Interesting article on US/Chinese trade and relations:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/business/coronavirus-china-masks.html Global carriers like United Airlines and Cathay Pacific have slashed international flights to near zero as countries bolster their borders. About half the world’s air cargo traveled last year in the bellies of passenger planes, said John Peyton Burnett, the managing director of TAC Index, an air cargo pricing data company in Hong Kong.
Now the world’s passenger airlines are shutting down much of their networks. Cathay Pacific, the dominant air carrier in Hong Kong and one of the largest airlines across the Pacific, announced late Friday afternoon that it was canceling 96 percent of its passenger services in April and May.
Yet so acute is the need for airfreight capacity that the airline said it would continue to operate some of its passenger planes just to use the cargo capacity in their bellies, while leaving the seats empty.
The cost per pound across the Pacific has tripled in the last few days as airlines have shut down most of their international passenger flights, according to freight agents. Shipping now costs considerably more than the masks themselves.
“It’s like nothing we’ve ever heard of, or seen happen,” said Jia Qing, a freight agent at Janco International Freight in Shanghai. “In normal times the price would change once every year, and now it’s changing three times a day.”...
If all the passenger seats are empty, could airlines put parcels in them? Maybe a daft question, though.
Pilots don't want to go anywhere because they are worried they will be stuck wherever they go to. Plenty of demand for flights, pilots not so keen.
422 UK deaths now reported, the biggest single rise from day to day.
Compared to Italy, we remain 15 days behind.
So three days ago we were level with Italy at the same stage, and now we have 2/3s as many
As I mentioned yesterday, Italy had a particularly bad day when they leapt from 233 to 366 which was roughly the equivalent of two regular days. We didn't have that, so it makes sense that we went from +14 to +15.
Of course it's possible that going forward our "normal" days will also be better than their "normal" days (i.e. the post-366 days) and we'll continue to diverge. That's the hope. And in fact 422 is better than 463, so that's already hopeful. But it's going to be a while before we can really say anything meaningful about whether we've actually charted a better trajectory than Italy or not, based on those numbers.
Scientists in Iceland claim they have found FORTY mutations of the coronavirus – and admit seven cases can be traced back to 'a football match in England'
These genetic variants can act as the fingerprints of the virus to indicate where in the world it originated.
The Icelandic scientists were able to trace the coronavirus back to three European countries – Austria, Italy – the epicentre of the outbreak – and England. Seven infected people all went to the same, undisclosed football match in England, the team claim.
Try ringing the tax office.. You go thro 10 minutes of crap before they tell you they cannot take your call at this time. I understand its an emergency but there seems little if any provision for home working and webchat is just unavailable. I think I shall just write
This is rather disturbing (BBC report on India): Drawing from the experience in China and Italy, doctors now know that hospitals might turn out to be the "main source" of Covid-19 transmission. The potential for community transmission of the infection across a large geographical area from the Bhilwara hospital is real, officials fear.... I presume something similar applies to us ?
Not quite sure how their lockdown ("every citizen" to remain in their homes for 21 days) is going to work...
Incidentally I notice that 2 more people died from the Diamond Princess. This makes the death rate there 1.4% at the moment but the really troubling thing is that they still have 115 active cases and 15 critical. The hospital resource implications of that after all this time are genuinely frightening.
That accords with some of the numbers reported from China, which suggest some patients had a very long hard struggle.
That is the other difference from Flu, which peaks over a few days in an individual. COVID19 takes someone into ICU for 5-10 times that, hence the need for numbers of ventilators.
Worth noting that permanent lung damage is a common sequelae too.
Is it? So recovered is not necessarily recovered then? Not heard that.
Foxy, that lung damage element, is that over all cases, the hospitalised cases or those that need ICU care?
I am asking for a work related reason (Insurance industry here)
I read around the internet, that fabulous source for hard facts, that Germany is massaging the figures. Basically, they're discounting from fatalities and critical condition anyone with an underlying health condition.
This is denied but it would be one explanation.
(Assuming that's true) the authorities might be able to hide the dead on a day-to-day-strict-definition basis but it's going very difficult to hide a spike from a year-on-year view. And they also risk long term repuational blowback from the population if they try.
Why on earth would you assume it's true? It's an absurd suggestion, (which I can also confirm is not true). Why would "the authorities" (whoever they might be) even want to hide Covid-19 deaths? And how exactly would "they" manage such a thing? There's an ugly strain of anti-German prejudice in England (some kind of weird inferiority complex maybe) - like I said before - how come nobody is suggesting Australia is massaging the figures even though they have an even lower death rate?
You hit it on the head , just anti - German prejudice because they do everything much better than England.
1) that the two metre social distancing rule does not apply to one`s own wife? 2) does this exemption extend to other people`s wives? (Particularly the young one next door)?
This is rather disturbing (BBC report on India): Drawing from the experience in China and Italy, doctors now know that hospitals might turn out to be the "main source" of Covid-19 transmission. The potential for community transmission of the infection across a large geographical area from the Bhilwara hospital is real, officials fear.... I presume something similar applies to us ?
Not quite sure how their lockdown ("every citizen" to remain in their homes for 21 days) is going to work...
Our hospitals are on the whole quite localised are they not? So maybe this would be less of an issue?
For example, Londoners will be treated in London hospitals.
There was an interesting piece in the guardian suggesting that many middle class people are going to end up learning about the benefits system from personal interaction with it. Maybe that will change some attitudes.
This is rather disturbing (BBC report on India): Drawing from the experience in China and Italy, doctors now know that hospitals might turn out to be the "main source" of Covid-19 transmission. The potential for community transmission of the infection across a large geographical area from the Bhilwara hospital is real, officials fear.... I presume something similar applies to us ?
Not quite sure how their lockdown ("every citizen" to remain in their homes for 21 days) is going to work...
