctant to criticise.
    It is the role of the scientific experts to set out the options: if you do a, x will happen; if you do b, y will happen, etc. But is the role of the politicians, not the experts, to choose whether to do a or b, and that is why it is a cop out for a politician to say they are simply following expert advice. Any choice is (one would hope!) science led, but choices must still be made. And other people may reasonably disagree with those choices.
    The US response is very clearly stock market led not scientific led. The Iranian response was very clearly religion led.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216
    IshmaelZ said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    TOPPING said:

    IanB2 said:

    TOPPING said:

    Looking at the FTSE we are so Wall Street's bitches.

    Still little sign of a decisive assault on 24000, which is holding for now.

    Rishi will rescue us this afternoon (perhaps)
    I say it quite often that equities is really the only game in town for the majority of investors.

    A friend I was with yesterday bought puts (now sold at a profit!) on the Dow and FTSEa short while ago which sounds like the type of trading you are doing. But for almost everyone else buy and hold is their (usually outsourced) strategy.

    I'd be interested to know whether @Ishmael_Z had gone back into the markets again yet.
    Buy and hold is the right strategy in almost all circumstances, the exception being the type of large longer lasting crash that comes along once or twice in a generation.

    Given what the medical experts are telling us lies ahead - a period of lock down, then a significant (but hopefully less so than it might have been) epidemic, a gradual return to normal, with the probability of a further epidemic next winter, I don't think buying back in will make any sense at all in 2020.

    Especially as the US looks as if it is setting itself up to be worst affected, and as you said yourself, Wall Street leads the world markets.
    Im close to buying at these rates, especially the UK markets. My impression is the risks of big disaster have subsided a bit in the last week, even if the economic costs are becoming clearer. FTSE 6000 feels fair value and think year end could easily be back above 7000. We should get some volatility the next week or two to allow buying in around 5500 or lower.
    On the underlying economic substance, you may have a point. You may also have a point in that previous crises have seen the bottom well before any resolution is in sight. It is however sentiment that drives markets, at least in the short term, and AFAICS a stream of bad news is pretty much nailed on for the next few months at least. I guess the counter-argument is if a vaccine or cure is discovered, or if by some miracle the virus melts away during the summer.

    The latter case is likely pain deferred, of course, and not a case for a buy. But I wouldn't fancy being caught holding sell positions the day a vaccine is announced.
    It doesnt sound like a miracle that the virus melts away during the summer. The govt are expecting a 3 week peak around April/May so are expecting big declines by the summer. It is odds on imo.
    We don't know what this coronavirus does in summer.
    it isn't summer in the southern hemisphere?

    Huge, if true....

  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,609
    Ben Page is right. For millions of people, rubbish collections and road repairs are about the only regular visible signs of their taxes being spent.
  • Very strange twitter trends in London at the mo..

    1·#virüstürkiyede
    55.2K Tweets
    2·センバツ中止
    95.6K Tweets
    3·あなたのサークル
    288K Tweets
    4·#Hの文字でわかる性欲診断
    8,430 Tweets
    5·あなたの性欲
    8,543 Tweets
    6·#odwolajcieszkoleXD
    12.8K Tweets
    7·消費税0
    26.5K Tweets
    8·#キティちゃんのお絵かき
    28.7K Tweets
    9·#BerkinElvan
    18.3K Tweets

    This is the view from Manchester.


  • dr_spyndr_spyn Posts: 11,300
    Labour leadership ballot foul ups, latest.

    https://twitter.com/IanMurrayMP/status/1237686044847464448
  • TrèsDifficileTrèsDifficile Posts: 1,729

    Very strange twitter trends in London at the mo..

    1·#virüstürkiyede
    55.2K Tweets
    2·センバツ中止
    95.6K Tweets
    3·あなたのサークル
    288K Tweets
    4·#Hの文字でわかる性欲診断
    8,430 Tweets
    5·あなたの性欲
    8,543 Tweets
    6·#odwolajcieszkoleXD
    12.8K Tweets
    7·消費税0
    26.5K Tweets
    8·#キティちゃんのお絵かき
    28.7K Tweets
    9·#BerkinElvan
    18.3K Tweets

    You aren't using a VPN are you and it done some weird re-route?
    I'm not using a VPN, and it's now gone back to Chinese stuff after being sensible trends for a moment. Very strange.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,119
    edited March 2020

    IshmaelZ said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    TOPPING said:

    IanB2 said:

    TOPPING said:

    Looking at the FTSE we are so Wall Street's bitches.

    Still little sign of a decisive assault on 24000, which is holding for now.

    Rishi will rescue us this afternoon (perhaps)
    I say it quite often that equities is really the only game in town for the majority of investors.

    A friend I was with yesterday bought puts (now sold at a profit!) on the Dow and FTSEa short while ago which sounds like the type of trading you are doing. But for almost everyone else buy and hold is their (usually outsourced) strategy.

    I'd be interested to know whether @Ishmael_Z had gone back into the markets again yet.
    Buy and hold is the right strategy in almost all circumstances, the exception being the type of large longer lasting crash that comes along once or twice in a generation.

    Given what the medical experts are telling us lies ahead - a period of lock down, then a significant (but hopefully less so than it might have been) epidemic, a gradual return to normal, with the probability of a further epidemic next winter, I don't think buying back in will make any sense at all in 2020.

    Especially as the US looks as if it is setting itself up to be worst affected, and as you said yourself, Wall Street leads the world markets.
    Im close to buying at these rates, especially the UK markets. My impression is the risks of big disaster have subsided a bit in the last week, even if the economic costs are becoming clearer. FTSE 6000 feels fair value and think year end could easily be back above 7000. We should get some volatility the next week or two to allow buying in around 5500 or lower.
    On the underlying economic substance, you may have a point. You may also have a point in that previous crises have seen the bottom well before any resolution is in sight. It is however sentiment that drives markets, at least in the short term, and AFAICS a stream of bad news is pretty much nailed on for the next few months at least. I guess the counter-argument is if a vaccine or cure is discovered, or if by some miracle the virus melts away during the summer.

    The latter case is likely pain deferred, of course, and not a case for a buy. But I wouldn't fancy being caught holding sell positions the day a vaccine is announced.
    It doesnt sound like a miracle that the virus melts away during the summer. The govt are expecting a 3 week peak around April/May so are expecting big declines by the summer. It is odds on imo.
    We don't know what this coronavirus does in summer.
    it isn't summer in the southern hemisphere?

    Huge, if true....

    I think Australia has ~120 cases, but I believe again majority of those are imported from China and Italy (and it got into an OAP home, which is the equivalent of cruise ship really).
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,708
    edited March 2020

    Very strange twitter trends in London at the mo..

