A lot of people will surely have gone to their second homes in order to self-isolate. Most of us will be too skint even to have second homes, and there are reasons owning second homes is selfish, but surely in this case, intentions were good.
But the consequences are not.
I would assume that Cornwall, for example, has a health service designed for the local population plus occasional hordes of feral teenagers, not for an influx of people living in second homes on a longterm basis
It must be quite hard to know what constitutes the true population of Cornwall (and therefore to plan appropriate health service capacity) given the fluctuations between winter and summer.
All self-defined "key workers". If you have to work to get paid then its easy to define yourself as a key worker. Have read an awful lot over the weekend from actual business owners looking at the available detail of the various Sunak announcements. Despite the HYUFD ramping the schemes are very difficult and inflexible, hence so many businesses chosing to just lay people off as easier / less risky. The Business Interruption Loan scheme literally not worth the post-it note its written on.
As more and more businesses implode I expect the same response from the Tories as we got with the Bedroom Tax and Universal Credit - quoting the propaganda line whilst in the Real World it is an unworkable disaster. Tories used to understand business and be the party of business and of entrepreneurism and the working man - where did it all go wrong?
The various businesses we have heard of shuttering for the duration are, several people have informed me, directly due to the 80% thing for PAYE staff.
A lot of people will surely have gone to their second homes in order to self-isolate. Most of us will be too skint even to have second homes, and there are reasons owning second homes is selfish, but surely in this case, intentions were good.
But the consequences are not.
I would assume that Cornwall, for example, has a health service designed for the local population plus occasional hordes of feral teenagers, not for an influx of people living in second homes on a longterm basis
It must be quite hard to know what constitutes the true population of Cornwall (and therefore to plan appropriate health service capacity) given the fluctuations between winter and summer.
Same for many coastal areas. The offsetting advantages are that the tourist influx supports certain infrastructure (retail and transport) that wouldn't be there otherwise, and the council tax on empty second homes brings in an income without many associated costs for much of the year.
On the other hand, such areas are popular with elderly people, and hence there is a greater than average load on social care.
A lot of people will surely have gone to their second homes in order to self-isolate. Most of us will be too skint even to have second homes, and there are reasons owning second homes is selfish, but surely in this case, intentions were good.
But the consequences are not.
I would assume that Cornwall, for example, has a health service designed for the local population plus occasional hordes of feral teenagers, not for an influx of people living in second homes on a longterm basis
But it will also be designed to cope with lots of holidaymakers.
So it depends on whether the extra second homers are greater or fewer than the reduced holidaymakers.
Only if the proportion of people going on holiday for 2 weeks needing ICU or ventilators is the same as in the general population, which seems unlikely
Stack of commentators on Twitter - some of whom should know better - excited by "nationalisation" of railways. So if we take a long term contract as an example. I am the DfT. I create a thing called "Intercity West Coast" which I contract operation of to Virgin Group on a fixed term contract. Despite the paint applied to the trains is Intercity West Coast owned by my contractor? Or owned by me? When the contract expires who owns the asset - the former contractor? Or me?
I am more than happy to see the end of the hapless franchising system. But even at the height of its Branson era pomp Virgin trains was simply a contractor not the owner of the service.
All self-defined "key workers". If you have to work to get paid then its easy to define yourself as a key worker. Have read an awful lot over the weekend from actual business owners looking at the available detail of the various Sunak announcements. Despite the HYUFD ramping the schemes are very difficult and inflexible, hence so many businesses chosing to just lay people off as easier / less risky. The Business Interruption Loan scheme literally not worth the post-it note its written on.
As more and more businesses implode I expect the same response from the Tories as we got with the Bedroom Tax and Universal Credit - quoting the propaganda line whilst in the Real World it is an unworkable disaster. Tories used to understand business and be the party of business and of entrepreneurism and the working man - where did it all go wrong?
The various businesses we have heard of shuttering for the duration are, several people have informed me, directly due to the 80% thing for PAYE staff.
So the policy contains hidden genius in supporting 'stay at home'?
From Facebook (so can't vouch for its veracity) but intuitively makes sense:
“Why do we need to shut places where people group?
Remember this: VIRAL LOAD
There will be a lot about this. Why is it important? With this virus, the amount of virus in your blood at first infection directly relates to the severity of the illness you will suffer. This isn’t unusual - HIV management is all about reducing viral load to keep people alive longer. BUT it’s very important in COVID-19.
[snip]
If I sit with one person and catch this virus, I get a small viral load. My immune system will start to fight it and by the time the virus starts replicating, I’m ready to kill it.
No medicines will help this process meaningfully hence there is no “cure” for this virus. All we can do is support you with a ventilator and hope your immune system can catch up fast enough.
If I sit in the same room with six people, all shedding I get six times the initial dose. The rise in viral load is faster than my immune system can cope with and it is overrun. I then become critically ill and need me (or an ITU/HDU specialist) to fix it instead of just being at home and being ok in the end.
REMEMBER: THINK ABOUT VIRAL LOAD
Quite confused.
You don't get "viral load" from inhaling more virus.
Viral load is a measure of how fast the virus multiples in the blood stream (way way quicker than inhaling more virus particles will impact). In any event our tests are positive/negative at the moment and can't measure viral load.
That being said, they are right that being in a room with a lot of sufferers will increase the probability of catching the virus. However, it won't impact the severity of the disease
(and - on most occasions - when they say "viral load" they actually mean "viral shedding")
Christ alive, no wonder he looks knackered. Lets also hope Mr G-Tech is correct with his 1000 a week claim for his design.
Do they really mean UK or is it the usual NHS England reported as UK. It is impossible to really know as it is almost universally used on media.
At a rate of 1,000 a day it will not only cover the UK but be a great export opportunity
I was talking about the 12000 UK NHS numbers up from 5000, no way of knowing if that is really UK and if it is normal reporting it is just NHS England, the southern media don't understand that NHS England is not the only NHS and use NHS UK at all times.
TFL cut down on trains and forced people onto fewer trains. Saving money over lives.