Woman is first UK victim to die of coronavirus caught in hospital
The otherwise fit 80-year-old then caught an infection in hospital that she and her family were initially told was pneumonia. Last Thursday, almost three weeks after arriving at the hospital, she tested positive for Covid-19 and died the following day.
I read around the internet, that fabulous source for hard facts, that Germany is massaging the figures. Basically, they're discounting from fatalities and critical condition anyone with an underlying health condition.
This is denied but it would be one explanation.
(Assuming that's true) the authorities might be able to hide the dead on a day-to-day-strict-definition basis but it's going very difficult to hide a spike from a year-on-year view. And they also risk long term repuational blowback from the population if they try.
Why on earth would you assume it's true? It's an absurd suggestion, (which I can also confirm is not true). Why would "the authorities" (whoever they might be) even want to hide Covid-19 deaths? And how exactly would "they" manage such a thing? There's an ugly strain of anti-German prejudice in England (some kind of weird inferiority complex maybe) - like I said before - how come nobody is suggesting Australia is massaging the figures even though they have an even lower death rate?
You hit it on the head , just anti - German prejudice because they do everything much better than England.
There must be an explanation for the lack of people in ICUs in Germany. A “great healthcare system” doesn’t really explain that. I’d think that if their healthcare system was the reason for the success, you’d have large numbers of people in ICU, but then recovering.
I'm not sure it's sound maths to try comparing day by day.
If, in a few days, our rates have continued to move away from Italy AND it's confirmed that there isn't a change in measurement that's affecting everything, then we can *maybe* start thinking a little more positively. Until then I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all.
Sweden and Israel going for herd immunity it seems. Are there others? Has Netherlands stopped?
Source for Israel? As I understand it, they moved into full lockdown long before we did, and on the basis of far fewer cases/deaths. They also have the advantage of huge standing and reserve armies to implement it.
1) that the two metre social distancing rule does not apply to one`s own wife? 2) does this exemption extend to other people`s wives? (Particularly the young one next door)?
Sadly yes to number 1 and no to number 2
Damn - the other way round would have been perfect.
Compared to seven days ago it's almost exactly the same number of daily tests, but more than three times as many returning positive.
That's not good. We've fallen way behind on the testing.
Quite strange reduction in numbers of tests. We hit 10-11k for a couple of days, then it has dropped down again.
Unless it is due to the policy of only testing serious cases presenting at hospitals and there aren't more than 6000 of them per day at present. We really should be testing in the community more to get an idea of spread.
There was an interesting piece in the guardian suggesting that man middle class people are going to end up learning about the benefits system from personal interaction with it. Maybe that will change some attitudes.
Boy, oh boy, will it change many people's attitudes. They are about to find out how stressful the whole process is, never mind the thinness of the net.
"How am I expected to live on £98 SSP?"
Well try living on £70-odd JSA, or live for years, even decades on £111 ESA.
Hey all, long time lurker here. Thought now may be an opportune time to register - have found posts here both entertaining and insightful over the various political sagas over the last few years, and even a little profitable at times (even though I'm kicking myself at not picking up Sunak earlier, or cashing in my 30 stake in Buttigieg when I had the chance). So thanks all!
Regarding discussion of tube service earlier, have it on good authority that over 712 train drivers, 1089 station staff, and 574 maintainers absent from duties today. With those numbers I'm surprised there's any service at all!
welcome - what proportion of overall TfL staff is that I wonder?
TfL is huuuge, in the region of 30k staff last time I looked (this includes back office, projects, management, etc. not all front line operational staff of course. I'd imagine those numbers a fair chunk of the number people actually driving the trains and manning stations however.
Morris_Dancer, quite, just stay away from the Panglins!
I read around the internet, that fabulous source for hard facts, that Germany is massaging the figures. Basically, they're discounting from fatalities and critical condition anyone with an underlying health condition.
This is denied but it would be one explanation.
(Assuming that's true) the authorities might be able to hide the dead on a day-to-day-strict-definition basis but it's going very difficult to hide a spike from a year-on-year view. And they also risk long term repuational blowback from the population if they try.
Why on earth would you assume it's true? It's an absurd suggestion, (which I can also confirm is not true). Why would "the authorities" (whoever they might be) even want to hide Covid-19 deaths? And how exactly would "they" manage such a thing? There's an ugly strain of anti-German prejudice in England (some kind of weird inferiority complex maybe) - like I said before - how come nobody is suggesting Australia is massaging the figures even though they have an even lower death rate?
You hit it on the head , just anti - German prejudice because they do everything much better than England.
There must be an explanation for the lack of people in ICUs in Germany. A “great healthcare system” doesn’t really explain that. I’d think that if their healthcare system was the reason for the success, you’d have large numbers of people in ICU, but then recovering.
Not simply lots of people having mild symptoms.
Kamski claims the Forbes / John Hopkins University figures are incorrect. If that is the case, then the whole discussion is a mute point.
Hahah - from the looks of it they dealt with it quite forcefully!
They fucked that BBQ up! It won't be doing that again in a hurry!
I have a report that the local parks are packed.
Our local park was but someone reported it to the police and they paid a visit
Our park is closed. It is beautiful in Wales today (my wife is laying on the garden with the kids) and there are lots of joggers and walkers out. You can still walk the cycle paths. I'm going out later - I've just got back from work (where you'd swear the virus never existed).
Hey all, long time lurker here. Thought now may be an opportune time to register - have found posts here both entertaining and insightful over the various political sagas over the last few years, and even a little profitable at times (even though I'm kicking myself at not picking up Sunak earlier, or cashing in my 30 stake in Buttigieg when I had the chance). So thanks all!
Regarding discussion of tube service earlier, have it on good authority that over 712 train drivers, 1089 station staff, and 574 maintainers absent from duties today. With those numbers I'm surprised there's any service at all!
welcome - what proportion of overall TfL staff is that I wonder?