    1·#virüstürkiyede
    55.2K Tweets
    2·センバツ中止
    95.6K Tweets
    3·あなたのサークル
    288K Tweets
    4·#Hの文字でわかる性欲診断
    8,430 Tweets
    5·あなたの性欲
    8,543 Tweets
    6·#odwolajcieszkoleXD
    12.8K Tweets
    7·消費税0
    26.5K Tweets
    8·#キティちゃんのお絵かき
    28.7K Tweets
    9·#BerkinElvan
    18.3K Tweets

    You aren't using a VPN are you and it done some weird re-route?
    Also geolocation isn't an exact science, for example you might have an IP that was recently Japanese.
  • eristdooferistdoof Posts: 5,065
    edited March 2020
    Pro_Rata said:

    Nations by Coronavirus infection rate of over 1 per 100k population:

    >20 per 100k: Iceland
    >10 per 100k: Italy, SK
    >5 per 100k: China, Iran, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, Bahrain
    >2 per 100k: France, Spain, Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium, Austria, Singapore
    >1 per 100k: Germany, Hong Kong, Kuwait, Slovenia, Macau, Malta
    1 per 100k bar excludes UK, most SE Asia, Japan at present

    The Iceland case is like a test cricketer who plays 4 innings scoring 80 runs and not out 3 times. His average is 80 runs, second only to Donald Bradman. There is a reason why tables of records have a cut off for small denominators. The total population of Iceland ist simply too low to make it comparable with e.g. Switzerland.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 61,806
    Dr. Spyn, I put a tiny sum on RLB just in case this is a sign of voting irregularities being widespread.
  • jayfdeejayfdee Posts: 618
    I have just done some lightweight panic buying as I intend to self isolate after a skiing trip, no shortages of anything, very quiet, and no-one panic buying.
    A few years ago I did a 28 day expedition in Nepal, miles from anywhere, towards the end the most valuable commodity was toilet paper. Nepalese often call toilet paper "The European prayer flag"
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    IshmaelZ said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    TOPPING said:

    IanB2 said:

    TOPPING said:

    Looking at the FTSE we are so Wall Street's bitches.

    Still little sign of a decisive assault on 24000, which is holding for now.

    Rishi will rescue us this afternoon (perhaps)
    I say it quite often that equities is really the only game in town for the majority of investors.

    A friend I was with yesterday bought puts (now sold at a profit!) on the Dow and FTSEa short while ago which sounds like the type of trading you are doing. But for almost everyone else buy and hold is their (usually outsourced) strategy.

    I'd be interested to know whether @Ishmael_Z had gone back into the markets again yet.
    Buy and hold is the right strategy in almost all circumstances, the exception being the type of large longer lasting crash that comes along once or twice in a generation.

    Given what the medical experts are telling us lies ahead - a period of lock down, then a significant (but hopefully less so than it might have been) epidemic, a gradual return to normal, with the probability of a further epidemic next winter, I don't think buying back in will make any sense at all in 2020.

    Especially as the US looks as if it is setting itself up to be worst affected, and as you said yourself, Wall Street leads the world markets.
    Im close to buying at these rates, especially the UK markets. My impression is the risks of big disaster have subsided a bit in the last week, even if the economic costs are becoming clearer. FTSE 6000 feels fair value and think year end could easily be back above 7000. We should get some volatility the next week or two to allow buying in around 5500 or lower.
    On the underlying economic substance, you may have a point. You may also have a point in that previous crises have seen the bottom well before any resolution is in sight. It is however sentiment that drives markets, at least in the short term, and AFAICS a stream of bad news is pretty much nailed on for the next few months at least. I guess the counter-argument is if a vaccine or cure is discovered, or if by some miracle the virus melts away during the summer.

    The latter case is likely pain deferred, of course, and not a case for a buy. But I wouldn't fancy being caught holding sell positions the day a vaccine is announced.
    It doesnt sound like a miracle that the virus melts away during the summer. The govt are expecting a 3 week peak around April/May so are expecting big declines by the summer. It is odds on imo.
    We don't know what this coronavirus does in summer.
    it isn't summer in the southern hemisphere?

    Huge, if true....

    Look at where we have data from.

    https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/geographical-distribution-2019-ncov-cases
  • TrèsDifficileTrèsDifficile Posts: 1,729

    Very strange twitter trends in London at the mo..

    1·#virüstürkiyede
    55.2K Tweets
    2·センバツ中止
    95.6K Tweets
    3·あなたのサークル
    288K Tweets
    4·#Hの文字でわかる性欲診断
    8,430 Tweets
    5·あなたの性欲
    8,543 Tweets
    6·#odwolajcieszkoleXD
    12.8K Tweets
    7·消費税0
    26.5K Tweets
    8·#キティちゃんのお絵かき
    28.7K Tweets
    9·#BerkinElvan
    18.3K Tweets

    This is the view from Manchester.


    Looks pretty similar! Do Huawei house twitter's servers?!
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,609

    Last year a pothole caused be over a grand's worth of damage to my vehicle.
    A new £120 tyre a few days back from a pothole. Made worse this year because it always bloody raining - you have no idea of the depth of a "puddle".
    It's that bloody loss of control straight after a blowout that really scares me, and the dashboard event management screaming at me.
    In aviation we have the phrase “Aviate, Navigate, Communicate” - in an emergency, do them in that order!
  • Lying in bed last night I thought "Feck It!" and decided not to attend the conference I was due to be at today. Just heading for home.

    Yup. That was my decision point on this weekend's LibDem conference. "erm no"
  • eristdooferistdoof Posts: 5,065
    Sandpit said:

    Ben Page is right. For millions of people, rubbish collections and road repairs are about the only regular visible signs of their taxes being spent.
    Schools are the most visible sign of taxes being spent.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 36,003
    https://twitter.com/RaynerSkyNews/status/1237686843287756800

    We may soon be in the position of authorities resolutely refusing to close Parliament, but no MPs attending...
  • Nigelb said:

    Sandpit said:


    HYUFD said:
    There seems little point in providing money for research into epidemiology, public health and transmission of infectious diseases.

    There are untrained experts on twitter that provide their insights & knowledge for free.
    "There seems little point in providing money for research into epidemiology, public health and transmission of infectious diseases."

    Well, Trump certainly agrees with that.
    The graph that Rory Stewart has tweeted showing a neat "40 percent difference" in red is ludicrous. Any serious modeller would have confidence limits, for a start.

    The graph was created by someone called Tomas Pueyo, who seems to be a journalist and author, but he knows enough to create a simple model. We might as well ask SeanT & Henrietta to make the graph and get Rory to tweet it.

    Rory is someone who is coming out of this badly. My opinion of him has diminished very substantially. Who would have thought he would handle this worse than Boris?

