So let's start looking forward a bit to see what's going to happen.
I think schools will stay open throughout unless we are totally on our knees. I have been preparing my wife for that who is a teacher. They will cancel exams/Ofsted/everything and will be babysitting until summer.
Universities will slowly move to WFH and/or terms might be suspended until September. Students are doing this themselves anyway.
Public events will cancel themselves, the bottom-up cancelling is probably what the government intends anyway. Pubs will stay open but people won't go.
WFH will start en masse, again, mainly based on individuals and companies acting sensibly. The civil service will be interesting and one to watch out for.
The movement of people will not close down like Italy and broadly we will try and keep the show on the road for as long as possible.
Hospitals will be places you won't want to go. All non-acute care will basically stop. All doctors will be doing the same thing - treating patients with coronavirus. GP surgeries will go mainly digital within the next few weeks, with a few appointments for those who don't have iPads.
If we do do a lockdown then that will be a sign of failure of this policy.
That seems right (except the last paragraph, which maybe overstates the case), and the net result is basically the same as Japan, except done by everyone ignoring their Prime Minister instead of listening to them.
He is also a former Health Secretary who served in that role for just under six years, and very recently at that. While I'm willing to give the government a lot of leeway in incredibly difficult circumstances, Jeremy Hunt is someone whose opinion is worth paying attention to as well. He can be expected to be familiar with the relevant considerations.
If ever there was a time for no backseat drivers, it's now.
Don't follow any advice blindly. The government's approach, as explained, seems well-reasoned. It's also easy to see how it could fail.
Being very cynical, panicking first is usually a good individual strategy, if selfish.
He is also a former Health Secretary who served in that role for just under six years, and very recently at that. While I'm willing to give the government a lot of leeway in incredibly difficult circumstances, Jeremy Hunt is someone whose opinion is worth paying attention to as well. He can be expected to be familiar with the relevant considerations.
If ever there was a time for no backseat drivers, it's now.
Backseat drivers? No. But things do need to be questioned rigorously. If the scientific arguments can’t stand up to scrutiny they are probably wrong.
The South Koreans and others are basically rolling the dice, even on our analysis. If we develop effective anti-virals or a vaccine in the next few months they will have rolled a 6. If not, well, how much worse off are they?
There's not going to be a vaccine ready, tested and manufacturable in quantity this year. Next year, maybe.
There might be some earlier progress in drugs for treatment or at least mitigation of the worst effects in patients, if we're lucky.
You keep hearing rumours that some variant of existing anti-virals or even AIDS medication manages to bring the reaction that causes the bronchial pneumonia under control but so far there is very little follow up. For saving lives in the short run that has to be the key.
"The race to test coronavirus antiviral drugs and vaccines is under way
I'm afraid what the government does is going to have very little ultimate effect on anything. Think Maggie Simpson in the opening credits, with the toy steering wheel.
The government has literally said it is doing nothing at the moment.
They certainly need to share the advice with thoughtful people in Labour & other parties.
When Labour have a leader and front bench who are mainstream democratic politicians this would be a good idea. At the moment it would be about as sensible as sharing your thoughts with Hamas, Mr Trump and Tommy Robinson.
Agreed
Labour need to get a move on with their leadership election -- probably LN & RLB should just agree to withdraw, and be offered Shadow Cabinet places in return.
Starmer is made (possibly Temporary) Leader. If Starmer turns out to be any good, they can quietly forget about the Temporary. If not, they can revisit.
He is also a former Health Secretary who served in that role for just under six years, and very recently at that. While I'm willing to give the government a lot of leeway in incredibly difficult circumstances, Jeremy Hunt is someone whose opinion is worth paying attention to as well. He can be expected to be familiar with the relevant considerations.
If ever there was a time for no backseat drivers, it's now.
I have great admiration for Jeremy Hunt but I don't think this is a time for top politicians to be laying down quotes now just in case they can use them in 6 months time to say "I told you so" when it is obvious that the science is uncertain and all decisions are risks. At the moment there is no downside in opposing whatever the government does. Tories should take care over politicising here.
In the interview's Hunt gave I don't think his comments were unreasonable at all. Such like don't go and visit Granny if you don't have to, seem perfectly reasonable.