Do they not always have shedloads off at the best of times
Incidentally I notice that 2 more people died from the Diamond Princess. This makes the death rate there 1.4% at the moment but the really troubling thing is that they still have 115 active cases and 15 critical. The hospital resource implications of that after all this time are genuinely frightening.
That accords with some of the numbers reported from China, which suggest some patients had a very long hard struggle.
That is the other difference from Flu, which peaks over a few days in an individual. COVID19 takes someone into ICU for 5-10 times that, hence the need for numbers of ventilators.
Worth noting that permanent lung damage is a common sequelae too.
Is it? So recovered is not necessarily recovered then? Not heard that.
Foxy, that lung damage element, is that over all cases, the hospitalised cases or those that need ICU care?
I am asking for a work related reason (Insurance industry here)
Those in ICU, I believe. A 20% drop in lung capacity, though with time some may gradually recover a bit. I normal times, ICU is where ARDS is managed.
Compared to seven days ago it's almost exactly the same number of daily tests, but more than three times as many returning positive.
That's not good. We've fallen way behind on the testing.
Quite strange reduction in numbers of tests. We hit 10-11k for a couple of days, then it has dropped down again.
Unless it is due to the policy of only testing serious cases presenting at hospitals and there aren't more than 6000 of them per day at present. We really should be testing in the community more to get an idea of spread.
So I wonder which journalist gets the dickhead of the day badge for the most stupid question in relation to this lock down? I bet they have spent all day crafting the most ridiculous scenarios to ask the government if it is permitted or not.
There must be an explanation for the lack of people in ICUs in Germany. A “great healthcare system” doesn’t really explain that. I’d think that if their healthcare system was the reason for the success, you’d have large numbers of people in ICU, but then recovering.
Not simply lots of people having mild symptoms.
Isn't the obvious explanation that they just have far fewer actual cases of coronavirus and therefore fewer sick people and fewer deaths.
The UK and other countries are only testing a small proportion of true cases. Potentially Germany is testing a much higher proportion.
Compared to seven days ago it's almost exactly the same number of daily tests, but more than three times as many returning positive.
That's not good. We've fallen way behind on the testing.
Quite strange reduction in numbers of tests. We hit 10-11k for a couple of days, then it has dropped down again.
Unless it is due to the policy of only testing serious cases presenting at hospitals and there aren't more than 6000 of them per day at present. We really should be testing in the community more to get an idea of spread.
It may just be the weekend effect, it takes a day or two for results.
There are shortages of reagents, and lab staff are flat out, as well as coping with their own absences.
Try ringing the tax office.. You go thro 10 minutes of crap before they tell you they cannot take your call at this time. I understand its an emergency but there seems little if any provision for home working and webchat is just unavailable. I think I shall just write
Frustrating but we have to live with it.
There seems to be quite a lot of variation in my recent experience of agencies: DVLA, ok though I still have to chase them up about a V5C I haven't received; Passport Office, super efficient; DWP in relation to my brother, awful.
Of course none of this was during the current crisis.
Hey all, long time lurker here. Thought now may be an opportune time to register - have found posts here both entertaining and insightful over the various political sagas over the last few years, and even a little profitable at times (even though I'm kicking myself at not picking up Sunak earlier, or cashing in my 30 stake in Buttigieg when I had the chance). So thanks all!
Regarding discussion of tube service earlier, have it on good authority that over 712 train drivers, 1089 station staff, and 574 maintainers absent from duties today. With those numbers I'm surprised there's any service at all!
welcome - what proportion of overall TfL staff is that I wonder?
TfL is huuuge, in the region of 30k staff last time I looked (this includes back office, projects, management, etc. not all front line operational staff of course. I'd imagine those numbers a fair chunk of the number people actually driving the trains and manning stations however.
Morris_Dancer, quite, just stay away from the Panglins!
Is anyone keeping a note of companies to have trashed their reputation during the current crisis? So far I have Britannia Hotels, Wetherspoons and JD Sports. Any others?
In fairness, none of those companies had much of a reputation to defend. But yes, dire acts by them all.
I read around the internet, that fabulous source for hard facts, that Germany is massaging the figures. Basically, they're discounting from fatalities and critical condition anyone with an underlying health condition.
This is denied but it would be one explanation.
(Assuming that's true) the authorities might be able to hide the dead on a day-to-day-strict-definition basis but it's going very difficult to hide a spike from a year-on-year view. And they also risk long term repuational blowback from the population if they try.
Why on earth would you assume it's true? It's an absurd suggestion, (which I can also confirm is not true). Why would "the authorities" (whoever they might be) even want to hide Covid-19 deaths? And how exactly would "they" manage such a thing? There's an ugly strain of anti-German prejudice in England (some kind of weird inferiority complex maybe) - like I said before - how come nobody is suggesting Australia is massaging the figures even though they have an even lower death rate?
You hit it on the head , just anti - German prejudice because they do everything much better than England.
It is not just anti-German, it’s a generalised arrogance and patronising attitude toward “lesser breeds without the Law”. In my experience, though, it’s mostly men over the age of 40, I think it’s dying out.
There was an interesting piece in the guardian suggesting that man middle class people are going to end up learning about the benefits system from personal interaction with it. Maybe that will change some attitudes.
Boy, oh boy, will it change many people's attitudes. They are about to find out how stressful the whole process is, never mind the thinness of the net.
"How am I expected to live on £98 SSP?"
Well try living on £70-odd JSA, or live for years, even decades on £111 ESA.
I'm one who needs educating, though thankfully at this moment not for pressing reasons. As this post says, JSA is about £70 per week, or about £3650 pa. But the benefits cap for a single person outside London (ie the lowest category) is £13400 pa. That's quite a gap. Is there a quick explanation for the ignorant? Does it just consist of housing costs?
The most tests per day that I can see was 8400 - where do you get the 10-11k figure from?
Same story everywhere - journos get told that "testing is rising to X", or "we have the capacity to test X", and assume that we are currently testing X.