Maybe it is easier for me and many that we rarely, if ever, travel by trains and I have only used the heathrow express on my many trips to London over the last ten years
A lot of people will surely have gone to their second homes in order to self-isolate. Most of us will be too skint even to have second homes, and there are reasons owning second homes is selfish, but surely in this case, intentions were good.
But the consequences are not.
I would assume that Cornwall, for example, has a health service designed for the local population plus occasional hordes of feral teenagers, not for an influx of people living in second homes on a longterm basis
But it will also be designed to cope with lots of holidaymakers.
So it depends on whether the extra second homers are greater or fewer than the reduced holidaymakers.
They will not have hundreds of HDU/ICU beds in plan for holidaymakers at any time of year.
Christ alive, no wonder he looks knackered. Lets also hope Mr G-Tech is correct with his 1000 a week claim for his design.
Do they really mean UK or is it the usual NHS England reported as UK. It is impossible to really know as it is almost universally used on media.
At a rate of 1,000 a day it will not only cover the UK but be a great export opportunity
I was talking about the 12000 UK NHS numbers up from 5000, no way of knowing if that is really UK and if it is normal reporting it is just NHS England, the southern media don't understand that NHS England is not the only NHS and use NHS UK at all times.
You think we'd see NHS Scotland or Wales go short while there were plenty in England?
All self-defined "key workers". If you have to work to get paid then its easy to define yourself as a key worker. Have read an awful lot over the weekend from actual business owners looking at the available detail of the various Sunak announcements. Despite the HYUFD ramping the schemes are very difficult and inflexible, hence so many businesses chosing to just lay people off as easier / less risky. The Business Interruption Loan scheme literally not worth the post-it note its written on.
As more and more businesses implode I expect the same response from the Tories as we got with the Bedroom Tax and Universal Credit - quoting the propaganda line whilst in the Real World it is an unworkable disaster. Tories used to understand business and be the party of business and of entrepreneurism and the working man - where did it all go wrong?
The various businesses we have heard of shuttering for the duration are, several people have informed me, directly due to the 80% thing for PAYE staff.
So the policy contains hidden genius in supporting 'stay at home'?
The policy is a *good* policy. The problem is the implementation. "We will pay your employees at some point next month, please don't lay them off" isn't enough. "We ARE paying your employees, all jobs / wages / prices are hereby frozen" was the communication needed.
Just like the "ah we're uh asking ah that please uh don't go out er unless ah you want to uh" comms its too bloody vague. What this crisis has revealed is just how scummy some businesses are. They need to be told that they are not going to be scummy.
A lot of people will surely have gone to their second homes in order to self-isolate. Most of us will be too skint even to have second homes, and there are reasons owning second homes is selfish, but surely in this case, intentions were good.
Trouble with that approach is everyone thinks they are exceptions. Down that road lies madness.
I think one problem is that official (or quasi-official) guidance is shifting constantly as the egg-heads get more evidence from day to day. Don't go out but don't stockpile so you need to go shopping more often. Visit and help elderly neighbours but without actually visiting them or going out. Visit national parks to escape crowded cities, but don't. We saw last week even the Prime Minister got it wrong and right in the same sentence. I am not sure we should be quick to condemn.
way too many self-appointed experts in the media - always seeking to exploit and disrupt. We see it every day on Twitter and among the hacks at the pressers.
They're not 'seeking to exploit and disrupt' at all (with the possible exception of Peter Hitchens as that's his trope). They are seeking rigorous answers to tough questions. They're doing their job and thank god for them. As we now know, if Imperial College scientists hadn't dropped a stone in the Government's alleged complacency, which was then picked up by Sky News and The Guardian (erroneously called 'disgraceful' by someone on here) we would be in an even more parlous state than we currently find ourselves.
Someone else on LBC right now. Underlying health conditions, in a vulnerable group, being told by their employer that if they don't come to work they aren't getting paid. Aren't eligible for even SSP either...
What about the 80% under the Covid Job Retention Scheme?
Happy Birthday PB and my thanks and congratulations to all who have made it such a stunning and enduring success.
By a curious coincidence my first part was on its first anniversary and it's been a regular part of my life ever since. Here's to the next 16 years. May they be as enjoyable and profitable as the first.
Christ alive, no wonder he looks knackered. Lets also hope Mr G-Tech is correct with his 1000 a week claim for his design.
Do they really mean UK or is it the usual NHS England reported as UK. It is impossible to really know as it is almost universally used on media.
At a rate of 1,000 a day it will not only cover the UK but be a great export opportunity
I was talking about the 12000 UK NHS numbers up from 5000, no way of knowing if that is really UK and if it is normal reporting it is just NHS England, the southern media don't understand that NHS England is not the only NHS and use NHS UK at all times.
I hope it is UK wide.
This is a UK crisis and the one thing that is heartening is how Boris and Nicola are on the same page and on Cobra decisions
Someone else on LBC right now. Underlying health conditions, in a vulnerable group, being told by their employer that if they don't come to work they aren't getting paid. Aren't eligible for even SSP either...
What about the 80% under the Covid Job Retention Scheme?
Presume that only applies if the employer decides to claim it. Suspect some employers may prefer just to shut up shop.
A lot of people will surely have gone to their second homes in order to self-isolate. Most of us will be too skint even to have second homes, and there are reasons owning second homes is selfish, but surely in this case, intentions were good.
Trouble with that approach is everyone thinks they are exceptions. Down that road lies madness.
I think one problem is that official (or quasi-official) guidance is shifting constantly as the egg-heads get more evidence from day to day. Don't go out but don't stockpile so you need to go shopping more often. Visit and help elderly neighbours but without actually visiting them or going out. Visit national parks to escape crowded cities, but don't. We saw last week even the Prime Minister got it wrong and right in the same sentence. I am not sure we should be quick to condemn.
I'm sorry, but the people in Richmond Park are exactly the sort of people who ought to be able to think for themselves.
Is it not obvious that there is a distinction between going outside for some fresh air and exercise on your own, trying not to get too close to people, and going for afternoon out in Richmond Park?
It crucially depends how many other people have the same idea at the same time. Remember it is just days since national parks were urging people to visit them for this reason, until too many visitors turned up.
Were our national parks urging people to visit? I can find links to US parks doing that, but I can't see where UK national parks were doing the same.
