Journalists in masks. Gasping old widows outside hospital
Grim. But probably effective
Yes, a pretty apocalyptic tone and I'm not sure always entirely helpful. The default setting of each international report seemed almost seemed to be the worst-case scenario would materialise in every country. When we still know so little, that is very dicey reporting.
A lot of the media needs to think a bit more carefully about its role, I think - and I don't mean resorting to propaganda, but not mistaking an easy single narrative for being responsible and sober.
Completely disagree. We need to frighten people into social distancing.
Fear easily gets out of control if you don't provide context. The sum total of the BBC News from around six countries seemed to be that the worst will materialise and there's nothing we can do about it. That's both factually shaky at this point and psychologically dangerous ; people will only engage positively if they feel they can still exert control over the situation, which the evidence so far shows they can.
We had a guy on here earlier saying What the F, I'm still going to the pub, hooray for Scottish rugby, if it's bad we will cope, blah blah. FFS
It was nonsense and dangerous nonsense at that. What we need to do is scare these people. They are the superspreaders. I believe a period of intense fear would be good for everyone. Because this is properly scary.
I've been through my phase of intense fear. I have now stockpiled vitamins, sanitiser, and stoicism. This is what it is.
Actually a bit of me wonders if a lot of the simpler ventilator components Like valves could be “crowd sourced” from a thousand different places?
CNC is remarkable technology - I could bang out some code to mass carve bits out of blocks of aluminium or stainless at quite a rate.
3-D printing has some uses in this - we shall see.
A pure production line approach would involve injection molding, stamping etc and would take months/years to setup. The result will be cheaper though.
CNC files can be sent out to pretty much any pro firm that has the equipment. same with 3D print.
Laser cutting is also very useful in this - and so it water jet, and 2D milling.
The advantage of all these methods is that you need pretty much no tooling or production line setup - you need to tune the code to produce the best quality, but once this is done, you simply put raw stock on the machine.
Many forthcoming retirements are going to be ruined by the coronavirus. A lot of comfortable pension pots no longer will be. That in itself will be a huge challenge for the government.
Don't most pension funds gradually convert stock to cash in the five years leading up to the target retirement age?
Many forthcoming retirements are going to be ruined by the coronavirus. A lot of comfortable pension pots no longer will be. That in itself will be a huge challenge for the government.
For some fortuitous reason that I do not know...I took a whack of cash out of the markets in December and paid off my debts.....
I've still lost a lot....well not lost because I never had it.....but you know what I mean....
The stocks have further to fall.....who the fuck knows where this is heading? China and the East will emerge as the global powerhouses in my opinion....
Stocks and real estate prices only matter when you are buying or selling, during the time in between it is worth ignoring paper gains and losses.
I normally buy to keep long term, but sold 90% Early Feb, when it was clear what was coming. I started cautiously bargain hunting late on Thursday.
My weathervane is RIO. When it goes sub 2000 we are near the bottom.
Many forthcoming retirements are going to be ruined by the coronavirus. A lot of comfortable pension pots no longer will be. That in itself will be a huge challenge for the government.
For some fortuitous reason that I do not know...I took a whack of cash out of the markets in December and paid off my debts.....
I've still lost a lot....well not lost because I never had it.....but you know what I mean....
The stocks have further to fall.....who the fuck knows where this is heading? China and the East will emerge as the global powerhouses in my opinion....
Stocks and real estate prices only matter when you are buying or selling, during the time in between it is worth ignoring paper gains and losses.
I normally buy to keep long term, but sold 90% Early Feb, when it was clear what was coming. I started cautiously bargain hunting late on Thursday.
My weathervane is RIO. When it goes sub 2000 we are near the bottom.
Normally, I’d agree. But we are seeing massive falls with a lot more to come. Making up current losses will be the work of many years. I regretted my rollover when it happened. But it’s saved me a fortune.
I am strangely relaxed about it all. I surprise myself.
I admire your calmness, especially as you are in the front line.
I feel a degree of fatalism about it personally. We all knew a pandemic was coming; this seems to be much less virulent than some of the imagined possibilities.
Surprising to me is the apparent fragility of our social and economic world in the face of potentially <1% global fatalities.</p>
For the majority who survive, the financial and economic fallout will make the crash of 1929 look insignificant. The political fallout from the ensuing hardship could be reminiscent of the 1930s with extremists from the left and right offering simple solutions to complex problems.
How do we stop that? A suspension of democracy for significant time frames, who knows? Not a fan of Boris, although I would prefer him to be unopposed PM for 25 years than Yaxley-Lennon as PM for 25 seconds.
The 1930s were a pretty good decade for the UK whereas the 1920s were dismal.
Very true. For large parts of the UK, the 1930s were a boom time..
The 1930s were very similar in pattern to the 1980s.
There’s still huge uncertainty, though. I don’t envy the government at all; it has fallen down on communication over the last week, but no doubt they will learn from that.
The Novel Coronavirus, 2019-nCoV, is Highly Contagious and More Infectious Than Initially Estimate https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.07.20021154v1 ... Integrating these estimates and high-resolution real-time human travel and infection data with mathematical models, we estimated that the number of infected individuals during early epidemic double every 2.4 days, and the R0 value is likely to be between 4.7 and 6.6. We further show that quarantine and contact tracing of symptomatic individuals alone may not be effective and early, strong control measures are needed to stop transmission of the virus....
We don't know.
However, I am sceptical that the number is seven. I mean, it could be, but it's hard to reconcile a 33% daily slope and an R of 7, unless people are infectious for a long, long time. Or, alternatively, there are large numbers of people who are immune for one genetic reason or another. (Also, Japan and South Korea tend to cast doubt on it being 7.)
But even if it is 7, the reality is that we if reduce social interactions by 90% (which is what I've done, and I suspect I'm far from alone), then the virus's spread will slow dramatically and go into reverse.
I don’t disagree at all; just saying that the numbers are highly uncertain for now.
For a lot of people in service industries, reducing social interactions means not working, of course. This is going to involve quite a lot of shutting stuff down for a time.
Schools are a problem, too. Neither shutting them nor keeping them open seem to be great choices.
I am strangely relaxed about it all. I surprise myself.
I admire your calmness, especially as you are in the front line.
I feel a degree of fatalism about it personally. We all knew a pandemic was coming; this seems to be much less virulent than some of the imagined possibilities.
Surprising to me is the apparent fragility of our social and economic world in the face of potentially <1% global fatalities.</p>
That was always the problem....our reaction to a global issue...decades of peace and prosperity have turned us into flakey fuckers.....
Is it me...or is this like some 70's disaster movie full of tension....the teleprinter....ratatattat...cut to California.....65's isolated indoors.....cut to Madrid....army mobilised to keep public inside...cut to Milan...400 dead in one day.....ratatattat...cut to UK and Boris Johnson..at that point it turns into a Carry on Movie....
We will soon learn not to be *flakey fuckers*. This is going to be a wake up call that will echo down the halls of human civilisation.
Even if the reset button is pressed tomorrow this has already been the biggest event of my lifetime a multiple times over....
History now will define whether it hits the mark of WW1, WW2 os the Spanish Flu...the three most significant developments since mankind globalised....or if it exceeds those we will have to look back to the Black Death...and to be honest it could exceed that....and then what do we compare this with???
I am strangely relaxed about it all. I surprise myself.
I admire your calmness, especially as you are in the front line.
I feel a degree of fatalism about it personally. We all knew a pandemic was coming; this seems to be much less virulent than some of the imagined possibilities.
Surprising to me is the apparent fragility of our social and economic world in the face of potentially <1% global fatalities.</p>
That was always the problem....our reaction to a global issue...decades of peace and prosperity have turned us into flakey fuckers.....
Is it me...or is this like some 70's disaster movie full of tension....the teleprinter....ratatattat...cut to California.....65's isolated indoors.....cut to Madrid....army mobilised to keep public inside...cut to Milan...400 dead in one day.....ratatattat...cut to UK and Boris Johnson..at that point it turns into a Carry on Movie....
We will soon learn not to be *flakey fuckers*. This is going to be a wake up call that will echo down the halls of human civilisation.
You have got some heavy lifting to do.
When I have finally convinced ALL of PB's stupid autistic investy-betting twats to take this seriously then my job is done, and I shall retire to my plague sanctuary in the Chilterns. There are still a few hold-outs who need to be napalmed with the truth.
You don’t have to be running up and down the street in your underpants screaming, to take something seriously.
Many forthcoming retirements are going to be ruined by the coronavirus. A lot of comfortable pension pots no longer will be. That in itself will be a huge challenge for the government.
For some fortuitous reason that I do not know...I took a whack of cash out of the markets in December and paid off my debts.....
I've still lost a lot....well not lost because I never had it.....but you know what I mean....
The stocks have further to fall.....who the fuck knows where this is heading? China and the East will emerge as the global powerhouses in my opinion....
Stocks and real estate prices only matter when you are buying or selling, during the time in between it is worth ignoring paper gains and losses.
I normally buy to keep long term, but sold 90% Early Feb, when it was clear what was coming. I started cautiously bargain hunting late on Thursday.
My weathervane is RIO. When it goes sub 2000 we are near the bottom.
Journalists in masks. Gasping old widows outside hospital
Grim. But probably effective
Yes, a pretty apocalyptic tone and I'm not sure always entirely helpful. The default setting of each international report seemed almost seemed to be the worst-case scenario would materialise in every country. When we still know so little, that is very dicey reporting.
A lot of the media needs to think a bit more carefully about its role, I think - and I don't mean resorting to propaganda, but not mistaking an easy single narrative for being responsible and sober.
Completely disagree. We need to frighten people into social distancing.
Fear easily gets out of control if you don't provide context. The sum total of the BBC News from around six countries seemed to be that the worst will materialise and there's nothing we can do about it. That's both factually shaky at this point and psychologically dangerous ; people will only engage positively if they feel they can still exert control over the situation, which the evidence so far shows they can.
We had a guy on here earlier saying What the F, I'm still going to the pub, hooray for Scottish rugby, if it's bad we will cope, blah blah. FFS
It was nonsense and dangerous nonsense at that. What we need to do is scare these people. They are the superspreaders. I believe a period of intense fear would be good for everyone. Because this is properly scary.
I've been through my phase of intense fear. I have now stockpiled vitamins, sanitiser, and stoicism. This is what it is.
I am strangely relaxed about it all. I surprise myself.
I admire your calmness, especially as you are in the front line.
I feel a degree of fatalism about it personally. We all knew a pandemic was coming; this seems to be much less virulent than some of the imagined possibilities.
Surprising to me is the apparent fragility of our social and economic world in the face of potentially <1% global fatalities.</p>
That was always the problem....our reaction to a global issue...decades of peace and prosperity have turned us into flakey fuckers.....
Is it me...or is this like some 70's disaster movie full of tension....the teleprinter....ratatattat...cut to California.....65's isolated indoors.....cut to Madrid....army mobilised to keep public inside...cut to Milan...400 dead in one day.....ratatattat...cut to UK and Boris Johnson..at that point it turns into a Carry on Movie....
We will soon learn not to be *flakey fuckers*. This is going to be a wake up call that will echo down the halls of human civilisation.
You have got some heavy lifting to do.
When I have finally convinced ALL of PB's stupid autistic investy-betting twats to take this seriously then my job is done, and I shall retire to my plague sanctuary in the Chilterns. There are still a few hold-outs who need to be napalmed with the truth.
You don’t have to be running up and down the street in your underpants screaming, to take something seriously.
I hope when you do this you are wearing a mask, goggles and a pair of gloves...safety first.
I am strangely relaxed about it all. I surprise myself.
I admire your calmness, especially as you are in the front line.
I feel a degree of fatalism about it personally. We all knew a pandemic was coming; this seems to be much less virulent than some of the imagined possibilities.
Surprising to me is the apparent fragility of our social and economic world in the face of potentially <1% global fatalities.</p>
That was always the problem....our reaction to a global issue...decades of peace and prosperity have turned us into flakey fuckers.....
Is it me...or is this like some 70's disaster movie full of tension....the teleprinter....ratatattat...cut to California.....65's isolated indoors.....cut to Madrid....army mobilised to keep public inside...cut to Milan...400 dead in one day.....ratatattat...cut to UK and Boris Johnson..at that point it turns into a Carry on Movie....
We will soon learn not to be *flakey fuckers*. This is going to be a wake up call that will echo down the halls of human civilisation.
You have got some heavy lifting to do.
When I have finally convinced ALL of PB's stupid autistic investy-betting twats to take this seriously then my job is done, and I shall retire to my plague sanctuary in the Chilterns. There are still a few hold-outs who need to be napalmed with the truth.
Time to raid the larder for some of that stoicism mate.
Journalists in masks. Gasping old widows outside hospital
Grim. But probably effective
Yes, a pretty apocalyptic tone and I'm not sure always entirely helpful. The default setting of each international report seemed almost seemed to be the worst-case scenario would materialise in every country. When we still know so little, that is very dicey reporting.
A lot of the media needs to think a bit more carefully about its role, I think - and I don't mean resorting to propaganda, but not mistaking an easy single narrative for being responsible and sober.
Completely disagree. We need to frighten people into social distancing.
I think people should too. But PBers have in common a voracious appetite for the news cycle, a preoccupation with doom ridden hypotheticals and how to solve them and, most importantly, a lot of time on our hands. My friends are going to work, going to the pub, going out for dinner, playing football etc with little regard to what’s going on - ignorance is bliss. One called me from the pub today saying “I knew you’d be overthinking this and having panic attacks... oh yeah I’m just reading the paper... scary. I’m having another pint, it’s mobbed in here“
Maybe he’ll die or become a super spreader while I’m safe in here... But probably not I reckon
I am strangely relaxed about it all. I surprise myself.
I admire your calmness, especially as you are in the front line.
I feel a degree of fatalism about it personally. We all knew a pandemic was coming; this seems to be much less virulent than some of the imagined possibilities.