Same story when you actually look for details on other countries. We were told that S Korea was testing untold tens of thousands each day .... nope. Turns out they've been testing about 10k per day this month, and more like 6k now.
I read around the internet, that fabulous source for hard facts, that Germany is massaging the figures. Basically, they're discounting from fatalities and critical condition anyone with an underlying health condition.
This is denied but it would be one explanation.
(Assuming that's true) the authorities might be able to hide the dead on a day-to-day-strict-definition basis but it's going very difficult to hide a spike from a year-on-year view. And they also risk long term repuational blowback from the population if they try.
Why on earth would you assume it's true? It's an absurd suggestion, (which I can also confirm is not true). Why would "the authorities" (whoever they might be) even want to hide Covid-19 deaths? And how exactly would "they" manage such a thing? There's an ugly strain of anti-German prejudice in England (some kind of weird inferiority complex maybe) - like I said before - how come nobody is suggesting Australia is massaging the figures even though they have an even lower death rate?
You hit it on the head , just anti - German prejudice because they do everything much better than England.
It is not just anti-German, it’s a generalised arrogance and patronising attitude toward “lesser breeds without the Law”. In my experience, though, it’s mostly men over the age of 40, I think it’s dying out.
Where is this huge anti-German prejudice? I think everybody agrees that they are doing great on testing, have brilliant facilities and clearly doing extremely well managing the situation.
The question why so few people in ICU, based on some data. Seems an interesting question. Kamski claims this data is false. Ok, fair enough.
The Guardian and Spectator among others have written good articles on reasons for lower death rates in Germany and a speculated a whole load of different reasons. Partly because Germany has done well and partly a bit of good fortune, and both make the claim about Post-mortem testing not occurring in Germany compared to Italy.
So I wonder which journalist gets the dickhead of the day badge for the most stupid question in relation to this lock down? I bet they have spent all day crafting the most ridiculous scenarios to ask the government if it is permitted or not.
Seems like quite a strange thing to get angry about.
There are plenty of questions people have asked which have been reasonable, and been met with useful answers: e.g. children with separated parents, car MOTs etc.
And in some cases your common-sense answer is clearly wrong: e.g. if someone living in a town has a choice between getting their daily exercise in their local streets, where social distancing might be difficult, or on an empty country path a short drive away, the latter is obviously preferable *provided* they turn around and come home if the country path turns out not to be so empty after all.
A gorgeous afternoon here in lowland East London so Mrs Stodge and I ventured out for our authorised walk and visit to the corner shop(s). Plenty of people out and about though the absence of a school run has reduced traffic somewhat.
The Underground fiasco is shaping up to be a disaster for Sadiq Khan - he was caught between the rock of wanting to provide a service for those essential workers who needed to travel and the hard places of keeping the economy going and having to cope with significant numbers of drivers and guards missing.
In my experience, the platform at East Ham at 7am is full of construction workers heading for building sites and the reason the tubes remains busy morning and evening peak is this ludicrous notion from Gove that because you work in the open air that's fine - travelling to and from the building work in confined carriages surrounded by other people is obviously an irrelevance.
While Johnson was eventually forced to do a lot of the right things, by keeping the construction sites open, he has kept a lot of people travelling and that isn't helping to slow down the spread of the virus.
Lock Down either means Lock Down or it means nothing - as someone said yesterday, this is Lock Down 0.5 - a bit of a mish-mash of confusing and contradictory rules brought out in haste and with a lot of gaps.
To a point, understandable, but the new rules are largely unenforceable though I'm sure larger public gatherings can be stopped.
There must be an explanation for the lack of people in ICUs in Germany. A “great healthcare system” doesn’t really explain that. I’d think that if their healthcare system was the reason for the success, you’d have large numbers of people in ICU, but then recovering.
Not simply lots of people having mild symptoms.
Isn't the obvious explanation that they just have far fewer actual cases of coronavirus and therefore fewer sick people and fewer deaths.
The UK and other countries are only testing a small proportion of true cases. Potentially Germany is testing a much higher proportion.
An alternative explanation for the above mentioned discrepancies may be that international comparisons divide hospital beds in only two tiers, ICU and 'regular beds', while the reality in Germany is that there are several additional tiers in between, some of which have such elevated standards that they would be regarded to be on par with ICU standards in other countries, but are not counted as such for these kinds of comparisons.
I wouldn't mind knowing if the virus can survive in newly cooked food. Obviously you have to be careful with keeping your distance, surfaces touched, packaging maybe, but that all seems manageable.
So I wonder which journalist gets the dickhead of the day badge for the most stupid question in relation to this lock down? I bet they have spent all day crafting the most ridiculous scenarios to ask the government if it is permitted or not.
Seems like quite a strange thing to get angry about.
There are plenty of questions people have asked which have been reasonable, and been met with useful answers: e.g. children with separated parents, car MOTs etc.
And in some cases your common-sense answer is clearly wrong: e.g. if someone living in a town has a choice between getting their daily exercise in their local streets, where social distancing might be difficult, or on an empty country path a short drive away, the latter is obviously preferable *provided* they turn around and come home if the country path turns out not to be so empty after all.
Did you see Kay Burley questions? And the journalist was asking about ok if I am back by the end of the day, that clearly isn't implying nipping 5 mins down the road to get out of the town centre.
Also, if everybody starts driving miles and miles to get their daily exercise, then they need to keep filling their cars up, so we get queues at the petrol station and of course interacting with the pumps, the control panels etc.
Hey all, long time lurker here. Thought now may be an opportune time to register - have found posts here both entertaining and insightful over the various political sagas over the last few years, and even a little profitable at times (even though I'm kicking myself at not picking up Sunak earlier, or cashing in my 30 stake in Buttigieg when I had the chance). So thanks all!
Regarding discussion of tube service earlier, have it on good authority that over 712 train drivers, 1089 station staff, and 574 maintainers absent from duties today. With those numbers I'm surprised there's any service at all!
welcome - what proportion of overall TfL staff is that I wonder?
