Can’t help thinking this Johnson news is a bit more serious than is being reported. Being admitted to hospital sounds like quite a significant development.
Except that he is PM and his doctors will be extra careful.
I hope you are not suggesting they don’t give their best for every patient
Can’t help thinking this Johnson news is a bit more serious than is being reported. Being admitted to hospital sounds like quite a significant development.
Well quite. But looking on the bright side, when the NHS fixes him up and he comes home, he will be proof that the NHS makes a difference and he might be possibly a better PM.
Did he not think the NHS makes a difference? I can think of very few politicians who would say it does not. The issue has always been effectiveness of any plans regarding the NHS, not believing it makes a difference.
Eh? A recovered Boris might be a useful symbol right now. He may also be perhaps a little more humble.
Can’t help thinking this Johnson news is a bit more serious than is being reported. Being admitted to hospital sounds like quite a significant development.
Well quite. But looking on the bright side, when the NHS fixes him up and he comes home, he will be proof that the NHS makes a difference and he might be possibly a better PM.
The NHS he wanted to give 350m a week to?
And even the boldest baddest and richest Tories realise that for anything life threatening you don't mess about in the private sector.
Can’t help thinking this Johnson news is a bit more serious than is being reported. Being admitted to hospital sounds like quite a significant development.
Except that he is PM and his doctors will be extra careful.
I don’t think coronavirus cares if your doctors are ‘extra careful’
Yes, there are limits to what money and influence can achieve.
Can’t help thinking this Johnson news is a bit more serious than is being reported. Being admitted to hospital sounds like quite a significant development.
Except that he is PM and his doctors will be extra careful.
I don’t think coronavirus cares if your doctors are ‘extra careful’
Strange. Every other disease, illness and syndrome known to man does.
Oh dear. Get well soon Boris. I feel genuinely sad about this.
Regarding the Scottish CMO... I’m struggling to see what’s bad about someone travelling to their own house really, if they’re only with people who they live with in their other house. Maybe that’s not what happened, I’ve not really read it properly
WRT Scottish CMO:
I actually agree on the going to a second home, if you traval only with mebers of your own family bring your own food stay in the house when you get there and don't interact with anybody while there, then the risk of increasing the spread is probably minimal.
But:
What I don't like is the people setting the rules not flowing them. Those in power will fell less resistant about taking away freedoms and liberty of others if they do not expect to have to follow the same rules.
While it might be argues that COVID is a spashale case, I think it is shining a light on an attitude an agagance, and its reminding me why I'm a libertarian and pushing me towards Anarchism.
The optics are wrong. You can't really have well off people driving back and forth to their second homes whilst others are told they can barely leave the house. It would fuel resentment..
Also even though in theory there is little risk our Spanish posters have told us people fleeing Madrid for their second homes have overwhelmed local medical facilities and spread the virus through the country.
It is beyond me how anyone can rise to a very senior position in a country's administration and not be aware that telling everyone to stay at home and then immediately heading off to your holiday home would go down as a career ending move.
Can’t help thinking this Johnson news is a bit more serious than is being reported. Being admitted to hospital sounds like quite a significant development.
Except that he is PM and his doctors will be extra careful.
I don’t think coronavirus cares if your doctors are ‘extra careful’
Yes, there are limits to what money and influence can achieve.
Speaking of which, how are you feeling? Back to normal?
One point my friends noted with the virus was that they needed to sleep sometimes for ~18 hours a day. That's the body trying to produce the antibodies to fight it. Absolubtely critical to rest, rest, rest if you get the virus.
Very hard if you're PM.
FWIW it's extremely unlikely anything will happen to Boris. He's fit, only in his 50s and will receive the very best care.
I can only imagine he's been overdoing it.
To work on it actuarily:
Symptomatic disease in mid fifties: 1.4% mortality 50% greater risk in Men = 2% Severe enough for hospital admission (around 20% of symptomatic cases) = 10% mortality Other risk factors are speculative as we do not know his medical history, but BMI over 30 by my eye.
I reckon a ball park figure of 85% survival.
Interesting. Thanks.
Would you adjust for quality of care and attentiveness to revise those odds at all?
Given who he is I expect he'll get a doctor and nurse near him 24/7.
I am not sure that makes much difference. Everyone in ICU gets their own nurse and plenty of medical attention. It is routine for the book to be thrown at these patients, particularly with low clinical Frailty scores. After that it is a roll of the dice, with the grim reaper on 6.
Can’t help thinking this Johnson news is a bit more serious than is being reported. Being admitted to hospital sounds like quite a significant development.
Well quite. But looking on the bright side, when the NHS fixes him up and he comes home, he will be proof that the NHS makes a difference and he might be possibly a better PM.
Did he not think the NHS makes a difference? I can think of very few politicians who would say it does not. The issue has always been effectiveness of any plans regarding the NHS, not believing it makes a difference.
Eh? A recovered Boris might be a useful symbol right now. He may also be perhaps a little more humble.
I misread it as 'he will have' proof.
Though I still don't get the point, we all know the NHS can make a difference.
Oh dear. Get well soon Boris. I feel genuinely sad about this.
Regarding the Scottish CMO... I’m struggling to see what’s bad about someone travelling to their own house really, if they’re only with people who they live with in their other house. Maybe that’s not what happened, I’ve not really read it properly
True. The problem is she advised other people not to do it.
Oh dear. Get well soon Boris. I feel genuinely sad about this.
Regarding the Scottish CMO... I’m struggling to see what’s bad about someone travelling to their own house really, if they’re only with people who they live with in their other house. Maybe that’s not what happened, I’ve not really read it properly
What's bad is she's told people not to do that sort of thing and then done it, several times.
Oh dear. Get well soon Boris. I feel genuinely sad about this.
Regarding the Scottish CMO... I’m struggling to see what’s bad about someone travelling to their own house really, if they’re only with people who they live with in their other house. Maybe that’s not what happened, I’ve not really read it properly
It's bad when you appear on TV telling everyone else not to do it and then, erm, go out and do it.
Yes. I guess I think the policy is stupid, but if she’s telling others not to do stuff, she shouldn’t do it herself obviously.
What’s the harm in moving from one empty house to another?
Increased risk of a RTA. Increased risk of a breakdown. Increased risk of a medical emergency in a rural area with fewer facilities than your home town.
One point my friends noted with the virus was that they needed to sleep sometimes for ~18 hours a day. That's the body trying to produce the antibodies to fight it. Absolubtely critical to rest, rest, rest if you get the virus.
Very hard if you're PM.
FWIW it's extremely unlikely anything will happen to Boris. He's fit, only in his 50s and will receive the very best care.
I can only imagine he's been overdoing it.
To work on it actuarily:
Symptomatic disease in mid fifties: 1.4% mortality 50% greater risk in Men = 2% Severe enough for hospital admission (around 20% of symptomatic cases) = 10% mortality Other risk factors are speculative as we do not know his medical history, but BMI over 30 by my eye.
I reckon a ball park figure of 85% survival.
Interesting. Thanks.
Would you adjust for quality of care and attentiveness to revise those odds at all?
Given who he is I expect he'll get a doctor and nurse near him 24/7.
I am not sure that makes much difference. Everyone in ICU gets their own nurse and plenty of medical attention. It is routine for the book to be thrown at these patients, particularly with low clinical Frailty scores. After that it is a roll of the dice, with the grim reaper on 6.
Can’t help thinking this Johnson news is a bit more serious than is being reported. Being admitted to hospital sounds like quite a significant development.
Well quite. But looking on the bright side, when the NHS fixes him up and he comes home, he will be proof that the NHS makes a difference and he might be possibly a better PM.
The NHS he wanted to give 350m a week to?
And even the boldest baddest and richest Tories realise that for anything life threatening you don't mess about in the private sector.
For emergency surgery no, however otherwise even non emergency cancer surgery in the private sector can have a shorter waiting list
Can’t help thinking this Johnson news is a bit more serious than is being reported. Being admitted to hospital sounds like quite a significant development.
Well quite. But looking on the bright side, when the NHS fixes him up and he comes home, he will be proof that the NHS makes a difference and he might be possibly a better PM.
The NHS he wanted to give 350m a week to?
And even the boldest baddest and richest Tories realise that for anything life threatening you don't mess about in the private sector.
At the moment there is no significant private sector, as the private hospitals have been requisitioned by the NHS.
