Interesting question from Piers Morgan to Gove. Who has their finger on the nuclear button, is it the military or a politician?
Gove: Dominic is in charge (slightly paraphrased from memory).
I can't honestly see that - given the circumstances - there's a nation on the planet that could conceivably attack us in the next few months, so it's not really that interesting a question in practice.
Fair point, and it was Morgan asking it. The answer was interesting nonetheless.
During the Black Death, when England was in disarray, the Scots had the bright idea of invading. So they amassed a huge army on the Northumbrian border.
Then the plague hit their camp and 5,000 died. So the rest ran for their lives, back to every corner of Scotland.
And that is the story of how one-third of Scots died in just nine months, while in England it took over two years for the numbers to reach that level.
When I was out yesterday on normally busy roads now unnervingly quiet I suddenly started remembering the end of the novel "Arc Light" by Eric L. Harry where on a beautiful sunny day Russian MIRV's started streaking down through the skies towards America's almost deserted cities...
If Putin truly was a demagogue, attacking the west when it was massively distracted by the plague might seem like a good idea. Hopefully despite his bareback bear-riding ideals I hope he isn't that crazy.
People waiting in the online queue for Ocado or Aldi wine might be massively distracted. But HMF - and, I bet, the US military - are the opposite. There is a time of potential crisis which is not when everyone gets sent home on leave and told not to worry about things.
Interesting Spanish article on the slow stages back to 'normality' after the peak and subsequent decline of the virus. The gist is: very slow return with continues isolation for all risk groups well into the summer and beyond. Slow return to work, even slower re-opening of tourist centres, bars, restaurants , etc. In short no return to normality much beyond getting more people back to work who can do so relatively safely. Remember, the UK is signficantly further back down the road than Spain and Italy.
Against that there is recent evidence from China that the large majority of coronavirus infections do not result in symptoms. Tom Jefferson, an epidemiologist and honorary research fellow at the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at the University of Oxford, said the findings were “very, very important.” He told The BMJ, “The sample is small, and more data will become available. Also, it’s not clear exactly how these cases were identified. But let’s just say they are generalisable. And even if they are 10% out, then this suggests the virus is everywhere. If—and I stress, if—the results are representative, then we have to ask, ‘What the hell are we locking down for?’” https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1375
The almost global lockdown applies the 'precautionary principle' to the whole of society and economy at a staggering cost. The uncertain trade-off between economic/social damage and deaths/respiratory morbidity surely needs modification and revision as we learn more facts like these. The Swedish approach is often called an 'experiment', but we are all experimenting with this known unknown. What is sure is that strict adherence to the precautionary principle will be seen retrospectively as a deviation from optimal treatment of the pandemic. Hindsight will be a wonderful thing.
I don't understand how they could draw any conclusion from those figures without knowing how those asymptomatic infections were detected.
Ideally it would be a random sample of the population but in practice it is quite opaque: "Citing classified data, the South China Morning Post said that China had already found more than 43 000 cases of asymptomatic infection through contact tracing."
Assuming (and hoping) that Johnson survives and fights the next election, it's going to be damn near impossible for Starmer to lead with the usual "who loves the NHS more" line.
We might not have an economy left to pay for the NHS if we don't take a balanced approach to lifting the lockdown.
Certainly we can't afford a Labour government for at least another decade.
over verbose. the last 5 words are not required.
You think it is possible for them to spend (and commit to spend) more than this govt? You may not have noticed, but the current officeholders are hosing money all over the place and even pre-lockdown, Boris was being accused of implementing Corbyn/McDonnell's policies
you obviously have missed the elephant in the room. accusations are not facts, its just Labour shrilling
Assuming (and hoping) that Johnson survives and fights the next election, it's going to be damn near impossible for Starmer to lead with the usual "who loves the NHS more" line.
We might not have an economy left to pay for the NHS if we don't take a balanced approach to lifting the lockdown.
Certainly we can't afford a Labour government for at least another decade.
over verbose. the last 5 words are not required.
You think it is possible for them to spend (and commit to spend) more than this govt? You may not have noticed, but the current officeholders are hosing money all over the place and even pre-lockdown, Boris was being accused of implementing Corbyn/McDonnell's policies
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Assuming (and hoping) that Johnson survives and fights the next election, it's going to be damn near impossible for Starmer to lead with the usual "who loves the NHS more" line.
We might not have an economy left to pay for the NHS if we don't take a balanced approach to lifting the lockdown.
Certainly we can't afford a Labour government for at least another decade.
over verbose. the last 5 words are not required.
You think it is possible for them to spend (and commit to spend) more than this govt? You may not have noticed, but the current officeholders are hosing money all over the place and even pre-lockdown, Boris was being accused of implementing Corbyn/McDonnell's policies
Corbyn thinks spending should be giganormously high when there isn't a crisis.