I'm afraid what the government does is going to have very little ultimate effect on anything. Think Maggie Simpson in the opening credits, with the toy steering wheel.
The government has literally said it is doing nothing at the moment.
That's absolutely not true. And I am one who wonders if they should be doing more.
Problem is we have a Parliament, media and civil service stuffed with lawyers, arts graduates and classicists who can’t dissect the models, challenge the maths and ask the probing questions.
The football league has basically just taken a decision to bankrupt itself in defiance of govt advice (sporting events can continue). They then complain govt has not provided “leadership”. Basically they just want the govt to give different advice.
He is also a former Health Secretary who served in that role for just under six years, and very recently at that. While I'm willing to give the government a lot of leeway in incredibly difficult circumstances, Jeremy Hunt is someone whose opinion is worth paying attention to as well. He can be expected to be familiar with the relevant considerations.
If ever there was a time for no backseat drivers, it's now.
I have great admiration for Jeremy Hunt but I don't think this is a time for top politicians to be laying down quotes now just in case they can use them in 6 months time to say "I told you so" when it is obvious that the science is uncertain and all decisions are risks. At the moment there is no downside in opposing whatever the government does. Tories should take care over politicising here.
Open criticism makes decision-making better, not worse. Generally in British politics the worst decisions are the ones everyone agrees with at the time.
He is also a former Health Secretary who served in that role for just under six years, and very recently at that. While I'm willing to give the government a lot of leeway in incredibly difficult circumstances, Jeremy Hunt is someone whose opinion is worth paying attention to as well. He can be expected to be familiar with the relevant considerations.
If ever there was a time for no backseat drivers, it's now.
I have great admiration for Jeremy Hunt but I don't think this is a time for top politicians to be laying down quotes now just in case they can use them in 6 months time to say "I told you so" when it is obvious that the science is uncertain and all decisions are risks. At the moment there is no downside in opposing whatever the government does. Tories should take care over politicising here.
Was there a recent arrival of people from the Madrid area anywhere into the country, heading into a large event somewhere ? It's escaped my mind where it could be.
Problem is we have a Parliament, media and civil service stuffed with lawyers, arts graduates and classicists who can’t dissect the models, challenge the maths and ask the probing questions.
We really are in strange times....I totally agree with you
The South Koreans and others are basically rolling the dice, even on our analysis. If we develop effective anti-virals or a vaccine in the next few months they will have rolled a 6. If not, well, how much worse off are they?
More correctly, they are rolling a die. But perhaps that would need disambiguation.
The South Koreans and others are basically rolling the dice, even on our analysis. If we develop effective anti-virals or a vaccine in the next few months they will have rolled a 6. If not, well, how much worse off are they?
More correctly, they are rolling a die. But perhaps that would need disambiguation.
I honestly thought about saying rolled 12 to get around that problem. Too late now.
It would be interesting to hear an explanation as to why we cannot or don't want to follow suit that is a little more informative than, "because the experts say so".
They have explained it. They think all this does is temporarily put a lid on it, and that in a month or two it will flair up again, rinse and repeat for years to come. They don't believe in 3 months that will be it, finished forever. They think it will now come around every year like normal flu.
If they are right or not, well we are the experiment.
I don't think anyone believes in 3 months that will be it, but the Koreans clearly believe that a radically different approach to the UK is warranted. Why might that be?
The reason surely is that they outbreak got rapidly out of control right at the start, so they needed to stomp hard on it. Same applies to Wuhan and to Italy, and now Spain.
In many ways it's like controlling a nuclear reactor: you want to damp down the number of neutrons produced in a controlled way, because once it starts getting out of control you have to shove your entire set of carbon rods in pretty damned quick or else your exponential increase become blow-out.
In the UK we've been fortunate, or perhaps have handled it particularly well, in that the initial containment phase has worked well and so we are starting from a more controlled base. It's clear what the government is trying to do - keep the spread steady but not eliminate it entirely - but of course calibrating the response so that you get just the right amount of spread is going to be tricky.
It has been reported that one initial cluster in Brighton was "diffused". I would guess that wasn't the only success.
It is striking that our mini-clusters haven’t gone on to become localised outbreaks, as clearly happened in Italy and now looks likely in Spain. Perhaps we simply had the advantage of more Social distance to start with?