National trust were. The viral load point is absolutely critical. We all thought this was binary and it isn't. This means herd immunity theory in its crudest form is nonsense.
What viral load point?
No viral infection is binary. A viral disease is basically a virus has infected the bloodstream. The body produces T-cells to try and destroy the virus, while the virus tries to replicate as quickly as it can. The symptoms are the collateral damage of the fight.
If the viral load is high and climbing then the virus is winning. If it is low and falling then the body is winning.
"herd immunity" is about people starting with existing antibodies in place. It's like having a regular army in place to defend the body rather than having to wait o conscript and train civilians.
TFL cut down on trains and forced people onto fewer trains. Saving money over lives.
Maybe it is easier for me and many that we rarely, if ever, travel by trains and I have only used the heathrow express on my many trips to London over the last ten years
Yeah, it's easier for me too (car) but those poor people in London who have no choice re work/travel are probs resigned to catching the virus and getting on with it.
I am not a doctor but that sounds extremely unlikely to me. The idea that you get the virus worse because you are exposed to a lot of it just feels wrong. There is obviously a critical level of exposure which allows enough threads of the virus to enter your system and self replicate there to the point you have infection. Once you are exposed to that level of exposure your own system takes over and eventually you will have enough virus in you to start shedding it in your sneezes, mucous and sweat allowing the virus to pass on.
Clearly if you are in a large group you are more likely to be exposed to that critical mass of virus. But does more make a difference? I really have my doubts.
I'm with you on this. Don't know how you feel about that, but I am.
At the time of infection you can "get it bad" as opposed to "getting it good", regardless of factors such as immune system, age and general health?
No, I don't like that. It sounds like bollocks.
But of course I will accept it as true if there is an expert consensus that it is.
Why on earth would I be concerned about you agreeing? I very much enjoy your posts even when I don't agree with them.
I can see the point that @MaxPB and @Philip_Thompson are making about getting more of the virus means that the base from which multiplication starts is higher giving your body less time to develop the anti-bodies. I concede its plausible. But I don't think anything linked to this morning has supported or not supported it.
"Getting vaccinated against the flu is important because a coronavirus outbreak that strikes in the middle of a flu epidemic is much more likely to overwhelm hospitals and increases the odds that the coronavirus goes undetected. This was probably a factor in Italy, a country with a strong anti-vaccine movement, he said." A lot of right wing anti-vaxxers in the US, arguablt including the President. https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-anti-vaxxer-bill-gates-said-president-asked-him-if-vaccines-934172
"probably a factor in Italy" sounds a bit evidence-free if it means the strong anti-vaccine movement in Italy is a factor compared to other countries, which certainly seems implied. fwiw OECD shows flu vaccination rates for over 65s as 52.7% in Italy, and 34.8% in Germany. https://data.oecd.org/healthcare/influenza-vaccination-rates.htm
Still a long shot. Whoever has Weinstein - @Pulpstar ? - looking good.
As for me - The Queen - I'm stuck with it, them's the rules, but I would change it now if I could. I did not anticipate this hunker down at Windsor Castle development. She's safe as safe can be there. It has a moat.
Someone else on LBC right now. Underlying health conditions, in a vulnerable group, being told by their employer that if they don't come to work they aren't getting paid. Aren't eligible for even SSP either...
What about the 80% under the Covid Job Retention Scheme?
Presume that only applies if the employer decides to claim it. Suspect some employers may prefer just to shut up shop.
1. The employee is Not Sick 2. The employee is not self-isolating because someone in their family has symptoms 3. The employer is unfeeling scum
Again, the government could legally mandate employers to act and has wiff waffed and waffled in not doing so. When Sunak unveils the 3rd attempt at a budget in a few days to announce what they are going to do both for the vast cracks in what they tried to announce and for all the self employed etc etc perhaps they will fix this.
A lot of people will surely have gone to their second homes in order to self-isolate. Most of us will be too skint even to have second homes, and there are reasons owning second homes is selfish, but surely in this case, intentions were good.
Trouble with that approach is everyone thinks they are exceptions. Down that road lies madness.
I think one problem is that official (or quasi-official) guidance is shifting constantly as the egg-heads get more evidence from day to day. Don't go out but don't stockpile so you need to go shopping more often. Visit and help elderly neighbours but without actually visiting them or going out. Visit national parks to escape crowded cities, but don't. We saw last week even the Prime Minister got it wrong and right in the same sentence. I am not sure we should be quick to condemn.
way too many self-appointed experts in the media - always seeking to exploit and disrupt. We see it every day on Twitter and among the hacks at the pressers.
They're not 'seeking to exploit and disrupt' at all (with the possible exception of Peter Hitchens as that's his trope). They are seeking rigorous answers to tough questions. They're doing their job and thank god for them. As we now know, if Imperial College scientists hadn't dropped a stone in the Government's alleged complacency, which was then picked up by Sky News and The Guardian (erroneously called 'disgraceful' by someone on here) we would be in an even more parlous state than we currently find ourselves.
Imperial under Neil Ferguson were the ones providing the expertise on which the Government policy was based from the start. The fact that they then changed their advise and the Government followed what they said is nothing to do with the Media. You are doing exactly the same scandalous and frankly dangerous thing that the media doing which is making out every change of policy to be a Government U-turn rather than a result of changes in advise.
So yes the journalists - and you - are indeed being disgraceful.
Are the Chinese handbag workers of Tuscany the immigrants with HIV du jour? Certainly seems to be the same type of folk obsessing about them.
With the same type of folk wanting inconvenient information kept quiet.
Who's keeping it quiet, or wanting to keep it quiet?
Still, I guess it leaves the 'we aspire to be a global trading nation looking to peoples and nations outside the racist EU' bollocks in absolute tatters, so there is that.
All self-defined "key workers". If you have to work to get paid then its easy to define yourself as a key worker. Have read an awful lot over the weekend from actual business owners looking at the available detail of the various Sunak announcements. Despite the HYUFD ramping the schemes are very difficult and inflexible, hence so many businesses chosing to just lay people off as easier / less risky. The Business Interruption Loan scheme literally not worth the post-it note its written on.