Surprising to me is the apparent fragility of our social and economic world in the face of potentially <1% global fatalities.</p>
That was always the problem....our reaction to a global issue...decades of peace and prosperity have turned us into flakey fuckers.....
Is it me...or is this like some 70's disaster movie full of tension....the teleprinter....ratatattat...cut to California.....65's isolated indoors.....cut to Madrid....army mobilised to keep public inside...cut to Milan...400 dead in one day.....ratatattat...cut to UK and Boris Johnson..at that point it turns into a Carry on Movie....
We will soon learn not to be *flakey fuckers*. This is going to be a wake up call that will echo down the halls of human civilisation.
You have got some heavy lifting to do.
When I have finally convinced ALL of PB's stupid autistic investy-betting twats to take this seriously then my job is done, and I shall retire to my plague sanctuary in the Chilterns. There are still a few hold-outs who need to be napalmed with the truth.
So what about your daughter at school in North London? Leave her there?
Actually a bit of me wonders if a lot of the simpler ventilator components Like valves could be “crowd sourced” from a thousand different places?
CNC is remarkable technology - I could bang out some code to mass carve bits out of blocks of aluminium or stainless at quite a rate.
3-D printing has some uses in this - we shall see.
A pure production line approach would involve injection molding, stamping etc and would take months/years to setup. The result will be cheaper though.
CNC files can be sent out to pretty much any pro firm that has the equipment. same with 3D print.
Laser cutting is also very useful in this - and so it water jet, and 2D milling.
The advantage of all these methods is that you need pretty much no tooling or production line setup - you need to tune the code to produce the best quality, but once this is done, you simply put raw stock on the machine.
Fascinating. I guess it follows that if you’re an engineering firm that makes widgets for many supply chains, then by definition you’ve been investing in this sort of flexibility?
There’s still huge uncertainty, though. I don’t envy the government at all; it has fallen down on communication over the last week, but no doubt they will learn from that.
The Novel Coronavirus, 2019-nCoV, is Highly Contagious and More Infectious Than Initially Estimate https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.07.20021154v1 ... Integrating these estimates and high-resolution real-time human travel and infection data with mathematical models, we estimated that the number of infected individuals during early epidemic double every 2.4 days, and the R0 value is likely to be between 4.7 and 6.6. We further show that quarantine and contact tracing of symptomatic individuals alone may not be effective and early, strong control measures are needed to stop transmission of the virus....
We don't know.
However, I am sceptical that the number is seven. I mean, it could be, but it's hard to reconcile a 33% daily slope and an R of 7, unless people are infectious for a long, long time. Or, alternatively, there are large numbers of people who are immune for one genetic reason or another. (Also, Japan and South Korea tend to cast doubt on it being 7.)
But even if it is 7, the reality is that we if reduce social interactions by 90% (which is what I've done, and I suspect I'm far from alone), then the virus's spread will slow dramatically and go into reverse.
If the vast majority of cases are un-noticed - see the Icelandic report - then the reality might be an enormous infection rate.
Journalists in masks. Gasping old widows outside hospital
Grim. But probably effective
Yes, a pretty apocalyptic tone and I'm not sure always entirely helpful. The default setting of each international report seemed almost seemed to be the worst-case scenario would materialise in every country. When we still know so little, that is very dicey reporting.
A lot of the media needs to think a bit more carefully about its role, I think - and I don't mean resorting to propaganda, but not mistaking an easy single narrative for being responsible and sober.
Completely disagree. We need to frighten people into social distancing.
Fear easily gets out of control if you don't provide context. The sum total of the BBC News from around six countries seemed to be that the worst will materialise and there's nothing we can do about it. That's both factually shaky at this point and psychologically dangerous ; people will only engage positively if they feel they can still exert control over the situation, which the evidence so far shows they can.
We had a guy on here earlier saying What the F, I'm still going to the pub, hooray for Scottish rugby, if it's bad we will cope, blah blah. FFS
It was nonsense and dangerous nonsense at that. What we need to do is scare these people. They are the superspreaders. I believe a period of intense fear would be good for everyone. Because this is properly scary.
I've been through my phase of intense fear. I have now stockpiled vitamins, sanitiser, and stoicism. This is what it is.
You've stockpiled stoicism?
Absolutely - he’s refrained from using any of it until just now.
I am strangely relaxed about it all. I surprise myself.
I admire your calmness, especially as you are in the front line.
I feel a degree of fatalism about it personally. We all knew a pandemic was coming; this seems to be much less virulent than some of the imagined possibilities.
Surprising to me is the apparent fragility of our social and economic world in the face of potentially <1% global fatalities.</p>
That was always the problem....our reaction to a global issue...decades of peace and prosperity have turned us into flakey fuckers.....
Is it me...or is this like some 70's disaster movie full of tension....the teleprinter....ratatattat...cut to California.....65's isolated indoors.....cut to Madrid....army mobilised to keep public inside...cut to Milan...400 dead in one day.....ratatattat...cut to UK and Boris Johnson..at that point it turns into a Carry on Movie....
We will soon learn not to be *flakey fuckers*. This is going to be a wake up call that will echo down the halls of human civilisation.
Even if the reset button is pressed tomorrow this has already been the biggest event of my lifetime a multiple times over....
History now will define whether it hits the mark of WW1, WW2 os the Spanish Flu...the three most significant developments since mankind globalised....or if it exceeds those we will have to look back to the Black Death...and to be honest it could exceed that....and then what do we compare this with???
Eh? If the reset button were pressed tomorrow, the global death toll hasn’t yet reached two days’ worth of road accident deaths.
A few years ago I was mocked as a ‘typical leave voter’ by people I worked with for allowing myself to consider out loud that HDTV could be just old tv pictures, and non HDTV old tv pictures made blurry by people wanting to sell HD... obviously not true, but not that different to the thinking that made apple make old phones play up so people would upgrade.
Now I wonder how we would be reacting to the Coronavirus outbreak numbers (infections and deaths) had the news channels been reporting influenza infections and deaths in the same way for the last decade.
Why is that even a point? First COVID is much more infectious and much more lethal than flu, and secondly it is not the current numbers but the trend and the likely future numbers which concern people. Hey, you think you have got a big number, but here's another big number of slightly different things, invites the response, so what? Were you sitting there on 9/11 pointing out that as many people die in car crashes every single day?
In a way, the virus has come at a bad time. If it were September, the easy decision - shutting everything down would be the right thing to do. Instead, the powers that be need to decide how much we need to use the summer that is approaching.
From what I see of Australia and Brazil, and other places in Latin America, I cannot see a British summer saving us.
Almost all the Australian cases came from those who had travelled abroad
Yep, same as us a couple of weeks ago.
Plenty of cases in Florida, Southern California, Central and Sourh America now, locally acquired.
None of the top 10 countries for coronavirus cases are in Latin America, Southern Africa or Australiasia where it is currently summer
Given the undeniable fact that the outbreak has started at the exact same time all over the world, this is incontrovertable evidence that 'the summer will save us'.
Isn’t Iran’s current weather fairly ‘British summer’ ?
Iran is a less developed country than we are with a less effective health service than we have and it is also winter there, Iran will also likely benefit once the Iranian summer arrives
There’s still huge uncertainty, though. I don’t envy the government at all; it has fallen down on communication over the last week, but no doubt they will learn from that.
The Novel Coronavirus, 2019-nCoV, is Highly Contagious and More Infectious Than Initially Estimate https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.07.20021154v1 ... Integrating these estimates and high-resolution real-time human travel and infection data with mathematical models, we estimated that the number of infected individuals during early epidemic double every 2.4 days, and the R0 value is likely to be between 4.7 and 6.6. We further show that quarantine and contact tracing of symptomatic individuals alone may not be effective and early, strong control measures are needed to stop transmission of the virus....
We don't know.
However, I am sceptical that the number is seven. I mean, it could be, but it's hard to reconcile a 33% daily slope and an R of 7, unless people are infectious for a long, long time. Or, alternatively, there are large numbers of people who are immune for one genetic reason or another. (Also, Japan and South Korea tend to cast doubt on it being 7.)
But even if it is 7, the reality is that we if reduce social interactions by 90% (which is what I've done, and I suspect I'm far from alone), then the virus's spread will slow dramatically and go into reverse.
If the vast majority of cases are un-noticed - see the Icelandic report - then the reality might be an enormous infection rate.
In which case, Hooray!
However, remember that 95% of people - even now, only testing people with obvious symptoms - are showing up negative for COVID-19 in the UK. Also remember the Diamond Princess, where we know exactly how many people got it. Both of these are indicative of an R of less than 7, and very little (if no) iceberg effect.
I kinda know the government is doing the right thing when Farage is moaning like a whore and Carole Cadwalladr is having to delete crazy tweets on the government's approach.
I wouldn't be surprised to learn that those two are actually the parents of Piers Morgan.
If Cadwalladr had access to a time machine I doubt going back in time to give birth to Piers Morgan would be top of her list of stupid things to do.
Well, possibly going back 9 months further and taking a morning after pill might be on the agenda.
In a way, the virus has come at a bad time. If it were September, the easy decision - shutting everything down would be the right thing to do. Instead, the powers that be need to decide how much we need to use the summer that is approaching.
From what I see of Australia and Brazil, and other places in Latin America, I cannot see a British summer saving us.
Almost all the Australian cases came from those who had travelled abroad
Yep, same as us a couple of weeks ago.
Plenty of cases in Florida, Southern California, Central and Sourh America now, locally acquired.
None of the top 10 countries for coronavirus cases are in Latin America, Southern Africa or Australiasia where it is currently summer
Given the undeniable fact that the outbreak has started at the exact same time all over the world, this is incontrovertable evidence that 'the summer will save us'.
Isn’t Iran’s current weather fairly ‘British summer’ ?
Iran is a less developed country than we are with a less effective health service than we have and it is also winter there, Iran will also likely benefit once the Iranian summer arrives
Once our health system collapses we may as well living in Ethiopia for all that it will help us....you can ring 111...
The fundamentals of public health...fresh water, housing, sewage, sanitation heating, fresh food...those will be the key determinants that separate us from us a 3rd world country in this crisis...the NHS will be as much use as a chocolate teapot.....
Many forthcoming retirements are going to be ruined by the coronavirus. A lot of comfortable pension pots no longer will be. That in itself will be a huge challenge for the government.
For some fortuitous reason that I do not know...I took a whack of cash out of the markets in December and paid off my debts.....
I've still lost a lot....well not lost because I never had it.....but you know what I mean....
The stocks have further to fall.....who the fuck knows where this is heading? China and the East will emerge as the global powerhouses in my opinion....
Stocks and real estate prices only matter when you are buying or selling, during the time in between it is worth ignoring paper gains and losses.
I normally buy to keep long term, but sold 90% Early Feb, when it was clear what was coming. I started cautiously bargain hunting late on Thursday.
My weathervane is RIO. When it goes sub 2000 we are near the bottom.
I am strangely relaxed about it all. I surprise myself.
I admire your calmness, especially as you are in the front line.
I feel a degree of fatalism about it personally. We all knew a pandemic was coming; this seems to be much less virulent than some of the imagined possibilities.
Surprising to me is the apparent fragility of our social and economic world in the face of potentially <1% global fatalities.</p>
That was always the problem....our reaction to a global issue...decades of peace and prosperity have turned us into flakey fuckers.....
Is it me...or is this like some 70's disaster movie full of tension....the teleprinter....ratatattat...cut to California.....65's isolated indoors.....cut to Madrid....army mobilised to keep public inside...cut to Milan...400 dead in one day.....ratatattat...cut to UK and Boris Johnson..at that point it turns into a Carry on Movie....
We will soon learn not to be *flakey fuckers*. This is going to be a wake up call that will echo down the halls of human civilisation.
You have got some heavy lifting to do.
When I have finally convinced ALL of PB's stupid autistic investy-betting twats to take this seriously then my job is done, and I shall retire to my plague sanctuary in the Chilterns. There are still a few hold-outs who need to be napalmed with the truth.
You don’t have to be running up and down the street in your underpants screaming, to take something seriously.
But I was right, wasn't I? A whole six weeks ago. When I first quietly raised the coronavirus alarm, here on PB, and said this story would dominate the news for a year.
People like you roundly scoffed, for weeks... until eventually you didn't.
I hate that I was right. But I was right.
No.
Because fewer than six weeks ago you were telling us it would be “contagious but benign”, and criticising forecasts of 2% deaths suggesting 0.2% was nearer the mark.
Three weeks ago, you began to panic - but even then insisted you were only sharing expert opinions, not your own forecasts.
A couple of weeks back you began doing your own calculations of two million dead Britons and the rest (which even worst case looks way off the mark, even now). And have made such a fuss in recent days that you appear to have persuaded even yourself that you’ve been saying the same thing from the beginning.
Meanwhile some of us have taken a more measured assessment of the news, and positioned correctly to cope with the financial consequences, at least. You won’t find any posts from me saying that this epidemic wasn’t going to be a big deal.
I am strangely relaxed about it all. I surprise myself.
I admire your calmness, especially as you are in the front line.
I feel a degree of fatalism about it personally. We all knew a pandemic was coming; this seems to be much less virulent than some of the imagined possibilities.
Surprising to me is the apparent fragility of our social and economic world in the face of potentially <1% global fatalities.</p>
That was always the problem....our reaction to a global issue...decades of peace and prosperity have turned us into flakey fuckers.....
Is it me...or is this like some 70's disaster movie full of tension....the teleprinter....ratatattat...cut to California.....65's isolated indoors.....cut to Madrid....army mobilised to keep public inside...cut to Milan...400 dead in one day.....ratatattat...cut to UK and Boris Johnson..at that point it turns into a Carry on Movie....
We will soon learn not to be *flakey fuckers*. This is going to be a wake up call that will echo down the halls of human civilisation.
You have got some heavy lifting to do.