    I think Boris realises how very damaging it would be to do something against the advice of his scientific and medical advisors.

    And epidemiology is a mature science on which a lot of research has been done for decades, and sophisticated modelling techniques are possible. So, Boris is right to listen to his experts (who are not party political).
    Like yourself, I quite liked Rory until a couple of days ago, almost to the point of wondering if Shaun Bailey should stand aside and give him a free run at Sadiq.

    Not now, he's quickly turned into yet another of the amateur internet epidemiologists who think - without evidence - that their opinion is more important that those of the Chief Medical Officer and Chief Scientist.

    Politicians and journalists really need to shut up and listen to the genuine experts. As someone suggested here yesterday, the media should be sending their science or health correspondents to the government briefings, rather than the political correspondents.
    Sorry, but this is balls.
    You might just as well say we shouldn't comment on government economic policy.
    We all have broadly the same access to economic theories and data, there is tons of it out there, various policies have been tried in many countries over many different situations. People outside the govt can have close to as much knowledge as the Treasury. It is also not time critical.

    On Covid 19 there is a very limited amount of data and knowledge, which changes on a daily basis, and is not widely known. No single expert from any field can have good context of the impacts to other fields.

    The two scenarios are very different. As long as the govt response is science led, given access to all available resources, other politicians and media should be very reluctant to criticise.
    It is the role of the scientific experts to set out the options: if you do a, x will happen; if you do b, y will happen, etc. But is the role of the politicians, not the experts, to choose whether to do a or b, and that is why it is a cop out for a politician to say they are simply following expert advice. Any choice is (one would hope!) science led, but choices must still be made. And other people may reasonably disagree with those choices.
    The US response is very clearly stock market led not scientific led. The Iranian response was very clearly religion led.
    Indeed, and that is tragic. The job of the politicians is (or should be!) to choose between a and b, not to dispute or ignore the scientific evidence that a will result in x, etc. We're not, I hope, that bad, but scientifically led politicians still have to make political, and hence disputable, choices.
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 8,604
    philiph said:

    Barnesian said:

    Arrived back from Northern Italy in the early hours to find my flat stocked with flowers and food by my daughters in anticipation of my self isolation for 14 days.

    Fantastic skiing for two days but empty slopes and hotels. Didn't visit bars or use gondalas. Alone on chair lifts. Sometimes couldn't see another person on the slopes.


    Inghams did a great job getting us home (the Austrians prevented us getting to Innsbruck). Flew out of Verona on a rescue flight.

    Glad you made it back, and hopefully healthy.

    There has been some talk about how hard it is mentally to self isolate for 14 days. Be fascinating to have your personal experience on here as you go through the days.
    I feel very healthy. I've even got a tan. I'm fully provisioned including 15 bog rolls - I alway keep a buffer of 9. I have a balcony where I can sit in the sun watching the world go by. Lots of news to follow, TV to watch, bets to make, comments on here. Family, friends and helpful neighbours nearby. So far, so good. But I only got home at 2:45am today so early days. :smiley:
  • kinabalu said:

    Very much my experience but it took 3 months cold turkey to achieve it

    Now I am so against smoking and cannot stand being near anyone smoking or vaping

    During my copd health check 2 years ago the nurse commented that stopping smoking had saved my life

    How did you manage to sleep during the worst of the cold turkey?
    It was a battle but the benefit is enormous
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,609
    eristdoof said:

    Sandpit said:

    Ben Page is right. For millions of people, rubbish collections and road repairs are about the only regular visible signs of their taxes being spent.
    Schools are the most visible sign of taxes being spent.
    Only for those with children!
  • eristdooferistdoof Posts: 5,065

    IshmaelZ said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    TOPPING said:

    IanB2 said:

    TOPPING said:

    Looking at the FTSE we are so Wall Street's bitches.

    Still little sign of a decisive assault on 24000, which is holding for now.

    Rishi will rescue us this afternoon (perhaps)
    I say it quite often that equities is really the only game in town for the majority of investors.

    A friend I was with yesterday bought puts (now sold at a profit!) on the Dow and FTSEa short while ago which sounds like the type of trading you are doing. But for almost everyone else buy and hold is their (usually outsourced) strategy.

    I'd be interested to know whether @Ishmael_Z had gone back into the markets again yet.
    Buy and hold is the right strategy in almost all circumstances, the exception being the type of large longer lasting crash that comes along once or twice in a generation.

    Given what the medical experts are telling us lies ahead - a period of lock down, then a significant (but hopefully less so than it might have been) epidemic, a gradual return to normal, with the probability of a further epidemic next winter, I don't think buying back in will make any sense at all in 2020.

    Especially as the US looks as if it is setting itself up to be worst affected, and as you said yourself, Wall Street leads the world markets.
    Im close to buying at these rates, especially the UK markets. My impression is the risks of big disaster have subsided a bit in the last week, even if the economic costs are becoming clearer. FTSE 6000 feels fair value and think year end could easily be back above 7000. We should get some volatility the next week or two to allow buying in around 5500 or lower.
    On the underlying economic substance, you may have a point. You may also have a point in that previous crises have seen the bottom well before any resolution is in sight. It is however sentiment that drives markets, at least in the short term, and AFAICS a stream of bad news is pretty much nailed on for the next few months at least. I guess the counter-argument is if a vaccine or cure is discovered, or if by some miracle the virus melts away during the summer.

    The latter case is likely pain deferred, of course, and not a case for a buy. But I wouldn't fancy being caught holding sell positions the day a vaccine is announced.
    It doesnt sound like a miracle that the virus melts away during the summer. The govt are expecting a 3 week peak around April/May so are expecting big declines by the summer. It is odds on imo.
    We don't know what this coronavirus does in summer.

    We do know that MERS, another coronavirus, comes from Saudi Arabian camels.
    Its worth bearing in mind that most coronaviruses melt away in a combination of hot, sunny and humid.