As more and more businesses implode I expect the same response from the Tories as we got with the Bedroom Tax and Universal Credit - quoting the propaganda line whilst in the Real World it is an unworkable disaster. Tories used to understand business and be the party of business and of entrepreneurism and the working man - where did it all go wrong?
The various businesses we have heard of shuttering for the duration are, several people have informed me, directly due to the 80% thing for PAYE staff.
So the policy contains hidden genius in supporting 'stay at home'?
Instead of dragging all the staff into the workplace, businesses have the option to shut up shop in an orderly manner - or shut sections of their business.
A friend works for one of the companies that owns a bunch of high street stores. They are working now on which businesses are going to shut for the duration, and which depts within businesses that are staying open. All because of the 80% thing.
Christ alive, no wonder he looks knackered. Lets also hope Mr G-Tech is correct with his 1000 a week claim for his design.
Do they really mean UK or is it the usual NHS England reported as UK. It is impossible to really know as it is almost universally used on media.
At a rate of 1,000 a day it will not only cover the UK but be a great export opportunity
I was talking about the 12000 UK NHS numbers up from 5000, no way of knowing if that is really UK and if it is normal reporting it is just NHS England, the southern media don't understand that NHS England is not the only NHS and use NHS UK at all times.
You think we'd see NHS Scotland or Wales go short while there were plenty in England?
That was not what I said, I will repeat, the media always report NHS UK when they are talking about NHS England, it happens almost 100% of the time. Therefore you cannot tell whether the 12000 is really the whole of the UK or if the number is in fact higher. Prettty obvious the 4 NHS's of UK will be working together ( hopefully) , that does not change the way media report things unfortunately. Again I repeat they always use NHS UK when they are reporting NHS England.
Christ alive, no wonder he looks knackered. Lets also hope Mr G-Tech is correct with his 1000 a week claim for his design.
Do they really mean UK or is it the usual NHS England reported as UK. It is impossible to really know as it is almost universally used on media.
At a rate of 1,000 a day it will not only cover the UK but be a great export opportunity
I was talking about the 12000 UK NHS numbers up from 5000, no way of knowing if that is really UK and if it is normal reporting it is just NHS England, the southern media don't understand that NHS England is not the only NHS and use NHS UK at all times.
I hope it is UK wide.
This is a UK crisis and the one thing that is heartening is how Boris and Nicola are on the same page and on Cobra decisions
This is time for unity across the whole of the UK
In this case it would be better if it was their usual mistake, as there would be more than number quoted.
"Getting vaccinated against the flu is important because a coronavirus outbreak that strikes in the middle of a flu epidemic is much more likely to overwhelm hospitals and increases the odds that the coronavirus goes undetected. This was probably a factor in Italy, a country with a strong anti-vaccine movement, he said." A lot of right wing anti-vaxxers in the US, arguablt including the President. https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-anti-vaxxer-bill-gates-said-president-asked-him-if-vaccines-934172
"probably a factor in Italy" sounds a bit evidence-free if it means the strong anti-vaccine movement in Italy is a factor compared to other countries, which certainly seems implied. fwiw OECD shows flu vaccination rates for over 65s as 52.7% in Italy, and 34.8% in Germany. https://data.oecd.org/healthcare/influenza-vaccination-rates.htm
Wether its a factor or not, I'm glad to see we are near the top on that metric at 72.6%
Are the Chinese handbag workers of Tuscany the immigrants with HIV du jour? Certainly seems to be the same type of folk obsessing about them.
With the same type of folk wanting inconvenient information kept quiet.
First Tuscany isn't Lombardy.
Second, what proportion of people on international flights from China to Italy are: 1) Business travellers 2) Tourists 3) Students 4) Immigrants (legal or not)
I would guess 4) is heavily outnumbered by each of 1), 2) and 3)
It's not as if people working in a sweatshop in Prato are commuting back and forth from Wuhan.
I think the lock down will have to come - if not the whole country certainly in the hotspots but however it's done I'd stress the importance of restricting car travel drastically to prevent movement ot second homes, etc. One easy way to police this is to have a one person per car rule - we have this now in Spain and the authorities made a big effort to close down the main transport routes to private vehicles. It'd the only way to prevent the virus spreading. I was impressed to see Sanchez asking for an EU 'Marshall Plan' to enable resource pooling in the Union. Italy has been pretty much abandoned by the rest of Europe. While I understand this I cannot think it is right.
I don't see local differentiation, other than at 'nation' level. And perhaps where there are practical limits to enforcement. Too complicated to communicate clearly otherwise.
I was expecting the gym shutdown to be London only, but it was everywhere. Ours is 120 members and 6000 sqft in classes of 18, so we could socially distance easily - but no exceptions.
I am not a doctor but that sounds extremely unlikely to me. The idea that you get the virus worse because you are exposed to a lot of it just feels wrong. There is obviously a critical level of exposure which allows enough threads of the virus to enter your system and self replicate there to the point you have infection. Once you are exposed to that level of exposure your own system takes over and eventually you will have enough virus in you to start shedding it in your sneezes, mucous and sweat allowing the virus to pass on.
Clearly if you are in a large group you are more likely to be exposed to that critical mass of virus. But does more make a difference? I really have my doubts.
I'm with you on this. Don't know how you feel about that, but I am.
At the time of infection you can "get it bad" as opposed to "getting it good", regardless of factors such as immune system, age and general health?
No, I don't like that. It sounds like bollocks.
But of course I will accept it as true if there is an expert consensus that it is.
Why on earth would I be concerned about you agreeing? I very much enjoy your posts even when I don't agree with them.
I can see the point that @MaxPB and @Philip_Thompson are making about getting more of the virus means that the base from which multiplication starts is higher giving your body less time to develop the anti-bodies. I concede its plausible. But I don't think anything linked to this morning has supported or not supported it.
I posted a link to a paper lower down which does precisely that. ID50 - the viral dosage required to infect 50% of subjects - is a common concept in virology. (As is LD50 for potentially lethal viruses.)