Let's hope that Sky TV does not suffer because of the lack of football
With football and F1 (and likely a lot of other sport) cancelled for the next few months, I can see a lot of people downgrading Sky in favour of Netflix subscriptions.
Sport is about the only thing people watch live on TV any more.
Scenario: you work, you've recently been in hospital with a respiratory problem, including time in ICU . You've got a young school aged child. You are not fully recovered from what put you in hospital and have reduced lung function.
What advice has the government given or actions it has taken that are actionable/useful for you?
None, Take your child out of school and nail up your front door.
Which is effectively what we are doing. But that opens us up to prosecution for taking our child out of school.
I know someone who among other things deals with processing pupil absence for ******* City Council, a system where parents notify online that their kids are going to be off for appointments, illness etc; numbers have been increasing exponentially with corona virus given as a reason. There'll surely come a point when government has to recognise & regularise this.
He is also a former Health Secretary who served in that role for just under six years, and very recently at that. While I'm willing to give the government a lot of leeway in incredibly difficult circumstances, Jeremy Hunt is someone whose opinion is worth paying attention to as well. He can be expected to be familiar with the relevant considerations.
If ever there was a time for no backseat drivers, it's now.
Backseat drivers? No. But things do need to be questioned rigorously. If the scientific arguments can’t stand up to scrutiny they are probably wrong.
“Questioning” is fine. What I don’t like is people making ever more shrill “assertions” with the implicit certainty that the Govt and it’s experts are wrong, and they are right.
Was there a recent arrival of people from the Madrid area anywhere into the country, heading into a large event somewhere ? It's escaped my mind where it could be.
Well they own 50% plus of the houses and Easter is coming.
So let's start looking forward a bit to see what's going to happen.
I think schools will stay open throughout unless we are totally on our knees. I have been preparing my wife for that who is a teacher. They will cancel exams/Ofsted/everything and will be babysitting until summer.
Universities will slowly move to WFH and/or terms might be suspended until September. Students are doing this themselves anyway.
Public events will cancel themselves, the bottom-up cancelling is probably what the government intends anyway. Pubs will stay open but people won't go.
WFH will start en masse, again, mainly based on individuals and companies acting sensibly. The civil service will be interesting and one to watch out for.
The movement of people will not close down like Italy and broadly we will try and keep the show on the road for as long as possible.
Hospitals will be places you won't want to go. All non-acute care will basically stop. All doctors will be doing the same thing - treating patients with coronavirus. GP surgeries will go mainly digital within the next few weeks, with a few appointments for those who don't have iPads.
If we do do a lockdown then that will be a sign of failure of this policy.
Close to my thinking, but I expect there will be partial lockdowns.
I don't expect schools to stay fully open throughout.
There will be at least partial closures, and we are prepared for this, but the exams/university admissions period will be tricky.
The football league has basically just taken a decision to bankrupt itself in defiance of govt advice (sporting events can continue). They then complain govt has not provided “leadership”. Basically they just want the govt to give different advice.
It would be interesting to hear an explanation as to why we cannot or don't want to follow suit that is a little more informative than, "because the experts say so".
They have explained it. They think all this does is temporarily put a lid on it, and that in a month or two it will flair up again, rinse and repeat for years to come. They don't believe in 3 months that will be it, finished forever. They think it will now come around every year like normal flu.
If they are right or not, well we are the experiment.
I don't think anyone believes in 3 months that will be it, but the Koreans clearly believe that a radically different approach to the UK is warranted. Why might that be?
The reason surely is that they outbreak got rapidly out of control right at the start, so they needed to stomp hard on it. Same applies to Wuhan and to Italy, and now Spain.
In many ways it's like controlling a nuclear reactor: you want to damp down the number of neutrons produced in a controlled way, because once it starts getting out of control you have to shove your entire set of carbon rods in pretty damned quick or else your exponential increase become blow-out.
In the UK we've been fortunate, or perhaps have handled it particularly well, in that the initial containment phase has worked well and so we are starting from a more controlled base. It's clear what the government is trying to do - keep the spread steady but not eliminate it entirely - but of course calibrating the response so that you get just the right amount of spread is going to be tricky.