I can understand a jury coming to a different view to judges. That makes sense to me. But I can't really understand how a lower court finds one thing, and then a higher court unanimously finds the opposite?
I have no knowledge of the Australian legal system. It just seems very strange to a complete layperson, and not a little discomforting, to think that it is apparently so arbitrary whether you are guilty or not?
If the lower court judges are wrong, should there be some consequence for them? Are there consequences for judges who frequently make the 'wrong' decision?
The BBC is recycling Gavin and Stacy which is a great contribution to the morale of the nation
One of those programmes, like Will and Grace, where all the comedy is outside the named protagonists.
I‘ve only managed about 20 mins of G&S.
It is well written and well crafted, but I guess it is down to personal preference. It is the opposite end of the scale to Mrs Brown's Boys which is neither.
Anybody who likes Mrs Brown's Boys have even less taste than those that love nothing more than to eat pineapple pizza while watching Radiohead live at Glastonbury...
I heard a rumour that Radiohead provided the soundtrack for Mrs Brown's Boys...
I can understand a jury coming to a different view to judges. That makes sense to me. But I can't really understand how a lower court finds one thing, and then a higher court unanimously finds the opposite?
I have no knowledge of the Australian legal system. It just seems very strange to a complete layperson, and not a little discomforting, to think that it is apparently so arbitrary whether you are guilty or not?
If the lower court judges are wrong, should there be some consequence for them? Are there consequences for judges who frequently make the 'wrong' decision?
Kay Burley screaming at Dominic Raab to give him her an update on Boris condition. How would you like it if somebody screamed at you in the street to give an update on a loved ones condition who was in ICU.
I try to follow British politics but I am so out of the loop here, I had no idea they had that kind of relationship
To be fair, I think Boris has bonked a significant proportion of the female journalists during his time.
Appalled at the thought! What some people will do for a story.Unfair advantage over male journalists, At least while the majority of politicians are male!
Jesus F##king Christ, Sky news are really outdoing the dickhead-ness this morning.
Kay Burley screaming at Dominic Raab to give him her an update on Boris condition. How would you like it if somebody screamed at you in the street to give an update on a loved ones condition who was in ICU. And what does she expect (and given the advice about not standing around chatting to people in the street), for him to give a detailed breakdown of his treatment plan?
Now Fat Head turning this into a process story and making this huge issue of not having an official "deputy PM" role and how the country can't possibly cope when you have a cabinet of equals.
FFS, we have the PM at death's door, his fiancee also ill with their child. Show some respect.
Also, I think the cabinet are big enough boys and girls that should there be disagreement that they will debate things and come to a collective agreement, you know like they do with all big decisions.
Asking about the health I get, though as mr meeks noted since hes now not in the chain of command as it were we dont need a blow by blow.
Not screaming in the street at the acting PM it isn't. During the briefing at noon or at the press conference yes.
Ah, i had thought the reference to screaming was poetic licence.
I can understand a jury coming to a different view to judges. That makes sense to me. But I can't really understand how a lower court finds one thing, and then a higher court unanimously finds the opposite?
I have no knowledge of the Australian legal system. It just seems very strange to a complete layperson, and not a little discomforting, to think that it is apparently so arbitrary whether you are guilty or not?
If the lower court judges are wrong, should there be some consequence for them? Are there consequences for judges who frequently make the 'wrong' decision?
Wave 1 might have done... Unless it's 100% stabbed out (and it won't be) future waves are inevitable.
I agree and think the markets are over reacting on the positive side
News from Japan today not good
The government has finally stopped its extended three-week faff and declared an emergency so it can actually tell night clubs and brothels to shut down instead of asking them nicely. This is the best news we've had since mid-March, when the number of new cases flattened and everybody apparently decided to stop doing the things that had made that happen.
The BBC is recycling Gavin and Stacy which is a great contribution to the morale of the nation
One of those programmes, like Will and Grace, where all the comedy is outside the named protagonists.
I‘ve only managed about 20 mins of G&S.
It is well written and well crafted, but I guess it is down to personal preference. It is the opposite end of the scale to Mrs Brown's Boys which is neither.
Anybody who likes Mrs Brown's Boys have even less taste than those that love nothing more than to eat pineapple pizza while watching Radiohead live at Glastonbury...
I watched that accidentally for about a minute. Was like watching a slow-motion train crash.
Interesting Spanish article on the slow stages back to 'normality' after the peak and subsequent decline of the virus. The gist is: very slow return with continues isolation for all risk groups well into the summer and beyond. Slow return to work, even slower re-opening of tourist centres, bars, restaurants , etc. In short no return to normality much beyond getting more people back to work who can do so relatively safely. Remember, the UK is signficantly further back down the road than Spain and Italy.