TfL is huuuge, in the region of 30k staff last time I looked (this includes back office, projects, management, etc. not all front line operational staff of course. I'd imagine those numbers a fair chunk of the number people actually driving the trains and manning stations however.
Morris_Dancer, quite, just stay away from the Panglins!
They have around 4,000 drivers, so 712 off is going on for 20%.
I read around the internet, that fabulous source for hard facts, that Germany is massaging the figures. Basically, they're discounting from fatalities and critical condition anyone with an underlying health condition.
This is denied but it would be one explanation.
(Assuming that's true) the authorities might be able to hide the dead on a day-to-day-strict-definition basis but it's going very difficult to hide a spike from a year-on-year view. And they also risk long term repuational blowback from the population if they try.
Why on earth would you assume it's true? It's an absurd suggestion, (which I can also confirm is not true). Why would "the authorities" (whoever they might be) even want to hide Covid-19 deaths? And how exactly would "they" manage such a thing? There's an ugly strain of anti-German prejudice in England (some kind of weird inferiority complex maybe) - like I said before - how come nobody is suggesting Australia is massaging the figures even though they have an even lower death rate?
You hit it on the head , just anti - German prejudice because they do everything much better than England.
There must be an explanation for the lack of people in ICUs in Germany. A “great healthcare system” doesn’t really explain that. I’d think that if their healthcare system was the reason for the success, you’d have large numbers of people in ICU, but then recovering.
Not simply lots of people having mild symptoms.
Be nice if they could pinpoint what it is. Likely combination of sausages , sauerkraut and beer, if only, we could enjoy getting immunity.
So I wonder which journalist gets the dickhead of the day badge for the most stupid question in relation to this lock down? I bet they have spent all day crafting the most ridiculous scenarios to ask the government if it is permitted or not.
Seems like quite a strange thing to get angry about.
There are plenty of questions people have asked which have been reasonable, and been met with useful answers: e.g. children with separated parents, car MOTs etc.
And in some cases your common-sense answer is clearly wrong: e.g. if someone living in a town has a choice between getting their daily exercise in their local streets, where social distancing might be difficult, or on an empty country path a short drive away, the latter is obviously preferable *provided* they turn around and come home if the country path turns out not to be so empty after all.
Did you see Kay Burley questions? And the journalist was asking about ok if I am back by the end of the day, that clearly isn't implying nipping 5 mins down the road to get out of the town centre.
Also, if everybody starts driving miles and miles to get their daily exercise, then they need to keep filling their cars up, so we get queues at the petrol station and of course interacting with the pumps, the control panels etc.
Kay Burley is a fading journalist whose main supporter is herself
I wouldn't mind knowing if the virus can survive in newly cooked food. Obviously you have to be careful with keeping your distance, surfaces touched, packaging maybe, but that all seems manageable.
Deep fried fish and chips is probably sterile, but anything else...
Remember, this virus probably got into humans via food, before it became a respiratory illness.
A very interesting article in the FT (no paywall); Oxford epidemiologists think that there might be far more undetected cases than the Imperial College modelling shows, with as much as half the UK population already infected. Could be good news if true:
I wouldn't mind knowing if the virus can survive in newly cooked food. Obviously you have to be careful with keeping your distance, surfaces touched, packaging maybe, but that all seems manageable.
Deep fried fish and chips is probably sterile, but anything else...
Remember, this virus probably got into humans via food, before it became a respiratory illness.
My local takeaways don't do bat soup and roasted pangolin :-)
My general approach is minimise all deliveries. I have had one amazon delivery and have one food delivery booked for next week. Then I don't intend having anymore for next month.
I read around the internet, that fabulous source for hard facts, that Germany is massaging the figures. Basically, they're discounting from fatalities and critical condition anyone with an underlying health condition.
This is denied but it would be one explanation.
(Assuming that's true) the authorities might be able to hide the dead on a day-to-day-strict-definition basis but it's going very difficult to hide a spike from a year-on-year view. And they also risk long term repuational blowback from the population if they try.
Why on earth would you assume it's true? It's an absurd suggestion, (which I can also confirm is not true). Why would "the authorities" (whoever they might be) even want to hide Covid-19 deaths? And how exactly would "they" manage such a thing? There's an ugly strain of anti-German prejudice in England (some kind of weird inferiority complex maybe) - like I said before - how come nobody is suggesting Australia is massaging the figures even though they have an even lower death rate?
You hit it on the head , just anti - German prejudice because they do everything much better than England.
It is not just anti-German, it’s a generalised arrogance and patronising attitude toward “lesser breeds without the Law”. In my experience, though, it’s mostly men over the age of 40, I think it’s dying out.
I would say more likely on increase with Brexit jingoism in the mix now.
A gorgeous afternoon here in lowland East London so Mrs Stodge and I ventured out for our authorised walk and visit to the corner shop(s). Plenty of people out and about though the absence of a school run has reduced traffic somewhat.
I’ve just been out for my first bike ride of the year. One advantage of working from home is it gave me the opportunity to get the bike out of mothballs and ready for the road again (as well as putting through a load of laundry and drying it on the line - big saving in electricity).
Cannock and Huntington are - quiet. I am not going to say eerily so. The crowds and traffic were comparable to mid-morning on a Sunday. But for a town that is normally queued solid at this time of day, it was definitely sleepy. I think I could have cycled along the A34 all the way to Stafford in perfect safety, and under normal circumstances, that would pretty well be suicide.
They've created a total mess over who should still be going to work.
How is building yet another office block essential?
Clarity is needed
I think this is valid question / criticism and really we should only be allowed essential workers on things like the Tube.
Not well I have a friend who is a part-time freelance journalist, they have expressed interest in trying to cover this story and are now worried the police might chase them down the motorway if they try to drive somewhere and are concerned how they prove they might have a story.