Here:
Characterization and Demonstration of the Value of a Lethal Mouse Model of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus Infection and Disease https://jvi.asm.org/content/jvi/90/1/57.full.pdf Characterized animal models are needed for studying the pathogenesis of and evaluating medical countermeasures for persisting Mid- dle East respiratory syndrome-coronavirus (MERS-CoV) infections. Here, we further characterized a lethal transgenic mouse model of MERS-CoV infection and disease that globally expresses human CD26 (hCD26)/DPP4. The 50% infectious dose (ID50) and lethal dose (LD50) of virus were estimated to be <1 and 10 TCID50 of MERS-CoV, respectively. Neutralizing antibody developed in the surviving mice from the ID50/LD50 determinations, and all were fully immune to challenge with 100 LD50 of MERS-CoV....</i>
Dentist news. The dentist texted a reminder of my appointment tomorrow. That was half an hour or so ago. The dentist has now texted that HMG has ordered dentists to cancel non-urgent appointments!
This is a flaming nuisance because in a couple of months' time I will be made redundant and that means my employer will stop paying to get my teeth fixed.
Call after call after call on LBC from businesses who can't operate but have not been shut down and are not eligible for what Sunak has offered. Its going to collapse sole trading and SMEs unless they do something in their 3rd budget.
All self-defined "key workers". If you have to work to get paid then its easy to define yourself as a key worker. Have read an awful lot over the weekend from actual business owners looking at the available detail of the various Sunak announcements. Despite the HYUFD ramping the schemes are very difficult and inflexible, hence so many businesses chosing to just lay people off as easier / less risky. The Business Interruption Loan scheme literally not worth the post-it note its written on.
As more and more businesses implode I expect the same response from the Tories as we got with the Bedroom Tax and Universal Credit - quoting the propaganda line whilst in the Real World it is an unworkable disaster. Tories used to understand business and be the party of business and of entrepreneurism and the working man - where did it all go wrong?
The various businesses we have heard of shuttering for the duration are, several people have informed me, directly due to the 80% thing for PAYE staff.
So the policy contains hidden genius in supporting 'stay at home'?
Instead of dragging all the staff into the workplace, businesses have the option to shut up shop in an orderly manner - or shut sections of their business.
A friend works for one of the companies that owns a bunch of high street stores. They are working now on which businesses are going to shut for the duration, and which depts within businesses that are staying open. All because of the 80% thing.
Apparently our local Majestic is closed that stocks may be replenished. And when I went to our bottle bank this morning the bins were FULL!
Are the Chinese handbag workers of Tuscany the immigrants with HIV du jour? Certainly seems to be the same type of folk obsessing about them.
With the same type of folk wanting inconvenient information kept quiet.
First Tuscany isn't Lombardy.
Second, what proportion of people on international flights from China to Italy are: 1) Business travellers 2) Tourists 3) Students 4) Immigrants (legal or not)
I would guess 4) is heavily outnumbered by each of 1), 2) and 3)
It's not as if people working in a sweatshop in Prato are commuting back and forth from Wuhan.
Milan seems to have a very significant Chinese population as well.
But aside from the effect on Coronovirus there is the greater issue of the exploitation of immigrant labour to enrich businesses and maintain western middle class lifestyles.
Call after call after call on LBC from businesses who can't operate but have not been shut down and are not eligible for what Sunak has offered. Its going to collapse sole trading and SMEs unless they do something in their 3rd budget.
They will have to. There is no alternative. The government just has to bite the bullet on this one. I am sure Sunak knows this. It may be that others will not accept it. Forget the economics for a moment, these people are a key Tory-voting demographic. Leaving them hanging makes noi sense at any level.
A lot of people will surely have gone to their second homes in order to self-isolate. Most of us will be too skint even to have second homes, and there are reasons owning second homes is selfish, but surely in this case, intentions were good.
But the consequences are not.
I would assume that Cornwall, for example, has a health service designed for the local population plus occasional hordes of feral teenagers, not for an influx of people living in second homes on a longterm basis
Yes indeed. I can see the consequences are bad, and am broadly opposed to second homes in any case. But HMG is wasting a lot of money on health service planning if it turns out it can be done by ordinary folk on their days off. Intentions good; consequences bad.
From Facebook (so can't vouch for its veracity) but intuitively makes sense:
“Why do we need to shut places where people group?
Remember this: VIRAL LOAD
There will be a lot about this. Why is it important? With this virus, the amount of virus in your blood at first infection directly relates to the severity of the illness you will suffer. This isn’t unusual - HIV management is all about reducing viral load to keep people alive longer. BUT it’s very important in COVID-19.
[snip]
If I sit with one person and catch this virus, I get a small viral load. My immune system will start to fight it and by the time the virus starts replicating, I’m ready to kill it.
No medicines will help this process meaningfully hence there is no “cure” for this virus. All we can do is support you with a ventilator and hope your immune system can catch up fast enough.
If I sit in the same room with six people, all shedding I get six times the initial dose. The rise in viral load is faster than my immune system can cope with and it is overrun. I then become critically ill and need me (or an ITU/HDU specialist) to fix it instead of just being at home and being ok in the end.
REMEMBER: THINK ABOUT VIRAL LOAD
Quite confused.
You don't get "viral load" from inhaling more virus.
Viral load is a measure of how fast the virus multiples in the blood stream (way way quicker than inhaling more virus particles will impact). In any event our tests are positive/negative at the moment and can't measure viral load.
That being said, they are right that being in a room with a lot of sufferers will increase the probability of catching the virus. However, it won't impact the severity of the disease
(and - on most occasions - when they say "viral load" they actually mean "viral shedding")
Thank you - as I noted, I couldn't count for its veracity.
To be clear, it doesn't really matter whether you are initially infected with one virus or a hundred thousand? So in the case of viruses the dose does not make the poison?
Are the Chinese handbag workers of Tuscany the immigrants with HIV du jour? Certainly seems to be the same type of folk obsessing about them.
With the same type of folk wanting inconvenient information kept quiet.
First Tuscany isn't Lombardy.
Second, what proportion of people on international flights from China to Italy are: 1) Business travellers 2) Tourists 3) Students 4) Immigrants (legal or not)
I would guess 4) is heavily outnumbered by each of 1), 2) and 3)
It's not as if people working in a sweatshop in Prato are commuting back and forth from Wuhan.