Against that there is recent evidence from China that the large majority of coronavirus infections do not result in symptoms. Tom Jefferson, an epidemiologist and honorary research fellow at the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at the University of Oxford, said the findings were “very, very important.” He told The BMJ, “The sample is small, and more data will become available. Also, it’s not clear exactly how these cases were identified. But let’s just say they are generalisable. And even if they are 10% out, then this suggests the virus is everywhere. If—and I stress, if—the results are representative, then we have to ask, ‘What the hell are we locking down for?’” https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1375
The almost global lockdown applies the 'precautionary principle' to the whole of society and economy at a staggering cost. The uncertain trade-off between economic/social damage and deaths/respiratory morbidity surely needs modification and revision as we learn more facts like these. The Swedish approach is often called an 'experiment', but we are all experimenting with this known unknown. What is sure is that strict adherence to the precautionary principle will be seen retrospectively as a deviation from optimal treatment of the pandemic. Hindsight will be a wonderful thing.
I don't understand how they could draw any conclusion from those figures without knowing how those asymptomatic infections were detected.
Ideally it would be a random sample of the population but in practice it is quite opaque: "Citing classified data, the South China Morning Post said that China had already found more than 43 000 cases of asymptomatic infection through contact tracing."
Interesting Spanish article on the slow stages back to 'normality' after the peak and subsequent decline of the virus. The gist is: very slow return with continues isolation for all risk groups well into the summer and beyond. Slow return to work, even slower re-opening of tourist centres, bars, restaurants , etc. In short no return to normality much beyond getting more people back to work who can do so relatively safely. Remember, the UK is signficantly further back down the road than Spain and Italy.
Against that there is recent evidence from China that the large majority of coronavirus infections do not result in symptoms. Tom Jefferson, an epidemiologist and honorary research fellow at the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at the University of Oxford, said the findings were “very, very important.” He told The BMJ, “The sample is small, and more data will become available. Also, it’s not clear exactly how these cases were identified. But let’s just say they are generalisable. And even if they are 10% out, then this suggests the virus is everywhere. If—and I stress, if—the results are representative, then we have to ask, ‘What the hell are we locking down for?’” https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1375
The almost global lockdown applies the 'precautionary principle' to the whole of society and economy at a staggering cost. The uncertain trade-off between economic/social damage and deaths/respiratory morbidity surely needs modification and revision as we learn more facts like these. The Swedish approach is often called an 'experiment', but we are all experimenting with this known unknown. What is sure is that strict adherence to the precautionary principle will be seen retrospectively as a deviation from optimal treatment of the pandemic. Hindsight will be a wonderful thing.
I don't understand how they could draw any conclusion from those figures without knowing how those asymptomatic infections were detected.
Ideally it would be a random sample of the population but in practice it is quite opaque: "Citing classified data, the South China Morning Post said that China had already found more than 43 000 cases of asymptomatic infection through contact tracing."
I can understand a jury coming to a different view to judges. That makes sense to me. But I can't really understand how a lower court finds one thing, and then a higher court unanimously finds the opposite?
I have no knowledge of the Australian legal system. It just seems very strange to a complete layperson, and not a little discomforting, to think that it is apparently so arbitrary whether you are guilty or not?
If the lower court judges are wrong, should there be some consequence for them? Are there consequences for judges who frequently make the 'wrong' decision?
Was the verdict overturned on a point of law or a point of evidence?
I can understand a jury coming to a different view to judges. That makes sense to me. But I can't really understand how a lower court finds one thing, and then a higher court unanimously finds the opposite?
I have no knowledge of the Australian legal system. It just seems very strange to a complete layperson, and not a little discomforting, to think that it is apparently so arbitrary whether you are guilty or not?
If the lower court judges are wrong, should there be some consequence for them? Are there consequences for judges who frequently make the 'wrong' decision?
I don't understand how the following sentence is compatible with the system of trial by jury, at all: The jury, acting rationally on the whole of the evidence, ought to have entertained a doubt as to the applicant's guilt.
If judges can assess questions like that, what is the point of the jury system in the first place?
On a separate note, the Supreme Court's ruling that the proroguing of Parliament last year was unlawful was also unanimous. At the time, I found it bizarre that they could all agree on something when the High Court had already found the opposite.
Wave 1 might have done... Unless it's 100% stabbed out (and it won't be) future waves are inevitable.
I agree and think the markets are over reacting on the positive side
News from Japan today not good
The government has finally stopped its extended three-week faff and declared an emergency so it can actually tell night clubs and brothels to shut down instead of asking them nicely. This is the best news we've had since mid-March, when the number of new cases flattened and everybody apparently decided to stop doing the things that had made that happen.