It has been reported that one initial cluster in Brighton was "diffused". I would guess that wasn't the only success.
It is striking that our mini-clusters haven’t gone on to become localised outbreaks, as clearly happened in Italy and now looks likely in Spain. Perhaps we simply had the advantage of more Social distance to start with?
I think that actually that was the benefit / effectiveness of the large amounts of testing / contact tracing that we did early on - diffuse as effectively as possible as well as delay the onset. Whatever happens from here we clearly did better in that stage than lots of other countries which has seemingly bought us time.
In the interview's Hunt gave I don't think his comments were unreasonable at all. Such like don't go and visit Granny if you don't have to, seem perfectly reasonable.
His comment in the ES is more nuanced than the tweet:
However, there are other things the more successful countries have done that we are not currently doing. I was surprised they weren’t announced yesterday and I hope they will be soon. “Social distancing” — measures that stop people getting too close to each other — is the most important.
Most healthy adults and children will recover quickly if they catch the virus, but the worry is they could pass it on to older or more vulnerable people. Why are we allowing visitors to care homes then? Travel bans are a last resort but many people could be encouraged to work from home — and reduce crowding on the Tube, buses and trains.
I hope and trust we will hear more from the Government on these kinds of actions very soon, because short-term inconvenience is infinitely better than the heartbreaking scenes we are now seeing in Italy. The clock is ticking.
I think that's a fair critique - may be right, may be wrong - and a lot better than the "why aren't we doing like country X"? crowd. And in fairness to the government - yesterday they did make significant changes to policy - "7 days, stay at home and DON'T call 111" - and Singapore - further down the road than the UK - only announced social distancing yesterday (and haven't closed schools).
Article is by a microbiology professor whose properly into zoonotic viruses so worth reading for yourself (original source was The Conversation, which publishes a lot of stuff by academics - reading it there has the benefit the author has answered some readers' questions in the comments section!).
There's still uncertainty about what route it took to make the jump from animals to humans, and figuring that out would help to prevent the next such leap...
The volatility of the market is just absurd. The FTSE is bouncing around by a couple of percent every 10 minutes. That used to be a big move in a day. Is there any actual volume to this or is it market makers just moving their indicative prices?
In the interview's Hunt gave I don't think his comments were unreasonable at all. Such like don't go and visit Granny if you don't have to, seem perfectly reasonable.
His comment in the ES is more nuanced than the tweet:
However, there are other things the more successful countries have done that we are not currently doing. I was surprised they weren’t announced yesterday and I hope they will be soon. “Social distancing” — measures that stop people getting too close to each other — is the most important.
Most healthy adults and children will recover quickly if they catch the virus, but the worry is they could pass it on to older or more vulnerable people. Why are we allowing visitors to care homes then? Travel bans are a last resort but many people could be encouraged to work from home — and reduce crowding on the Tube, buses and trains.
I hope and trust we will hear more from the Government on these kinds of actions very soon, because short-term inconvenience is infinitely better than the heartbreaking scenes we are now seeing in Italy. The clock is ticking.
I think that's a fair critique - may be right, may be wrong - and a lot better than the "why aren't we doing like country X"? crowd. And in fairness to the government - yesterday they did make significant changes to policy - "7 days, stay at home and DON'T call 111" - and Singapore - further down the road than the UK - only announced social distancing yesterday (and haven't closed schools).
Yes I think he is onboard with the general strategy but wants some tweaking around the edges. I agree with him and think we need to move faster on guidance on WFH and locking up our elders.
But once we have all got our heads around the fact that there is no cavalry charge coming to save us, then the master plan makes sense. It's going to be brutal but we must fight on.
The volatility of the market is just absurd. The FTSE is bouncing around by a couple of percent every 10 minutes. That used to be a big move in a day. Is there any actual volume to this or is it market makers just moving their indicative prices?
Isn't it more a reflection that this is so far outside everyone's normal experience that no one has a clue what fair value is?
The football league has basically just taken a decision to bankrupt itself in defiance of govt advice (sporting events can continue). They then complain govt has not provided “leadership”. Basically they just want the govt to give different advice.
It would be interesting to hear an explanation as to why we cannot or don't want to follow suit that is a little more informative than, "because the experts say so".