When I have finally convinced ALL of PB's stupid autistic investy-betting twats to take this seriously then my job is done, and I shall retire to my plague sanctuary in the Chilterns. There are still a few hold-outs who need to be napalmed with the truth.
You don’t have to be running up and down the street in your underpants screaming, to take something seriously.
But I was right, wasn't I? A whole six weeks ago. When I first quietly raised the coronavirus alarm, here on PB, and said this story would dominate the news for a year.
People like you roundly scoffed, for weeks... until eventually you didn't.
I hate that I was right. But I was right.
No you don't. You have revelled in your predictions of doom and gloom coming to pass.
I am strangely relaxed about it all. I surprise myself.
I admire your calmness, especially as you are in the front line.
I feel a degree of fatalism about it personally. We all knew a pandemic was coming; this seems to be much less virulent than some of the imagined possibilities.
Surprising to me is the apparent fragility of our social and economic world in the face of potentially <1% global fatalities.</p>
That was always the problem....our reaction to a global issue...decades of peace and prosperity have turned us into flakey fuckers.....
Is it me...or is this like some 70's disaster movie full of tension....the teleprinter....ratatattat...cut to California.....65's isolated indoors.....cut to Madrid....army mobilised to keep public inside...cut to Milan...400 dead in one day.....ratatattat...cut to UK and Boris Johnson..at that point it turns into a Carry on Movie....
We will soon learn not to be *flakey fuckers*. This is going to be a wake up call that will echo down the halls of human civilisation.
Even if the reset button is pressed tomorrow this has already been the biggest event of my lifetime a multiple times over....
History now will define whether it hits the mark of WW1, WW2 os the Spanish Flu...the three most significant developments since mankind globalised....or if it exceeds those we will have to look back to the Black Death...and to be honest it could exceed that....and then what do we compare this with???
I think you're over egging it a bit. The Black Death killed about 60% of the population of London over several months. (I watched a documentary on it the other day). It's not going to be either WW1 or WW2 levels. But it might be Spanish flu level.
H1N1, the last threat to life as we know it, killed about 12k people in the USA. CDC estimates that flu killed about 34k people in the US in the 2018-2019 flu season.
There’s still huge uncertainty, though. I don’t envy the government at all; it has fallen down on communication over the last week, but no doubt they will learn from that.
The Novel Coronavirus, 2019-nCoV, is Highly Contagious and More Infectious Than Initially Estimate https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.07.20021154v1 ... Integrating these estimates and high-resolution real-time human travel and infection data with mathematical models, we estimated that the number of infected individuals during early epidemic double every 2.4 days, and the R0 value is likely to be between 4.7 and 6.6. We further show that quarantine and contact tracing of symptomatic individuals alone may not be effective and early, strong control measures are needed to stop transmission of the virus....
We don't know.
However, I am sceptical that the number is seven. I mean, it could be, but it's hard to reconcile a 33% daily slope and an R of 7, unless people are infectious for a long, long time. Or, alternatively, there are large numbers of people who are immune for one genetic reason or another. (Also, Japan and South Korea tend to cast doubt on it being 7.)
But even if it is 7, the reality is that we if reduce social interactions by 90% (which is what I've done, and I suspect I'm far from alone), then the virus's spread will slow dramatically and go into reverse.
If the vast majority of cases are un-noticed - see the Icelandic report - then the reality might be an enormous infection rate.
Yes, I wonder too if the R number is 7 and the natural susceptibility is 50%. It would explain the brittleness of the outbreaks, with their sudden increases, but the quick drop off when measures take place.
I am strangely relaxed about it all. I surprise myself.
I admire your calmness, especially as you are in the front line.
I feel a degree of fatalism about it personally. We all knew a pandemic was coming; this seems to be much less virulent than some of the imagined possibilities.
Surprising to me is the apparent fragility of our social and economic world in the face of potentially <1% global fatalities.</p>
That was always the problem....our reaction to a global issue...decades of peace and prosperity have turned us into flakey fuckers.....
Is it me...or is this like some 70's disaster movie full of tension....the teleprinter....ratatattat...cut to California.....65's isolated indoors.....cut to Madrid....army mobilised to keep public inside...cut to Milan...400 dead in one day.....ratatattat...cut to UK and Boris Johnson..at that point it turns into a Carry on Movie....
We will soon learn not to be *flakey fuckers*. This is going to be a wake up call that will echo down the halls of human civilisation.
Even if the reset button is pressed tomorrow this has already been the biggest event of my lifetime a multiple times over....
History now will define whether it hits the mark of WW1, WW2 os the Spanish Flu...the three most significant developments since mankind globalised....or if it exceeds those we will have to look back to the Black Death...and to be honest it could exceed that....and then what do we compare this with???
Eh? If the reset button were pressed tomorrow, the global death toll hasn’t yet reached two days’ worth of road accident deaths.
Seriously....have you seen the impact around the world?
We are already in places none of us under the age of 75 have ever experienced....
I am annoyed by the tone some people at the extremes seem to adopt.
On the one hand the negligent and selfish who seem to believe that the world will not happen to them and they have no responsibility to play their part.
On the other hand the over excited, who engage in a constant stream of what can only be described as a form of Corona porn and in many cases spread misinformation.
I want a sombre seriousness and practicality. People are dying. Each stat is a loved one. We need to show respect and do the hard work to solve the problem.
There’s still huge uncertainty, though. I don’t envy the government at all; it has fallen down on communication over the last week, but no doubt they will learn from that.
The Novel Coronavirus, 2019-nCoV, is Highly Contagious and More Infectious Than Initially Estimate https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.07.20021154v1 ... Integrating these estimates and high-resolution real-time human travel and infection data with mathematical models, we estimated that the number of infected individuals during early epidemic double every 2.4 days, and the R0 value is likely to be between 4.7 and 6.6. We further show that quarantine and contact tracing of symptomatic individuals alone may not be effective and early, strong control measures are needed to stop transmission of the virus....
We don't know.
However, I am sceptical that the number is seven. I mean, it could be, but it's hard to reconcile a 33% daily slope and an R of 7, unless people are infectious for a long, long time. Or, alternatively, there are large numbers of people who are immune for one genetic reason or another. (Also, Japan and South Korea tend to cast doubt on it being 7.)
But even if it is 7, the reality is that we if reduce social interactions by 90% (which is what I've done, and I suspect I'm far from alone), then the virus's spread will slow dramatically and go into reverse.
If the vast majority of cases are un-noticed - see the Icelandic report - then the reality might be an enormous infection rate.
Yes, I wonder too if the R number is 7 and the natural susceptibility is 50%. It would explain the brittleness of the outbreaks, with their sudden increases, but the quick drop off when measures take place.
Pure speculation on my part though.
I have seen reports on the internet that the R number is north of 6 - how true that is I have no idea
But anecdotally from what I heard yesterday - this thing moves through groups very quickly
I am strangely relaxed about it all. I surprise myself.
I admire your calmness, especially as you are in the front line.
I feel a degree of fatalism about it personally. We all knew a pandemic was coming; this seems to be much less virulent than some of the imagined possibilities.
Surprising to me is the apparent fragility of our social and economic world in the face of potentially <1% global fatalities.</p>
That was always the problem....our reaction to a global issue...decades of peace and prosperity have turned us into flakey fuckers.....
Is it me...or is this like some 70's disaster movie full of tension....the teleprinter....ratatattat...cut to California.....65's isolated indoors.....cut to Madrid....army mobilised to keep public inside...cut to Milan...400 dead in one day.....ratatattat...cut to UK and Boris Johnson..at that point it turns into a Carry on Movie....
We will soon learn not to be *flakey fuckers*. This is going to be a wake up call that will echo down the halls of human civilisation.
Even if the reset button is pressed tomorrow this has already been the biggest event of my lifetime a multiple times over....
History now will define whether it hits the mark of WW1, WW2 os the Spanish Flu...the three most significant developments since mankind globalised....or if it exceeds those we will have to look back to the Black Death...and to be honest it could exceed that....and then what do we compare this with???
Almost impossible to say. Right now I'd say it's potentially up there with World War 1. Not civilisation ending, by any means, but Fuck, it's Big.
Could bring down several regimes (as did WW1). Iran for a start. The Tsarist Russia of Corona.
It will definitely bring down a couple of regimes.
But World War One levels?
In the UK, 700,000 people died in World War One. That's about 1.4 million people in today's money (inflation, huh?) And these were young people.
COVID-19 could kill 700,000 people in the UK, although I suspect the number will end up being an order of magnitude less. And those that will die will mostly be those most at risk from other disorders. So, we might be looking at 50,000 excess deaths. Really, really major. A significant uptick in the death rate.
But not like lopping off 1.4 million young people.
I am annoyed by the tone some people at the extremes seem to adopt.
On the one hand the negligent and selfish who seem to believe that the world will not happen to them and they have no responsibility to play their part.
On the other hand the over excited, who engage in a constant stream of what can only be described in a form of Corona porn and in many cases spread misinformation.
I want a sombre seriousness and practicality. People are dying. Each stat is a loved one. We need to show respect and do the hard work to solve the problem.
In a way, the virus has come at a bad time. If it were September, the easy decision - shutting everything down would be the right thing to do. Instead, the powers that be need to decide how much we need to use the summer that is approaching.
From what I see of Australia and Brazil, and other places in Latin America, I cannot see a British summer saving us.
Almost all the Australian cases came from those who had travelled abroad
Yep, same as us a couple of weeks ago.
Plenty of cases in Florida, Southern California, Central and Sourh America now, locally acquired.
None of the top 10 countries for coronavirus cases are in Latin America, Southern Africa or Australiasia where it is currently summer
Given the undeniable fact that the outbreak has started at the exact same time all over the world, this is incontrovertable evidence that 'the summer will save us'.
Isn’t Iran’s current weather fairly ‘British summer’ ?
Iran is a less developed country than we are with a less effective health service than we have and it is also winter there, Iran will also likely benefit once the Iranian summer arrives
20degC in Tehran tomorrow. Winter.
In Tehran yes, average summer temperature in Tehran is 38 or 39degC
I am strangely relaxed about it all. I surprise myself.
I admire your calmness, especially as you are in the front line.
I feel a degree of fatalism about it personally. We all knew a pandemic was coming; this seems to be much less virulent than some of the imagined possibilities.
Surprising to me is the apparent fragility of our social and economic world in the face of potentially <1% global fatalities.</p>
That was always the problem....our reaction to a global issue...decades of peace and prosperity have turned us into flakey fuckers.....
Is it me...or is this like some 70's disaster movie full of tension....the teleprinter....ratatattat...cut to California.....65's isolated indoors.....cut to Madrid....army mobilised to keep public inside...cut to Milan...400 dead in one day.....ratatattat...cut to UK and Boris Johnson..at that point it turns into a Carry on Movie....
We will soon learn not to be *flakey fuckers*. This is going to be a wake up call that will echo down the halls of human civilisation.
You have got some heavy lifting to do.
When I have finally convinced ALL of PB's stupid autistic investy-betting twats to take this seriously then my job is done, and I shall retire to my plague sanctuary in the Chilterns. There are still a few hold-outs who need to be napalmed with the truth.
You don’t have to be running up and down the street in your underpants screaming, to take something seriously.
But I was right, wasn't I? A whole six weeks ago. When I first quietly raised the coronavirus alarm, here on PB, and said this story would dominate the news for a year.
People like you roundly scoffed, for weeks... until eventually you didn't.
I hate that I was right. But I was right.
No.
Because fewer than six weeks ago you were telling us it would be “contagious but benign”, and criticising forecasts of 2% deaths suggesting 0.2% was nearer the mark.
Three weeks ago, you began to panic - but even then insisted you were only sharing expert opinions, not your own forecasts.
A couple of weeks back you began doing your own calculations of two million dead Britons and the rest (which even worst case looks way off the mark, even now). And have made such a fuss in recent days that you appear to have persuaded even yourself that you’ve been saying the same thing from the beginning.
Meanwhile some of us have taken a more measured assessment of the news, and positioned correctly to cope with the financial consequences, at least. You won’t find any posts from me saying that this epidemic wasn’t going to be a big deal.
Blah blah
I said six weeks ago this was THE news story of the year. Aced it.
So when you and your wife go into isolation in the country or seaside will you leave your daughter at school in North London?
I am strangely relaxed about it all. I surprise myself.
I admire your calmness, especially as you are in the front line.
I feel a degree of fatalism about it personally. We all knew a pandemic was coming; this seems to be much less virulent than some of the imagined possibilities.
Surprising to me is the apparent fragility of our social and economic world in the face of potentially <1% global fatalities.</p>
That was always the problem....our reaction to a global issue...decades of peace and prosperity have turned us into flakey fuckers.....
Is it me...or is this like some 70's disaster movie full of tension....the teleprinter....ratatattat...cut to California.....65's isolated indoors.....cut to Madrid....army mobilised to keep public inside...cut to Milan...400 dead in one day.....ratatattat...cut to UK and Boris Johnson..at that point it turns into a Carry on Movie....
We will soon learn not to be *flakey fuckers*. This is going to be a wake up call that will echo down the halls of human civilisation.
Even if the reset button is pressed tomorrow this has already been the biggest event of my lifetime a multiple times over....
History now will define whether it hits the mark of WW1, WW2 os the Spanish Flu...the three most significant developments since mankind globalised....or if it exceeds those we will have to look back to the Black Death...and to be honest it could exceed that....and then what do we compare this with???
Almost impossible to say. Right now I'd say it's potentially up there with World War 1. Not civilisation ending, by any means, but Fuck, it's Big.
Could bring down several regimes (as did WW1). Iran for a start. The Tsarist Russia of Corona.
Given the age profile and locations of many priests then most religions are likely to see something of a clearout at the top.
In a way, the virus has come at a bad time. If it were September, the easy decision - shutting everything down would be the right thing to do. Instead, the powers that be need to decide how much we need to use the summer that is approaching.
From what I see of Australia and Brazil, and other places in Latin America, I cannot see a British summer saving us.