Milan seems to have a very significant Chinese population as well.
But aside from the effect on Coronovirus there is the greater issue of the exploitation of immigrant labour to enrich businesses and maintain western middle class lifestyles.
What is interesting is the way the structure of the problem is not exposed - remember the cockle pickers who drowned? The business they were working for was Chinese run and controlled. Immigrants who don't speak the local language are perfect fodder for such exploitation. Historically, round the world, this is a common pattern - immigrants exploited by their own ethnic/national group.
There are several small building companies in London, for example, that would only hire from the home country - and would bar people who spoke English. This allowed them to brutally exploit their workforce.
Presume that only applies if the employer decides to claim it. Suspect some employers may prefer just to shut up shop.
Yes, it's the employer's call. But I think the scheme has 2 objectives. (1) To stop viable businesses going under or laying off staff. (2) To encourage ANY non essential business to cease trading during the epidemic unless it can trade without staff leaving home. (1) is about the economy. (2) is about the virus.
So a business that chooses to lay off staff or close for good is a fail under (1).
And a non essential business that carries on making staff come in is a fail under (2).
By "fail" I don't mean to slag off the scheme. I just mean objective not met.
Are the Chinese handbag workers of Tuscany the immigrants with HIV du jour? Certainly seems to be the same type of folk obsessing about them.
With the same type of folk wanting inconvenient information kept quiet.
First Tuscany isn't Lombardy.
Second, what proportion of people on international flights from China to Italy are: 1) Business travellers 2) Tourists 3) Students 4) Immigrants (legal or not)
I would guess 4) is heavily outnumbered by each of 1), 2) and 3)
It's not as if people working in a sweatshop in Prato are commuting back and forth from Wuhan.
Milan seems to have a very significant Chinese population as well.
But aside from the effect on Coronovirus there is the greater issue of the exploitation of immigrant labour to enrich businesses and maintain western middle class lifestyles.
Yes, and of course it's possible that cases were brought by people connected to immigrant populations, I just haven't heard of many cases compared to the numbers connected to other business travel and tourism. So it doesn't seem logical to blame immigrants for spreading Covid-19.
Anyone seen the pics of the tubes this morning? feck me
No? Empty or busy?
Very busy. Was the decision to reduce the timetable one for TfL (and therefore the Mayor), or Central Government.
Either way, it looks like stupidity.
The tube is still needed to take keyworkers to work, if the full timetable was still run you would also be criticising the government but obviously on a reduced timetable those trains still running will be more full
From Facebook (so can't vouch for its veracity) but intuitively makes sense:
“Why do we need to shut places where people group?
Remember this: VIRAL LOAD
There will be a lot about this. Why is it important? With this virus, the amount of virus in your blood at first infection directly relates to the severity of the illness you will suffer. This isn’t unusual - HIV management is all about reducing viral load to keep people alive longer. BUT it’s very important in COVID-19.
[snip]
If I sit with one person and catch this virus, I get a small viral load. My immune system will start to fight it and by the time the virus starts replicating, I’m ready to kill it.
No medicines will help this process meaningfully hence there is no “cure” for this virus. All we can do is support you with a ventilator and hope your immune system can catch up fast enough.
If I sit in the same room with six people, all shedding I get six times the initial dose. The rise in viral load is faster than my immune system can cope with and it is overrun. I then become critically ill and need me (or an ITU/HDU specialist) to fix it instead of just being at home and being ok in the end.
REMEMBER: THINK ABOUT VIRAL LOAD
Quite confused.
You don't get "viral load" from inhaling more virus.
Viral load is a measure of how fast the virus multiples in the blood stream (way way quicker than inhaling more virus particles will impact). In any event our tests are positive/negative at the moment and can't measure viral load.
That being said, they are right that being in a room with a lot of sufferers will increase the probability of catching the virus. However, it won't impact the severity of the disease
(and - on most occasions - when they say "viral load" they actually mean "viral shedding")
Thank you - as I noted, I couldn't count for its veracity.
To be clear, it doesn't really matter whether you are initially infected with one virus or a hundred thousand? So in the case of viruses the dose does not make the poison?
The initial viral dose does matter. But we don't really know how much that needs to be.
I must have been one of the earliest posters on this site then - I think my fiest would have been 2005 - at that time I had no idea that a few years later I would be living in a wooded area of Sjælland wondering what on Earth was going on.
After talking to my students this morning I am collecting my new chickens - here in Denmark there has been a huge upsurge in people wanting to jkeep chickens and my supplier is ringing me this afternoon to let me know when her delivery is coming in today as, for the first time ever, she has sold out!
Call after call after call on LBC from businesses who can't operate but have not been shut down and are not eligible for what Sunak has offered. Its going to collapse sole trading and SMEs unless they do something in their 3rd budget.
They will have to. There is no alternative. The government just has to bite the bullet on this one. I am sure Sunak knows this. It may be that others will not accept it. Forget the economics for a moment, these people are a key Tory-voting demographic. Leaving them hanging makes noi sense at any level.
If you are self employed you are an entrepreneur not a wage earner and set yourself up in the knowledge you would be on your own financially. The government has provided loans to businesses and offered to pay 80% of wages of wage earners and offered easier and quicker temporary access to Universal Credit and sick pay for the self employed but every grant it offers during the crisis ultimately leads to higher taxes post crisis for taxpayers
A lot of people will surely have gone to their second homes in order to self-isolate. Most of us will be too skint even to have second homes, and there are reasons owning second homes is selfish, but surely in this case, intentions were good.
But the consequences are not.
I would assume that Cornwall, for example, has a health service designed for the local population plus occasional hordes of feral teenagers, not for an influx of people living in second homes on a longterm basis
Yes indeed. I can see the consequences are bad, and am broadly opposed to second homes in any case. But HMG is wasting a lot of money on health service planning if it turns out it can be done by ordinary folk on their days off. Intentions good; consequences bad.
A problem is - what is a second home?