I am not sure what it is like in London, but in Leicester, the private hospitals are taking the pressure off by treating non covid NHS patients. Not least all the aneasthetists and ICU specialists are busy in the NHS hospitals.
Can’t help thinking this Johnson news is a bit more serious than is being reported. Being admitted to hospital sounds like quite a significant development.
Well quite. But looking on the bright side, when the NHS fixes him up and he comes home, he will be proof that the NHS makes a difference and he might be possibly a better PM.
Did he not think the NHS makes a difference? I can think of very few politicians who would say it does not. The issue has always been effectiveness of any plans regarding the NHS, not believing it makes a difference.
Eh? A recovered Boris might be a useful symbol right now. He may also be perhaps a little more humble.
I misread it as 'he will have' proof.
Though I still don't get the point, we all know the NHS can make a difference.
His recovery would be good for morale. Oh well. You try and look on the bright side. 🤷♂️
Can’t help thinking this Johnson news is a bit more serious than is being reported. Being admitted to hospital sounds like quite a significant development.
Except that he is PM and his doctors will be extra careful.
I don’t think coronavirus cares if your doctors are ‘extra careful’
Strange. Every other disease, illness and syndrome known to man does.
What makes this one special?
The fact that what doctors do is administer cures, and for this disease there is no cure, might be relevant, do you think?
Why, why, why did Sturgeon try and face down the criticism today?
It was obvious the CMOs position was untenable, yet she tried to ride it out. The press conference was brutal and must surely have been the impetus for the resignation, but I still don’t understand why she had such a tin ear and tried to carry on. It seemed to me inevitable that the CMO would have to resign, she should have grasped the thistle and sacked her this morning.
I also hope Boris will be OK. It is troubling to hear the news he’s been admitted to hospital. Whatever our political persuasions we need to get through this together and it is worrying that the person at the helm is obviously not in the best of health.
Poor guy - I did think it was taking a long time to hear much news on how he was getting on. Let's hope he recovers well - Foxy's estimate of 85% chance sounds reasonably hopeful.
Why, why, why did Sturgeon try and face down the criticism today?
It was obvious the CMOs position was untenable, yet she tried to ride it out. The press conference was brutal and must surely have been the impetus for the resignation, but I still don’t understand why she had such a tin ear and tried to carry on. It seemed to me inevitable that the CMO would have to resign, she should have grasped the thistle and sacked her this morning.
I also hope Boris will be OK. It is troubling to hear the news he’s been admitted to hospital. Whatever our political persuasions we need to get through this together and it is worrying that the person at the helm is obviously not in the best of health.
I guess the CMO was doing a critical job that didn’t need to be disrupted.
Can’t help thinking this Johnson news is a bit more serious than is being reported. Being admitted to hospital sounds like quite a significant development.
Well quite. But looking on the bright side, when the NHS fixes him up and he comes home, he will be proof that the NHS makes a difference and he might be possibly a better PM.
The NHS he wanted to give 350m a week to?
And even the boldest baddest and richest Tories realise that for anything life threatening you don't mess about in the private sector.
At the moment there is no significant private sector, as the private hospitals have been requisitioned by the NHS.
I am not sure what it is like in London, but in Leicester, the private hospitals are taking the pressure off by treating non covid NHS patients. Not least all the aneasthetists and ICU specialists are busy in the NHS hospitals.
One point my friends noted with the virus was that they needed to sleep sometimes for ~18 hours a day. That's the body trying to produce the antibodies to fight it. Absolubtely critical to rest, rest, rest if you get the virus.
Very hard if you're PM.
FWIW it's extremely unlikely anything will happen to Boris. He's fit, only in his 50s and will receive the very best care.
I can only imagine he's been overdoing it.
You think he is a fit 50 something? Looks to be carrying too much weight to fall into that category to my eye
Can’t help thinking this Johnson news is a bit more serious than is being reported. Being admitted to hospital sounds like quite a significant development.
Except that he is PM and his doctors will be extra careful.
I don’t think coronavirus cares if your doctors are ‘extra careful’
Yes, there are limits to what money and influence can achieve.
Speaking of which, how are you feeling? Back to normal?
Yes, I went back to work midweek. Feeling fine. Not sure what I had, but swab negative. 2 swab positive colleagues in my dept though already. Running the gauntlet again tommorow. I was supposed to be on leave this week, but cancelled it. Off for the Easter weekend though.
Why, why, why did Sturgeon try and face down the criticism today?
It was obvious the CMOs position was untenable, yet she tried to ride it out. The press conference was brutal and must surely have been the impetus for the resignation, but I still don’t understand why she had such a tin ear and tried to carry on. It seemed to me inevitable that the CMO would have to resign, she should have grasped the thistle and sacked her this morning.
I also hope Boris will be OK. It is troubling to hear the news he’s been admitted to hospital. Whatever our political persuasions we need to get through this together and it is worrying that the person at the helm is obviously not in the best of health.
I guess the CMO was doing a critical job that didn’t need to be disrupted.
You cannot lead a crisis response where the main focus is emphasising non essential journeys when you have made non essential journeys yourself.
Can’t help thinking this Johnson news is a bit more serious than is being reported. Being admitted to hospital sounds like quite a significant development.
Except that he is PM and his doctors will be extra careful.
I don’t think coronavirus cares if your doctors are ‘extra careful’
Strange. Every other disease, illness and syndrome known to man does.
What makes this one special?
The fact that what doctors do is administer cures, and for this disease there is no cure, might be relevant, do you think?
Sure. So it's about managing the symptoms. And having better doctors, whose attention is more focused on you, gives you some kind of percentage advantage over everyone else.
One point my friends noted with the virus was that they needed to sleep sometimes for ~18 hours a day. That's the body trying to produce the antibodies to fight it. Absolubtely critical to rest, rest, rest if you get the virus.
Very hard if you're PM.
FWIW it's extremely unlikely anything will happen to Boris. He's fit, only in his 50s and will receive the very best care.
I can only imagine he's been overdoing it.
To work on it actuarily:
Symptomatic disease in mid fifties: 1.4% mortality 50% greater risk in Men = 2% Severe enough for hospital admission (around 20% of symptomatic cases) = 10% mortality Other risk factors are speculative as we do not know his medical history, but BMI over 30 by my eye.
I reckon a ball park figure of 85% survival.
Is blood group a factor? I read somewhere that group A is more at risk from Covid-19.
Not sure about that, but I dont know his blood group.
This is the first observation of an association between the ABO blood type and COVID-19. It should be emphasized, however, that this is an early study with limitations... And further studies which support it ?
The Japanese seem to be oddly enthused about blood groups. Perhaps start there?
Can’t help thinking this Johnson news is a bit more serious than is being reported. Being admitted to hospital sounds like quite a significant development.
Except that he is PM and his doctors will be extra careful.
I don’t think coronavirus cares if your doctors are ‘extra careful’
Yes, there are limits to what money and influence can achieve.
Speaking of which, how are you feeling? Back to normal?
Yes, I went back to work midweek. Feeling fine. Not sure what I had, but swab negative. 2 swab positive colleagues in my dept though already. Running the gauntlet again tommorow. I was supposed to be on leave this week, but cancelled it. Off for the Easter weekend though.
Can’t help thinking this Johnson news is a bit more serious than is being reported. Being admitted to hospital sounds like quite a significant development.
Well quite. But looking on the bright side, when the NHS fixes him up and he comes home, he will be proof that the NHS makes a difference and he might be possibly a better PM.
The NHS he wanted to give 350m a week to?
And even the boldest baddest and richest Tories realise that for anything life threatening you don't mess about in the private sector.
At the moment there is no significant private sector, as the private hospitals have been requisitioned by the NHS.
I am not sure what it is like in London, but in Leicester, the private hospitals are taking the pressure off by treating non covid NHS patients. Not least all the aneasthetists and ICU specialists are busy in the NHS hospitals.
Do private hospitals actually have ICUs?
Yes, for planned surgery such as cardio thoracic and neurosurgery etc. Unexpected complications tend to be NHS transfers though.
The first thing I did on reading this news was to check Betfair, not BBC news.
I'm still not sure what happens if Boris drops dead. Does Rabb defacto become PM and gets announced or does other things have to happen first?