They have explained it. They think all this does is temporarily put a lid on it, and that in a month or two it will flair up again, rinse and repeat for years to come. They don't believe in 3 months that will be it, finished forever. They think it will now come around every year like normal flu.
If they are right or not, well we are the experiment.
I don't think anyone believes in 3 months that will be it, but the Koreans clearly believe that a radically different approach to the UK is warranted. Why might that be?
The reason surely is that the Korean outbreak got rapidly out of control right at the start, so they needed to stomp hard on it. Same applies to Wuhan and to Italy, and now Spain.
In many ways it's like controlling a nuclear reactor: you want to damp down the number of neutrons produced in a controlled way, because once it starts getting out of control you have to shove your entire set of carbon rods in pretty damned quick or else your exponential increase become blow-out.
In the UK we've been fortunate, or perhaps have handled it particularly well, in that the initial containment phase has worked well and so we are starting from a more controlled base. It's clear what the government is trying to do - keep the spread steady but not eliminate it entirely - but of course calibrating the response so that you get just the right amount of spread is going to be tricky.
That’s a really good analogy.
Not really. The clear aim in China and Korea is to shut the reaction down completely.
We are trying to run a nuclear reaction with limited information as to whether it has gone runaway (stopping community testing), and serious uncertainty as to whether the control rods will act fast enough if it does.
But exponentials are involved in both processes, certainly.
The South Koreans and others are basically rolling the dice, even on our analysis. If we develop effective anti-virals or a vaccine in the next few months they will have rolled a 6. If not, well, how much worse off are they?
More correctly, they are rolling a die. But perhaps that would need disambiguation.
You could have just written rolling a dice, as dice is perfectly acceptable as a singular.
35% increase day on day...We really aren't running much behind Italy in terms of numbers (or daily increase), even if it more spread out etc, I just can't see how we are 4 weeks behind them.
It would be interesting to hear an explanation as to why we cannot or don't want to follow suit that is a little more informative than, "because the experts say so".
They have explained it. They think all this does is temporarily put a lid on it, and that in a month or two it will flair up again, rinse and repeat for years to come. They don't believe in 3 months that will be it, finished forever. They think it will now come around every year like normal flu.
If they are right or not, well we are the experiment.
I don't think anyone believes in 3 months that will be it, but the Koreans clearly believe that a radically different approach to the UK is warranted. Why might that be?
The reason surely is that the Korean outbreak got rapidly out of control right at the start, so they needed to stomp hard on it. Same applies to Wuhan and to Italy, and now Spain.
In many ways it's like controlling a nuclear reactor: you want to damp down the number of neutrons produced in a controlled way, because once it starts getting out of control you have to shove your entire set of carbon rods in pretty damned quick or else your exponential increase become blow-out.
In the UK we've been fortunate, or perhaps have handled it particularly well, in that the initial containment phase has worked well and so we are starting from a more controlled base. It's clear what the government is trying to do - keep the spread steady but not eliminate it entirely - but of course calibrating the response so that you get just the right amount of spread is going to be tricky.
That’s a really good analogy.
Not really. The clear aim in China and Korea is to shut the reaction down completely.
We are trying to run a nuclear reaction with limited information as to whether it has gone runaway (stopping community testing), and serious uncertainty as to whether the control rods will act fast enough if it does.
But exponentials are involved in both processes, certainly.
The better analogy is a forest fire. If you kill it at source then that is one approach. If you can't then you manage it. Alternatively, the wood might need some resistance building into so you manage the fire the best you can.
It would be interesting to hear an explanation as to why we cannot or don't want to follow suit that is a little more informative than, "because the experts say so".
They have explained it. They think all this does is temporarily put a lid on it, and that in a month or two it will flair up again, rinse and repeat for years to come. They don't believe in 3 months that will be it, finished forever. They think it will now come around every year like normal flu.
If they are right or not, well we are the experiment.
I don't think anyone believes in 3 months that will be it, but the Koreans clearly believe that a radically different approach to the UK is warranted. Why might that be?
The reason surely is that the Korean outbreak got rapidly out of control right at the start, so they needed to stomp hard on it. Same applies to Wuhan and to Italy, and now Spain.