Up to 12,000 former NHS employees now agreed to come back to work and another nearly 7,000 medical students being released into the wild early.
Going to be a serious baptism of fire for the kids. No more senior members of staff will be able to give them "well when I were a junior doctor we did 100hr weeks, it were much tougher back then"...
A very interesting article in the FT (no paywall); Oxford epidemiologists think that there might be far more undetected cases than the Imperial College modelling shows, with as much as half the UK population already infected. Could be good news if true:
Incidentally I notice that 2 more people died from the Diamond Princess. This makes the death rate there 1.4% at the moment but the really troubling thing is that they still have 115 active cases and 15 critical. The hospital resource implications of that after all this time are genuinely frightening.
That accords with some of the numbers reported from China, which suggest some patients had a very long hard struggle.
That is the other difference from Flu, which peaks over a few days in an individual. COVID19 takes someone into ICU for 5-10 times that, hence the need for numbers of ventilators.
Worth noting that permanent lung damage is a common sequelae too.
Is it? So recovered is not necessarily recovered then? Not heard that.
Foxy, that lung damage element, is that over all cases, the hospitalised cases or those that need ICU care?
I am asking for a work related reason (Insurance industry here)
Those in ICU, I believe. A 20% drop in lung capacity, though with time some may gradually recover a bit. I normal times, ICU is where ARDS is managed.
I still can't get my head round the fact that 44,000 people died in the UK from flu in thw winter of 2014/2015 and nobody raised as much as an eyebrow.
I get that this virus is much worse but 44,000 flu deaths! Blinking heck, across five months that's 9k per month (roughly 300 a day). That's still big numbers.
A very interesting article in the FT (no paywall); Oxford epidemiologists think that there might be far more undetected cases than the Imperial College modelling shows, with as much as half the UK population already infected. Could be good news if true:
A very interesting article in the FT (no paywall); Oxford epidemiologists think that there might be far more undetected cases than the Imperial College modelling shows, with as much as half the UK population already infected. Could be good news if true:
I still can't get my head round the fact that 44,000 people died in the UK from flu in thw winter of 2014/2015 and nobody raised as much as an eyebrow.
I get that this virus is much worse but 44,000 flu deaths! Blinking heck, across five months that's 9k per month (roughly 300 a day). That's still big numbers.
We definitely have had news coverage when there has been a particular bad flu season.
A very interesting article in the FT (no paywall); Oxford epidemiologists think that there might be far more undetected cases than the Imperial College modelling shows, with as much as half the UK population already infected. Could be good news if true:
A very interesting article in the FT (no paywall); Oxford epidemiologists think that there might be far more undetected cases than the Imperial College modelling shows, with as much as half the UK population already infected. Could be good news if true:
I still can't get my head round the fact that 44,000 people died in the UK from flu in thw winter of 2014/2015 and nobody raised as much as an eyebrow.
I get that this virus is much worse but 44,000 flu deaths! Blinking heck, across five months that's 9k per month (roughly 300 a day). That's still big numbers.
I agree. It's not that I think the coronavirus reaction is wrong, but it is remarkable what we tolerate since it is normalised. Road traffic deaths is another.
And it's not inevitable. Some Scandi countries have invested into 'Vision Zero' programs to dramatically reduce road traffic deaths and I believe Hong Kong generally takes the flu much more seriously than us (closing schools etc to stymie outbreaks).
A very interesting article in the FT (no paywall); Oxford epidemiologists think that there might be far more undetected cases than the Imperial College modelling shows, with as much as half the UK population already infected. Could be good news if true:
Hey all, long time lurker here. Thought now may be an opportune time to register - have found posts here both entertaining and insightful over the various political sagas over the last few years, and even a little profitable at times (even though I'm kicking myself at not picking up Sunak earlier, or cashing in my 30 stake in Buttigieg when I had the chance). So thanks all!
Regarding discussion of tube service earlier, have it on good authority that over 712 train drivers, 1089 station staff, and 574 maintainers absent from duties today. With those numbers I'm surprised there's any service at all!
welcome - what proportion of overall TfL staff is that I wonder?
TfL is huuuge, in the region of 30k staff last time I looked (this includes back office, projects, management, etc. not all front line operational staff of course. I'd imagine those numbers a fair chunk of the number people actually driving the trains and manning stations however.
Morris_Dancer, quite, just stay away from the Panglins!
They have around 4,000 drivers, so 712 off is going on for 20%.
Not impressed with TFL - right f*ck*p merchants. It was the end of last week before my senior PM acquaintance there went in to collect stuff to work from home.
A very interesting article in the FT (no paywall); Oxford epidemiologists think that there might be far more undetected cases than the Imperial College modelling shows, with as much as half the UK population already infected. Could be good news if true:
In a way that would be amazing news if 50% of the population already have it.
This is indeed my hope, based on my own (entirely unscientific) assumptions. Would explain why *detected* infection rates remain *relatively* low on the cruise ships, and also why even Iran is seeing a declining rate of growth in new infections.
Of course, I want to believe this, and a safety-first lock down policy was/is the right decision.
A very interesting article in the FT (no paywall); Oxford epidemiologists think that there might be far more undetected cases than the Imperial College modelling shows, with as much as half the UK population already infected. Could be good news if true:
A very interesting article in the FT (no paywall); Oxford epidemiologists think that there might be far more undetected cases than the Imperial College modelling shows, with as much as half the UK population already infected. Could be good news if true:
How could London be suddenly getting loads of hospitalisations if 50% of people had already been infected nationwide (and presumably more than that in London) ?
I still can't get my head round the fact that 44,000 people died in the UK from flu in thw winter of 2014/2015 and nobody raised as much as an eyebrow.
I get that this virus is much worse but 44,000 flu deaths! Blinking heck, across five months that's 9k per month (roughly 300 a day). That's still big numbers.