Raab would take over in the interim as he is first in the line of succession, so the Queen would appoint Raab temporary PM within 24 hours (even if it had to be done online)
I think Gove might out manoeuvre him.
Raab was seriously underwhelming the parliamentarians during the leadership race and Gove has been a more convincing stand in.
If Boris has got to stand down (temporarily or otherwise) I think it'll be Gove who takes over (I'm not sure Raab would even want to take over in the midst of this)
Failing that it should be Nadine as I said ten days ago!
My reading of it is that the Cabinet would be expected to come to a very rapid agreement on who it should be.
Some people are getting way ahead of themselves tonight. Let us hope, and if you are so minded pray for Mr Johnson.
Can’t help thinking this Johnson news is a bit more serious than is being reported. Being admitted to hospital sounds like quite a significant development.
Except that he is PM and his doctors will be extra careful.
I don’t think coronavirus cares if your doctors are ‘extra careful’
Yes, there are limits to what money and influence can achieve.
Speaking of which, how are you feeling? Back to normal?
Yes, I went back to work midweek. Feeling fine. Not sure what I had, but swab negative. 2 swab positive colleagues in my dept though already. Running the gauntlet again tommorow. I was supposed to be on leave this week, but cancelled it. Off for the Easter weekend though.
Can’t help thinking this Johnson news is a bit more serious than is being reported. Being admitted to hospital sounds like quite a significant development.
Except that he is PM and his doctors will be extra careful.
I don’t think coronavirus cares if your doctors are ‘extra careful’
Strange. Every other disease, illness and syndrome known to man does.
What makes this one special?
The fact that what doctors do is administer cures, and for this disease there is no cure, might be relevant, do you think?
Sure. So it's about managing the symptoms. And having better doctors, whose attention is more focused on you, gives you some kind of percentage advantage over everyone else.
I would think it makes sod all difference provided that doctors and nurses meet basic standards of competence.
Can’t help thinking this Johnson news is a bit more serious than is being reported. Being admitted to hospital sounds like quite a significant development.
Except that he is PM and his doctors will be extra careful.
I don’t think coronavirus cares if your doctors are ‘extra careful’
Strange. Every other disease, illness and syndrome known to man does.
What makes this one special?
The fact that what doctors do is administer cures, and for this disease there is no cure, might be relevant, do you think?
Sure. So it's about managing the symptoms. And having better doctors, whose attention is more focused on you, gives you some kind of percentage advantage over everyone else.
I would think it makes sod all difference provided that doctors and nurses meet basic standards of competence.
The comment about extra careful surely relates to the threshold at which they would recommend additional action. It's lower in the case of Johnson because he's the PM.
Hope the PM recovers quickly. Mustn't forget the odds are still very much in his favour. Raab as PM is not an inspiring concept.
The news about the tigers is fascinating, I've seen elsewhere that cats in general seem very susceptible to this virus in tests, yet dogs chickens ducks and pigs are not. Wonder what links humans and cats, but not dogs?
Can’t help thinking this Johnson news is a bit more serious than is being reported. Being admitted to hospital sounds like quite a significant development.
Except that he is PM and his doctors will be extra careful.
I don’t think coronavirus cares if your doctors are ‘extra careful’
I think OGH's point is that AN Other with his symptoms might be told to stay home and rest and only call if it got really bad. While with Boris, he'll be brought straight in.
And it's also quite likely that he'll get on the test for some of the retrovirals, in a way AN Other might not. And he won't be waiting for a repirator.
Nevertheless, it is deeply disturbing that he is sufficiently sick to require hospitalisation, especially as Raab is next in line.
Lay Dominic Raab. First, Boris Johnson will probably recover. Second, if he doesn’t, he won’t necessarily be the interim successor. Boris Johnson doesn’t get to dictate that.
It's the Cabinet that decides, Raab just minds the shop while Johnson is ill. They'll want to decide quickly, I imagine the crucial moves will be made before the decision is required.
I think Gove is the obvious choice. He has more experience than Raab. It avoids moving a Minister with direct involvement in important aspects of the current government response (Hancock, Sunak). He has a more competent air than most of the rest too.
Fascinating article about how George W Bush realised the importance of being prepared for a Pandemic and tried to put in place the systems to ensure the US was ready when it struck. Unfortunately in the years after he left office the initiative was forgotten.
Can’t help thinking this Johnson news is a bit more serious than is being reported. Being admitted to hospital sounds like quite a significant development.
Except that he is PM and his doctors will be extra careful.
I don’t think coronavirus cares if your doctors are ‘extra careful’
Strange. Every other disease, illness and syndrome known to man does.
What makes this one special?
The fact that what doctors do is administer cures, and for this disease there is no cure, might be relevant, do you think?
Sure. So it's about managing the symptoms. And having better doctors, whose attention is more focused on you, gives you some kind of percentage advantage over everyone else.
I would think it makes sod all difference provided that doctors and nurses meet basic standards of competence.
It probably does make some difference at the margin, but I suspect that the medical and nursing fatalities got the book thrown at them too. Not just because of the medical mafia, but also the utilitarian approach of maximising healthcare workforce.
Hope the PM recovers quickly. Mustn't forget the odds are still very much in his favour. Raab as PM is not an inspiring concept.
The news about the tigers is fascinating, I've seen elsewhere that cats in general seem very susceptible to this virus in tests, yet dogs chickens ducks and pigs are not. Wonder what links humans and cats, but not dogs?
The cats will take this as further evidence that the dogs are behind the virus. It makes humans stay at home all day but take their dogs out for walks. What more evidence is necessary?
Michael Osterholm (American infectious disease epidemiologist, and ex-US gov Bioterrorism advisor) was recently on the Joe Rogan podcast, and discussed the Wuhan lab conspiracy theory. His take that Corvid-19 was way too elegant, too sophisticated to be a man-made bio-weapon.
So I tend to go with Occam' razor here. Brilliant conspiracy theory/thriller novel ground though, I admit.
"Escaped from a lab" doesn't have to imply anything other than that the lab was doing research into coronaviruses. It could still be a virus that originated in bats.
Yes, quite. That’s been my belief from early in feb.
The fact there was a lab investigating bat coronaviruses just a few hundred meters from the fateful ‘wet market’ of Wuhan is too much coincidence to believe.
So. It came from honest scientists doing honest research, but it leaked. Maybe a worker sold a Lab bat in the black wet market.
I can't find the link at the moment but I was reading some of the stories from early January and some doctors in Hong Kong had been querying whether the Chinese authorities were only categorising cases linked to the market as being this new syndrome. It's possible that the link to the 'wet market' was a deliberately chosen narrative.
I must admit I'm slightly sceptical of that publication, but the proximity of two research labs doing research on bat related coronaviruses does strike me as a remarkable coincidence. Fear you may well be onto something here.
Michael Osterholm (American infectious disease epidemiologist, and ex-US gov Bioterrorism advisor) was recently on the Joe Rogan podcast, and discussed the Wuhan lab conspiracy theory. His take that Corvid-19 was way too elegant, too sophisticated to be a man-made bio-weapon.
So I tend to go with Occam' razor here. Brilliant conspiracy theory/thriller novel ground though, I admit.
"Escaped from a lab" doesn't have to imply anything other than that the lab was doing research into coronaviruses. It could still be a virus that originated in bats.
Yes, quite. That’s been my belief from early in feb.
The fact there was a lab investigating bat coronaviruses just a few hundred meters from the fateful ‘wet market’ of Wuhan is too much coincidence to believe.
So. It came from honest scientists doing honest research, but it leaked. Maybe a worker sold a Lab bat in the black wet market.
I can't find the link at the moment but I was reading some of the stories from early January and some doctors in Hong Kong had been querying whether the Chinese authorities were only categorising cases linked to the market as being this new syndrome. It's possible that the link to the 'wet market' was a deliberately chosen narrative.
I must admit I'm slightly sceptical of that publication, but the proximity of two research labs doing research on bat related coronaviruses does strike me as a remarkable coincidence. Fear you may well be onto something here.
As Garak himself once said, "I believe in coincidences. Coincidences happen every day. But I don't trust coincidences."
Hope the PM recovers quickly. Mustn't forget the odds are still very much in his favour. Raab as PM is not an inspiring concept.
The news about the tigers is fascinating, I've seen elsewhere that cats in general seem very susceptible to this virus in tests, yet dogs chickens ducks and pigs are not. Wonder what links humans and cats, but not dogs?