    Saudi is hot and sunny but dry, its lacking the humidity that we have in this counry.
    Totally off topic: I remeber an Italian student spending a year at Bath Uni was genuinely surprised how hot 24° in England seemed. The reason being the much higher humidity of a summer in the UK compared to North Italy.
  • not_on_firenot_on_fire Posts: 4,449
    Perhaps this will be the moment Westminster finally modernises and allows remote /electronic voting
  • eristdooferistdoof Posts: 5,065
    Sandpit said:

    eristdoof said:

    Sandpit said:

    Ben Page is right. For millions of people, rubbish collections and road repairs are about the only regular visible signs of their taxes being spent.
    Schools are the most visible sign of taxes being spent.
    Only for those with children!
    Are you saying people without kids never see any schools or kids in school uniform?
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,609

    Perhaps this will be the moment Westminster finally modernises and allows remote /electronic voting

    Way more likely that they have a truncated two-day debate on the Budget, then adjourn for the recess early.
  • Time_to_LeaveTime_to_Leave Posts: 2,547
    In case the Chancellor is reading, I would just like to propose that if he reads through the budget bingo list at the start of his speech it will act as a decent economic stimulus; at least in this bit of the country.
  • eristdooferistdoof Posts: 5,065

    Perhaps this will be the moment Westminster finally modernises and allows remote /electronic voting

    "The Corona positives to the right 356..."
  • dr_spyndr_spyn Posts: 11,300
    Home Sec and PM will be nervous, and so will all those women in that photo from No10.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8099279/Nadine-Dorries-reveals-one-parliamentary-staff-coronavirus.html

  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,868
    Sandpit said:

    Last year a pothole caused be over a grand's worth of damage to my vehicle.
    A new £120 tyre a few days back from a pothole. Made worse this year because it always bloody raining - you have no idea of the depth of a "puddle".
    It's that bloody loss of control straight after a blowout that really scares me, and the dashboard event management screaming at me.
    In aviation we have the phrase “Aviate, Navigate, Communicate” - in an emergency, do them in that order!
    Yup. Steer the aircraft toward the ground. Pick where you want to crash. Then call for help
  • brokenwheelbrokenwheel Posts: 3,352
    edited March 2020

    Very strange twitter trends in London at the mo..

    1·#virüstürkiyede
    55.2K Tweets
    2·センバツ中止
    95.6K Tweets
    3·あなたのサークル
    288K Tweets
    4·#Hの文字でわかる性欲診断
    8,430 Tweets
    5·あなたの性欲
    8,543 Tweets
    6·#odwolajcieszkoleXD
    12.8K Tweets
    7·消費税0
    26.5K Tweets
    8·#キティちゃんのお絵かき
    28.7K Tweets
    9·#BerkinElvan
    18.3K Tweets

    You aren't using a VPN are you and it done some weird re-route?
    I'm not using a VPN, and it's now gone back to Chinese stuff after being sensible trends for a moment. Very strange.
    That is Japanese, not Chinese.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216
    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    TOPPING said:

    IanB2 said:

    TOPPING said:

    Looking at the FTSE we are so Wall Street's bitches.

    Still little sign of a decisive assault on 24000, which is holding for now.

    Rishi will rescue us this afternoon (perhaps)
    I say it quite often that equities is really the only game in town for the majority of investors.

    A friend I was with yesterday bought puts (now sold at a profit!) on the Dow and FTSEa short while ago which sounds like the type of trading you are doing. But for almost everyone else buy and hold is their (usually outsourced) strategy.

    I'd be interested to know whether @Ishmael_Z had gone back into the markets again yet.
    Buy and hold is the right strategy in almost all circumstances, the exception being the type of large longer lasting crash that comes along once or twice in a generation.

    Given what the medical experts are telling us lies ahead - a period of lock down, then a significant (but hopefully less so than it might have been) epidemic, a gradual return to normal, with the probability of a further epidemic next winter, I don't think buying back in will make any sense at all in 2020.

    Especially as the US looks as if it is setting itself up to be worst affected, and as you said yourself, Wall Street leads the world markets.
    Im close to buying at these rates, especially the UK markets. My impression is the risks of big disaster have subsided a bit in the last week, even if the economic costs are becoming clearer. FTSE 6000 feels fair value and think year end could easily be back above 7000. We should get some volatility the next week or two to allow buying in around 5500 or lower.
    On the underlying economic substance, you may have a point. You may also have a point in that previous crises have seen the bottom well before any resolution is in sight. It is however sentiment that drives markets, at least in the short term, and AFAICS a stream of bad news is pretty much nailed on for the next few months at least. I guess the counter-argument is if a vaccine or cure is discovered, or if by some miracle the virus melts away during the summer.

    The latter case is likely pain deferred, of course, and not a case for a buy. But I wouldn't fancy being caught holding sell positions the day a vaccine is announced.
    It doesnt sound like a miracle that the virus melts away during the summer. The govt are expecting a 3 week peak around April/May so are expecting big declines by the summer. It is odds on imo.
    We don't know what this coronavirus does in summer.
    it isn't summer in the southern hemisphere?

    Huge, if true....

    Look at where we have data from.

    https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/geographical-distribution-2019-ncov-cases
    Most cases in the "winter" not the "summer" - yes?
  • not_on_firenot_on_fire Posts: 4,449
    edited March 2020
    eristdoof said:

    Perhaps this will be the moment Westminster finally modernises and allows remote /electronic voting

    "The Corona positives to the right 356..."
    New idea for a dystopia: all MPs except JRM are quarantined, allowing him to pass legilsation re-consituting the Corn laws and bringing back the workhouse
  • eristdoof said:

    Perhaps this will be the moment Westminster finally modernises and allows remote /electronic voting

    "The Corona positives to the right 356..."
    Guten Morgen, Mr Doof!
    You were complaining about a lack of publicity. Switch on your telly. Bundespressekonferenz broadcast live on Phoenix, RTL, NTV, WELT TV with Merkel, Spahn and the RKI chair.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 9,167
    edited March 2020
    China seems to be the big test of a totally different approach. So far they look, apparently at least, to be doing well.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,225

    Nigelb said:

    Sandpit said:


    HYUFD said:
    There seems little point in providing money for research into epidemiology, public health and transmission of infectious diseases.

    There are untrained experts on twitter that provide their insights & knowledge for free.
    "There seems little point in providing money for research into epidemiology, public health and transmission of infectious diseases."

    Well, Trump certainly agrees with that.
    The graph that Rory Stewart has tweeted showing a neat "40 percent difference" in red is ludicrous. Any serious modeller would have confidence limits, for a start.

    The graph was created by someone called Tomas Pueyo, who seems to be a journalist and author, but he knows enough to create a simple model. We might as well ask SeanT & Henrietta to make the graph and get Rory to tweet it.

    Rory is someone who is coming out of this badly. My opinion of him has diminished very substantially. Who would have thought he would handle this worse than Boris?

    I think Boris realises how very damaging it would be to do something against the advice of his scientific and medical advisors.

    And epidemiology is a mature science on which a lot of research has been done for decades, and sophisticated modelling techniques are possible. So, Boris is right to listen to his experts (who are not party political).
    Like yourself, I quite liked Rory until a couple of days ago, almost to the point of wondering if Shaun Bailey should stand aside and give him a free run at Sadiq.

    Not now, he's quickly turned into yet another of the amateur internet epidemiologists who think - without evidence - that their opinion is more important that those of the Chief Medical Officer and Chief Scientist.