Almost all the Australian cases came from those who had travelled abroad
Yep, same as us a couple of weeks ago.
Plenty of cases in Florida, Southern California, Central and Sourh America now, locally acquired.
None of the top 10 countries for coronavirus cases are in Latin America, Southern Africa or Australiasia where it is currently summer
Given the undeniable fact that the outbreak has started at the exact same time all over the world, this is incontrovertable evidence that 'the summer will save us'.
Isn’t Iran’s current weather fairly ‘British summer’ ?
Iran is a less developed country than we are with a less effective health service than we have and it is also winter there, Iran will also likely benefit once the Iranian summer arrives
Once our health system collapses we may as well living in Ethiopia for all that it will help us....you can ring 111...
The fundamentals of public health...fresh water, housing, sewage, sanitation heating, fresh food...those will be the key determinants that separate us from us a 3rd world country in this crisis...the NHS will be as much use as a chocolate teapot.....
Indeed, that has always been the case. The Marmot 2020 report was sadly neglected in the news last week, but public health works for chronic disease even more than viruses.
Indeed they interact. Don't stockpile pasta, stockpile veg, and shed that beer belly over the next weeks. It may save you from the virus too.
A few years ago I was mocked as a ‘typical leave voter’ by people I worked with for allowing myself to consider out loud that HDTV could be just old tv pictures, and non HDTV old tv pictures made blurry by people wanting to sell HD... obviously not true, but not that different to the thinking that made apple make old phones play up so people would upgrade.
Now I wonder how we would be reacting to the Coronavirus outbreak numbers (infections and deaths) had the news channels been reporting influenza infections and deaths in the same way for the last decade.
Why is that even a point? First COVID is much more infectious and much more lethal than flu, and secondly it is not the current numbers but the trend and the likely future numbers which concern people. Hey, you think you have got a big number, but here's another big number of slightly different things, invites the response, so what? Were you sitting there on 9/11 pointing out that as many people die in car crashes every single day?
Wow you can read me like a book, that’s just what I did on 9/11
But it just strikes me that the people dying from this disease could be replacing those who would have died from flu or pneumonia, nearly all being old, vulnerable and ill, rather than being additional deaths. Try not to get a hard on about it!
I am strangely relaxed about it all. I surprise myself.
I admire your calmness, especially as you are in the front line.
I feel a degree of fatalism about it personally. We all knew a pandemic was coming; this seems to be much less virulent than some of the imagined possibilities.
Surprising to me is the apparent fragility of our social and economic world in the face of potentially <1% global fatalities.</p>
That was always the problem....our reaction to a global issue...decades of peace and prosperity have turned us into flakey fuckers.....
Is it me...or is this like some 70's disaster movie full of tension....the teleprinter....ratatattat...cut to California.....65's isolated indoors.....cut to Madrid....army mobilised to keep public inside...cut to Milan...400 dead in one day.....ratatattat...cut to UK and Boris Johnson..at that point it turns into a Carry on Movie....
We will soon learn not to be *flakey fuckers*. This is going to be a wake up call that will echo down the halls of human civilisation.
You have got some heavy lifting to do.
When I have finally convinced ALL of PB's stupid autistic investy-betting twats to take this seriously then my job is done, and I shall retire to my plague sanctuary in the Chilterns. There are still a few hold-outs who need to be napalmed with the truth.
You don’t have to be running up and down the street in your underpants screaming, to take something seriously.
But I was right, wasn't I? A whole six weeks ago. When I first quietly raised the coronavirus alarm, here on PB, and said this story would dominate the news for a year.
People like you roundly scoffed, for weeks... until eventually you didn't.
I hate that I was right. But I was right.
No.
Because fewer than six weeks ago you were telling us it would be “contagious but benign”, and criticising forecasts of 2% deaths suggesting 0.2% was nearer the mark.
Three weeks ago, you began to panic - but even then insisted you were only sharing expert opinions, not your own forecasts.
A couple of weeks back you began doing your own calculations of two million dead Britons and the rest (which even worst case looks way off the mark, even now). And have made such a fuss in recent days that you appear to have persuaded even yourself that you’ve been saying the same thing from the beginning.
Meanwhile some of us have taken a more measured assessment of the news, and positioned correctly to cope with the financial consequences, at least. You won’t find any posts from me saying that this epidemic wasn’t going to be a big deal.
Shit, you are going to start putting all this in a spreadsheet aren't you, and point us to what the accused posted at 1325 hours on 2 March (see cell V567)? On the big picture and taking things in the round, he has been broadly right throughout. And I can date his getting positioned correctly very precisely to February 7. If you made a bold "get out of equities altogether" call, what date was that?
I am strangely relaxed about it all. I surprise myself.
I admire your calmness, especially as you are in the front line.
I feel a degree of fatalism about it personally. We all knew a pandemic was coming; this seems to be much less virulent than some of the imagined possibilities.
Surprising to me is the apparent fragility of our social and economic world in the face of potentially <1% global fatalities.</p>
That was always the problem....our reaction to a global issue...decades of peace and prosperity have turned us into flakey fuckers.....
Is it me...or is this like some 70's disaster movie full of tension....the teleprinter....ratatattat...cut to California.....65's isolated indoors.....cut to Madrid....army mobilised to keep public inside...cut to Milan...400 dead in one day.....ratatattat...cut to UK and Boris Johnson..at that point it turns into a Carry on Movie....
We will soon learn not to be *flakey fuckers*. This is going to be a wake up call that will echo down the halls of human civilisation.
Even if the reset button is pressed tomorrow this has already been the biggest event of my lifetime a multiple times over....
History now will define whether it hits the mark of WW1, WW2 os the Spanish Flu...the three most significant developments since mankind globalised....or if it exceeds those we will have to look back to the Black Death...and to be honest it could exceed that....and then what do we compare this with???
I think you're over egging it a bit. The Black Death killed about 60% of the population of London over several months. (I watched a documentary on it the other day). It's not going to be either WW1 or WW2 levels. But it might be Spanish flu level.
I'm not looking at fatalities....I'm looking at global impact.....
This thing could certainly upend many Western economic models...and lead to an alignment to the far east who are much better prepared now to deal with this....
I don't think our economies can withstand this in their current state...a banking collapse seems on the horizon....
I am strangely relaxed about it all. I surprise myself.
I admire your calmness, especially as you are in the front line.
I feel a degree of fatalism about it personally. We all knew a pandemic was coming; this seems to be much less virulent than some of the imagined possibilities.
Surprising to me is the apparent fragility of our social and economic world in the face of potentially <1% global fatalities.</p>
That was always the problem....our reaction to a global issue...decades of peace and prosperity have turned us into flakey fuckers.....
Is it me...or is this like some 70's disaster movie full of tension....the teleprinter....ratatattat...cut to California.....65's isolated indoors.....cut to Madrid....army mobilised to keep public inside...cut to Milan...400 dead in one day.....ratatattat...cut to UK and Boris Johnson..at that point it turns into a Carry on Movie....
We will soon learn not to be *flakey fuckers*. This is going to be a wake up call that will echo down the halls of human civilisation.
Even if the reset button is pressed tomorrow this has already been the biggest event of my lifetime a multiple times over....
History now will define whether it hits the mark of WW1, WW2 os the Spanish Flu...the three most significant developments since mankind globalised....or if it exceeds those we will have to look back to the Black Death...and to be honest it could exceed that....and then what do we compare this with???
Eh? If the reset button were pressed tomorrow, the global death toll hasn’t yet reached two days’ worth of road accident deaths.
Seriously....have you seen the impact around the world?
We are already in places none of us under the age of 75 have ever experienced....
And this has much more to run....
Of course. But your proposition was that everything ends tomorrow.
Impossible, but if it did happen, I genuinely believe everything would be back to normal in a very short time indeed.
It is going to be the length and breadth of this crisis that brings about changes.
And, even then - remember all the predictions of “never be the same again” made about economics, finance and politics during the 2008 financial crash. Yet banking and finance has only changed mildly, economics barely at all, and the political fallout (which eventually proved the most profound) took almost a decade to appear.
A few years ago I was mocked as a ‘typical leave voter’ by people I worked with for allowing myself to consider out loud that HDTV could be just old tv pictures, and non HDTV old tv pictures made blurry by people wanting to sell HD... obviously not true, but not that different to the thinking that made apple make old phones play up so people would upgrade.
Now I wonder how we would be reacting to the Coronavirus outbreak numbers (infections and deaths) had the news channels been reporting influenza infections and deaths in the same way for the last decade.
Why is that even a point? First COVID is much more infectious and much more lethal than flu, and secondly it is not the current numbers but the trend and the likely future numbers which concern people. Hey, you think you have got a big number, but here's another big number of slightly different things, invites the response, so what? Were you sitting there on 9/11 pointing out that as many people die in car crashes every single day?
Wow you can read me like a book, that’s just what I did on 9/11
I am annoyed by the tone some people at the extremes seem to adopt.
On the one hand the negligent and selfish who seem to believe that the world will not happen to them and they have no responsibility to play their part.
On the other hand the over excited, who engage in a constant stream of what can only be described as a form of Corona porn and in many cases spread misinformation.
I want a sombre seriousness and practicality. People are dying. Each stat is a loved one. We need to show respect and do the hard work to solve the problem.
Those that have lurched from the one extreme to the other in the same sentence are most troubling. The fact that one of them is Leader of the Free World even more so.
I am strangely relaxed about it all. I surprise myself.
I admire your calmness, especially as you are in the front line.
I feel a degree of fatalism about it personally. We all knew a pandemic was coming; this seems to be much less virulent than some of the imagined possibilities.
Surprising to me is the apparent fragility of our social and economic world in the face of potentially <1% global fatalities.</p>
That was always the problem....our reaction to a global issue...decades of peace and prosperity have turned us into flakey fuckers.....
Is it me...or is this like some 70's disaster movie full of tension....the teleprinter....ratatattat...cut to California.....65's isolated indoors.....cut to Madrid....army mobilised to keep public inside...cut to Milan...400 dead in one day.....ratatattat...cut to UK and Boris Johnson..at that point it turns into a Carry on Movie....
We will soon learn not to be *flakey fuckers*. This is going to be a wake up call that will echo down the halls of human civilisation.
Even if the reset button is pressed tomorrow this has already been the biggest event of my lifetime a multiple times over....
History now will define whether it hits the mark of WW1, WW2 os the Spanish Flu...the three most significant developments since mankind globalised....or if it exceeds those we will have to look back to the Black Death...and to be honest it could exceed that....and then what do we compare this with???
Eh? If the reset button were pressed tomorrow, the global death toll hasn’t yet reached two days’ worth of road accident deaths.
No, but when did most of the western world last go into hard lock down? Even if this all ended tomorrow, people would remember this for years to come.
A few years ago I was mocked as a ‘typical leave voter’ by people I worked with for allowing myself to consider out loud that HDTV could be just old tv pictures, and non HDTV old tv pictures made blurry by people wanting to sell HD... obviously not true, but not that different to the thinking that made apple make old phones play up so people would upgrade.
Now I wonder how we would be reacting to the Coronavirus outbreak numbers (infections and deaths) had the news channels been reporting influenza infections and deaths in the same way for the last decade.
Why is that even a point? First COVID is much more infectious and much more lethal than flu, and secondly it is not the current numbers but the trend and the likely future numbers which concern people. Hey, you think you have got a big number, but here's another big number of slightly different things, invites the response, so what? Were you sitting there on 9/11 pointing out that as many people die in car crashes every single day?
Wow you can read me like a book, that’s just what I did on 9/11
As did I!
Where does this end? JFK shot? Yawn, more people died in Budleigh Salterton this morning.
UK doctor on recovering from 'grim' coronavirus A former chair of the Royal College of GPs has told Radio 5 Live Breakfast about how she's getting through a "grim" coronavirus experience.
I listened to her on Radio 4 yesterday as well. I hope she has refined her comments since then. She was asked what it was lie and she said it was like having the worst case of flu she ever had. It sounded really rough. But then at the very end she said 'but it was only like having bad flu' which I kind of thought undermined the message about how dangerous this thing is.
Glad she is on the mend and not critical of her at all for describing what she went through but she probably needs to watch those throw away last lines.
I am strangely relaxed about it all. I surprise myself.
I admire your calmness, especially as you are in the front line.
I feel a degree of fatalism about it personally. We all knew a pandemic was coming; this seems to be much less virulent than some of the imagined possibilities.
Surprising to me is the apparent fragility of our social and economic world in the face of potentially <1% global fatalities.</p>
That was always the problem....our reaction to a global issue...decades of peace and prosperity have turned us into flakey fuckers.....
Is it me...or is this like some 70's disaster movie full of tension....the teleprinter....ratatattat...cut to California.....65's isolated indoors.....cut to Madrid....army mobilised to keep public inside...cut to Milan...400 dead in one day.....ratatattat...cut to UK and Boris Johnson..at that point it turns into a Carry on Movie....
We will soon learn not to be *flakey fuckers*. This is going to be a wake up call that will echo down the halls of human civilisation.
Even if the reset button is pressed tomorrow this has already been the biggest event of my lifetime a multiple times over....
History now will define whether it hits the mark of WW1, WW2 os the Spanish Flu...the three most significant developments since mankind globalised....or if it exceeds those we will have to look back to the Black Death...and to be honest it could exceed that....and then what do we compare this with???
Almost impossible to say. Right now I'd say it's potentially up there with World War 1. Not civilisation ending, by any means, but Fuck, it's Big.
Could bring down several regimes (as did WW1). Iran for a start. The Tsarist Russia of Corona.
It will definitely bring down a couple of regimes.
But World War One levels?
In the UK, 700,000 people died in World War One. That's about 1.4 million people in today's money (inflation, huh?) And these were young people.
COVID-19 could kill 700,000 people in the UK, although I suspect the number will end up being an order of magnitude less. And those that will die will mostly be those most at risk from other disorders. So, we might be looking at 50,000 excess deaths. Really, really major. A significant uptick in the death rate.