The cats will take this as further evidence that the dogs are behind the virus. It makes humans stay at home all day but take their dogs out for walks. What more evidence is necessary?
Fascinating article about how George W Bush realised the importance of being prepared for a Pandemic and tried to put in place the systems to ensure the US was ready when it struck. Unfortunately in the years after he left office the initiative was forgotten.
In the summer of 2005, President George W. Bush was on vacation at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, when he began flipping through an advance reading copy of a new book about the 1918 flu pandemic. He couldn't put it down.
When he returned to Washington, he called his top homeland security adviser into the Oval Office and gave her the galley of historian John M. Barry's "The Great Influenza," which told the chilling tale of the mysterious plague that "would kill more people than the outbreak of any other disease in human history."
"You've got to read this," Fran Townsend remembers the president telling her. "He said, 'Look, this happens every 100 years. We need a national strategy.'"
Thus was born the nation's most comprehensive pandemic plan -- a playbook that included diagrams for a global early warning system, funding to develop new, rapid vaccine technology, and a robust national stockpile of critical supplies, such as face masks and ventilators, Townsend said.
The British media poked a lot of fun at Bush's reading habits (did the American media too?) as a painfully stupid man trying to pretend that he a pseudo-intellectual, but from everything I have heard about it, it does seem he took his reading pretty seriously.
Bit of an indictment that national security priorities depended so much on which particular book, by chance, one man happens to have been reading - you might think risk priorities would be sieved through by an army of analysts, assessments should float up to the top and big holes in national security pointed out to the president in briefings.
Fascinating article about how George W Bush realised the importance of being prepared for a Pandemic and tried to put in place the systems to ensure the US was ready when it struck. Unfortunately in the years after he left office the initiative was forgotten.
In the summer of 2005, President George W. Bush was on vacation at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, when he began flipping through an advance reading copy of a new book about the 1918 flu pandemic. He couldn't put it down.
When he returned to Washington, he called his top homeland security adviser into the Oval Office and gave her the galley of historian John M. Barry's "The Great Influenza," which told the chilling tale of the mysterious plague that "would kill more people than the outbreak of any other disease in human history."
"You've got to read this," Fran Townsend remembers the president telling her. "He said, 'Look, this happens every 100 years. We need a national strategy.'"
Thus was born the nation's most comprehensive pandemic plan -- a playbook that included diagrams for a global early warning system, funding to develop new, rapid vaccine technology, and a robust national stockpile of critical supplies, such as face masks and ventilators, Townsend said.
The British media poked a lot of fun at Bush's reading habits (did the American media too?) as a painfully stupid man trying to pretend that he a pseudo-intellectual, but from everything I have heard about it, it does seem he took his reading pretty seriously.
Bit of an indictment that national security priorities depended so much on which particular book, by chance, one man happens to have been reading - you might think risk priorities would be sieved through by an army of analysts, assessments should float up to the top and big holes in national security pointed out to the president in briefings.
Of course this is the country that based a whole strand of their cold war defensive system on the writing of two science fiction authors. Both of whom said it wasn't practical.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01019-y .... Copenhagen was an epicentre of one of the worst polio epidemics that the world had ever seen. The hospital admitted 50 infected people daily, and each day, 6–12 of them developed respiratory failure. The whole city had just one iron lung. In the first few weeks of the epidemic, 87% of those with bulbar or bulbospinal polio, in which the virus attacks the brainstem or nerves that control breathing, died. Around half were children....
What followed was one of the most remarkable episodes in health-care history: in six-hour shifts, medical and dental students from the University of Copenhagen sat at the bedside of every person with paralysis and ventilated them by hand. The students squeezed a bag connected to the trachaeostomy tube, forcing air into the lungs. They were instructed in how many breaths to administer each minute, and sat there hour after hour. This went on for weeks, and then months, with hundreds of students rotating on and off. By mid-September, the mortality for patients with polio who had respiratory failure had dropped to 31%. It is estimated that the heroic scheme saved 120 people....
Michael Osterholm (American infectious disease epidemiologist, and ex-US gov Bioterrorism advisor) was recently on the Joe Rogan podcast, and discussed the Wuhan lab conspiracy theory. His take that Corvid-19 was way too elegant, too sophisticated to be a man-made bio-weapon.
So I tend to go with Occam' razor here. Brilliant conspiracy theory/thriller novel ground though, I admit.
"Escaped from a lab" doesn't have to imply anything other than that the lab was doing research into coronaviruses. It could still be a virus that originated in bats.
Yes, quite. That’s been my belief from early in feb.
The fact there was a lab investigating bat coronaviruses just a few hundred meters from the fateful ‘wet market’ of Wuhan is too much coincidence to believe.
So. It came from honest scientists doing honest research, but it leaked. Maybe a worker sold a Lab bat in the black wet market.
I can't find the link at the moment but I was reading some of the stories from early January and some doctors in Hong Kong had been querying whether the Chinese authorities were only categorising cases linked to the market as being this new syndrome. It's possible that the link to the 'wet market' was a deliberately chosen narrative.
I must admit I'm slightly sceptical of that publication, but the proximity of two research labs doing research on bat related coronaviruses does strike me as a remarkable coincidence. Fear you may well be onto something here.
Zerohedge was slated for this line of argument weeks ago. If it is ever prove true then they will be owed one heck of an apology
Michael Osterholm (American infectious disease epidemiologist, and ex-US gov Bioterrorism advisor) was recently on the Joe Rogan podcast, and discussed the Wuhan lab conspiracy theory. His take that Corvid-19 was way too elegant, too sophisticated to be a man-made bio-weapon.
So I tend to go with Occam' razor here. Brilliant conspiracy theory/thriller novel ground though, I admit.
"Escaped from a lab" doesn't have to imply anything other than that the lab was doing research into coronaviruses. It could still be a virus that originated in bats.
Yes, quite. That’s been my belief from early in feb.
The fact there was a lab investigating bat coronaviruses just a few hundred meters from the fateful ‘wet market’ of Wuhan is too much coincidence to believe.
So. It came from honest scientists doing honest research, but it leaked. Maybe a worker sold a Lab bat in the black wet market.
I can't find the link at the moment but I was reading some of the stories from early January and some doctors in Hong Kong had been querying whether the Chinese authorities were only categorising cases linked to the market as being this new syndrome. It's possible that the link to the 'wet market' was a deliberately chosen narrative.
I must admit I'm slightly sceptical of that publication, but the proximity of two research labs doing research on bat related coronaviruses does strike me as a remarkable coincidence. Fear you may well be onto something here.
Zerohedge was slated for this line of argument weeks ago. If it is ever prove true then they will be owed one heck of an apology
Yeah, and to be fair if its appeared on Zerohedge its almost certainly bollocks.
Night all - normal (non conspiracy loon) service will be resumed in the morning.
Hope the PM recovers quickly. Mustn't forget the odds are still very much in his favour. Raab as PM is not an inspiring concept.
The news about the tigers is fascinating, I've seen elsewhere that cats in general seem very susceptible to this virus in tests, yet dogs chickens ducks and pigs are not. Wonder what links humans and cats, but not dogs?
The particular cell receptor this virus latches onto is more similar in cats to the human one than it is in dogs. Ferrets are also susceptible to this virus; pigs and chickens not so much. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.30.015347v1
It’s a virus which we knew has crossed the species barrier at least once, so it’s not surprising it should do so again.
“In hiding”. A tweet that Could go down in history
If the worst happened to Boris, I wonder if his haters would reassess their opinion that he was a bit of a failure; only winning the mayoralty twice, the referendum, the Tory leadership and a whopping majority
Trump/US strongly pushing Hydroxychloroquine/azithromycin combination treatment for Covid-19
With very limited evidence showing it works,
On another forum I've heard from a US based doctor that they think Hydroxychloroquine/azithromycin is probably most useful in the early stages of the virus or when the virus is mild but once it gets to hospital/ventilation the best treatment regimen appears to be remdesivir or lopinavir/ritonavir.
Johnson’s hospital admission suggests virus may have progressed Most people recover from Covid-19 within a week and cannot even be certain they had it, as they probably won’t be tested. The advice is to stay home, rest and take paracetamol. In 80% of cases, that is the end of it.