The BBC is recycling Gavin and Stacy which is a great contribution to the morale of the nation
One of those programmes, like Will and Grace, where all the comedy is outside the named protagonists.
I‘ve only managed about 20 mins of G&S.
It is well written and well crafted, but I guess it is down to personal preference. It is the opposite end of the scale to Mrs Brown's Boys which is neither.
I’d say the only comedies of the last decade I truly enjoyed were ‘The Trip’, ‘Ja’mie Private Schoolgirl’ and ‘Detectorists’
Interesting Spanish article on the slow stages back to 'normality' after the peak and subsequent decline of the virus. The gist is: very slow return with continues isolation for all risk groups well into the summer and beyond. Slow return to work, even slower re-opening of tourist centres, bars, restaurants , etc. In short no return to normality much beyond getting more people back to work who can do so relatively safely. Remember, the UK is signficantly further back down the road than Spain and Italy.
Against that there is recent evidence from China that the large majority of coronavirus infections do not result in symptoms. Tom Jefferson, an epidemiologist and honorary research fellow at the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at the University of Oxford, said the findings were “very, very important.” He told The BMJ, “The sample is small, and more data will become available. Also, it’s not clear exactly how these cases were identified. But let’s just say they are generalisable. And even if they are 10% out, then this suggests the virus is everywhere. If—and I stress, if—the results are representative, then we have to ask, ‘What the hell are we locking down for?’” https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1375
The almost global lockdown applies the 'precautionary principle' to the whole of society and economy at a staggering cost. The uncertain trade-off between economic/social damage and deaths/respiratory morbidity surely needs modification and revision as we learn more facts like these. The Swedish approach is often called an 'experiment', but we are all experimenting with this known unknown. What is sure is that strict adherence to the precautionary principle will be seen retrospectively as a deviation from optimal treatment of the pandemic. Hindsight will be a wonderful thing.
I think now that the government is understandably distracted, and that any evidence coming from new scientific studies may be ignored in the short term. I have been reading The TImes newspaper, and recent articles have shown that there is considerable debate among scientists about COVID including the impact and effectiveness of social distancing and estimates of the number of people who have been infected.
I would like the government to explain, where scientists disagree, how the government decides on which scientists to listen to, and on what basis scientists are chosen to work on the government's advisory panels. How is a consensus arrived at, and do ministers intervene and affect the final decision and if so on what basis?
At times it is hard to put aside short-term pressures to analyse the evidence, such as it is, but this will be needed later in this situation.
I wish Boris Johnson all the best for a full recovery.
I would call that a speculation, and we can't work on the basis of speculations.
The author admits that himself.
"Also, it’s not clear exactly how these cases were identified. But let’s just say they are generalisable. "
"Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine". Hmmm.
Being waspish, perhaps "Evidence Abused Medicine" would be more accurate here.
Not being clear - my comment relates to the quote. And I wonder if actually I have overdone the scepticism.
Apologies for my tone. Not appropriate at this time.
Interesting Spanish article on the slow stages back to 'normality' after the peak and subsequent decline of the virus. The gist is: very slow return with continues isolation for all risk groups well into the summer and beyond. Slow return to work, even slower re-opening of tourist centres, bars, restaurants , etc. In short no return to normality much beyond getting more people back to work who can do so relatively safely. Remember, the UK is signficantly further back down the road than Spain and Italy.
Against that there is recent evidence from China that the large majority of coronavirus infections do not result in symptoms. Tom Jefferson, an epidemiologist and honorary research fellow at the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at the University of Oxford, said the findings were “very, very important.” He told The BMJ, “The sample is small, and more data will become available. Also, it’s not clear exactly how these cases were identified. But let’s just say they are generalisable. And even if they are 10% out, then this suggests the virus is everywhere. If—and I stress, if—the results are representative, then we have to ask, ‘What the hell are we locking down for?’” https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1375
The almost global lockdown applies the 'precautionary principle' to the whole of society and economy at a staggering cost. The uncertain trade-off between economic/social damage and deaths/respiratory morbidity surely needs modification and revision as we learn more facts like these. The Swedish approach is often called an 'experiment', but we are all experimenting with this known unknown. What is sure is that strict adherence to the precautionary principle will be seen retrospectively as a deviation from optimal treatment of the pandemic. Hindsight will be a wonderful thing.
I don't understand how they could draw any conclusion from those figures without knowing how those asymptomatic infections were detected.
Ideally it would be a random sample of the population but in practice it is quite opaque: "Citing classified data, the South China Morning Post said that China had already found more than 43 000 cases of asymptomatic infection through contact tracing."