For example, a number of people have followed this pattern : A couple living in London, initially. Because of the housing situation, they buy a house outside the commute zone - Cornwall is a bit far, but some have done this. They keep a 1 bed flat in London. Camp there during the week for work, head to the house on weekends - but often WFH at the house, if they can. The idea is that when a family starts, they will live full time in the house.... but will keep the London flat for staying over for work, socialising etc.
Call after call after call on LBC from businesses who can't operate but have not been shut down and are not eligible for what Sunak has offered. Its going to collapse sole trading and SMEs unless they do something in their 3rd budget.
They will have to. There is no alternative. The government just has to bite the bullet on this one. I am sure Sunak knows this. It may be that others will not accept it. Forget the economics for a moment, these people are a key Tory-voting demographic. Leaving them hanging makes noi sense at any level.
why can't people get the salary support based on last year's tax return? Certainly keeping sole traders and very small business ticking over is essential - also people need to be prepared to be 'drafted' into areas they can help out in such as food delivery and restocking, dropping off medication to people etc.
Austerity is bad; everyone knows that now. Is that why Hilton left Downing Street? Though the link to the Covid-19 measures seems contrived in that short clip. He is right in what he says but probably wrong in what he implies.
Call after call after call on LBC from businesses who can't operate but have not been shut down and are not eligible for what Sunak has offered. Its going to collapse sole trading and SMEs unless they do something in their 3rd budget.
They will have to. There is no alternative. The government just has to bite the bullet on this one. I am sure Sunak knows this. It may be that others will not accept it. Forget the economics for a moment, these people are a key Tory-voting demographic. Leaving them hanging makes noi sense at any level.
why can't people get the salary support based on last year's tax return? Certainly keeping sole traders and very small business ticking over is essential - also people need to be prepared to be 'drafted' into areas they can help out in such as food delivery and restocking, dropping off medication to people etc.
The problem is that we've almost had a complete year since the last tax return. There's only a few days of the current one left.
A lot of people will surely have gone to their second homes in order to self-isolate. Most of us will be too skint even to have second homes, and there are reasons owning second homes is selfish, but surely in this case, intentions were good.
Trouble with that approach is everyone thinks they are exceptions. Down that road lies madness.
I think one problem is that official (or quasi-official) guidance is shifting constantly as the egg-heads get more evidence from day to day. Don't go out but don't stockpile so you need to go shopping more often. Visit and help elderly neighbours but without actually visiting them or going out. Visit national parks to escape crowded cities, but don't. We saw last week even the Prime Minister got it wrong and right in the same sentence. I am not sure we should be quick to condemn.
way too many self-appointed experts in the media - always seeking to exploit and disrupt. We see it every day on Twitter and among the hacks at the pressers.
They're not 'seeking to exploit and disrupt' at all (with the possible exception of Peter Hitchens as that's his trope). They are seeking rigorous answers to tough questions. They're doing their job and thank god for them. As we now know, if Imperial College scientists hadn't dropped a stone in the Government's alleged complacency, which was then picked up by Sky News and The Guardian (erroneously called 'disgraceful' by someone on here) we would be in an even more parlous state than we currently find ourselves.
Imperial under Neil Ferguson were the ones providing the expertise on which the Government policy was based from the start. The fact that they then changed their advise and the Government followed what they said is nothing to do with the Media. You are doing exactly the same scandalous and frankly dangerous thing that the media doing which is making out every change of policy to be a Government U-turn rather than a result of changes in advise.
So yes the journalists - and you - are indeed being disgraceful.
Genuine question, was it ever Imperial College's advice to go for 'herd immunity'?
A lot of people will surely have gone to their second homes in order to self-isolate. Most of us will be too skint even to have second homes, and there are reasons owning second homes is selfish, but surely in this case, intentions were good.
But the consequences are not.
I would assume that Cornwall, for example, has a health service designed for the local population plus occasional hordes of feral teenagers, not for an influx of people living in second homes on a longterm basis
It must be quite hard to know what constitutes the true population of Cornwall (and therefore to plan appropriate health service capacity) given the fluctuations between winter and summer.
Yes, but I doubt they plan for full occupancy of second homes all the time.
I suspect they have a base line capacity for residents and then surge capacity / extra A&E for tourists. That's not what you would need if you were running at summer occupancy levels all year round
So the policy contains hidden genius in supporting 'stay at home'?
I wouldn't call it hidden or genius. But it looks to be one of the objectives. If you're a non essential business who cannot trade with everyone WFH, please cease for a while, keep your staff, claim the 80%. Please do not fire people and shut down for good, and please do not try and keep trading and getting people to come into work.
If you are self employed you are an entrepreneur not a wage earner and set yourself up in the knowledge you would be on your own financially. The government has provided loans to businesses and offered to pay 80% of wages of wage earners and offered easier and quicker temporary access to Universal Credit and sick pay for the self employed but every grant it offers during the crisis ultimately leads to higher taxes post crisis for taxpayers
Comments
On the other hand, such areas are popular with elderly people, and hence there is a greater than average load on social care.
I am more than happy to see the end of the hapless franchising system. But even at the height of its Branson era pomp Virgin trains was simply a contractor not the owner of the service.
TFL cut down on trains and forced people onto fewer trains. Saving money over lives.
You don't get "viral load" from inhaling more virus.
Viral load is a measure of how fast the virus multiples in the blood stream (way way quicker than inhaling more virus particles will impact). In any event our tests are positive/negative at the moment and can't measure viral load.
That being said, they are right that being in a room with a lot of sufferers will increase the probability of catching the virus. However, it won't impact the severity of the disease
(and - on most occasions - when they say "viral load" they actually mean "viral shedding")
Just like the "ah we're uh asking ah that please uh don't go out er unless ah you want to uh" comms its too bloody vague. What this crisis has revealed is just how scummy some businesses are. They need to be told that they are not going to be scummy.
What if I have a dinner party but I stay in the kitchen area and my friend in the living room?
By a curious coincidence my first part was on its first anniversary and it's been a regular part of my life ever since. Here's to the next 16 years. May they be as enjoyable and profitable as the first.
This is a UK crisis and the one thing that is heartening is how Boris and Nicola are on the same page and on Cobra decisions
This is time for unity across the whole of the UK
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1241935285916782593
No viral infection is binary. A viral disease is basically a virus has infected the bloodstream. The body produces T-cells to try and destroy the virus, while the virus tries to replicate as quickly as it can. The symptoms are the collateral damage of the fight.