But not like lopping off 1.4 million young people.
50,000 seems optimistic to me, but OBVIOUSLY I hope you are right.
Where we agree is the ability of this disease to destabilise regimes. Iran looks very wobbly. Who knows how America reacts to mass death - more right wing or less?
China? - it depends if the disease rebounds. The EU as a political entity is going to take a major hit as Free Movement wilts. It may slowly disintegrate, as the migrant crisis adds to the pressure.
In the UK, Scottish independence will look like a ridiculous distraction for several years, maybe decades. Brexit will seem a pointless waste of precious time and energy. Boris will get another wife, and have another baby.
An interesting aspect of Spanish flu, was that despite iirc killing more people that the Great War, it has been fairly forgotten (until recently).
I see South Korea had only 76 new cases today, quite incredible.
Yep. We should copy them. Localised close downs, mass testing and contact tracing. It works.
I am still scratching my head at this about turn in the policy of mass testing. Rather than misrepresenting slides and bollocks like that, I wish the government officials were challenged on this.
I am strangely relaxed about it all. I surprise myself.
I admire your calmness, especially as you are in the front line.
I feel a degree of fatalism about it personally. We all knew a pandemic was coming; this seems to be much less virulent than some of the imagined possibilities.
Surprising to me is the apparent fragility of our social and economic world in the face of potentially <1% global fatalities.</p>
That was always the problem....our reaction to a global issue...decades of peace and prosperity have turned us into flakey fuckers.....
Is it me...or is this like some 70's disaster movie full of tension....the teleprinter....ratatattat...cut to California.....65's isolated indoors.....cut to Madrid....army mobilised to keep public inside...cut to Milan...400 dead in one day.....ratatattat...cut to UK and Boris Johnson..at that point it turns into a Carry on Movie....
We will soon learn not to be *flakey fuckers*. This is going to be a wake up call that will echo down the halls of human civilisation.
You have got some heavy lifting to do.
When I have finally convinced ALL of PB's stupid autistic investy-betting twats to take this seriously then my job is done, and I shall retire to my plague sanctuary in the Chilterns. There are still a few hold-outs who need to be napalmed with the truth.
You don’t have to be running up and down the street in your underpants screaming, to take something seriously.
But I was right, wasn't I? A whole six weeks ago. When I first quietly raised the coronavirus alarm, here on PB, and said this story would dominate the news for a year.
People like you roundly scoffed, for weeks... until eventually you didn't.
I hate that I was right. But I was right.
No.
Because fewer than six weeks ago you were telling us it would be “contagious but benign”, and criticising forecasts of 2% deaths suggesting 0.2% was nearer the mark.
Three weeks ago, you began to panic - but even then insisted you were only sharing expert opinions, not your own forecasts.
A couple of weeks back you began doing your own calculations of two million dead Britons and the rest (which even worst case looks way off the mark, even now). And have made such a fuss in recent days that you appear to have persuaded even yourself that you’ve been saying the same thing from the beginning.
Meanwhile some of us have taken a more measured assessment of the news, and positioned correctly to cope with the financial consequences, at least. You won’t find any posts from me saying that this epidemic wasn’t going to be a big deal.
Shit, you are going to start putting all this in a spreadsheet aren't you, and point us to what the accused posted at 1325 hours on 2 March (see cell V567)? On the big picture and taking things in the round, he has been broadly right throughout. And I can date his getting positioned correctly very precisely to February 7. If you made a bold "get out of equities altogether" call, what date was that?
No, on the big picture he really has been all over the place. I suggested selling the world’s stock markets in mid February. I don’t recall any Feb 7th post but I do know that his response to my mid Feb suggestion about the stock markets was (only) to suggest betting on Trump’s re-election, which he said was now “guaranteed” because he likes borders and hated China.
I am strangely relaxed about it all. I surprise myself.
I admire your calmness, especially as you are in the front line.
I feel a degree of fatalism about it personally. We all knew a pandemic was coming; this seems to be much less virulent than some of the imagined possibilities.
Surprising to me is the apparent fragility of our social and economic world in the face of potentially <1% global fatalities.</p>
That was always the problem....our reaction to a global issue...decades of peace and prosperity have turned us into flakey fuckers.....
Is it me...or is this like some 70's disaster movie full of tension....the teleprinter....ratatattat...cut to California.....65's isolated indoors.....cut to Madrid....army mobilised to keep public inside...cut to Milan...400 dead in one day.....ratatattat...cut to UK and Boris Johnson..at that point it turns into a Carry on Movie....
We will soon learn not to be *flakey fuckers*. This is going to be a wake up call that will echo down the halls of human civilisation.
Even if the reset button is pressed tomorrow this has already been the biggest event of my lifetime a multiple times over....
History now will define whether it hits the mark of WW1, WW2 os the Spanish Flu...the three most significant developments since mankind globalised....or if it exceeds those we will have to look back to the Black Death...and to be honest it could exceed that....and then what do we compare this with???
Almost impossible to say. Right now I'd say it's potentially up there with World War 1. Not civilisation ending, by any means, but Fuck, it's Big.
Could bring down several regimes (as did WW1). Iran for a start. The Tsarist Russia of Corona.
It will definitely bring down a couple of regimes.
But World War One levels?
In the UK, 700,000 people died in World War One. That's about 1.4 million people in today's money (inflation, huh?) And these were young people.
COVID-19 could kill 700,000 people in the UK, although I suspect the number will end up being an order of magnitude less. And those that will die will mostly be those most at risk from other disorders. So, we might be looking at 50,000 excess deaths. Really, really major. A significant uptick in the death rate.
But not like lopping off 1.4 million young people.
My ball park estimate is about the same, not because it couldn't touch 700 000, but rather because of individual acts.
I am strangely relaxed about it all. I surprise myself.
I admire your calmness, especially as you are in the front line.
I feel a degree of fatalism about it personally. We all knew a pandemic was coming; this seems to be much less virulent than some of the imagined possibilities.
Surprising to me is the apparent fragility of our social and economic world in the face of potentially <1% global fatalities.</p>
That was always the problem....our reaction to a global issue...decades of peace and prosperity have turned us into flakey fuckers.....
Is it me...or is this like some 70's disaster movie full of tension....the teleprinter....ratatattat...cut to California.....65's isolated indoors.....cut to Madrid....army mobilised to keep public inside...cut to Milan...400 dead in one day.....ratatattat...cut to UK and Boris Johnson..at that point it turns into a Carry on Movie....
We will soon learn not to be *flakey fuckers*. This is going to be a wake up call that will echo down the halls of human civilisation.
Even if the reset button is pressed tomorrow this has already been the biggest event of my lifetime a multiple times over....
History now will define whether it hits the mark of WW1, WW2 os the Spanish Flu...the three most significant developments since mankind globalised....or if it exceeds those we will have to look back to the Black Death...and to be honest it could exceed that....and then what do we compare this with???
Almost impossible to say. Right now I'd say it's potentially up there with World War 1. Not civilisation ending, by any means, but Fuck, it's Big.
Could bring down several regimes (as did WW1). Iran for a start. The Tsarist Russia of Corona.
It will definitely bring down a couple of regimes.
But World War One levels?
In the UK, 700,000 people died in World War One. That's about 1.4 million people in today's money (inflation, huh?) And these were young people.
COVID-19 could kill 700,000 people in the UK, although I suspect the number will end up being an order of magnitude less. And those that will die will mostly be those most at risk from other disorders. So, we might be looking at 50,000 excess deaths. Really, really major. A significant uptick in the death rate.
But not like lopping off 1.4 million young people.
So what you are saying is that the Butcher Boris evil plan will have failed? Cos according to twitter what he is really trying to do is kill everybody except his rich chums.
I am strangely relaxed about it all. I surprise myself.
I admire your calmness, especially as you are in the front line.
I feel a degree of fatalism about it personally. We all knew a pandemic was coming; this seems to be much less virulent than some of the imagined possibilities.
Surprising to me is the apparent fragility of our social and economic world in the face of potentially <1% global fatalities.</p>
That was always the problem....our reaction to a global issue...decades of peace and prosperity have turned us into flakey fuckers.....
Is it me...or is this like some 70's disaster movie full of tension....the teleprinter....ratatattat...cut to California.....65's isolated indoors.....cut to Madrid....army mobilised to keep public inside...cut to Milan...400 dead in one day.....ratatattat...cut to UK and Boris Johnson..at that point it turns into a Carry on Movie....
We will soon learn not to be *flakey fuckers*. This is going to be a wake up call that will echo down the halls of human civilisation.
Even if the reset button is pressed tomorrow this has already been the biggest event of my lifetime a multiple times over....
History now will define whether it hits the mark of WW1, WW2 os the Spanish Flu...the three most significant developments since mankind globalised....or if it exceeds those we will have to look back to the Black Death...and to be honest it could exceed that....and then what do we compare this with???
Eh? If the reset button were pressed tomorrow, the global death toll hasn’t yet reached two days’ worth of road accident deaths.
Seriously....have you seen the impact around the world?
We are already in places none of us under the age of 75 have ever experienced....
And this has much more to run....
Of course. But your proposition was that everything ends tomorrow.
Impossible, but if it did happen, I genuinely believe everything would be back to normal in a very short time indeed.
It is going to be the length and breadth of this crisis that brings about changes.
And, even then - remember all the predictions of “never be the same again” made about economics, finance and politics during the 2008 financial crash. Yet banking and finance has only changed mildly, economics barely at all, and the political fallout (which eventually proved the most profound) took almost a decade to appear.
No my proposition was we reset tomorrow- and all is normal....
What has happened this week has already exceeded the 2008 banking crisis...the next biggest event in my lifetime.....and I was born in the late 60's.....global capitalism very nearly collapsed then (just to remember)...and this exceeds that...
I am strangely relaxed about it all. I surprise myself.
I admire your calmness, especially as you are in the front line.
I feel a degree of fatalism about it personally. We all knew a pandemic was coming; this seems to be much less virulent than some of the imagined possibilities.
Surprising to me is the apparent fragility of our social and economic world in the face of potentially <1% global fatalities.</p>
That was always the problem....our reaction to a global issue...decades of peace and prosperity have turned us into flakey fuckers.....
Is it me...or is this like some 70's disaster movie full of tension....the teleprinter....ratatattat...cut to California.....65's isolated indoors.....cut to Madrid....army mobilised to keep public inside...cut to Milan...400 dead in one day.....ratatattat...cut to UK and Boris Johnson..at that point it turns into a Carry on Movie....
We will soon learn not to be *flakey fuckers*. This is going to be a wake up call that will echo down the halls of human civilisation.
Even if the reset button is pressed tomorrow this has already been the biggest event of my lifetime a multiple times over....
History now will define whether it hits the mark of WW1, WW2 os the Spanish Flu...the three most significant developments since mankind globalised....or if it exceeds those we will have to look back to the Black Death...and to be honest it could exceed that....and then what do we compare this with???
Almost impossible to say. Right now I'd say it's potentially up there with World War 1. Not civilisation ending, by any means, but Fuck, it's Big.
Could bring down several regimes (as did WW1). Iran for a start. The Tsarist Russia of Corona.
It will definitely bring down a couple of regimes.
But World War One levels?
In the UK, 700,000 people died in World War One. That's about 1.4 million people in today's money (inflation, huh?) And these were young people.
COVID-19 could kill 700,000 people in the UK, although I suspect the number will end up being an order of magnitude less. And those that will die will mostly be those most at risk from other disorders. So, we might be looking at 50,000 excess deaths. Really, really major. A significant uptick in the death rate.
But not like lopping off 1.4 million young people.
50,000 seems optimistic to me, but OBVIOUSLY I hope you are right.
Where we agree is the ability of this disease to destabilise regimes. Iran looks very wobbly. Who knows how America reacts to mass death - more right wing or less?
China? - it depends if the disease rebounds. The EU as a political entity is going to take a major hit as Free Movement wilts. It may slowly disintegrate, as the migrant crisis adds to the pressure.
In the UK, Scottish independence will look like a ridiculous distraction for several years, maybe decades. Brexit will seem a pointless waste of precious time and energy. Boris will get another wife, and have another baby.
When you took your black cab the other day with its 30-yr old Albanian footballer cab driver, were you wearing one of your face masks?
A few years ago I was mocked as a ‘typical leave voter’ by people I worked with for allowing myself to consider out loud that HDTV could be just old tv pictures, and non HDTV old tv pictures made blurry by people wanting to sell HD... obviously not true, but not that different to the thinking that made apple make old phones play up so people would upgrade.
Now I wonder how we would be reacting to the Coronavirus outbreak numbers (infections and deaths) had the news channels been reporting influenza infections and deaths in the same way for the last decade.
Why is that even a point? First COVID is much more infectious and much more lethal than flu, and secondly it is not the current numbers but the trend and the likely future numbers which concern people. Hey, you think you have got a big number, but here's another big number of slightly different things, invites the response, so what? Were you sitting there on 9/11 pointing out that as many people die in car crashes every single day?
Wow you can read me like a book, that’s just what I did on 9/11
As did I!
Where does this end? JFK shot? Yawn, more people died in Budleigh Salterton this morning.
There's a clear difference between 9/11, which was not part of an exponential growth situation, and which was highly unlikely to have any impact on individuals, and this.
Coronavirus is serious because - without measures to reduce its infectiousness - its incidence is doubling every five or six days in most countries. Coronavirus is like the lillies on the pond doubling every day. It takes a long time to cover the first half, and hardly any to cover the last.
That's why iSam is wrong about Coronavirus, and was right about the threat of Islamic terrorism.
I see South Korea had only 76 new cases today, quite incredible.
Yep. We should copy them. Localised close downs, mass testing and contact tracing. It works.
I am still scratching my head at this about turn in the policy of mass testing. Rather than misrepresenting slides and bollocks like that, I wish the government officials were challenged on this.