I`m with you. I think it`s because CV-19 is new and scary. And there is no vaccine yet. I continue to believe - though my view is not well represented on this forum - that the global response is an error. A very serious health crisis is being parlayed into a very serious economic and loss of liberty crisis.
A very interesting article in the FT (no paywall); Oxford epidemiologists think that there might be far more undetected cases than the Imperial College modelling shows, with as much as half the UK population already infected. Could be good news if true:
How could London be suddenly getting loads of hospitalisations if 50% of people had already been infected nationwide (and presumably more than that in London) ?
I still can't get my head round the fact that 44,000 people died in the UK from flu in thw winter of 2014/2015 and nobody raised as much as an eyebrow.
I get that this virus is much worse but 44,000 flu deaths! Blinking heck, across five months that's 9k per month (roughly 300 a day). That's still big numbers.
I agree. It's not that I think the coronavirus reaction is wrong, but it is remarkable what we tolerate since it is normalised. Road traffic deaths is another.
And it's not inevitable. Some Scandi countries have invested into 'Vision Zero' programs to dramatically reduce road traffic deaths and I believe Hong Kong generally takes the flu much more seriously than us (closing schools etc to stymie outbreaks).
The WHO estimates that globally about 4.6 million people die from air pollution every year. That's around 12,500 every day.
I still can't get my head round the fact that 44,000 people died in the UK from flu in thw winter of 2014/2015 and nobody raised as much as an eyebrow.
I get that this virus is much worse but 44,000 flu deaths! Blinking heck, across five months that's 9k per month (roughly 300 a day). That's still big numbers.
SSSSHHHHHH! Don't mention that Government Stat, you will get a barage of abuse, those 44,000 deaths don't count becuase it was flu. Thats an average of 473 deaths a day due to flu. Do you remember the afternoon annoucement from the Department of Health informing the country of these deaths?
Hey all, long time lurker here. Thought now may be an opportune time to register - have found posts here both entertaining and insightful over the various political sagas over the last few years, and even a little profitable at times (even though I'm kicking myself at not picking up Sunak earlier, or cashing in my 30 stake in Buttigieg when I had the chance). So thanks all!
Regarding discussion of tube service earlier, have it on good authority that over 712 train drivers, 1089 station staff, and 574 maintainers absent from duties today. With those numbers I'm surprised there's any service at all!
welcome - what proportion of overall TfL staff is that I wonder?
TfL is huuuge, in the region of 30k staff last time I looked (this includes back office, projects, management, etc. not all front line operational staff of course. I'd imagine those numbers a fair chunk of the number people actually driving the trains and manning stations however.
Morris_Dancer, quite, just stay away from the Panglins!
They have around 4,000 drivers, so 712 off is going on for 20%.
Not impressed with TFL - right f*ck*p merchants. It was the end of last week before my senior PM acquaintance there went in to collect stuff to work from home.
A very interesting article in the FT (no paywall); Oxford epidemiologists think that there might be far more undetected cases than the Imperial College modelling shows, with as much as half the UK population already infected. Could be good news if true:
How could London be suddenly getting loads of hospitalisations if 50% of people had already been infected nationwide (and presumably more than that in London) ?
Severity due to viral load?
But why would viral load be so high now, when it would have been higher when 50% of people were getting infected?
Most tests are still coming back negative at the moment.
Is anyone keeping a note of companies to have trashed their reputation during the current crisis? So far I have Britannia Hotels, Wetherspoons and JD Sports. Any others?
In fairness, none of those companies had much of a reputation to defend. But yes, dire acts by them all.
I think Mr Meeks meant Sports Direct, not JD Sports.
Comments
We are either 39 or 209 behind Italy.
https://twitter.com/AndrewCooper__/status/1241702344095682565?s=20
Of course it's possible that going forward our "normal" days will also be better than their "normal" days (i.e. the post-366 days) and we'll continue to diverge. That's the hope. And in fact 422 is better than 463, so that's already hopeful. But it's going to be a while before we can really say anything meaningful about whether we've actually charted a better trajectory than Italy or not, based on those numbers.
These genetic variants can act as the fingerprints of the virus to indicate where in the world it originated.
The Icelandic scientists were able to trace the coronavirus back to three European countries – Austria, Italy – the epicentre of the outbreak – and England. Seven infected people all went to the same, undisclosed football match in England, the team claim.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8146565/Scientists-Iceland-claim-FORTY-mutations-coronavirus.html
https://twitter.com/DHSCgovuk/status/1242479152420225025
I think I shall just write
Frustrating but we have to live with it.
Drawing from the experience in China and Italy, doctors now know that hospitals might turn out to be the "main source" of Covid-19 transmission. The potential for community transmission of the infection across a large geographical area from the Bhilwara hospital is real, officials fear....
I presume something similar applies to us ?
Not quite sure how their lockdown ("every citizen" to remain in their homes for 21 days) is going to work...
I am asking for a work related reason (Insurance industry here)
For example, Londoners will be treated in London hospitals.
The otherwise fit 80-year-old then caught an infection in hospital that she and her family were initially told was pneumonia. Last Thursday, almost three weeks after arriving at the hospital, she tested positive for Covid-19 and died the following day.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/24/woman-first-uk-victim-die-coronavirus-caught-hospital-marita-edwards
Anywhere near any healthcare establishments at this moment in time is going to be very risky.
Not simply lots of people having mild symptoms.
That's not good. We've fallen way behind on the testing.
If, in a few days, our rates have continued to move away from Italy AND it's confirmed that there isn't a change in measurement that's affecting everything, then we can *maybe* start thinking a little more positively. Until then I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all.
Unless it is due to the policy of only testing serious cases presenting at hospitals and there aren't more than 6000 of them per day at present. We really should be testing in the community more to get an idea of spread.
"How am I expected to live on £98 SSP?"
Well try living on £70-odd JSA, or live for years, even decades on £111 ESA.
Morris_Dancer, quite, just stay away from the Panglins!