If the viral load is high and climbing then the virus is winning. If it is low and falling then the body is winning.
"herd immunity" is about people starting with existing antibodies in place. It's like having a regular army in place to defend the body rather than having to wait o conscript and train civilians.
I can see the point that @MaxPB and @Philip_Thompson are making about getting more of the virus means that the base from which multiplication starts is higher giving your body less time to develop the anti-bodies. I concede its plausible. But I don't think anything linked to this morning has supported or not supported it.
fwiw OECD shows flu vaccination rates for over 65s as 52.7% in Italy, and 34.8% in Germany.
https://data.oecd.org/healthcare/influenza-vaccination-rates.htm
As for me - The Queen - I'm stuck with it, them's the rules, but I would change it now if I could. I did not anticipate this hunker down at Windsor Castle development. She's safe as safe can be there. It has a moat.
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/implementing-brexit-role-joint-committee_0.pdf
2. The employee is not self-isolating because someone in their family has symptoms
3. The employer is unfeeling scum
Again, the government could legally mandate employers to act and has wiff waffed and waffled in not doing so. When Sunak unveils the 3rd attempt at a budget in a few days to announce what they are going to do both for the vast cracks in what they tried to announce and for all the self employed etc etc perhaps they will fix this.
Imperial under Neil Ferguson were the ones providing the expertise on which the Government policy was based from the start. The fact that they then changed their advise and the Government followed what they said is nothing to do with the Media. You are doing exactly the same scandalous and frankly dangerous thing that the media doing which is making out every change of policy to be a Government U-turn rather than a result of changes in advise.
So yes the journalists - and you - are indeed being disgraceful.
It's not hard to figure out.
Still, I guess it leaves the 'we aspire to be a global trading nation looking to peoples and nations outside the racist EU' bollocks in absolute tatters, so there is that.
A friend works for one of the companies that owns a bunch of high street stores. They are working now on which businesses are going to shut for the duration, and which depts within businesses that are staying open. All because of the 80% thing.
Not quibbling - it's a better place to be - just trying to understand
Their staff are getting sick too.
A Klingon Targ?
Second, what proportion of people on international flights from China to Italy are:
1) Business travellers
2) Tourists
3) Students
4) Immigrants (legal or not)
I would guess 4) is heavily outnumbered by each of 1), 2) and 3)
It's not as if people working in a sweatshop in Prato are commuting back and forth from Wuhan.
I was expecting the gym shutdown to be London only, but it was everywhere. Ours is 120 members and 6000 sqft in classes of 18, so we could socially distance easily - but no exceptions.
ID50 - the viral dosage required to infect 50% of subjects - is a common concept in virology. (As is LD50 for potentially lethal viruses.)
Here:
Characterization and Demonstration of the Value of a Lethal Mouse Model of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus Infection and Disease
https://jvi.asm.org/content/jvi/90/1/57.full.pdf
Characterized animal models are needed for studying the pathogenesis of and evaluating medical countermeasures for persisting Mid- dle East respiratory syndrome-coronavirus (MERS-CoV) infections. Here, we further characterized a lethal transgenic mouse model of MERS-CoV infection and disease that globally expresses human CD26 (hCD26)/DPP4. The 50% infectious dose (ID50) and lethal dose (LD50) of virus were estimated to be <1 and 10 TCID50 of MERS-CoV, respectively. Neutralizing antibody developed in the surviving mice from the ID50/LD50 determinations, and all were fully immune to challenge with 100 LD50 of MERS-CoV....</i>
This is a flaming nuisance because in a couple of months' time I will be made redundant and that means my employer will stop paying to get my teeth fixed.
#BigPicture.
I'm curious as to who might be using the account or if its only him what hours he does.
***
Plane with 5 passengers on board, Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, the Pope, Nicola Sturgeon and a ten year old school boy.
The plane is about to crash and theres only 4 parachutes.
Sturgeon said “I need one. I’ve got to sort out Scotland!” Takes one and jumps
The pope said “I need one, I've to sort out the Catholic Church.” He takes one and jumps.
Trump said “i need one I’m the smartest person in America’. Takes one and jumps.
Boris Johnson said to the ten year old "you can have the last parachute. I've lived my life, yours is only starting".
The 10 year old said "Don’t worry,
there are 2 parachutes left. The smartest person in America took my school bag"
But aside from the effect on Coronovirus there is the greater issue of the exploitation of immigrant labour to enrich businesses and maintain western middle class lifestyles.
To be clear, it doesn't really matter whether you are initially infected with one virus or a hundred thousand? So in the case of viruses the dose does not make the poison?
There are several small building companies in London, for example, that would only hire from the home country - and would bar people who spoke English. This allowed them to brutally exploit their workforce.
So a business that chooses to lay off staff or close for good is a fail under (1).
And a non essential business that carries on making staff come in is a fail under (2).
By "fail" I don't mean to slag off the scheme. I just mean objective not met.
But we don't really know how much that needs to be.
https://twitter.com/aljwhite/status/1241991593806217216
After talking to my students this morning I am collecting my new chickens - here in Denmark there has been a huge upsurge in people wanting to jkeep chickens and my supplier is ringing me this afternoon to let me know when her delivery is coming in today as, for the first time ever, she has sold out!
The government has provided loans to businesses and offered to pay 80% of wages of wage earners and offered easier and quicker temporary access to Universal Credit and sick pay for the self employed but every grant it offers during the crisis ultimately leads to higher taxes post crisis for taxpayers
For example, a number of people have followed this pattern : A couple living in London, initially. Because of the housing situation, they buy a house outside the commute zone - Cornwall is a bit far, but some have done this. They keep a 1 bed flat in London. Camp there during the week for work, head to the house on weekends - but often WFH at the house, if they can. The idea is that when a family starts, they will live full time in the house.... but will keep the London flat for staying over for work, socialising etc.
Which is the second home?
I suspect they have a base line capacity for residents and then surge capacity / extra A&E for tourists. That's not what you would need if you were running at summer occupancy levels all year round