Do they have reliable antibody tests?
Nobody does at the moment.
That's what I thought, so if this actually refers to people testing positive for the virus, why have they not published the stats as active cases, and why would data about the number of infections be 'classified'?
Evidence, the judges decided the Jury didn't do their job properly.
Feels like a high bar to reach, to conclude theyd not considered matters properly. Not sure how one judges that since presumably the mere conclusion reached would not prove it.
When Corbyn used to apologise for some anti Semitic remark or other, I always felt disappointed when he added “... and of course this goes for Islamophobia and all kinds of discrimination...” or something like that anyway
So it is with the messages of support for Boris...
‘ family, children and girlfriend.
I think it’s best to say nothing rather than that. It just looks like your trying to look virtuous but can’t hide your contempt. Ash Sarkar was straight from the Jezza playbook
I can understand a jury coming to a different view to judges. That makes sense to me. But I can't really understand how a lower court finds one thing, and then a higher court unanimously finds the opposite?
I have no knowledge of the Australian legal system. It just seems very strange to a complete layperson, and not a little discomforting, to think that it is apparently so arbitrary whether you are guilty or not?
If the lower court judges are wrong, should there be some consequence for them? Are there consequences for judges who frequently make the 'wrong' decision?
Was the verdict overturned on a point of law or a point of evidence?
I only know what's in the article. But it doesn't sound like any new evidence.
"Why did his appeal succeed this time? The cardinal argued that the jury, and previous appeal judges, had relied too heavily on the "compelling" evidence of the alleged victim.
The cleric's lawyers didn't seek to discredit that testimony, but rather argued that the jury had not properly considered other evidence.
The High Court agreed, ruling that other testimonies had introduced "a reasonable possibility that the offending had not taken place".
"The jury, acting rationally on the whole of the evidence, ought to have entertained a doubt as to the applicant's guilt," said the court in its summary judgement."
My biggest gripe with personal space are runners. They seem to come charging up far too close and, of course, panting volumes of breath into one's vicinity.
And cyclists.
And dog walkers, who allow their foul mutt to run around and impede others or dopey pedestrians listening to music oblivious to everyone else.
I am a runner, cyclist and walker. All groups are equally to blame.
No, you are wrong. Cyclists and runners need to take special measures to prevent contact with walkers. The hierarchy is as simple as that.
Sorry, I flagged you as off topic, it's very small on my phone, and don't seem to be able to unflag it. But surely a runner is a pedestrian and has equal priority with a walker. Personally, I have been trying to run against the flow of traffic so I can more safely step into the road. Most people are very good but you get offenders of all types. Including couples and family groups of walkers who insist on taking the whole pavement, and runners and cyclists who will not adjust their line or slow down (or cycle on the pavement). It's a bit like driving on a narrow country lane: you need to have a passing strategy and plan passing places ahead
Runners and cyclists are both moving faster, and more likely to be panting (& therefore far more likely to be generating aerosol), so they ought to bear a greater responsibility.
True, although I don't normally run fast enough to pant. But if you are running along a pavement next to a busy road and the pedestrians are bimbling around in a bunch, it cuts down your options. What's wrong with walking line astern? (And why are you exercising with family members anyway? You are banged up with them 24/7, surely you need time to yourself?)
The latest fashion appears to be walking along, talking to someone next to you, about a metre apart. Not actually social distancing, but nicely blocking the pavement.
I've tried locally suggesting that people walking west go on the north side of the road, east on the south etc.
An off-topic flashback to my schooldays, and one teacher helping to manage staircase congestion with her cry of, "up on the left; down on the right".
Going up on the left means your sword arm is free to engage
Whatever your views of China (vile regime we shouldn't do business with/vile regime we have little option but to do some business with...), this is a very interesting article:
How Chinese Apps Handled Covid-19 http://dangrover.com/blog/2020/04/05/covid-in-ui.html ...The point of these “fever clinics” (发热门诊), as distinguished from ordinary hospitals, was to give anyone who thought they might be even a little sick a way to get tested and, more importantly, control the spread by isolating even asymptomatic carriers away from their family and co-workers and give them a place to wait it out. Some of these had been established for this reason on a permanent basis during the SARS outbreak in 2003, while others were established only recently.
As the country mobilized, all of the major apps promoted features that clearly listed the hospitals that were handling Coronavirus. This included all the fever clinics that had sprung up as well as normal, pre-existing hospitals with ICUs that had been specially designated for handling serious cases of coronavirus (定点收治医院):
The other aspect Aylward mentions is the use of online consultations. Changes in regulations in the past few years have resulted in an explosion of telemedicine apps in China with plays by tech companies like Tencent and Alibaba, traditional companies like Ping An, and existing online medical information resource sites like Dingxiang.