Certainly testing for health workers. We want to know whether to keep working or not, but the same applies to many other critical industries.
In a way, the virus has come at a bad time. If it were September, the easy decision - shutting everything down would be the right thing to do. Instead, the powers that be need to decide how much we need to use the summer that is approaching.
From what I see of Australia and Brazil, and other places in Latin America, I cannot see a British summer saving us.
Almost all the Australian cases came from those who had travelled abroad
Yep, same as us a couple of weeks ago.
Plenty of cases in Florida, Southern California, Central and Sourh America now, locally acquired.
None of the top 10 countries for coronavirus cases are in Latin America, Southern Africa or Australiasia where it is currently summer
Given the undeniable fact that the outbreak has started at the exact same time all over the world, this is incontrovertable evidence that 'the summer will save us'.
Given the first case in Australia was the same day as the first case in Europe your sarcasm is misplaced.
Hmmm....most people's go to for flu / headache / temperature is ibuprofen. Again, I hope this is raised with the egg-heads and if correct it really needs widely disseminating as most people will instinctively use it.
A few years ago I was mocked as a ‘typical leave voter’ by people I worked with for allowing myself to consider out loud that HDTV could be just old tv pictures, and non HDTV old tv pictures made blurry by people wanting to sell HD... obviously not true, but not that different to the thinking that made apple make old phones play up so people would upgrade.
Now I wonder how we would be reacting to the Coronavirus outbreak numbers (infections and deaths) had the news channels been reporting influenza infections and deaths in the same way for the last decade.
Why is that even a point? First COVID is much more infectious and much more lethal than flu, and secondly it is not the current numbers but the trend and the likely future numbers which concern people. Hey, you think you have got a big number, but here's another big number of slightly different things, invites the response, so what? Were you sitting there on 9/11 pointing out that as many people die in car crashes every single day?
Wow you can read me like a book, that’s just what I did on 9/11
But it just strikes me that the people dying from this disease could be replacing those who would have died from flu or pneumonia, nearly all being old, vulnerable and ill, rather than being additional deaths. Try not to get a hard on about it!
Please don't accuse me, disgustingly, of "getting a hard on" about it. And you are just wrong on the numbers. There will be excess deaths, they will not all be old, they won't all be of coronavirus - the evidence from Italy is boringly unambiguous on all those points. If you don't mind about any of that, fine, but don't expect a medal for it.
A few years ago I was mocked as a ‘typical leave voter’ by people I worked with for allowing myself to consider out loud that HDTV could be just old tv pictures, and non HDTV old tv pictures made blurry by people wanting to sell HD... obviously not true, but not that different to the thinking that made apple make old phones play up so people would upgrade.
Now I wonder how we would be reacting to the Coronavirus outbreak numbers (infections and deaths) had the news channels been reporting influenza infections and deaths in the same way for the last decade.
Why is that even a point? First COVID is much more infectious and much more lethal than flu, and secondly it is not the current numbers but the trend and the likely future numbers which concern people. Hey, you think you have got a big number, but here's another big number of slightly different things, invites the response, so what? Were you sitting there on 9/11 pointing out that as many people die in car crashes every single day?
Wow you can read me like a book, that’s just what I did on 9/11
As did I!
Where does this end? JFK shot? Yawn, more people died in Budleigh Salterton this morning.
There's a clear difference between 9/11, which was not part of an exponential growth situation, and which was highly unlikely to have any impact on individuals, and this.
Coronavirus is serious because - without measures to reduce its infectiousness - its incidence is doubling every five or six days in most countries. Coronavirus is like the lillies on the pond doubling every day. It takes a long time to cover the first half, and hardly any to cover the last.
That's why iSam is wrong about Coronavirus, and was right about the threat of Islamic terrorism.
I didn’t really do that on 9/11
But why am I wrong about Coronavirus? I asked the question; would we would be reacting as we are if the 24hr news cycle had reported every infection and death of influenza in the way they are coronavirus? That’s all
I see South Korea had only 76 new cases today, quite incredible.
Yep. We should copy them. Localised close downs, mass testing and contact tracing. It works.
I am still scratching my head at this about turn in the policy of mass testing. Rather than misrepresenting slides and bollocks like that, I wish the government officials were challenged on this.
The CMO and CSA spelt it out at the last press conference. There is a limited amount of laboratory capacity to process tests. When this thing hits, using that capacity to test people in hospitals will use all of that capacity - however much it is expanded.
Trying to test people self-isolating at home would just increase risks to health workers for little reward.
50,000 seems optimistic to me, but OBVIOUSLY I hope you are right.
Where we agree is the ability of this disease to destabilise regimes. Iran looks very wobbly. Who knows how America reacts to mass death - more right wing or less?
China? - it depends if the disease rebounds. The EU as a political entity is going to take a major hit as Free Movement wilts. It may slowly disintegrate, as the migrant crisis adds to the pressure.
In the UK, Scottish independence will look like a ridiculous distraction for several years, maybe decades. Brexit will seem a pointless waste of precious time and energy. Boris will get another wife, and have another baby.
To come back to my earlier post.
There's a massive time lag between actions and reported cases. If you look at the numbers from Hubei, actual new infections started dropping 12 days before reported new infections.
And the problem is that we're staring into the rear view mirror: "My god, this isn't working, we need to do MORE".
Because the time lag between infection and diagnosis is so long, we won't see any benefits from the measures of the last few weeks until (probably) the end of this coming week.
But come the beginning of April, the number of new cases reported will be falling meaningfully everywhere in Europe, and the US probably won't be far behind.
Again, look at this chart from Hubei - it's absolutely crucial to understanding this:
In a way, the virus has come at a bad time. If it were September, the easy decision - shutting everything down would be the right thing to do. Instead, the powers that be need to decide how much we need to use the summer that is approaching.
From what I see of Australia and Brazil, and other places in Latin America, I cannot see a British summer saving us.
Almost all the Australian cases came from those who had travelled abroad
Yep, same as us a couple of weeks ago.
Plenty of cases in Florida, Southern California, Central and Sourh America now, locally acquired.
None of the top 10 countries for coronavirus cases are in Latin America, Southern Africa or Australiasia where it is currently summer
They probably are saved by adequate supplies of hot broth.
The route in this Pandemic is from Wuhan to the ski slopes of Italy...and then Ryanair Bergamo to all the cheap flight routes in Europe-- Valencia and Madrid--
You have to hand it to that little microbe motherfucker that decided to upsticks from a bat or snake or some other live animal in the Wuhan market....and jump to a human....tough little shit.....survived that and then managed to get himself passed around the globe. Credit is where credit is due....
Am I right in remembering there was a debate about whether or not it was ethically defendable to destroy the last Smallpox samples as it would mean we were purposefully driving something to extinction (yes I know the irony of that but apparently this really was a moral dilemma)
Many forthcoming retirements are going to be ruined by the coronavirus. A lot of comfortable pension pots no longer will be. That in itself will be a huge challenge for the government.
Don't most pension funds gradually convert stock to cash in the five years leading up to the target retirement age?
Public sector fatcat pensioners would not appreciate this.
A few years ago I was mocked as a ‘typical leave voter’ by people I worked with for allowing myself to consider out loud that HDTV could be just old tv pictures, and non HDTV old tv pictures made blurry by people wanting to sell HD... obviously not true, but not that different to the thinking that made apple make old phones play up so people would upgrade.
Now I wonder how we would be reacting to the Coronavirus outbreak numbers (infections and deaths) had the news channels been reporting influenza infections and deaths in the same way for the last decade.
Why is that even a point? First COVID is much more infectious and much more lethal than flu, and secondly it is not the current numbers but the trend and the likely future numbers which concern people. Hey, you think you have got a big number, but here's another big number of slightly different things, invites the response, so what? Were you sitting there on 9/11 pointing out that as many people die in car crashes every single day?
Wow you can read me like a book, that’s just what I did on 9/11
As did I!
Where does this end? JFK shot? Yawn, more people died in Budleigh Salterton this morning.
There's a clear difference between 9/11, which was not part of an exponential growth situation, and which was highly unlikely to have any impact on individuals, and this.
Coronavirus is serious because - without measures to reduce its infectiousness - its incidence is doubling every five or six days in most countries. Coronavirus is like the lillies on the pond doubling every day. It takes a long time to cover the first half, and hardly any to cover the last.
That's why iSam is wrong about Coronavirus, and was right about the threat of Islamic terrorism.
I didn’t really do that on 9/11
But why am I wrong about Coronavirus? I asked the question; would we would be reacting as we are if the 24hr news cycle had reported every infection and death of influenza in the way they are coronavirus? That’s all
If influenza cases went: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32... then I'd damn well hope they reported them.
But (1) we have existing vaccines for influenza, (2) many people have partial immunity from having caught it in the past, (3) it is a well understood disease, and (4) it wasn't growing exponentially.
I am strangely relaxed about it all. I surprise myself.
I admire your calmness, especially as you are in the front line.
I feel a degree of fatalism about it personally. We all knew a pandemic was coming; this seems to be much less virulent than some of the imagined possibilities.
Surprising to me is the apparent fragility of our social and economic world in the face of potentially <1% global fatalities.</p>
That was always the problem....our reaction to a global issue...decades of peace and prosperity have turned us into flakey fuckers.....
Is it me...or is this like some 70's disaster movie full of tension....the teleprinter....ratatattat...cut to California.....65's isolated indoors.....cut to Madrid....army mobilised to keep public inside...cut to Milan...400 dead in one day.....ratatattat...cut to UK and Boris Johnson..at that point it turns into a Carry on Movie....
We will soon learn not to be *flakey fuckers*. This is going to be a wake up call that will echo down the halls of human civilisation.
Even if the reset button is pressed tomorrow this has already been the biggest event of my lifetime a multiple times over....
History now will define whether it hits the mark of WW1, WW2 os the Spanish Flu...the three most significant developments since mankind globalised....or if it exceeds those we will have to look back to the Black Death...and to be honest it could exceed that....and then what do we compare this with???
Almost impossible to say. Right now I'd say it's potentially up there with World War 1. Not civilisation ending, by any means, but Fuck, it's Big.
Could bring down several regimes (as did WW1). Iran for a start. The Tsarist Russia of Corona.
It will definitely bring down a couple of regimes.
But World War One levels?
In the UK, 700,000 people died in World War One. That's about 1.4 million people in today's money (inflation, huh?) And these were young people.
COVID-19 could kill 700,000 people in the UK, although I suspect the number will end up being an order of magnitude less. And those that will die will mostly be those most at risk from other disorders. So, we might be looking at 50,000 excess deaths. Really, really major. A significant uptick in the death rate.
But not like lopping off 1.4 million young people.
50,000 seems optimistic to me, but OBVIOUSLY I hope you are right.
Where we agree is the ability of this disease to destabilise regimes. Iran looks very wobbly. Who knows how America reacts to mass death - more right wing or less?
China? - it depends if the disease rebounds. The EU as a political entity is going to take a major hit as Free Movement wilts. It may slowly disintegrate, as the migrant crisis adds to the pressure.
In the UK, Scottish independence will look like a ridiculous distraction for several years, maybe decades. Brexit will seem a pointless waste of precious time and energy. Boris will get another wife, and have another baby.
When you took your black cab the other day with its 30-yr old Albanian footballer cab driver, were you wearing one of your face masks?
You're pissed again, aren't you?
I understand the attitude. In the face of confounding terror, open the Armagnac!
You have two questions outstanding.
1. Will you leave your daughter behind in North London when you and your wife isolate in the country or the seaside; and
2. Were you wearing your face mask when you took a black cab in London the other day?
You said both that you and your wife were going to leave London and also that your daughter was at school in North London; and you also said that you wear a face mask around people and that you took a black can the other day.
50,000 seems optimistic to me, but OBVIOUSLY I hope you are right.
Where we agree is the ability of this disease to destabilise regimes. Iran looks very wobbly. Who knows how America reacts to mass death - more right wing or less?
China? - it depends if the disease rebounds. The EU as a political entity is going to take a major hit as Free Movement wilts. It may slowly disintegrate, as the migrant crisis adds to the pressure.
In the UK, Scottish independence will look like a ridiculous distraction for several years, maybe decades. Brexit will seem a pointless waste of precious time and energy. Boris will get another wife, and have another baby.
To come back to my earlier post.
There's a massive time lag between actions and reported cases. If you look at the numbers from Hubei, actual new infections started dropping 12 days before reported new infections.
And the problem is that we're staring into the rear view mirror: "My god, this isn't working, we need to do MORE".
Because the time lag between infection and diagnosis is so long, we won't see any benefits from the measures of the last few weeks until (probably) the end of this coming week.
But come the beginning of April, the number of new cases reported will be falling meaningfully everywhere in Europe, and the US probably won't be far behind.
Again, look at this chart from Hubei - it's absolutely crucial to understanding this:
Beginning of April seems early - why all the talk of 4 months of lockdown ?
In a way, the virus has come at a bad time. If it were September, the easy decision - shutting everything down would be the right thing to do. Instead, the powers that be need to decide how much we need to use the summer that is approaching.
From what I see of Australia and Brazil, and other places in Latin America, I cannot see a British summer saving us.
Almost all the Australian cases came from those who had travelled abroad
Yep, same as us a couple of weeks ago.
Plenty of cases in Florida, Southern California, Central and Sourh America now, locally acquired.
None of the top 10 countries for coronavirus cases are in Latin America, Southern Africa or Australiasia where it is currently summer
Given the undeniable fact that the outbreak has started at the exact same time all over the world, this is incontrovertable evidence that 'the summer will save us'.
Given the first case in Australia was the same day as the first case in Europe your sarcasm is misplaced.
A few years ago I was mocked as a ‘typical leave voter’ by people I worked with for allowing myself to consider out loud that HDTV could be just old tv pictures, and non HDTV old tv pictures made blurry by people wanting to sell HD... obviously not true, but not that different to the thinking that made apple make old phones play up so people would upgrade.