But NHS advice is that if the symptoms – mainly the dry cough, temperature and fatigue – have not gone by the end of a week, or they get worse, people should seek medical help.
Unlike Matt Hancock, the health secretary, who revealed he had Covid-19 on the same day as the prime minister, Boris Johnson has not recovered within the first week. He is said to have been admitted to hospital for tests, which may include scans of his lungs to check for pneumonia, as well as blood tests. He had a diagnostic test for Covid-19, so doctors will be looking for progression of the disease and to establish that he has not entered the second phase, where the immune system goes into overdrive.
Given the increasing pressure on hospitals at the moment, it is unlikely he will have been admitted unless doctors have real concerns. Minor tests could be carried out in Downing Street.
As an aside, I just watched the Queen’s speech again, this time critically.
Thing is, there isn’t much to criticize. Her delivery is effortlessly good. Quiet, measured, calm, direct, fluent - it must come from her decades of doing this. There are moments when you want her to burst into Obama-esque oratory, befitting the times, but that is not her job. This is the National granny, the world’s granny, saying I have seen worse, we will get through this, calm the fuck down. We don’t actually want overt emotion.
Brilliantly done.
Also, she has a great scriptwriter. The modest peroration evoking Vera Lynn and the white cliffs of Dover is a superb idea. Tho they do have great material to work with. About the only cavil I have is the slightly amateurish use of news footage. Otherwise, sleeeeeek.
Whatever you think of the monarchy, they did a top job tonight.
Her reputation is one of the minor casualties of coronavirus
WTF?
She is possibly the worst journalist in the world, and was so from long before the CV-19 scandal.
Her ability to misuderstand the mundane, twist it into a conspiracy, tweet about it in hysterical terms, and then delete the tweet... all within 30 minutes... is completely unparalleled.
Her reputation is one of the minor casualties of coronavirus
WTF?
She is possibly the worst journalist in the world, and was so from long before the CV-19 scandal.
Her ability to misuderstand the mundane, twist it into a conspiracy, tweet about it in hysterical terms, and then delete the tweet... all within 30 minutes... is completely unparalleled.
Michael Osterholm (American infectious disease epidemiologist, and ex-US gov Bioterrorism advisor) was recently on the Joe Rogan podcast, and discussed the Wuhan lab conspiracy theory. His take that Corvid-19 was way too elegant, too sophisticated to be a man-made bio-weapon.
So I tend to go with Occam' razor here. Brilliant conspiracy theory/thriller novel ground though, I admit.
"Escaped from a lab" doesn't have to imply anything other than that the lab was doing research into coronaviruses. It could still be a virus that originated in bats.
Yes, quite. That’s been my belief from early in feb.
The fact there was a lab investigating bat coronaviruses just a few hundred meters from the fateful ‘wet market’ of Wuhan is too much coincidence to believe.
So. It came from honest scientists doing honest research, but it leaked. Maybe a worker sold a Lab bat in the black wet market.
I can't find the link at the moment but I was reading some of the stories from early January and some doctors in Hong Kong had been querying whether the Chinese authorities were only categorising cases linked to the market as being this new syndrome. It's possible that the link to the 'wet market' was a deliberately chosen narrative.
I must admit I'm slightly sceptical of that publication, but the proximity of two research labs doing research on bat related coronaviruses does strike me as a remarkable coincidence. Fear you may well be onto something here.
Zerohedge was slated for this line of argument weeks ago. If it is ever prove true then they will be owed one heck of an apology
Zerohedge might end up being correct. Anything's possible.
But I would point out that (a) it's creator, editor and main writer is a convicted insisder trader, who is banned from working in the securities industry, and (b) it has taken money from hedge funds to spread stories that drive stock prices down. Something, market manipulation, that I was always lead to believe was illegal.
As an aside, I just watched the Queen’s speech again, this time critically.
Thing is, there isn’t much to criticize. Her delivery is effortlessly good. Quiet, measured, calm, direct, fluent - it must come from her decades of doing this. There are moments when you want her to burst into Obama-esque oratory, befitting the times, but that is not her job. This is the National granny, the world’s granny, saying I have seen worse, we will get through this, calm the fuck down. We don’t actually want overt emotion.
Brilliantly done.
Also, she has a great scriptwriter. The modest peroration evoking Vera Lynn and the white cliffs of Dover is a superb idea. Tho they do have great material to work with. About the only cavil I have is the slightly amateurish use of news footage. Otherwise, sleeeeeek.
Whatever you think of the monarchy, they did a top job tonight.
Completely agree. Maybe they should have pulled it forward a week or two.
As an aside, I just watched the Queen’s speech again, this time critically.
Thing is, there isn’t much to criticize. Her delivery is effortlessly good. Quiet, measured, calm, direct, fluent - it must come from her decades of doing this. There are moments when you want her to burst into Obama-esque oratory, befitting the times, but that is not her job. This is the National granny, the world’s granny, saying I have seen worse, we will get through this, calm the fuck down. We don’t actually want overt emotion.
Brilliantly done.
Also, she has a great scriptwriter. The modest peroration evoking Vera Lynn and the white cliffs of Dover is a superb idea. Tho they do have great material to work with. About the only cavil I have is the slightly amateurish use of news footage. Otherwise, sleeeeeek.
Whatever you think of the monarchy, they did a top job tonight.
Since the VE celebrations were the last time she's experienced the populace unfltered, Brenda's probably behind the curve on the 'attributes of self discipline, of quiet good humoured resolve and of fellow feeling' thing.
Nothing on here about the shadow cabinet? I am pleased to see the Blairites back in charge and Labour returned to sanity. The first one of Labour or the Lib Dems to commit to Rejoin will get my vote.
Michael Osterholm (American infectious disease epidemiologist, and ex-US gov Bioterrorism advisor) was recently on the Joe Rogan podcast, and discussed the Wuhan lab conspiracy theory. His take that Corvid-19 was way too elegant, too sophisticated to be a man-made bio-weapon.
So I tend to go with Occam' razor here. Brilliant conspiracy theory/thriller novel ground though, I admit.
"Escaped from a lab" doesn't have to imply anything other than that the lab was doing research into coronaviruses. It could still be a virus that originated in bats.
Yes, quite. That’s been my belief from early in feb.
The fact there was a lab investigating bat coronaviruses just a few hundred meters from the fateful ‘wet market’ of Wuhan is too much coincidence to believe.
So. It came from honest scientists doing honest research, but it leaked. Maybe a worker sold a Lab bat in the black wet market.
I can't find the link at the moment but I was reading some of the stories from early January and some doctors in Hong Kong had been querying whether the Chinese authorities were only categorising cases linked to the market as being this new syndrome. It's possible that the link to the 'wet market' was a deliberately chosen narrative.
I must admit I'm slightly sceptical of that publication, but the proximity of two research labs doing research on bat related coronaviruses does strike me as a remarkable coincidence. Fear you may well be onto something here.
Zerohedge was slated for this line of argument weeks ago. If it is ever prove true then they will be owed one heck of an apology
Zerohedge might end up being correct. Anything's possible.
But I would point out that (a) it's creator, editor and main writer is a convicted insisder trader, who is banned from working in the securities industry, and (b) it has taken money from hedge funds to spread stories that drive stock prices down. Something, market manipulation, that I was always lead to believe was illegal.
And c) the same story has been going round for weeks without any real corroborative evidence. The geneticists can’t see any evidence of it being an engineered virus. It’s theoretically possible that it could have escaped from a lab studying zoonotic viruses, but massively more likely that it originated in the wild bat population.
Can’t help thinking this Johnson news is a bit more serious than is being reported. Being admitted to hospital sounds like quite a significant development.
Except that he is PM and his doctors will be extra careful.
I don’t think coronavirus cares if your doctors are ‘extra careful’
Strange. Every other disease, illness and syndrome known to man does.
What makes this one special?
The fact that what doctors do is administer cures, and for this disease there is no cure, might be relevant, do you think?
Sure. So it's about managing the symptoms. And having better doctors, whose attention is more focused on you, gives you some kind of percentage advantage over everyone else.
I would think it makes sod all difference provided that doctors and nurses meet basic standards of competence.
That happens less than we'd all like, even at the best of times.
(This is not the best of times.)
Stepping back a bit, the original point reads more like it's precautionary, and just a step that is only being taken because he's the PM (hence extra careful). Then again a) hospitals are generally the last place you want to be unless you need to, and b) it's a bed that presumably someone else could use.