In many ways it's like controlling a nuclear reactor: you want to damp down the number of neutrons produced in a controlled way, because once it starts getting out of control you have to shove your entire set of carbon rods in pretty damned quick or else your exponential increase become blow-out.
In the UK we've been fortunate, or perhaps have handled it particularly well, in that the initial containment phase has worked well and so we are starting from a more controlled base. It's clear what the government is trying to do - keep the spread steady but not eliminate it entirely - but of course calibrating the response so that you get just the right amount of spread is going to be tricky.
That’s a really good analogy.
Not really. The clear aim in China and Korea is to shut the reaction down completely.
Wow, that's a 35% jump. I imagine we move to the next stage quickly if this continues.
Chap on BBC News last night (broadly supportive of the government's pathway so far), said they'd have to escalate if the confirmed cases reach 1,000 by the end of the weekend. That looks likely now.
It would be interesting to hear an explanation as to why we cannot or don't want to follow suit that is a little more informative than, "because the experts say so".
They have explained it. They think all this does is temporarily put a lid on it, and that in a month or two it will flair up again, rinse and repeat for years to come. They don't believe in 3 months that will be it, finished forever. They think it will now come around every year like normal flu.
If they are right or not, well we are the experiment.
I don't think anyone believes in 3 months that will be it, but the Koreans clearly believe that a radically different approach to the UK is warranted. Why might that be?
The reason surely is that the Korean outbreak got rapidly out of control right at the start, so they needed to stomp hard on it. Same applies to Wuhan and to Italy, and now Spain.
In many ways it's like controlling a nuclear reactor: you want to damp down the number of neutrons produced in a controlled way, because once it starts getting out of control you have to shove your entire set of carbon rods in pretty damned quick or else your exponential increase become blow-out.
In the UK we've been fortunate, or perhaps have handled it particularly well, in that the initial containment phase has worked well and so we are starting from a more controlled base. It's clear what the government is trying to do - keep the spread steady but not eliminate it entirely - but of course calibrating the response so that you get just the right amount of spread is going to be tricky.
That’s a really good analogy.
Not really. The clear aim in China and Korea is to shut the reaction down completely.
We are trying to run a nuclear reaction with limited information as to whether it has gone runaway (stopping community testing), and serious uncertainty as to whether the control rods will act fast enough if it does.
But exponentials are involved in both processes, certainly.
The better analogy is a forest fire. If you kill it at source then that is one approach. If you can't then you manage it. Alternatively, the wood might need some resistance building into so you manage the fire the best you can.
Certainly a closer analogy, but I'm not sure how illuminating analogies are.
The South Koreans and others are basically rolling the dice, even on our analysis. If we develop effective anti-virals or a vaccine in the next few months they will have rolled a 6. If not, well, how much worse off are they?
More correctly, they are rolling a die. But perhaps that would need disambiguation.
You could have just written rolling a dice, as dice is perfectly acceptable as a singular.
The reason surely is that the Korean outbreak got rapidly out of control right at the start, so they needed to stomp hard on it. Same applies to Wuhan and to Italy, and now Spain.
In many ways it's like controlling a nuclear reactor: you want to damp down the number of neutrons produced in a controlled way, because once it starts getting out of control you have to shove your entire set of carbon rods in pretty damned quick or else your exponential increase become blow-out.
In the UK we've been fortunate, or perhaps have handled it particularly well, in that the initial containment phase has worked well and so we are starting from a more controlled base. It's clear what the government is trying to do - keep the spread steady but not eliminate it entirely - but of course calibrating the response so that you get just the right amount of spread is going to be tricky.
This analogy highlights the problem for BoZo.
He has told the nation that we are not deploying any control rods.
He's hoping to void Fukushima, but might just end with Chernobyl instead.
35% increase day on day...We really aren't running much behind Italy in terms of numbers (or daily increase), even if it more spread out etc, I just can't see how we are 4 weeks behind them.
Lets See: 28 days ago Italy had 3 [three] cases, Overnight the UK had 590 cases 14 days ago Italy had cases 653. The UK is roughly two weeks behind Italy, not four weeks.