Now I wonder how we would be reacting to the Coronavirus outbreak numbers (infections and deaths) had the news channels been reporting influenza infections and deaths in the same way for the last decade.
Why is that even a point? First COVID is much more infectious and much more lethal than flu, and secondly it is not the current numbers but the trend and the likely future numbers which concern people. Hey, you think you have got a big number, but here's another big number of slightly different things, invites the response, so what? Were you sitting there on 9/11 pointing out that as many people die in car crashes every single day?
Wow you can read me like a book, that’s just what I did on 9/11
But it just strikes me that the people dying from this disease could be replacing those who would have died from flu or pneumonia, nearly all being old, vulnerable and ill, rather than being additional deaths. Try not to get a hard on about it!
Please don't accuse me, disgustingly, of "getting a hard on" about it. And you are just wrong on the numbers. There will be excess deaths, they will not all be old, they won't all be of coronavirus - the evidence from Italy is boringly unambiguous on all those points. If you don't mind about any of that, fine, but don't expect a medal for it.
Ive already done it
In fact my original question was; would we be reacting to the numbers shown on the news and twitter everyday if the same attention were paid to influenza and pneumonia every winter for the last decade? No more than that. You seem to have misunderstood and gone off on one about something else.
50,000 seems optimistic to me, but OBVIOUSLY I hope you are right.
Where we agree is the ability of this disease to destabilise regimes. Iran looks very wobbly. Who knows how America reacts to mass death - more right wing or less?
China? - it depends if the disease rebounds. The EU as a political entity is going to take a major hit as Free Movement wilts. It may slowly disintegrate, as the migrant crisis adds to the pressure.
In the UK, Scottish independence will look like a ridiculous distraction for several years, maybe decades. Brexit will seem a pointless waste of precious time and energy. Boris will get another wife, and have another baby.
To come back to my earlier post.
There's a massive time lag between actions and reported cases. If you look at the numbers from Hubei, actual new infections started dropping 12 days before reported new infections.
And the problem is that we're staring into the rear view mirror: "My god, this isn't working, we need to do MORE".
Because the time lag between infection and diagnosis is so long, we won't see any benefits from the measures of the last few weeks until (probably) the end of this coming week.
But come the beginning of April, the number of new cases reported will be falling meaningfully everywhere in Europe, and the US probably won't be far behind.
Again, look at this chart from Hubei - it's absolutely crucial to understanding this:
Beginning of April seems early - why all the talk of 4 months of lockdown ?
You probably need 14 days of serious lockdown, followed by six to eight weeks of diminishing restrictions.
There's a massive time lag between actions and reported cases. If you look at the numbers from Hubei, actual new infections started dropping 12 days before reported new infections.
And the problem is that we're staring into the rear view mirror: "My god, this isn't working, we need to do MORE".
Because the time lag between infection and diagnosis is so long, we won't see any benefits from the measures of the last few weeks until (probably) the end of this coming week.
But come the beginning of April, the number of new cases reported will be falling meaningfully everywhere in Europe, and the US probably won't be far behind.
Again, look at this chart from Hubei - it's absolutely crucial to understanding this:
I don't think there's much reason to think that the measures taken thus far in the UK have been sufficient to get the rate of growth below 1.
I hate to mention it, but there seems to be a divide where older and/or more conservative people are less concerned about the virus, whereas younger and more left-wing people are more concerned about it. I can't explain why that would be. This seems to particularly be the case in the United States.
In a way, the virus has come at a bad time. If it were September, the easy decision - shutting everything down would be the right thing to do. Instead, the powers that be need to decide how much we need to use the summer that is approaching.
From what I see of Australia and Brazil, and other places in Latin America, I cannot see a British summer saving us.
Almost all the Australian cases came from those who had travelled abroad
Yep, same as us a couple of weeks ago.
Plenty of cases in Florida, Southern California, Central and Sourh America now, locally acquired.
None of the top 10 countries for coronavirus cases are in Latin America, Southern Africa or Australiasia where it is currently summer
Given the undeniable fact that the outbreak has started at the exact same time all over the world, this is incontrovertable evidence that 'the summer will save us'.
Isn’t Iran’s current weather fairly ‘British summer’ ?
Iran is a less developed country than we are with a less effective health service than we have and it is also winter there, Iran will also likely benefit once the Iranian summer arrives
Once our health system collapses we may as well living in Ethiopia for all that it will help us....you can ring 111...
The fundamentals of public health...fresh water, housing, sewage, sanitation heating, fresh food...those will be the key determinants that separate us from us a 3rd world country in this crisis...the NHS will be as much use as a chocolate teapot.....
Indeed, that has always been the case. The Marmot 2020 report was sadly neglected in the news last week, but public health works for chronic disease even more than viruses.
Indeed they interact. Don't stockpile pasta, stockpile veg, and shed that beer belly over the next weeks. It may save you from the virus too.
I rather think I may be drinking a lot more bottles of beer at home in next four months.
There's a massive time lag between actions and reported cases. If you look at the numbers from Hubei, actual new infections started dropping 12 days before reported new infections.
And the problem is that we're staring into the rear view mirror: "My god, this isn't working, we need to do MORE".
Because the time lag between infection and diagnosis is so long, we won't see any benefits from the measures of the last few weeks until (probably) the end of this coming week.
But come the beginning of April, the number of new cases reported will be falling meaningfully everywhere in Europe, and the US probably won't be far behind.
Again, look at this chart from Hubei - it's absolutely crucial to understanding this:
I don't think there's much reason to think that the measures taken thus far in the UK have been sufficient to get the rate of growth below 1.
South Korea and Japan had similar measures to the UK, albeit implemented much earlier than we did, and that seems to have kept their Rs around 1.
Many forthcoming retirements are going to be ruined by the coronavirus. A lot of comfortable pension pots no longer will be. That in itself will be a huge challenge for the government.
Don't most pension funds gradually convert stock to cash in the five years leading up to the target retirement age?
Public sector fatcat pensioners would not appreciate this.
Public sector fatcat pensioners are generally on defined benefit schemes and the issue doesn't arise. "Lifestyle" pension funds are specifically a private sector befined contribution style thing.
A few years ago I was mocked as a ‘typical leave voter’ by people I worked with for allowing myself to consider out loud that HDTV could be just old tv pictures, and non HDTV old tv pictures made blurry by people wanting to sell HD... obviously not true, but not that different to the thinking that made apple make old phones play up so people would upgrade.
Now I wonder how we would be reacting to the Coronavirus outbreak numbers (infections and deaths) had the news channels been reporting influenza infections and deaths in the same way for the last decade.
Why is that even a point? First COVID is much more infectious and much more lethal than flu, and secondly it is not the current numbers but the trend and the likely future numbers which concern people. Hey, you think you have got a big number, but here's another big number of slightly different things, invites the response, so what? Were you sitting there on 9/11 pointing out that as many people die in car crashes every single day?
Wow you can read me like a book, that’s just what I did on 9/11
But it just strikes me that the people dying from this disease could be replacing those who would have died from flu or pneumonia, nearly all being old, vulnerable and ill, rather than being additional deaths. Try not to get a hard on about it!
Please don't accuse me, disgustingly, of "getting a hard on" about it. And you are just wrong on the numbers. There will be excess deaths, they will not all be old, they won't all be of coronavirus - the evidence from Italy is boringly unambiguous on all those points. If you don't mind about any of that, fine, but don't expect a medal for it.
Ive already done it
In fact my original question was; would we be reacting to the numbers shown on the news and twitter everyday if the same attention were paid to influenza and pneumonia every winter for the last decade? No more than that. You seem to have misunderstood and gone off on one about something else.
I thought you were making a point about something.
I am strangely relaxed about it all. I surprise myself.
I admire your calmness, especially as you are in the front line.
I feel a degree of fatalism about it personally. We all knew a pandemic was coming; this seems to be much less virulent than some of the imagined possibilities.
Surprising to me is the apparent fragility of our social and economic world in the face of potentially <1% global fatalities.</p>
That was always the problem....our reaction to a global issue...decades of peace and prosperity have turned us into flakey fuckers.....
Is it me...or is this like some 70's disaster movie full of tension....the teleprinter....ratatattat...cut to California.....65's isolated indoors.....cut to Madrid....army mobilised to keep public inside...cut to Milan...400 dead in one day.....ratatattat...cut to UK and Boris Johnson..at that point it turns into a Carry on Movie....
We will soon learn not to be *flakey fuckers*. This is going to be a wake up call that will echo down the halls of human civilisation.
Even if the reset button is pressed tomorrow this has already been the biggest event of my lifetime a multiple times over....
History now will define whether it hits the mark of WW1, WW2 os the Spanish Flu...the three most significant developments since mankind globalised....or if it exceeds those we will have to look back to the Black Death...and to be honest it could exceed that....and then what do we compare this with???
Almost impossible to say. Right now I'd say it's potentially up there with World War 1. Not civilisation ending, by any means, but Fuck, it's Big.
Could bring down several regimes (as did WW1). Iran for a start. The Tsarist Russia of Corona.
It will definitely bring down a couple of regimes.
But World War One levels?
In the UK, 700,000 people died in World War One. That's about 1.4 million people in today's money (inflation, huh?) And these were young people.
COVID-19 could kill 700,000 people in the UK, although I suspect the number will end up being an order of magnitude less. And those that will die will mostly be those most at risk from other disorders. So, we might be looking at 50,000 excess deaths. Really, really major. A significant uptick in the death rate.
But not like lopping off 1.4 million young people.
50,000 seems optimistic to me, but OBVIOUSLY I hope you are right.
Where we agree is the ability of this disease to destabilise regimes. Iran looks very wobbly. Who knows how America reacts to mass death - more right wing or less?
China? - it depends if the disease rebounds. The EU as a political entity is going to take a major hit as Free Movement wilts. It may slowly disintegrate, as the migrant crisis adds to the pressure.
In the UK, Scottish independence will look like a ridiculous distraction for several years, maybe decades. Brexit will seem a pointless waste of precious time and energy. Boris will get another wife, and have another baby.
When you took your black cab the other day with its 30-yr old Albanian footballer cab driver, were you wearing one of your face masks?
You're pissed again, aren't you?
I understand the attitude. In the face of confounding terror, open the Armagnac!
You have two questions outstanding.
1. Will you leave your daughter behind in North London when you and your wife isolate in the country or the seaside; and
2. Were you wearing your face mask when you took a black cab in London the other day?
You said both that you and your wife were going to leave London and also that your daughter was at school in North London; and you also said that you wear a face mask around people and that you took a black can the other day.
So what is it?
I'll talk to you when you are sober, which I estimate to be late Autumn 2028, judging by your present behaviour. If you're not dead, of course.
A few years ago I was mocked as a ‘typical leave voter’ by people I worked with for allowing myself to consider out loud that HDTV could be just old tv pictures, and non HDTV old tv pictures made blurry by people wanting to sell HD... obviously not true, but not that different to the thinking that made apple make old phones play up so people would upgrade.
Now I wonder how we would be reacting to the Coronavirus outbreak numbers (infections and deaths) had the news channels been reporting influenza infections and deaths in the same way for the last decade.
Why is that even a point? First COVID is much more infectious and much more lethal than flu, and secondly it is not the current numbers but the trend and the likely future numbers which concern people. Hey, you think you have got a big number, but here's another big number of slightly different things, invites the response, so what? Were you sitting there on 9/11 pointing out that as many people die in car crashes every single day?
Wow you can read me like a book, that’s just what I did on 9/11
As did I!
Where does this end? JFK shot? Yawn, more people died in Budleigh Salterton this morning.
There's a clear difference between 9/11, which was not part of an exponential growth situation, and which was highly unlikely to have any impact on individuals, and this.
Coronavirus is serious because - without measures to reduce its infectiousness - its incidence is doubling every five or six days in most countries. Coronavirus is like the lillies on the pond doubling every day. It takes a long time to cover the first half, and hardly any to cover the last.
That's why iSam is wrong about Coronavirus, and was right about the threat of Islamic terrorism.
I didn’t really do that on 9/11
But why am I wrong about Coronavirus? I asked the question; would we would be reacting as we are if the 24hr news cycle had reported every infection and death of influenza in the way they are coronavirus? That’s all
If influenza cases went: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32... then I'd damn well hope they reported them.
But (1) we have existing vaccines for influenza, (2) many people have partial immunity from having caught it in the past, (3) it is a well understood disease, and (4) it wasn't growing exponentially.
None of it really answers the question I asked to be honest
50,000 seems optimistic to me, but OBVIOUSLY I hope you are right.
Where we agree is the ability of this disease to destabilise regimes. Iran looks very wobbly. Who knows how America reacts to mass death - more right wing or less?
China? - it depends if the disease rebounds. The EU as a political entity is going to take a major hit as Free Movement wilts. It may slowly disintegrate, as the migrant crisis adds to the pressure.
In the UK, Scottish independence will look like a ridiculous distraction for several years, maybe decades. Brexit will seem a pointless waste of precious time and energy. Boris will get another wife, and have another baby.
To come back to my earlier post.
There's a massive time lag between actions and reported cases. If you look at the numbers from Hubei, actual new infections started dropping 12 days before reported new infections.
And the problem is that we're staring into the rear view mirror: "My god, this isn't working, we need to do MORE".
Because the time lag between infection and diagnosis is so long, we won't see any benefits from the measures of the last few weeks until (probably) the end of this coming week.
But come the beginning of April, the number of new cases reported will be falling meaningfully everywhere in Europe, and the US probably won't be far behind.
Again, look at this chart from Hubei - it's absolutely crucial to understanding this:
Beginning of April seems early - why all the talk of 4 months of lockdown ?
You probably need 14 days of serious lockdown, followed by six to eight weeks of diminishing restrictions.
Agreed; I think I'd go 28 days for the serious lockdown (the period you can infect is still a bit unclear, so better be longer in the first phase) then start opening up a little - a few shops / offices to begin with and then schools later on in the process.