He went outside the chain of command and had to go. It doesn't matter if he was right or wrong.
Worse, he wrote "we're not at war" in his letter. This antithetical to the philosophy that underpins the Carrier Strike Group. If the CSG is not "ready to fight, tonight" then the commander has failed.
Michael Osterholm (American infectious disease epidemiologist, and ex-US gov Bioterrorism advisor) was recently on the Joe Rogan podcast, and discussed the Wuhan lab conspiracy theory. His take that Corvid-19 was way too elegant, too sophisticated to be a man-made bio-weapon.
So I tend to go with Occam' razor here. Brilliant conspiracy theory/thriller novel ground though, I admit.
"Escaped from a lab" doesn't have to imply anything other than that the lab was doing research into coronaviruses. It could still be a virus that originated in bats.
Yes, quite. That’s been my belief from early in feb.
The fact there was a lab investigating bat coronaviruses just a few hundred meters from the fateful ‘wet market’ of Wuhan is too much coincidence to believe.
So. It came from honest scientists doing honest research, but it leaked. Maybe a worker sold a Lab bat in the black wet market.
I can't find the link at the moment but I was reading some of the stories from early January and some doctors in Hong Kong had been querying whether the Chinese authorities were only categorising cases linked to the market as being this new syndrome. It's possible that the link to the 'wet market' was a deliberately chosen narrative.
I must admit I'm slightly sceptical of that publication, but the proximity of two research labs doing research on bat related coronaviruses does strike me as a remarkable coincidence. Fear you may well be onto something here.
Zerohedge was slated for this line of argument weeks ago. If it is ever prove true then they will be owed one heck of an apology
Zerohedge might end up being correct. Anything's possible.
But I would point out that (a) it's creator, editor and main writer is a convicted insisder trader, who is banned from working in the securities industry, and (b) it has taken money from hedge funds to spread stories that drive stock prices down. Something, market manipulation, that I was always lead to believe was illegal.
And c) the same story has been going round for weeks without any real corroborative evidence. The geneticists can’t see any evidence of it being an engineered virus. It’s theoretically possible that it could have escaped from a lab studying zoonotic viruses, but massively more likely that it originated in the wild bat population.
There is no positive evidence for the wet market theory, either, and there is no contradiction in saying that it originated in the wild bat population, was then studied in a lab, then escaped from the lab. Effectively the only difference between the theories is that one blames people who like to study bats and the other, people who like to eat them.
Nothing on here about the shadow cabinet? I am pleased to see the Blairites back in charge and Labour returned to sanity. The first one of Labour or the Lib Dems to commit to Rejoin will get my vote.
If you think Starker is a Blairitd you will be disabused. The world has moved on from those days.
He went outside the chain of command and had to go. It doesn't matter if he was right or wrong.
Worse, he wrote "we're not at war" in his letter. This antithetical to the philosophy that underpins the Carrier Strike Group. If the CSG is not "ready to fight, tonight" then the commander has failed.
Still, a bit more high minded than misuse of a clapped out people carrier or whatever it was that had the captain of the QE booted.
Michael Osterholm (American infectious disease epidemiologist, and ex-US gov Bioterrorism advisor) was recently on the Joe Rogan podcast, and discussed the Wuhan lab conspiracy theory. His take that Corvid-19 was way too elegant, too sophisticated to be a man-made bio-weapon.
So I tend to go with Occam' razor here. Brilliant conspiracy theory/thriller novel ground though, I admit.
"Escaped from a lab" doesn't have to imply anything other than that the lab was doing research into coronaviruses. It could still be a virus that originated in bats.
Yes, quite. That’s been my belief from early in feb.
The fact there was a lab investigating bat coronaviruses just a few hundred meters from the fateful ‘wet market’ of Wuhan is too much coincidence to believe.
So. It came from honest scientists doing honest research, but it leaked. Maybe a worker sold a Lab bat in the black wet market.
I can't find the link at the moment but I was reading some of the stories from early January and some doctors in Hong Kong had been querying whether the Chinese authorities were only categorising cases linked to the market as being this new syndrome. It's possible that the link to the 'wet market' was a deliberately chosen narrative.
I must admit I'm slightly sceptical of that publication, but the proximity of two research labs doing research on bat related coronaviruses does strike me as a remarkable coincidence. Fear you may well be onto something here.
Zerohedge was slated for this line of argument weeks ago. If it is ever prove true then they will be owed one heck of an apology
Zerohedge might end up being correct. Anything's possible.
But I would point out that (a) it's creator, editor and main writer is a convicted insisder trader, who is banned from working in the securities industry, and (b) it has taken money from hedge funds to spread stories that drive stock prices down. Something, market manipulation, that I was always lead to believe was illegal.
And c) the same story has been going round for weeks without any real corroborative evidence. The geneticists can’t see any evidence of it being an engineered virus. It’s theoretically possible that it could have escaped from a lab studying zoonotic viruses, but massively more likely that it originated in the wild bat population.
Also to point out that it's hardly a coincidence that there was a virology lab investigating bat-borne coronaviruses right nearby to a possible source of bat-borne coronaviruses.
All that proves is that the people who chose the site for the lab, did a good job. This is exactly the sort of reason why they would want to be studying bat-borne coronaviruses.
As an aside, I just watched the Queen’s speech again, this time critically.
Thing is, there isn’t much to criticize. Her delivery is effortlessly good. Quiet, measured, calm, direct, fluent - it must come from her decades of doing this. There are moments when you want her to burst into Obama-esque oratory, befitting the times, but that is not her job. This is the National granny, the world’s granny, saying I have seen worse, we will get through this, calm the fuck down. We don’t actually want overt emotion.
Brilliantly done.
Also, she has a great scriptwriter. The modest peroration evoking Vera Lynn and the white cliffs of Dover is a superb idea. Tho they do have great material to work with. About the only cavil I have is the slightly amateurish use of news footage. Otherwise, sleeeeeek.
Whatever you think of the monarchy, they did a top job tonight.
Since the VE celebrations were the last time she's experienced the populace unfltered, Brenda's probably behind the curve on the 'attributes of self discipline, of quiet good humoured resolve and of fellow feeling' thing.
She knows that, and what she said was a nudge; a warning as much as a celebration. A timely reminder and a typically subtle one.
She knows full well that a number of people are flapping around and acting selfishly. She also knows that the majority are not. She remembers the Blitz, the yardstick that people want to be measured by. It’s ‘you want to mentioned in the same breath or as a bunch of whinging chancers - your call’.
Michael Osterholm (American infectious disease epidemiologist, and ex-US gov Bioterrorism advisor) was recently on the Joe Rogan podcast, and discussed the Wuhan lab conspiracy theory. His take that Corvid-19 was way too elegant, too sophisticated to be a man-made bio-weapon.
So I tend to go with Occam' razor here. Brilliant conspiracy theory/thriller novel ground though, I admit.
"Escaped from a lab" doesn't have to imply anything other than that the lab was doing research into coronaviruses. It could still be a virus that originated in bats.
Yes, quite. That’s been my belief from early in feb.
The fact there was a lab investigating bat coronaviruses just a few hundred meters from the fateful ‘wet market’ of Wuhan is too much coincidence to believe.
So. It came from honest scientists doing honest research, but it leaked. Maybe a worker sold a Lab bat in the black wet market.
I can't find the link at the moment but I was reading some of the stories from early January and some doctors in Hong Kong had been querying whether the Chinese authorities were only categorising cases linked to the market as being this new syndrome. It's possible that the link to the 'wet market' was a deliberately chosen narrative.
I must admit I'm slightly sceptical of that publication, but the proximity of two research labs doing research on bat related coronaviruses does strike me as a remarkable coincidence. Fear you may well be onto something here.
Zerohedge was slated for this line of argument weeks ago. If it is ever prove true then they will be owed one heck of an apology
Zerohedge might end up being correct. Anything's possible.
But I would point out that (a) it's creator, editor and main writer is a convicted insisder trader, who is banned from working in the securities industry, and (b) it has taken money from hedge funds to spread stories that drive stock prices down. Something, market manipulation, that I was always lead to believe was illegal.
And c) the same story has been going round for weeks without any real corroborative evidence. The geneticists can’t see any evidence of it being an engineered virus. It’s theoretically possible that it could have escaped from a lab studying zoonotic viruses, but massively more likely that it originated in the wild bat population.