It's no good just wanting nice things without explaining how they're going to be afforded.
I normal times, ICU is where ARDS is managed.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eTKeK9vRxgw0KhvKxPCaDrfaHnxQP-n9TsLzsEymviY/htmlview
The UK and other countries are only testing a small proportion of true cases. Potentially Germany is testing a much higher proportion.
There are shortages of reagents, and lab staff are flat out, as well as coping with their own absences.
Of course none of this was during the current crisis.
Same story everywhere - journos get told that "testing is rising to X", or "we have the capacity to test X", and assume that we are currently testing X.
Same story when you actually look for details on other countries. We were told that S Korea was testing untold tens of thousands each day .... nope. Turns out they've been testing about 10k per day this month, and more like 6k now.
The question why so few people in ICU, based on some data. Seems an interesting question. Kamski claims this data is false. Ok, fair enough.
The Guardian and Spectator among others have written good articles on reasons for lower death rates in Germany and a speculated a whole load of different reasons. Partly because Germany has done well and partly a bit of good fortune, and both make the claim about Post-mortem testing not occurring in Germany compared to Italy.
There are plenty of questions people have asked which have been reasonable, and been met with useful answers: e.g. children with separated parents, car MOTs etc.
And in some cases your common-sense answer is clearly wrong: e.g. if someone living in a town has a choice between getting their daily exercise in their local streets, where social distancing might be difficult, or on an empty country path a short drive away, the latter is obviously preferable *provided* they turn around and come home if the country path turns out not to be so empty after all.
A gorgeous afternoon here in lowland East London so Mrs Stodge and I ventured out for our authorised walk and visit to the corner shop(s). Plenty of people out and about though the absence of a school run has reduced traffic somewhat.
The Underground fiasco is shaping up to be a disaster for Sadiq Khan - he was caught between the rock of wanting to provide a service for those essential workers who needed to travel and the hard places of keeping the economy going and having to cope with significant numbers of drivers and guards missing.
In my experience, the platform at East Ham at 7am is full of construction workers heading for building sites and the reason the tubes remains busy morning and evening peak is this ludicrous notion from Gove that because you work in the open air that's fine - travelling to and from the building work in confined carriages surrounded by other people is obviously an irrelevance.
While Johnson was eventually forced to do a lot of the right things, by keeping the construction sites open, he has kept a lot of people travelling and that isn't helping to slow down the spread of the virus.
Lock Down either means Lock Down or it means nothing - as someone said yesterday, this is Lock Down 0.5 - a bit of a mish-mash of confusing and contradictory rules brought out in haste and with a lot of gaps.
To a point, understandable, but the new rules are largely unenforceable though I'm sure larger public gatherings can be stopped.
Huge new hospital to open - NHS Nightingale at Excel centre
Also, if everybody starts driving miles and miles to get their daily exercise, then they need to keep filling their cars up, so we get queues at the petrol station and of course interacting with the pumps, the control panels etc.
Remember, this virus probably got into humans via food, before it became a respiratory illness.
https://www.ft.com/content/5ff6469a-6dd8-11ea-89df-41bea055720b?desktop=true&segmentId=d8d3e364-5197-20eb-17cf-2437841d178a
My general approach is minimise all deliveries. I have had one amazon delivery and have one food delivery booked for next week. Then I don't intend having anymore for next month.
How is building yet another office block essential?
Clarity is needed
Cannock and Huntington are - quiet. I am not going to say eerily so. The crowds and traffic were comparable to mid-morning on a Sunday. But for a town that is normally queued solid at this time of day, it was definitely sleepy. I think I could have cycled along the A34 all the way to Stafford in perfect safety, and under normal circumstances, that would pretty well be suicide.
Perhaps pizza is ok with several hundred degrees of heat? :-) *prays*
Not well I have a friend who is a part-time freelance journalist, they have expressed interest in trying to cover this story and are now worried the police might chase them down the motorway if they try to drive somewhere and are concerned how they prove they might have a story.
Going to be a serious baptism of fire for the kids. No more senior members of staff will be able to give them "well when I were a junior doctor we did 100hr weeks, it were much tougher back then"...
Coronavirus may have infected half of UK population — Oxford study
to get round it.
Fantastic news if true.
I get that this virus is much worse but 44,000 flu deaths! Blinking heck, across five months that's 9k per month (roughly 300 a day). That's still big numbers.
https://twitter.com/PickardJE/status/1242489840068894720
"The modelling by Oxford’s Evolutionary Ecology of Infectious Disease group indicates that Covid-19 reached the UK by mid-January at the latest."
That would mean Italy probably had it in December, that means it spread from China almost as soon as it emerged. Possible I guess.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/oxmu2rwsnhi9j9c/Draft-COVID-19-Model (13).pdf?dl=0
Fun for Bayesians!
And it's not inevitable. Some Scandi countries have invested into 'Vision Zero' programs to dramatically reduce road traffic deaths and I believe Hong Kong generally takes the flu much more seriously than us (closing schools etc to stymie outbreaks).
Can these researchers not use latex though !!!! Pet peeve of mine.
Had been travelling on the Tube throughout.
Of course, I want to believe this, and a safety-first lock down policy was/is the right decision.
Most tests are still coming back negative at the moment.
In a similar vein, Elon Musk has been covering himself in his usual glory:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/mar/19/elon-musk-coronavirus-tesla-factory-california
In addition to his usual publicity whore persona, he's managed to channel both Mike Ashley and Donald Trump.
I actually joined in order to ask what the collective opinion of Nassim Taleb is?
I have read the Black Swan and thought it was good (though would have preferred if it was an essay).
Though I have a suspicion he doesn't understand this crisis (he has in the past said no one knows anything, perhaps he should extend that to himself).
He seems quite arrogant, I have a sneaking suspicion he isn't half as clever as he thinks he is.
Also any suggestions on other popular writers on the topic of risk, that I may want to read?
Cheers