Right at the moment I can't get this Edgar Allan Poe verse out of my head. There's an inevitability of what looms ahead that seems to be summed up by this verse:
I stand amid the roar Of a surf-tormented shore, And I hold within my hand Grains of the golden sand — How few! yet how they creep Through my fingers to the deep, While I weep — while I weep! O God! Can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp? O God! can I not save One from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream?
But given the boffins think there's 10,000 out there anyway, this is just testing catching up with reality?
Also _ i understand that medical staff in hospitals being tested every couple of days - Well, in my area at least
I just had a conversation with a healthcare professional this morning and they said that is what is happening to them, however I shocked when asked about what extra precautions they are taking when it comes to things like conducting regular prick tests at local GP surgeries for underlying conditions i.e. can it be done without an individual entering the surgery, the answer was we haven't thought about it.
35% increase day on day...We really aren't running much behind Italy in terms of numbers (or daily increase), even if it more spread out etc, I just can't see how we are 4 weeks behind them.
Lets See: 28 days ago Italy had 3 [three] cases, Overnight the UK had 590 cases 14 days ago Italy had cases 653. The UK is roughly two weeks behind Italy, not four weeks.
Testing much faster now though. They must be basing it on their estimate of community infection.
The South Koreans and others are basically rolling the dice, even on our analysis. If we develop effective anti-virals or a vaccine in the next few months they will have rolled a 6. If not, well, how much worse off are they?
More correctly, they are rolling a die. But perhaps that would need disambiguation.
You could have just written rolling a dice, as dice is perfectly acceptable as a singular.
Well quite. I did say "more correctly".
No. Either is equally correct. Indeed dice is the preferred usage in Chambers.
Right at the moment I can't get this Edgar Allan Poe verse out of my head. There's an inevitability of what looms ahead that seems to be summed up by this verse:
I stand amid the roar Of a surf-tormented shore, And I hold within my hand Grains of the golden sand — How few! yet how they creep Through my fingers to the deep, While I weep — while I weep! O God! Can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp? O God! can I not save One from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream?
The reason surely is that the Korean outbreak got rapidly out of control right at the start, so they needed to stomp hard on it. Same applies to Wuhan and to Italy, and now Spain.
In many ways it's like controlling a nuclear reactor: you want to damp down the number of neutrons produced in a controlled way, because once it starts getting out of control you have to shove your entire set of carbon rods in pretty damned quick or else your exponential increase become blow-out.
In the UK we've been fortunate, or perhaps have handled it particularly well, in that the initial containment phase has worked well and so we are starting from a more controlled base. It's clear what the government is trying to do - keep the spread steady but not eliminate it entirely - but of course calibrating the response so that you get just the right amount of spread is going to be tricky.
This analogy highlights the problem for BoZo.
He has told the nation that we are not deploying any control rods.
He's hoping to void Fukushima, but might just end with Chernobyl instead.
The optimistic scenario is that we are on top of the figures and when we project, a fortnight ahead, that we have enough cases to keep the NHS fully occupied, we lock down. They’re just not spelling out all of the plan to everyone in advance.
The social science is as much about how to construct the message as anything else. And is they clearly provided the egg-heads with what they believe are the realistic lengths of time that people can restrict various every day activities. When to pull the lever is clearly in the hands of medical experts.
For the first time Biden (1.11) is lower than Trunp (1.12) with BF to lead their respective parties into the next election. And Biden hasn`t won the nomination yet.
Right at the moment I can't get this Edgar Allan Poe verse out of my head. There's an inevitability of what looms ahead that seems to be summed up by this verse:
I stand amid the roar Of a surf-tormented shore, And I hold within my hand Grains of the golden sand — How few! yet how they creep Through my fingers to the deep, While I weep — while I weep! O God! Can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp? O God! can I not save One from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream?
Right at the moment I can't get this Edgar Allan Poe verse out of my head. There's an inevitability of what looms ahead that seems to be summed up by this verse:
I stand amid the roar Of a surf-tormented shore, And I hold within my hand Grains of the golden sand — How few! yet how they creep Through my fingers to the deep, While I weep — while I weep! O God! Can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp? O God! can I not save One from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream?