There is no positive evidence for the wet market theory, either, and there is no contradiction in saying that it originated in the wild bat population, was then studied in a lab, then escaped from the lab. Effectively the only difference between the theories is that one blames people who like to study bats and the other, people who like to eat them.
He's a "Blairite" in the same sense that Cameron was a "Thatcherite". The world moves on, sure. Things evolve. It's just convenient shorthand for "Starmer represents and has won his mandate from the mostly sane wing of the Labour party that previously would have identified as Blairites or Brownites".
A total failure to understand that this is much a logistical issue that the government has limited power to just instantly resolve. The civil service, particularly NHS procurement has something to answer for.
I spoke to a guy that I know through business who works for a company that does what I'd guess is hundreds of millions of business with the NHS a year and that sector is his speciality. Money he said is no issue, plenty of budget is available but you cant just get many things just like that and parts of the NHS are still doing a lot of things by the same mechanisms as before.
He gave me an example n my locality (Northern Ireland) as illustration about the slowness of the machine in getting its act together and the inability to be proactive which would make you think 'why didn't they do that two or three weeks ago at least?'
He went outside the chain of command and had to go. It doesn't matter if he was right or wrong.
Worse, he wrote "we're not at war" in his letter. This antithetical to the philosophy that underpins the Carrier Strike Group. If the CSG is not "ready to fight, tonight" then the commander has failed.
Still, a bit more high minded than misuse of a clapped out people carrier or whatever it was that had the captain of the QE booted.
Fancy losing the captain's chair over a Ford Fucking Galaxy.
"People in Middlesbrough are most likely to flout the new “stay at home” rules designed to curb the spread of Covid-19, survey data collected by a health app has suggested.
As of April 2, around 25% of survey respondents from Middlesbrough said they are not staying indoors, followed by 18.2% in north Hertfordshire and 17.7% of people in Burnley, the Evergreen Health app found.
More than 26,700 Evergreen Health users responded to a survey on their behaviour during the pandemic to help the app build up a “heat map” of how well different parts of the UK are sticking to the rules."
Michael Osterholm (American infectious disease epidemiologist, and ex-US gov Bioterrorism advisor) was recently on the Joe Rogan podcast, and discussed the Wuhan lab conspiracy theory. His take that Corvid-19 was way too elegant, too sophisticated to be a man-made bio-weapon.
So I tend to go with Occam' razor here. Brilliant conspiracy theory/thriller novel ground though, I admit.
"Escaped from a lab" doesn't have to imply anything other than that the lab was doing research into coronaviruses. It could still be a virus that originated in bats.
Yes, quite. That’s been my belief from early in feb.
The fact there was a lab investigating bat coronaviruses just a few hundred meters from the fateful ‘wet market’ of Wuhan is too much coincidence to believe.
So. It came from honest scientists doing honest research, but it leaked. Maybe a worker sold a Lab bat in the black wet market.
I can't find the link at the moment but I was reading some of the stories from early January and some doctors in Hong Kong had been querying whether the Chinese authorities were only categorising cases linked to the market as being this new syndrome. It's possible that the link to the 'wet market' was a deliberately chosen narrative.
I must admit I'm slightly sceptical of that publication, but the proximity of two research labs doing research on bat related coronaviruses does strike me as a remarkable coincidence. Fear you may well be onto something here.
Zerohedge was slated for this line of argument weeks ago. If it is ever prove true then they will be owed one heck of an apology
Zerohedge might end up being correct. Anything's possible.
But I would point out that (a) it's creator, editor and main writer is a convicted insisder trader, who is banned from working in the securities industry, and (b) it has taken money from hedge funds to spread stories that drive stock prices down. Something, market manipulation, that I was always lead to believe was illegal.
And c) the same story has been going round for weeks without any real corroborative evidence. The geneticists can’t see any evidence of it being an engineered virus. It’s theoretically possible that it could have escaped from a lab studying zoonotic viruses, but massively more likely that it originated in the wild bat population.
Also to point out that it's hardly a coincidence that there was a virology lab investigating bat-borne coronaviruses right nearby to a possible source of bat-borne coronaviruses.
All that proves is that the people who chose the site for the lab, did a good job. This is exactly the sort of reason why they would want to be studying bat-borne coronaviruses.
Trump/US strongly pushing Hydroxychloroquine/azithromycin combination treatment for Covid-19
With very limited evidence showing it works,
On another forum I've heard from a US based doctor that they think Hydroxychloroquine/azithromycin is probably most useful in the early stages of the virus or when the virus is mild but once it gets to hospital/ventilation the best treatment regimen appears to be remdesivir or lopinavir/ritonavir.
It's been a successful treatment for intermediate cases in Marseilles despite the powers that be trying to block it as it hasn't been approved by Macron's select band of scientists. However, the attempted block has now been ignored & treatment has been extended to other hospitals in the south.
The treatment has been pioneered by French virologist Didier Raoult.
Michael Osterholm (American infectious disease epidemiologist, and ex-US gov Bioterrorism advisor) was recently on the Joe Rogan podcast, and discussed the Wuhan lab conspiracy theory. His take that Corvid-19 was way too elegant, too sophisticated to be a man-made bio-weapon.
So I tend to go with Occam' razor here. Brilliant conspiracy theory/thriller novel ground though, I admit.
"Escaped from a lab" doesn't have to imply anything other than that the lab was doing research into coronaviruses. It could still be a virus that originated in bats.
Yes, quite. That’s been my belief from early in feb.
The fact there was a lab investigating bat coronaviruses just a few hundred meters from the fateful ‘wet market’ of Wuhan is too much coincidence to believe.
So. It came from honest scientists doing honest research, but it leaked. Maybe a worker sold a Lab bat in the black wet market.
I can't find the link at the moment but I was reading some of the stories from early January and some doctors in Hong Kong had been querying whether the Chinese authorities were only categorising cases linked to the market as being this new syndrome. It's possible that the link to the 'wet market' was a deliberately chosen narrative.
I must admit I'm slightly sceptical of that publication, but the proximity of two research labs doing research on bat related coronaviruses does strike me as a remarkable coincidence. Fear you may well be onto something here.
Zerohedge was slated for this line of argument weeks ago. If it is ever prove true then they will be owed one heck of an apology
Zerohedge might end up being correct. Anything's possible.
But I would point out that (a) it's creator, editor and main writer is a convicted insisder trader, who is banned from working in the securities industry, and (b) it has taken money from hedge funds to spread stories that drive stock prices down. Something, market manipulation, that I was always lead to believe was illegal.
And c) the same story has been going round for weeks without any real corroborative evidence. The geneticists can’t see any evidence of it being an engineered virus. It’s theoretically possible that it could have escaped from a lab studying zoonotic viruses, but massively more likely that it originated in the wild bat population.
Also to point out that it's hardly a coincidence that there was a virology lab investigating bat-borne coronaviruses right nearby to a possible source of bat-borne coronaviruses.
All that proves is that the people who chose the site for the lab, did a good job. This is exactly the sort of reason why they would want to be studying bat-borne coronaviruses.
Meh. There's wet markets everywhere in China.
Perhaps it's not wet market related, but proximity to bats who tend to carry these kind of viruses that led to the lab being there?
Johnson’s hospital admission suggests virus may have progressed Most people recover from Covid-19 within a week and cannot even be certain they had it, as they probably won’t be tested. The advice is to stay home, rest and take paracetamol. In 80% of cases, that is the end of it.
But NHS advice is that if the symptoms – mainly the dry cough, temperature and fatigue – have not gone by the end of a week, or they get worse, people should seek medical help.
Unlike Matt Hancock, the health secretary, who revealed he had Covid-19 on the same day as the prime minister, Boris Johnson has not recovered within the first week. He is said to have been admitted to hospital for tests, which may include scans of his lungs to check for pneumonia, as well as blood tests. He had a diagnostic test for Covid-19, so doctors will be looking for progression of the disease and to establish that he has not entered the second phase, where the immune system goes into overdrive.
Given the increasing pressure on hospitals at the moment, it is unlikely he will have been admitted unless doctors have real concerns. Minor tests could be carried out in Downing Street.
Yes. Days 8-14 are when it Maybe marches into the lungs. If it does that, and you have to go to hospital, the outlook is complicated, and sometimes bad. That seems to be where Boris is.