These apps combine a bunch of things: simple ecommerce (for medicine and medical devices), lead generation/vertical search for specialists offline, and online consultations with doctors at top hospitals. Doctors giving online consultations can write prescriptions which can then be filled in the app. The consultations can be paid for a-la-carte or with an annual plan and are sometimes a loss-leader for their online pharmacy business...
We would have to be having widespread ignorance of the rules for it not to be. The question is not if it is having an effect, it is how much of an effect it is having.
Whatever your views of China (vile regime we shouldn't do business with/vile regime we have little option but to do some business with...), this is a very interesting article:
How Chinese Apps Handled Covid-19 http://dangrover.com/blog/2020/04/05/covid-in-ui.html ...The point of these “fever clinics” (发热门诊), as distinguished from ordinary hospitals, was to give anyone who thought they might be even a little sick a way to get tested and, more importantly, control the spread by isolating even asymptomatic carriers away from their family and co-workers and give them a place to wait it out. Some of these had been established for this reason on a permanent basis during the SARS outbreak in 2003, while others were established only recently.
As the country mobilized, all of the major apps promoted features that clearly listed the hospitals that were handling Coronavirus. This included all the fever clinics that had sprung up as well as normal, pre-existing hospitals with ICUs that had been specially designated for handling serious cases of coronavirus (定点收治医院):
The other aspect Aylward mentions is the use of online consultations. Changes in regulations in the past few years have resulted in an explosion of telemedicine apps in China with plays by tech companies like Tencent and Alibaba, traditional companies like Ping An, and existing online medical information resource sites like Dingxiang.
These apps combine a bunch of things: simple ecommerce (for medicine and medical devices), lead generation/vertical search for specialists offline, and online consultations with doctors at top hospitals. Doctors giving online consultations can write prescriptions which can then be filled in the app. The consultations can be paid for a-la-carte or with an annual plan and are sometimes a loss-leader for their online pharmacy business...
The big thing they did was once you went to one of these clinics. You got funnelled through the system and while you were suspected (or found to have it) you were not allowed to go back into the general population.
Those 16 hospitals they talk about, 2 were "proper" hospitals, but 14 were basically holding pens for those who had it.
My biggest gripe with personal space are runners. They seem to come charging up far too close and, of course, panting volumes of breath into one's vicinity.
And cyclists.
And dog walkers, who allow their foul mutt to run around and impede others or dopey pedestrians listening to music oblivious to everyone else.
I am a runner, cyclist and walker. All groups are equally to blame.
No, you are wrong. Cyclists and runners need to take special measures to prevent contact with walkers. The hierarchy is as simple as that.
Sorry, I flagged you as off topic, it's very small on my phone, and don't seem to be able to unflag it. But surely a runner is a pedestrian and has equal priority with a walker. Personally, I have been trying to run against the flow of traffic so I can more safely step into the road. Most people are very good but you get offenders of all types. Including couples and family groups of walkers who insist on taking the whole pavement, and runners and cyclists who will not adjust their line or slow down (or cycle on the pavement). It's a bit like driving on a narrow country lane: you need to have a passing strategy and plan passing places ahead
Runners and cyclists are both moving faster, and more likely to be panting (& therefore far more likely to be generating aerosol), so they ought to bear a greater responsibility.
True, although I don't normally run fast enough to pant. But if you are running along a pavement next to a busy road and the pedestrians are bimbling around in a bunch, it cuts down your options. What's wrong with walking line astern? (And why are you exercising with family members anyway? You are banged up with them 24/7, surely you need time to yourself?)
The latest fashion appears to be walking along, talking to someone next to you, about a metre apart. Not actually social distancing, but nicely blocking the pavement.
I've tried locally suggesting that people walking west go on the north side of the road, east on the south etc.
An off-topic flashback to my schooldays, and one teacher helping to manage staircase congestion with her cry of, "up on the left; down on the right".
Going up on the left means your sword arm is free to engage
That would mean you were the attacker. I always note when spiral staircases are round the wrong way, giving the attacker the advantage.
Wave 1 might have done... Unless it's 100% stabbed out (and it won't be) future waves are inevitable.
I agree and think the markets are over reacting on the positive side
News from Japan today not good
The government has finally stopped its extended three-week faff and declared an emergency so it can actually tell night clubs and brothels to shut down instead of asking them nicely. This is the best news we've had since mid-March, when the number of new cases flattened and everybody apparently decided to stop doing the things that had made that happen.
Will they be opening BROTH-els instead ?
Weirdly the brothels of Osaka's main red-light district are run governed by a self-regulatory organization called the 飛田新地料理組合, or the Tobita Shinichi Dining Association.