I hate to mention it, but there seems to be a divide where older and/or more conservative people are less concerned about the virus, whereas younger and more left-wing people are more concerned about it. I can't explain why that would be. This seems to particularly be the case in the United States.
In the US it is because they trust Trump (that might change). Here there's less of a culture wars divide - leavers are a bit less fussed than Remainers but not a lot in it, according to polling. I can't think of a more cross party issue, myself.
A few years ago I was mocked as a ‘typical leave voter’ by people I worked with for allowing myself to consider out loud that HDTV could be just old tv pictures, and non HDTV old tv pictures made blurry by people wanting to sell HD... obviously not true, but not that different to the thinking that made apple make old phones play up so people would upgrade.
Now I wonder how we would be reacting to the Coronavirus outbreak numbers (infections and deaths) had the news channels been reporting influenza infections and deaths in the same way for the last decade.
Why is that even a point? First COVID is much more infectious and much more lethal than flu, and secondly it is not the current numbers but the trend and the likely future numbers which concern people. Hey, you think you have got a big number, but here's another big number of slightly different things, invites the response, so what? Were you sitting there on 9/11 pointing out that as many people die in car crashes every single day?
Wow you can read me like a book, that’s just what I did on 9/11
But it just strikes me that the people dying from this disease could be replacing those who would have died from flu or pneumonia, nearly all being old, vulnerable and ill, rather than being additional deaths. Try not to get a hard on about it!
Please don't accuse me, disgustingly, of "getting a hard on" about it. And you are just wrong on the numbers. There will be excess deaths, they will not all be old, they won't all be of coronavirus - the evidence from Italy is boringly unambiguous on all those points. If you don't mind about any of that, fine, but don't expect a medal for it.
Ive already done it
In fact my original question was; would we be reacting to the numbers shown on the news and twitter everyday if the same attention were paid to influenza and pneumonia every winter for the last decade? No more than that. You seem to have misunderstood and gone off on one about something else.
I thought you were making a point about something.
Yes, I was saying that if every death and infection from disease has been reported this way for the last ten years, people might be reacting differently to how they are now.
A few years ago I was mocked as a ‘typical leave voter’ by people I worked with for allowing myself to consider out loud that HDTV could be just old tv pictures, and non HDTV old tv pictures made blurry by people wanting to sell HD... obviously not true, but not that different to the thinking that made apple make old phones play up so people would upgrade.
Now I wonder how we would be reacting to the Coronavirus outbreak numbers (infections and deaths) had the news channels been reporting influenza infections and deaths in the same way for the last decade.
Why is that even a point? First COVID is much more infectious and much more lethal than flu, and secondly it is not the current numbers but the trend and the likely future numbers which concern people. Hey, you think you have got a big number, but here's another big number of slightly different things, invites the response, so what? Were you sitting there on 9/11 pointing out that as many people die in car crashes every single day?
Wow you can read me like a book, that’s just what I did on 9/11
As did I!
Where does this end? JFK shot? Yawn, more people died in Budleigh Salterton this morning.
There's a clear difference between 9/11, which was not part of an exponential growth situation, and which was highly unlikely to have any impact on individuals, and this.
Coronavirus is serious because - without measures to reduce its infectiousness - its incidence is doubling every five or six days in most countries. Coronavirus is like the lillies on the pond doubling every day. It takes a long time to cover the first half, and hardly any to cover the last.
That's why iSam is wrong about Coronavirus, and was right about the threat of Islamic terrorism.
I didn’t really do that on 9/11
But why am I wrong about Coronavirus? I asked the question; would we would be reacting as we are if the 24hr news cycle had reported every infection and death of influenza in the way they are coronavirus? That’s all
If influenza cases went: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32... then I'd damn well hope they reported them.
But (1) we have existing vaccines for influenza, (2) many people have partial immunity from having caught it in the past, (3) it is a well understood disease, and (4) it wasn't growing exponentially.
None of it really answers the question I asked to be honest
The reason COVID-19 gets so many headlines is because if it continued growing at this rate for a period, then it would kill hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of people.
I still think people are underestimating how much of a de facto “lockdown” we’ve already got in place by people choosing to do it themselves. I think that’s part of the game.
I am strangely relaxed about it all. I surprise myself.
I admire your calmness, especially as you are in the front line.
I feel a degree of fatalism about it personally. We all knew a pandemic was coming; this seems to be much less virulent than some of the imagined possibilities.
Surprising to me is the apparent fragility of our social and economic world in the face of potentially <1% global fatalities.</p>
That was always the problem....our reaction to a global issue...decades of peace and prosperity have turned us into flakey fuckers.....
Is it me...or is this like some 70's disaster movie full of tension....the teleprinter....ratatattat...cut to California.....65's isolated indoors.....cut to Madrid....army mobilised to keep public inside...cut to Milan...400 dead in one day.....ratatattat...cut to UK and Boris Johnson..at that point it turns into a Carry on Movie....
We will soon learn not to be *flakey fuckers*. This is going to be a wake up call that will echo down the halls of human civilisation.
Even if the reset button is pressed tomorrow this has already been the biggest event of my lifetime a multiple times over....
History now will define whether it hits the mark of WW1, WW2 os the Spanish Flu...the three most significant developments since mankind globalised....or if it exceeds those we will have to look back to the Black Death...and to be honest it could exceed that....and then what do we compare this with???
Almost impossible to say. Right now I'd say it's potentially up there with World War 1. Not civilisation ending, by any means, but Fuck, it's Big.
Could bring down several regimes (as did WW1). Iran for a start. The Tsarist Russia of Corona.
It will definitely bring down a couple of regimes.
But World War One levels?
In the UK, 700,000 people died in World War One. That's about 1.4 million people in today's money (inflation, huh?) And these were young people.
COVID-19 could kill 700,000 people in the UK, although I suspect the number will end up being an order of magnitude less. And those that will die will mostly be those most at risk from other disorders. So, we might be looking at 50,000 excess deaths. Really, really major. A significant uptick in the death rate.
But not like lopping off 1.4 million young people.
50,000 seems optimistic to me, but OBVIOUSLY I hope you are right.
Where we agree is the ability of this disease to destabilise regimes. Iran looks very wobbly. Who knows how America reacts to mass death - more right wing or less?
China? - it depends if the disease rebounds. The EU as a political entity is going to take a major hit as Free Movement wilts. It may slowly disintegrate, as the migrant crisis adds to the pressure.
In the UK, Scottish independence will look like a ridiculous distraction for several years, maybe decades. Brexit will seem a pointless waste of precious time and energy. Boris will get another wife, and have another baby.
America -- more left because it shows the need for government action of the kind deplored by the GOP for decades. Nonetheless, the Americans might save us all by their ability, like China, to throw massive amounts of money, brain and computer power at the problem.
The EU may founder on German selfishness. As with the Eurozone crisis, it seems unwilling to help its southern neighbours. Italy is seen to be getting more help from China which at least has the nous to get its doctors on television.
Britain, who knows? Differences in approach and outcome north and south of the Irish border will be important, and perhaps to a lesser extent either side of Hadrian's Wall. Similarly, Brexit might be judged on whether or not we beat the French.
Comments
3-D printing has some uses in this - we shall see.
A pure production line approach would involve injection molding, stamping etc and would take months/years to setup. The result will be cheaper though.
CNC files can be sent out to pretty much any pro firm that has the equipment. same with 3D print.
Laser cutting is also very useful in this - and so it water jet, and 2D milling.
The advantage of all these methods is that you need pretty much no tooling or production line setup - you need to tune the code to produce the best quality, but once this is done, you simply put raw stock on the machine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KLNJ8d8Vqc shows how much you can do - note that this is 9 years ago.
For a lot of people in service industries, reducing social interactions means not working, of course. This is going to involve quite a lot of shutting stuff down for a time.
Schools are a problem, too. Neither shutting them nor keeping them open seem to be great choices.
History now will define whether it hits the mark of WW1, WW2 os the Spanish Flu...the three most significant developments since mankind globalised....or if it exceeds those we will have to look back to the Black Death...and to be honest it could exceed that....and then what do we compare this with???
Maybe he’ll die or become a super spreader while I’m safe in here... But probably not I reckon
Night all, stay safe!
However, remember that 95% of people - even now, only testing people with obvious symptoms - are showing up negative for COVID-19 in the UK. Also remember the Diamond Princess, where we know exactly how many people got it. Both of these are indicative of an R of less than 7, and very little (if no) iceberg effect.
The fundamentals of public health...fresh water, housing, sewage, sanitation heating, fresh food...those will be the key determinants that separate us from us a 3rd world country in this crisis...the NHS will be as much use as a chocolate teapot.....
Have I strained the analogy enough yet?
Because fewer than six weeks ago you were telling us it would be “contagious but benign”, and criticising forecasts of 2% deaths suggesting 0.2% was nearer the mark.
Three weeks ago, you began to panic - but even then insisted you were only sharing expert opinions, not your own forecasts.
A couple of weeks back you began doing your own calculations of two million dead Britons and the rest (which even worst case looks way off the mark, even now). And have made such a fuss in recent days that you appear to have persuaded even yourself that you’ve been saying the same thing from the beginning.
Meanwhile some of us have taken a more measured assessment of the news, and positioned correctly to cope with the financial consequences, at least. You won’t find any posts from me saying that this epidemic wasn’t going to be a big deal.
H1N1, the last threat to life as we know it, killed about 12k people in the USA. CDC estimates that flu killed about 34k people in the US in the 2018-2019 flu season.
Pure speculation on my part though.
We are already in places none of us under the age of 75 have ever experienced....
And this has much more to run....
On the one hand the negligent and selfish who seem to believe that the world will not happen to them and they have no responsibility to play their part.
On the other hand the over excited, who engage in a constant stream of what can only be described as a form of Corona porn and in many cases spread misinformation.
I want a sombre seriousness and practicality. People are dying. Each stat is a loved one. We need to show respect and do the hard work to solve the problem.
But anecdotally from what I heard yesterday - this thing moves through groups very quickly
But World War One levels?
In the UK, 700,000 people died in World War One. That's about 1.4 million people in today's money (inflation, huh?) And these were young people.
COVID-19 could kill 700,000 people in the UK, although I suspect the number will end up being an order of magnitude less. And those that will die will mostly be those most at risk from other disorders. So, we might be looking at 50,000 excess deaths. Really, really major. A significant uptick in the death rate.
But not like lopping off 1.4 million young people.
https://www.bloomberg.com/energy
Indeed they interact. Don't stockpile pasta, stockpile veg, and shed that beer belly over the next weeks. It may save you from the virus too.
But it just strikes me that the people dying from this disease could be replacing those who would have died from flu or pneumonia, nearly all being old, vulnerable and ill, rather than being additional deaths. Try not to get a hard on about it!
https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1239318758814101504
This thing could certainly upend many Western economic models...and lead to an alignment to the far east who are much better prepared now to deal with this....
I don't think our economies can withstand this in their current state...a banking collapse seems on the horizon....
Impossible, but if it did happen, I genuinely believe everything would be back to normal in a very short time indeed.
It is going to be the length and breadth of this crisis that brings about changes.
And, even then - remember all the predictions of “never be the same again” made about economics, finance and politics during the 2008 financial crash. Yet banking and finance has only changed mildly, economics barely at all, and the political fallout (which eventually proved the most profound) took almost a decade to appear.
Glad she is on the mend and not critical of her at all for describing what she went through but she probably needs to watch those throw away last lines.
What has happened this week has already exceeded the 2008 banking crisis...the next biggest event in my lifetime.....and I was born in the late 60's.....global capitalism very nearly collapsed then (just to remember)...and this exceeds that...
Coronavirus is serious because - without measures to reduce its infectiousness - its incidence is doubling every five or six days in most countries. Coronavirus is like the lillies on the pond doubling every day. It takes a long time to cover the first half, and hardly any to cover the last.
That's why iSam is wrong about Coronavirus, and was right about the threat of Islamic terrorism.
https://twitter.com/olivierveran/status/1238776545398923264?s=20
But why am I wrong about Coronavirus? I asked the question; would we would be reacting as we are if the 24hr news cycle had reported every infection and death of influenza in the way they are coronavirus? That’s all
Trying to test people self-isolating at home would just increase risks to health workers for little reward.
There's a massive time lag between actions and reported cases. If you look at the numbers from Hubei, actual new infections started dropping 12 days before reported new infections.
And the problem is that we're staring into the rear view mirror: "My god, this isn't working, we need to do MORE".
Because the time lag between infection and diagnosis is so long, we won't see any benefits from the measures of the last few weeks until (probably) the end of this coming week.
But come the beginning of April, the number of new cases reported will be falling meaningfully everywhere in Europe, and the US probably won't be far behind.
Again, look at this chart from Hubei - it's absolutely crucial to understanding this:
But (1) we have existing vaccines for influenza, (2) many people have partial immunity from having caught it in the past, (3) it is a well understood disease, and (4) it wasn't growing exponentially.
1. Will you leave your daughter behind in North London when you and your wife isolate in the country or the seaside; and
2. Were you wearing your face mask when you took a black cab in London the other day?
You said both that you and your wife were going to leave London and also that your daughter was at school in North London; and you also said that you wear a face mask around people and that you took a black can the other day.
So what is it?
In fact my original question was; would we be reacting to the numbers shown on the news and twitter everyday if the same attention were paid to influenza and pneumonia every winter for the last decade? No more than that. You seem to have misunderstood and gone off on one about something else.
That makes it very unlike influenza.
The EU may founder on German selfishness. As with the Eurozone crisis, it seems unwilling to help its southern neighbours. Italy is seen to be getting more help from China which at least has the nous to get its doctors on television.
Britain, who knows? Differences in approach and outcome north and south of the Irish border will be important, and perhaps to a lesser extent either side of Hadrian's Wall. Similarly, Brexit might be judged on whether or not we beat the French.