Comments
Other than the tweet (& accompanying thread), I can’t add much to that.
And even the boldest baddest and richest Tories realise that for anything life threatening you don't mess about in the private sector.
What makes this one special?
Maybe I am not stupid enough for high office?
https://twitter.com/TheTigerKingJoe/status/1246273704960692224?s=20
https://twitter.com/CJ_isnowblue/status/1246876605269639169?s=20
Though I still don't get the point, we all know the NHS can make a difference.
I am not sure what it is like in London, but in Leicester, the private hospitals are taking the pressure off by treating non covid NHS patients. Not least all the aneasthetists and ICU specialists are busy in the NHS hospitals.
It was obvious the CMOs position was untenable, yet she tried to ride it out. The press conference was brutal and must surely have been the impetus for the resignation, but I still don’t understand why she had such a tin ear and tried to carry on. It seemed to me inevitable that the CMO would have to resign, she should have grasped the thistle and sacked her this morning.
I also hope Boris will be OK. It is troubling to hear the news he’s been admitted to hospital. Whatever our political persuasions we need to get through this together and it is worrying that the person at the helm is obviously not in the best of health.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/52137588
https://twitter.com/COVID19Tracking/status/1246909058331758592
Fingers crossed for you.
The news about the tigers is fascinating, I've seen elsewhere that cats in general seem very susceptible to this virus in tests, yet dogs chickens ducks and pigs are not. Wonder what links humans and cats, but not dogs?
And it's also quite likely that he'll get on the test for some of the retrovirals, in a way AN Other might not. And he won't be waiting for a repirator.
Nevertheless, it is deeply disturbing that he is sufficiently sick to require hospitalisation, especially as Raab is next in line.
I think Gove is the obvious choice. He has more experience than Raab. It avoids moving a Minister with direct involvement in important aspects of the current government response (Hancock, Sunak). He has a more competent air than most of the rest too.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/george-bush-2005-wait-pandemic-late-prepare/story?id=69979013
Good night all.
When he returned to Washington, he called his top homeland security adviser into the Oval Office and gave her the galley of historian John M. Barry's "The Great Influenza," which told the chilling tale of the mysterious plague that "would kill more people than the outbreak of any other disease in human history."
"You've got to read this," Fran Townsend remembers the president telling her. "He said, 'Look, this happens every 100 years. We need a national strategy.'"
Thus was born the nation's most comprehensive pandemic plan -- a playbook that included diagrams for a global early warning system, funding to develop new, rapid vaccine technology, and a robust national stockpile of critical supplies, such as face masks and ventilators, Townsend said.
The British media poked a lot of fun at Bush's reading habits (did the American media too?) as a painfully stupid man trying to pretend that he a pseudo-intellectual, but from everything I have heard about it, it does seem he took his reading pretty seriously.
Bit of an indictment that national security priorities depended so much on which particular book, by chance, one man happens to have been reading - you might think risk priorities would be sieved through by an army of analysts, assessments should float up to the top and big holes in national security pointed out to the president in briefings.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01019-y
.... Copenhagen was an epicentre of one of the worst polio epidemics that the world had ever seen. The hospital admitted 50 infected people daily, and each day, 6–12 of them developed respiratory failure. The whole city had just one iron lung. In the first few weeks of the epidemic, 87% of those with bulbar or bulbospinal polio, in which the virus attacks the brainstem or nerves that control breathing, died. Around half were children....
What followed was one of the most remarkable episodes in health-care history: in six-hour shifts, medical and dental students from the University of Copenhagen sat at the bedside of every person with paralysis and ventilated them by hand. The students squeezed a bag connected to the trachaeostomy tube, forcing air into the lungs. They were instructed in how many breaths to administer each minute, and sat there hour after hour. This went on for weeks, and then months, with hundreds of students rotating on and off. By mid-September, the mortality for patients with polio who had respiratory failure had dropped to 31%. It is estimated that the heroic scheme saved 120 people....
Night all - normal (non conspiracy loon) service will be resumed in the morning.
Genius, most stable.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.30.015347v1
It’s a virus which we knew has crossed the species barrier at least once, so it’s not surprising it should do so again.
If the worst happened to Boris, I wonder if his haters would reassess their opinion that he was a bit of a failure; only winning the mayoralty twice, the referendum, the Tory leadership and a whopping majority
https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/1245289277690392578?s=21
Most people recover from Covid-19 within a week and cannot even be certain they had it, as they probably won’t be tested. The advice is to stay home, rest and take paracetamol. In 80% of cases, that is the end of it.
But NHS advice is that if the symptoms – mainly the dry cough, temperature and fatigue – have not gone by the end of a week, or they get worse, people should seek medical help.
Unlike Matt Hancock, the health secretary, who revealed he had Covid-19 on the same day as the prime minister, Boris Johnson has not recovered within the first week. He is said to have been admitted to hospital for tests, which may include scans of his lungs to check for pneumonia, as well as blood tests. He had a diagnostic test for Covid-19, so doctors will be looking for progression of the disease and to establish that he has not entered the second phase, where the immune system goes into overdrive.
Given the increasing pressure on hospitals at the moment, it is unlikely he will have been admitted unless doctors have real concerns. Minor tests could be carried out in Downing Street.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/05/its-not-so-easy-to-return-from-the-dead-coming-back-to-life-after-lockdown
She is possibly the worst journalist in the world, and was so from long before the CV-19 scandal.
Her ability to misuderstand the mundane, twist it into a conspiracy, tweet about it in hysterical terms, and then delete the tweet... all within 30 minutes... is completely unparalleled.
But I would point out that (a) it's creator, editor and main writer is a convicted insisder trader, who is banned from working in the securities industry, and (b) it has taken money from hedge funds to spread stories that drive stock prices down. Something, market manipulation, that I was always lead to believe was illegal.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8189703/Nurse-dies-Liverpool-hospital-testing-positive-coronavirus.html
https://twitter.com/NHSMillion/status/1240759709063360514?s=20
The geneticists can’t see any evidence of it being an engineered virus. It’s theoretically possible that it could have escaped from a lab studying zoonotic viruses, but massively more likely that it originated in the wild bat population.
(This is not the best of times.)
Stepping back a bit, the original point reads more like it's precautionary, and just a step that is only being taken because he's the PM (hence extra careful). Then again a) hospitals are generally the last place you want to be unless you need to, and b) it's a bed that presumably someone else could use.
Worse, he wrote "we're not at war" in his letter. This antithetical to the philosophy that underpins the Carrier Strike Group. If the CSG is not "ready to fight, tonight" then the commander has failed.
All that proves is that the people who chose the site for the lab, did a good job. This is exactly the sort of reason why they would want to be studying bat-borne coronaviruses.
She knows full well that a number of people are flapping around and acting selfishly. She also knows that the majority are not. She remembers the Blitz, the yardstick that people want to be measured by. It’s ‘you want to mentioned in the same breath or as a bunch of whinging chancers - your call’.
She aced it,
Let’s hope it works.
I spoke to a guy that I know through business who works for a company that does what I'd guess is hundreds of millions of business with the NHS a year and that sector is his speciality. Money he said is no issue, plenty of budget is available but you cant just get many things just like that and parts of the NHS are still doing a lot of things by the same mechanisms as before.
He gave me an example n my locality (Northern Ireland) as illustration about the slowness of the machine in getting its act together and the inability to be proactive which would make you think 'why didn't they do that two or three weeks ago at least?'
As of April 2, around 25% of survey respondents from Middlesbrough said they are not staying indoors, followed by 18.2% in north Hertfordshire and 17.7% of people in Burnley, the Evergreen Health app found.
More than 26,700 Evergreen Health users responded to a survey on their behaviour during the pandemic to help the app build up a “heat map” of how well different parts of the UK are sticking to the rules."
https://www.itv.com/news/2020-04-06/heat-map-reveals-communities-ignoring-social-distancing-rules/
It's been a successful treatment for intermediate cases in Marseilles despite the powers that be trying to block it as it hasn't been approved by Macron's select band of scientists. However, the attempted block has now been ignored & treatment has been extended to other hospitals in the south.
The treatment has been pioneered by French virologist Didier Raoult.
What doesn’t come across very clear from the article, it’s a reaction of your own immune system that puts you into peril, or have I got that wrong