    Politicians and journalists really need to shut up and listen to the genuine experts. As someone suggested here yesterday, the media should be sending their science or health correspondents to the government briefings, rather than the political correspondents.
    Sorry, but this is balls.
    You might just as well say we shouldn't comment on government economic policy.
    We all have broadly the same access to economic theories and data, there is tons of it out there, various policies have been tried in many countries over many different situations. People outside the govt can have close to as much knowledge as the Treasury. It is also not time critical.

    On Covid 19 there is a very limited amount of data and knowledge, which changes on a daily basis, and is not widely known. No single expert from any field can have good context of the impacts to other fields.

    The two scenarios are very different. As long as the govt response is science led, given access to all available resources, other politicians and media should be very reluctant to criticise.
    Actually much of the science on Covid is being posted online as it develops.

    As an example, I noted the German paper reporting patients presenting with cold symptoms who were shedding virus, and questioned why government wasn't advising all those with URTIs to self isolate.
    (Which action might have prevented Nadine infecting half the cabinet...)
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,119
    I see Marjorie Dawes of Fat Fighters fame is taking over hosting Great British Bake Off....inspired casting.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 13,898
    Morning all :)

    First, I wish Nadine Dorries and indeed all those suffering from coronavirus a swift and full recovery.

    I'm left with the thought there seem to be a lot of asymptomatic people out there so perhaps this won't last. I presume once you've had it you can't have it again (I may be wrong about that) while asymptomatic people will just carry the virus without the symptoms.

    If the proportion of asymptomatic people is large it will be serious (and for some, regrettably, a lot more than serious) but for many it will be nothing.

    One of the reasons the Spanish Flu did so much damage it was a new variant to which no one was immune or asymptomatic. Everyone was vulnerable and the death toll was enormous.

    On potholes and road repairs, I'm afraid it was the unbalanced austerity of the Coalition that has led to the significant fall in spending on highway maintenance. By ring-fencing the NHS and Education, the axe fell disproportionately elsewhere and spending on roads has fallen by about a half in real terms since 2010.

    Our roads are a disgrace and there is a point about providing reliable transport infrastructure so it is about planes, trains and automobiles (and ships and barges and buses and ferries and trams and the rest).
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,677
    dr_spyn said:

    Home Sec and PM will be nervous, and so will all those women in that photo from No10.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8099279/Nadine-Dorries-reveals-one-parliamentary-staff-coronavirus.html

    If Johnson gets it I will be celebrating International Women's Day next as I will have laughed my dick off.
  • Pro_RataPro_Rata Posts: 5,288
    eristdoof said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    Nations by Coronavirus infection rate of over 1 per 100k population:

    >20 per 100k: Iceland
    >10 per 100k: Italy, SK
    >5 per 100k: China, Iran, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, Bahrain
    >2 per 100k: France, Spain, Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium, Austria, Singapore
    >1 per 100k: Germany, Hong Kong, Kuwait, Slovenia, Macau, Malta
    1 per 100k bar excludes UK, most SE Asia, Japan at present

    The Iceland case is like a test cricketer who plays 4 innings scoring 80 runs and not out 3 times. His average is 80 runs, second only to Donald Bradman. There is a reason why tables of records have a cut off for small denominators. The total population of Iceland ist simply too low to make it comparable with e.g. Switzerland.
    Tbf, I cut off San Marino. Iceland feeds into a pattern of Nordic countries being quite high up this list, and its 80 cases are somewhat more noteworthy in world terms than a cricketer with 80 aggregate runs.

    With a squint of my eye there does seem to be something of a north-south dynamic in many places where you might think it relevant, be it in Spain where Madrid leads but Northern regions are consistently 3-5x more affected than Southern ones, be it the unexpected prominence of Nordic countries here, be it in the Italian and French outbreaks, or the Iranian outbreak, or Washington state running ahead of California, or the prominence of the Hokkaido outbreak in Japan.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,226
    Barnesian said:

    I feel very healthy. I've even got a tan. I'm fully provisioned including 15 bog rolls - I alway keep a buffer of 9. I have a balcony where I can sit in the sun watching the world go by. Lots of news to follow, TV to watch, bets to make, comments on here. Family, friends and helpful neighbours nearby. So far, so good. But I only got home at 2:45am today so early days. :smiley:

    Is that (per name) in Barnes?
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,119
    edited March 2020
    stodge said:


    I'm left with the thought there seem to be a lot of asymptomatic people out there so perhaps this won't last. I presume once you've had it you can't have it again (I may be wrong about that) while asymptomatic people will just carry the virus without the symptoms.

    I think the reports of reinfection were probably down to false negative tests, however there are two different strains already and I don't think anybody knows if you have had one if you can contract the other.

    You would hope that because you have had something very very similar that even if you could contract it the effects would be further minimized, in the way flu goes round each year and we all have an inbuilt tolerance to it so must feel crap for a day or two and thats about it.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,225
    edited March 2020
    Barnesian said:

    philiph said:

    Barnesian said:

    Arrived back from Northern Italy in the early hours to find my flat stocked with flowers and food by my daughters in anticipation of my self isolation for 14 days.

    Fantastic skiing for two days but empty slopes and hotels. Didn't visit bars or use gondalas. Alone on chair lifts. Sometimes couldn't see another person on the slopes.


    Inghams did a great job getting us home (the Austrians prevented us getting to Innsbruck). Flew out of Verona on a rescue flight.

    Glad you made it back, and hopefully healthy.

    There has been some talk about how hard it is mentally to self isolate for 14 days. Be fascinating to have your personal experience on here as you go through the days.
    I feel very healthy. I've even got a tan. I'm fully provisioned including 15 bog rolls - I alway keep a buffer of 9...
    What do you buff with them... ?


    & welcome back !
  • Dura_Ace said:

    dr_spyn said:

    Home Sec and PM will be nervous, and so will all those women in that photo from No10.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8099279/Nadine-Dorries-reveals-one-parliamentary-staff-coronavirus.html

    If Johnson gets it I will be celebrating International Women's Day next as I will have laughed my dick off.
    Charming
  • dr_spyndr_spyn Posts: 11,300
    Budget Day, good day to release bad news.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-51776404

    Russian interference with GE story reappears.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,119
    edited March 2020
    This is excellent news....it is the way SK appear to have got on top of things. The report says weeks, I bloody hope it is more 1 week than 3-4 weeks.