There's a significant coronavirus cluster there centred around two brothels, but police were unable to divulge *which* brothels, as the establishments in question refused to give them permission.
The other day the dining association finally seems to have decided this situation was bad for its otherwise wholesome reputation and sent out a letter telling its members that anyone who opened would be barred from the association. Apparently this is similar to being shut down. Or rather, quite a lot worse than being shut down...
1. Those going into ICU with C-19 are not any more averagely obese than the general population (see figure 6, page 6). 2. Those with high BMIs are only marginally less likely to survive ICU (see table 5, page 14). 3. Only a small proportion of ICU patients (circa 10%) have severe comorbidities (table 1, page 4) 4. The presence of severe comorbidities doesn't seem to impact the outcome significantly (table 5, page 14). 5. Survival rate is only 50% so far (but that's based on conclusions for 690 patients out of 2249 - the other 1559 patients were still in ICU when the report was written). Not sure if this last point is a surprise tbh.
It's a very interesting report, which has been reported on in the media extremely irresponsibly and misleadingly.
It emphasises (in bold) on page 8: "Due to the relatively low proportion of patients that have completed their critical care, all outcomes should be interpreted with caution." This has, of course, been given a stiff ignoring by all commentators and media.
If they were representative of all those in critical care, it wouldn't be so bad. But we can tell from the report that they are not.
The median time for resolution of those resolved (one way or the other: death or discharge) is 4-5 days (Table 3, page 10).
In Table 6, in the Appendix, we have the data underlying it.
The numbers in critical care as at 03/04/2020 (latest day given) was 2269 (of whom, full 24 hour data was given for 1559 and 710 just had notifications received). In addition, 346 had been in critical care and died, while 344 had been in critical care and been discharged. Total who had been admitted to U was therefore 2959.
Let's look back 10 days - twice the median time of those who were resolved. Number in critical care: 643 total. Discharged dead: 245; discharged recovered: 217. Total admitted to ICU by that date was therefore 1105.
So - in that 10 days, 1854 were admitted to ICU, while 228 were discharged (either dead or recovered). Or, to put it differently - if all the discharges and deaths were from those in critical care 10 days ago, it would still only account for a third of the population in critical care that day.
And that's assuming none of those admitted in the last 10 days (which is, to repeat myself, twice the median time taken by those discharged one way or the other) have been resolved at all.
Conclusion: the data only tells us anything about people who were so ill as to die quickly or well enough to recover quickly. The significant majority of those in ICU are in neither of those areas and we, as yet, know nothing about their prognosis. Merely that they didn't recover quickly or die quickly.
All we can say about the whole population prognosis is that outcomes are highly likely to be between 85% survival and 15% survival of those sent to ICU. Which is one hell of a range, but any more precise than that is unjustifiable on the data yet given.
My biggest gripe with personal space are runners. They seem to come charging up far too close and, of course, panting volumes of breath into one's vicinity.
And cyclists.
And dog walkers, who allow their foul mutt to run around and impede others or dopey pedestrians listening to music oblivious to everyone else.
I am a runner, cyclist and walker. All groups are equally to blame.
No, you are wrong. Cyclists and runners need to take special measures to prevent contact with walkers. The hierarchy is as simple as that.
Sorry, I flagged you as off topic, it's very small on my phone, and don't seem to be able to unflag it. But surely a runner is a pedestrian and has equal priority with a walker. Personally, I have been trying to run against the flow of traffic so I can more safely step into the road. Most people are very good but you get offenders of all types. Including couples and family groups of walkers who insist on taking the whole pavement, and runners and cyclists who will not adjust their line or slow down (or cycle on the pavement). It's a bit like driving on a narrow country lane: you need to have a passing strategy and plan passing places ahead
Runners and cyclists are both moving faster, and more likely to be panting (& therefore far more likely to be generating aerosol), so they ought to bear a greater responsibility.
True, although I don't normally run fast enough to pant. But if you are running along a pavement next to a busy road and the pedestrians are bimbling around in a bunch, it cuts down your options. What's wrong with walking line astern? (And why are you exercising with family members anyway? You are banged up with them 24/7, surely you need time to yourself?)
The latest fashion appears to be walking along, talking to someone next to you, about a metre apart. Not actually social distancing, but nicely blocking the pavement.
I've tried locally suggesting that people walking west go on the north side of the road, east on the south etc.
An off-topic flashback to my schooldays, and one teacher helping to manage staircase congestion with her cry of, "up on the left; down on the right".
Going up on the left means your sword arm is free to engage
Indeed. One of the more interesting quirks about how we end up with doing things the way we do. Our trains run on the left because most people are right handed so that's how we fight on a horse, and the track gauge was set by the wainwrights who furnished the Roman army.