The news that Morrisons will make immediate payments to SME suppliers is very welcome. We're on 60 days - by far the longest of any of the major multiples - with Morrisons so a drop to "48 hours" as promised will make a big difference. Businesses are going to fail unless big steps like this are taken - other behemoth sized corporates please follow the leadership from Bradford...
From what I can see the food industry is working flat out, but the self-isolation risk hangs over all of us. Those of us in management roles can WFH as I am now. But our factories can't, our hauliers can't, the people who physically moves things around the route to market until it appears on shelf can't. Its these considerations which I believe are behind the delicate balancing act the government are doing.
Comments
Being very cynical, panicking first is usually a good individual strategy, if selfish.
Labour need to get a move on with their leadership election -- probably LN & RLB should just agree to withdraw, and be offered Shadow Cabinet places in return.
Starmer is made (possibly Temporary) Leader. If Starmer turns out to be any good, they can quietly forget about the Temporary. If not, they can revisit.
Labour need a new Leader now, not on April 4th.
Spain is Italy. 1200 new cases, 60 new deaths so far today.
It's escaped my mind where it could be.
Sport is about the only thing people watch live on TV any more.
I made over £400 last year from that alone.
https://twitter.com/natashabertrand/status/1238454333370445826?s=21
However, there are other things the more successful countries have done that we are not currently doing. I was surprised they weren’t announced yesterday and I hope they will be soon. “Social distancing” — measures that stop people getting too close to each other — is the most important.
Most healthy adults and children will recover quickly if they catch the virus, but the worry is they could pass it on to older or more vulnerable people. Why are we allowing visitors to care homes then? Travel bans are a last resort but many people could be encouraged to work from home — and reduce crowding on the Tube, buses and trains.
I hope and trust we will hear more from the Government on these kinds of actions very soon, because short-term inconvenience is infinitely better than the heartbreaking scenes we are now seeing in Italy. The clock is ticking.
https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/the-clock-is-ticking-on-this-crisis-the-next-four-weeks-are-critical-a4386736.html?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1584104371
I think that's a fair critique - may be right, may be wrong - and a lot better than the "why aren't we doing like country X"? crowd. And in fairness to the government - yesterday they did make significant changes to policy - "7 days, stay at home and DON'T call 111" - and Singapore - further down the road than the UK - only announced social distancing yesterday (and haven't closed schools).
There's still uncertainty about what route it took to make the jump from animals to humans, and figuring that out would help to prevent the next such leap...
But once we have all got our heads around the fact that there is no cavalry charge coming to save us, then the master plan makes sense. It's going to be brutal but we must fight on.
https://twitter.com/HLInvest/status/1235861339349766144
The clear aim in China and Korea is to shut the reaction down completely.
We are trying to run a nuclear reaction with limited information as to whether it has gone runaway (stopping community testing), and serious uncertainty as to whether the control rods will act fast enough if it does.
But exponentials are involved in both processes, certainly.
Gulp.
Hi, my name is coronavirus and I'm here to fuck up your country.
Masters OFF
By June we'll be thankful for newly found episodes of the Black and White Minstrel Show.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpiAOmTVeaY
07/03/2020 --- 1,122 --- 43 --- 3.8%
08/03/2020 --- 2,053 --- 67 --- 3.3%
09/03/2020 --- 1,447 --- 46 --- 3.2%
10/03/2020 --- 1,301 --- 54 --- 4.2%
11/03/2020 --- 1,215 --- 83 --- 6.8%
12/03/2020 --- 2,238 --- 134 --- 6.0%
13/03/2020 --- 3,057 --- 208 --- 6.8%
https://twitter.com/labourpress/status/1238427134135320576?s=20
If he did Labour would criticise him for ignoring the UK...
He has told the nation that we are not deploying any control rods.
He's hoping to void Fukushima, but might just end with Chernobyl instead.
14 days ago Italy had cases 653.
The UK is roughly two weeks behind Italy, not four weeks.
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand —
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep — while I weep!
O God! Can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
But really, it's the number in a serious condition that really matters.
From what I can see the food industry is working flat out, but the self-isolation risk hangs over all of us. Those of us in management roles can WFH as I am now. But our factories can't, our hauliers can't, the people who physically moves things around the route to market until it appears on shelf can't. Its these considerations which I believe are behind the delicate balancing act the government are doing.