    10k tests day with 24hr turn around

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8099471/NHS-test-10-000-patients-killer-coronavirus-day.html

  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 9,167
    edited March 2020
    Pro_Rata said:

    eristdoof said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    Nations by Coronavirus infection rate of over 1 per 100k population:

    >20 per 100k: Iceland
    >10 per 100k: Italy, SK
    >5 per 100k: China, Iran, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, Bahrain
    >2 per 100k: France, Spain, Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium, Austria, Singapore
    >1 per 100k: Germany, Hong Kong, Kuwait, Slovenia, Macau, Malta
    1 per 100k bar excludes UK, most SE Asia, Japan at present

    The Iceland case is like a test cricketer who plays 4 innings scoring 80 runs and not out 3 times. His average is 80 runs, second only to Donald Bradman. There is a reason why tables of records have a cut off for small denominators. The total population of Iceland ist simply too low to make it comparable with e.g. Switzerland.
    Tbf, I cut off San Marino. Iceland feeds into a pattern of Nordic countries being quite high up this list, and its 80 cases are somewhat more noteworthy in world terms than a cricketer with 80 aggregate runs.

    With a squint of my eye there does seem to be something of a north-south dynamic in many places where you might think it relevant, be it in Spain where Madrid leads but Northern regions are consistently 3-5x more affected than Southern ones, be it the unexpected prominence of Nordic countries here, be it in the Italian and French outbreaks, or the Iranian outbreak, or Washington state running ahead of California, or the prominence of the Hokkaido outbreak in Japan.
    It would be good to think warm weather, which feels like it's coming, will step in to the save the day for us, even though that may be a bit premature.
  • This is excellent news....it is the way SK appear to have got on top of things.

    10k tests day with 24hr turn around

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8099471/NHS-test-10-000-patients-killer-coronavirus-day.html

    Time for the US to learn something about healthcare.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,601
    Pro_Rata said:

    Nations by reported Coronavirus infection rate of over 1 per 100k population:

    >20 per 100k: Iceland
    >10 per 100k: Italy, SK
    >5 per 100k: China, Iran, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, Bahrain
    >2 per 100k: France, Spain, Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium, Austria, Singapore
    >1 per 100k: Germany, Hong Kong, Kuwait, Slovenia, Macau, Malta
    1 per 100k bar excludes UK, USA most SE Asia, Japan at present

    The mortality rate in NW Europe is currently about 0.5.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,119
    dr_spyn said:

    Budget Day, good day to release bad news.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-51776404

    Russian interference with GE story reappears.

    It also remains unclear how the Labour Party got hold of the leaked documents. At the time, they did not reveal their source, and they did not respond to BBC Trending's recent requests for comment.

    At the time of the leak, Mr Corbyn described suggestions that Labour might have benefited from a Russian operation as "nonsense".
  • nichomarnichomar Posts: 7,483

    Pro_Rata said:

    eristdoof said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    Nations by Coronavirus infection rate of over 1 per 100k population:

    >20 per 100k: Iceland
    >10 per 100k: Italy, SK
    >5 per 100k: China, Iran, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, Bahrain
    >2 per 100k: France, Spain, Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium, Austria, Singapore
    >1 per 100k: Germany, Hong Kong, Kuwait, Slovenia, Macau, Malta
    1 per 100k bar excludes UK, most SE Asia, Japan at present

    The Iceland case is like a test cricketer who plays 4 innings scoring 80 runs and not out 3 times. His average is 80 runs, second only to Donald Bradman. There is a reason why tables of records have a cut off for small denominators. The total population of Iceland ist simply too low to make it comparable with e.g. Switzerland.
    Tbf, I cut off San Marino. Iceland feeds into a pattern of Nordic countries being quite high up this list, and its 80 cases are somewhat more noteworthy in world terms than a cricketer with 80 aggregate runs.

    With a squint of my eye there does seem to be something of a north-south dynamic in many places where you might think it relevant, be it in Spain where Madrid leads but Northern regions are consistently 3-5x more affected than Southern ones, be it the unexpected prominence of Nordic countries here, be it in the Italian and French outbreaks, or the Iranian outbreak, or Washington state running ahead of California, or the prominence of the Hokkaido outbreak in Japan.
    It would be good to think warm weather, which feels like it's coming, will step in to the save the day for us, even though that may be a bit premature.
    I must admit to hoping the temperature is a key issue. Today’s high on the coast 24 but 14 in Madrid. Does anyone know what warm is to the virus?
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,226
    OllyT said:

    Just about anybody but Trump would suit most people right now.

    Biden is an experienced Senator and former Vice-President. Even if he's not as sharp as he was he will have the sense to be surrounded by experienced advisers. He won't believe that he knows better than anyone else as Trump does.

    Biden would be a very significant upgrade in the current crisis, instead we've got an egotistical moron.

    Trump is forever wearing that stupid red cap now.

    "Keep America Great" it says on it.

    Unbelievable.
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 8,604
    kinabalu said:

    Barnesian said:

    I feel very healthy. I've even got a tan. I'm fully provisioned including 15 bog rolls - I alway keep a buffer of 9. I have a balcony where I can sit in the sun watching the world go by. Lots of news to follow, TV to watch, bets to make, comments on here. Family, friends and helpful neighbours nearby. So far, so good. But I only got home at 2:45am today so early days. :smiley:

    Is that (per name) in Barnes?
    Yes.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 13,898


    I think the reports of reinfection were probably down to false negative tests, however there are two different strains already and I don't think anybody knows if you have had one if you can contract the other.

    You would hope that because you have had something very very similar that even if you could contract it the effects would be further minimized, in the way flu goes round each year and we all have an inbuilt tolerance to it so must feel crap for a day or two and thats about it.

    Indeed and I'm beginning to wonder if we are mistaking one term for two different things.

    The H1N1 virus was the cause of the 1918 Spanish flu and was so deadly because it was a new strain incorporating avian elements whereas the 2009 strain had elements from pigs. This is when it becomes really dangerous - when you have a new strain against which the normal immunity is ineffective and the whole population is therefore at risk.

    Each year's flu is basically a repeat of the existing strain so there is a degree of immunity in the population but those with pre-existing health problems are always at heightened risk.

    I'm not sure about this virus - it seems to originate from bats or pangolins which would make it a new strain but I would have expected a much wider and faster spread among populations.

    As always, I am terrified by the depth of my ignorance.
  • eristdooferistdoof Posts: 5,065

    eristdoof said:

    Perhaps this will be the moment Westminster finally modernises and allows remote /electronic voting

    "The Corona positives to the right 356..."
    Guten Morgen, Mr Doof!
    You were complaining about a lack of publicity. Switch on your telly. Bundespressekonferenz broadcast live on Phoenix, RTL, NTV, WELT TV with Merkel, Spahn and the RKI chair.
    LIeber Herr von Hamburg,
    I don't have a telly, but I will certainly look up the press conference later, after I have bought some hamsters :wink:

    To be fair though I did comment on both Karl Lauterbach's interview yesterday and Spahn's interview today on DLF. There has been a definite step up in coverage as this week has progressed, last week it appeared like there was a deliberate approach from the media to report Corona related stories separately (economic/health/travel etc) rather than link them together, presumably to avoud the accusation of scaremongering. I hope that in the long term, the Federal Government is able to wrest control in a health crisis which has implications for the the whole country. Having to hope that all of the 16 states implememt the national advice is far from ideal.

    Stay healthy!
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,359
    philiph said:

    Barnesian said:

    Arrived back from Northern Italy in the early hours to find my flat stocked with flowers and food by my daughters in anticipation of my self isolation for 14 days.

    Fantastic skiing for two days but empty slopes and hotels. Didn't visit bars or use gondalas. Alone on chair lifts. Sometimes couldn't see another person on the slopes.


    Inghams did a great job getting us home (the Austrians prevented us getting to Innsbruck). Flew out of Verona on a rescue flight.

    Glad you made it back, and hopefully healthy.

    There has been some talk about how hard it is mentally to self isolate for 14 days. Be fascinating to have your personal experience on here as you go through the days.
    Hard to see why it would be difficult to spend 14 days at home if you have food and drink, can read, TV , etc. Should be a dawdle.
  • stodge said:

    Morning all :)

    First, I wish Nadine Dorries and indeed all those suffering from coronavirus a swift and full recovery.

    I'm left with the thought there seem to be a lot of asymptomatic people out there so perhaps this won't last. I presume once you've had it you can't have it again (I may be wrong about that) while asymptomatic people will just carry the virus without the symptoms.

    If the proportion of asymptomatic people is large it will be serious (and for some, regrettably, a lot more than serious) but for many it will be nothing.

    One of the reasons the Spanish Flu did so much damage it was a new variant to which no one was immune or asymptomatic. Everyone was vulnerable and the death toll was enormous.

    On potholes and road repairs, I'm afraid it was the unbalanced austerity of the Coalition that has led to the significant fall in spending on highway maintenance. By ring-fencing the NHS and Education, the axe fell disproportionately elsewhere and spending on roads has fallen by about a half in real terms since 2010.

    Our roads are a disgrace and there is a point about providing reliable transport infrastructure so it is about planes, trains and automobiles (and ships and barges and buses and ferries and trams and the rest).

    The Diamond Princess may give a rough indication of the proportion of people who are immune or asymptomatic. Of the 3,700 passengers on board, 696 became infected, 410 of whom were (so far!) asymptomatic. Assuming that all the people on board were exposed to the virus and that it is a representative sample of the population (both very shaky assumptions, I know), this would indicate that 81% of people are immune and 11% asymptomatic.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,868
    malcolmg said:

    philiph said:

    Barnesian said:

    Arrived back from Northern Italy in the early hours to find my flat stocked with flowers and food by my daughters in anticipation of my self isolation for 14 days.

    Fantastic skiing for two days but empty slopes and hotels. Didn't visit bars or use gondalas. Alone on chair lifts. Sometimes couldn't see another person on the slopes.


    Inghams did a great job getting us home (the Austrians prevented us getting to Innsbruck). Flew out of Verona on a rescue flight.

    Glad you made it back, and hopefully healthy.

    There has been some talk about how hard it is mentally to self isolate for 14 days. Be fascinating to have your personal experience on here as you go through the days.
    Hard to see why it would be difficult to spend 14 days at home if you have food and drink, can read, TV , etc. Should be a dawdle.
    I had to do that after my back operation, except for very brief prescribed walks. I got through a lot of box sets.

    If you are fit you can always decorate.
  • dr_spyndr_spyn Posts: 11,300
    https://twitter.com/SiDedman/status/1237696204437368838

    Remains to be seen if this is the case.

  • eristdooferistdoof Posts: 5,065
    Nigelb said:

    Barnesian said:

    philiph said:

    Barnesian said:

    Arrived back from Northern Italy in the early hours to find my flat stocked with flowers and food by my daughters in anticipation of my self isolation for 14 days.

    Fantastic skiing for two days but empty slopes and hotels. Didn't visit bars or use gondalas. Alone on chair lifts. Sometimes couldn't see another person on the slopes.


    Inghams did a great job getting us home (the Austrians prevented us getting to Innsbruck). Flew out of Verona on a rescue flight.

    Glad you made it back, and hopefully healthy.

    There has been some talk about how hard it is mentally to self isolate for 14 days. Be fascinating to have your personal experience on here as you go through the days.
    I feel very healthy. I've even got a tan. I'm fully provisioned including 15 bog rolls - I alway keep a buffer of 9...
    What do you buff with them... ?
    IanB2 has just told us.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,119

    stodge said:

    Morning all :)

    First, I wish Nadine Dorries and indeed all those suffering from coronavirus a swift and full recovery.

    I'm left with the thought there seem to be a lot of asymptomatic people out there so perhaps this won't last. I presume once you've had it you can't have it again (I may be wrong about that) while asymptomatic people will just carry the virus without the symptoms.

    If the proportion of asymptomatic people is large it will be serious (and for some, regrettably, a lot more than serious) but for many it will be nothing.

    One of the reasons the Spanish Flu did so much damage it was a new variant to which no one was immune or asymptomatic. Everyone was vulnerable and the death toll was enormous.

    On potholes and road repairs, I'm afraid it was the unbalanced austerity of the Coalition that has led to the significant fall in spending on highway maintenance. By ring-fencing the NHS and Education, the axe fell disproportionately elsewhere and spending on roads has fallen by about a half in real terms since 2010.

    Our roads are a disgrace and there is a point about providing reliable transport infrastructure so it is about planes, trains and automobiles (and ships and barges and buses and ferries and trams and the rest).

    The Diamond Princess may give a rough indication of the proportion of people who are immune or asymptomatic. Of the 3,700 passengers on board, 696 became infected, 410 of whom were (so far!) asymptomatic. Assuming that all the people on board were exposed to the virus and that it is a representative sample of the population (both very shaky assumptions, I know), this would indicate that 81% of people are immune and 11% asymptomatic.
    I heard the British couple who are still in a Japanese hospital (but recovering well), who do daily YouTube videos say that when it first broke out there were told it was fine you can still carry on as normal and so everybody continued to go to the restaurants etc for a good couple of days afterwards.

    Now, it was probably already exposed everybody it could, but if it hadn't, they certainly made sure.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,225
    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Sandpit said:


    HYUFD said:
    There seems little point in providing money for research into epidemiology, public health and transmission of infectious diseases.

    There are untrained experts on twitter that provide their insights & knowledge for free.
    "There seems little point in providing money for research into epidemiology, public health and transmission of infectious diseases."

    Well, Trump certainly agrees with that.
    The graph that Rory Stewart has tweeted showing a neat "40 percent difference" in red is ludicrous. Any serious modeller would have confidence limits, for a start.

    The graph was created by someone called Tomas Pueyo, who seems to be a journalist and author, but he knows enough to create a simple model. We might as well ask SeanT & Henrietta to make the graph and get Rory to tweet it.

    Rory is someone who is coming out of this badly. My opinion of him has diminished very substantially. Who would have thought he would handle this worse than Boris?

    I think Boris realises how very damaging it would be to do something against the advice of his scientific and medical advisors.

    And epidemiology is a mature science on which a lot of research has been done for decades, and sophisticated modelling techniques are possible. So, Boris is right to listen to his experts (who are not party political).
    Like yourself, I quite liked Rory until a couple of days ago, almost to the point of wondering if Shaun Bailey should stand aside and give him a free run at Sadiq.

    Not now, he's quickly turned into yet another of the amateur internet epidemiologists who think - without evidence - that their opinion is more important that those of the Chief Medical Officer and Chief Scientist.

    Politicians and journalists really need to shut up and listen to the genuine experts. As someone suggested here yesterday, the media should be sending their science or health correspondents to the government briefings, rather than the political correspondents.
    Sorry, but this is balls.
    You might just as well say we shouldn't comment on government economic policy.
    We all have broadly the same access to economic theories and data, there is tons of it out there, various policies have been tried in many countries over many different situations. People outside the govt can have close to as much knowledge as the Treasury. It is also not time critical.

    On Covid 19 there is a very limited amount of data and knowledge, which changes on a daily basis, and is not widely known. No single expert from any field can have good context of the impacts to other fields.

    The two scenarios are very different. As long as the govt response is science led, given access to all available resources, other politicians and media should be very reluctant to criticise.
    Actually much of the science on Covid is being posted online as it develops.

    As an example, I noted the German paper reporting patients presenting with cold symptoms who were shedding virus, and questioned why government wasn't advising all those with URTIs to self isolate.
    (Which action might have prevented Nadine infecting half the cabinet...)
    Or as the Taiwanese government put it:
    https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/what-taiwan-can-teach-world-fighting-coronavirus-n1153826
    “We think only when information is transparent, and people have sufficient medical knowledge, will their fear be reduced,” Kolas, the government spokeswoman, said....
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,119
    Why not just test him anyway. You know, given he is kinda of an important person and will be interacting with all the egg-heads that are crucial to this.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216
    edited March 2020
    For the "who says the public won't follow government guidance?" brigade:

    Kantar:

    To what extent do you [think] the public will follow the government guidance on Coronavirus?

    Almost Everyone: 8
    Most will: 49
    Most Won't: 28
    Almost Nobody: 4
    Not Sure: 11

    Older demographics more trusting of fellow citizens:

    Net Will:
    65+: +45
    18-24: +15
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 21,675
  • Why not just test him anyway. You know, given he is kinda of an important person and will be interacting with all the egg-heads that are crucial to this.
    To a certain extent he probably really doesn't want to know, like Trump.

    Understandable, if not useful.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,767
    Well, well, Joe Biden. I was panicking about Sanders three or four weeks ago, as I was looking at a big financial loss by my standards.

    I am now laid up and fully green unless black swan, bat shit crazy happens.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,226
    Barnesian said:

    Yes.

    Tranquil, I found, when I lived there. Perfect place to self isolate - especially if you have a view of the river.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,225

    Why not just test him anyway. You know, given he is kinda of an important person and will be interacting with all the egg-heads that are crucial to this.
    They probably have, but thought we might all panic ?
  • matthiasfromhamburgmatthiasfromhamburg Posts: 957
    edited March 2020
    eristdoof said:

    eristdoof said:

    Perhaps this will be the moment Westminster finally modernises and allows remote /electronic voting

    "The Corona positives to the right 356..."
    Guten Morgen, Mr Doof!
    You were complaining about a lack of publicity. Switch on your telly. Bundespressekonferenz broadcast live on Phoenix, RTL, NTV, WELT TV with Merkel, Spahn and the RKI chair.
    LIeber Herr von Hamburg,
    I don't have a telly, but I will certainly look up the press conference later, after I have bought some hamsters :wink:

    To be fair though I did comment on both Karl Lauterbach's interview yesterday and Spahn's interview today on DLF. There has been a definite step up in coverage as this week has progressed, last week it appeared like there was a deliberate approach from the media to report Corona related stories separately (economic/health/travel etc) rather than link them together, presumably to avoud the accusation of scaremongering. I hope that in the long term, the Federal Government is able to wrest control in a health crisis which has implications for the the whole country. Having to hope that all of the 16 states implememt the national advice is far from ideal.

    Stay healthy!
    Thank you. As you are living in Germany, you will be aware that the federal system is constantly under review and sometimes changed. I fully agree that there is a good argument to be made that for purposes of disease control (and several other things) a shift of competences to the national level makes sense.

    Stay healthy!
  • Stark_DawningStark_Dawning Posts: 9,680

    Why not just test him anyway. You know, given he is kinda of an important person and will be interacting with all the egg-heads that are crucial to this.
    It would make Boris look foolish - a panicked bumbler who went against his own advice. They want to project a sombre, Churchillian presence here.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,359
    IanB2 said:

    malcolmg said:

    philiph said:

    Barnesian said:

    Arrived back from Northern Italy in the early hours to find my flat stocked with flowers and food by my daughters in anticipation of my self isolation for 14 days.

    Fantastic skiing for two days but empty slopes and hotels. Didn't visit bars or use gondalas. Alone on chair lifts. Sometimes couldn't see another person on the slopes.


    Inghams did a great job getting us home (the Austrians prevented us getting to Innsbruck). Flew out of Verona on a rescue flight.

    Glad you made it back, and hopefully healthy.

    There has been some talk about how hard it is mentally to self isolate for 14 days. Be fascinating to have your personal experience on here as you go through the days.
    Hard to see why it would be difficult to spend 14 days at home if you have food and drink, can read, TV , etc. Should be a dawdle.
    I had to do that after my back operation, except for very brief prescribed walks. I got through a lot of box sets.

    If you are fit you can always decorate.
    I am doing it now except odd foray to shops or hospital appointments given my wife's condition and will be for more than two weeks for sure.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,359
    Jonathan said:
    They will be scared they find he has mad cow disease
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,119
    Nigelb said:

    Why not just test him anyway. You know, given he is kinda of an important person and will be interacting with all the egg-heads that are crucial to this.
    They probably have, but thought we might all panic ?
    I kinda of suspect VVIP are getting regularly tested.
This discussion has been closed.