Whilst I would drop the remnants of the imperial measurements system in a heartbeat, I do love the historical reasons for some of Britain's quirks.
In grey are those who have died. In deep blue are those discharged.
The reporting has been simply the grey versus the deep blue, when it has ignored those who spend longer in ICU than the time taken for fast resolution either way (because there simply hasn't been the time to resolve these).
So the ratio is somewhere between the fraction of the grey as a fraction of the whole, and the fraction of the deep blue as a fraction of the whole.
Interesting mix in the paper headlines of who refers to the PM, Boris, or Johnson.
It is interesting. I am calling him Boris until he gets better - which my spooling says he will - and then back to the correct form of Johnson.
Aside on the betting. Betfair have suspended their "exit date" market - presumably on the grounds that the 2020 option has become effectively a market on him dying of Covid-19. Looking at the greyed out content it was trading at around 2.2, i.e. giving him a slightly better than 50/50 chance. I laid at 4.5 pre ICU, before suspension, since I am confident he will pull through, and I would lay again now at 2.1 if I could. In fact I'm slightly annoyed that I can't, although I understand the reason.
Mr. Pioneers, spiral stairs in castles often, but not always, go down anti-clockwise to make it easier for right-handed defenders and harder for right-handed attackers.
Interesting mix in the paper headlines of who refers to the PM, Boris, or Johnson.
It is interesting. I am calling him Boris until he gets better - which my spooling says he will - and then back to the correct form of Johnson.
Aside on the betting. Betfair have suspended their "exit date" market - presumably on the grounds that the 2020 option has become effectively a market on him dying of Covid-19. Looking at the greyed out content it was trading at around 2.2, i.e. giving him a slightly better than 50/50 chance. I laid at 4.5 pre ICU, before suspension, since I am confident he will pull through, and I would lay again now at 2.1 if I could. In fact I'm slightly annoyed that I can't, although I understand the reason.
Wave 1 might have done... Unless it's 100% stabbed out (and it won't be) future waves are inevitable.
I agree and think the markets are over reacting on the positive side
News from Japan today not good
The government has finally stopped its extended three-week faff and declared an emergency so it can actually tell night clubs and brothels to shut down instead of asking them nicely. This is the best news we've had since mid-March, when the number of new cases flattened and everybody apparently decided to stop doing the things that had made that happen.
Will they be opening BROTH-els instead ?
It’s a measure against whoreders.
I’ll not get my coat, but I am just off for my daily bike ride.
In grey are those who have died. In deep blue are those discharged.
The reporting has been simply the grey versus the deep blue, when it has ignored those who spend longer in ICU than the time taken for fast resolution either way (because there simply hasn't been the time to resolve these).
So the ratio is somewhere between the fraction of the grey as a fraction of the whole, and the fraction of the deep blue as a fraction of the whole.
I think the evidence from China was that the longer you spent in critical care, the more likely you were to die.
The recently published Italian study (which is subject to the same caveats, as many of the patients are still in ICUs) has an overall mortality rate for ICU patients of 'only' 26%.
Mr. Pioneers, spiral stairs in castles often, but not always, go down anti-clockwise to make it easier for right-handed defenders and harder for right-handed attackers.
IIRC the Kerrs of the Scottish border were reputed to be often left handed. I believe that some of the staircases in a castle that was a family stronghold go in reverse of the traditional way - supposedly to take advantage of this.
When Corbyn used to apologise for some anti Semitic remark or other, I always felt disappointed when he added “... and of course this goes for Islamophobia and all kinds of discrimination...” or something like that anyway
So it is with the messages of support for Boris...
‘ family, children and girlfriend.
I think it’s best to say nothing rather than that. It just looks like your trying to look virtuous but can’t hide your contempt. Ash Sarkar was straight from the Jezza playbook
This suggest that Ash Sarkar has had a parent/family member in intensive care, and that allows her to empathise particularly with Boris' children - despite the fact that she is known to have a very low opinion of Boris.
With the memories of my own father's death in intensive care flooding back, I do wonder whether your moral compass is a little skewed right now. I appreciate you're concerned about Boris, but searching for "contempt", rather than giving someone the benefit of the doubt might not be the best way to deal with it.
In grey are those who have died. In deep blue are those discharged.
The reporting has been simply the grey versus the deep blue, when it has ignored those who spend longer in ICU than the time taken for fast resolution either way (because there simply hasn't been the time to resolve these).
So the ratio is somewhere between the fraction of the grey as a fraction of the whole, and the fraction of the deep blue as a fraction of the whole.
I think the evidence from China was that the longer you spent in critical care, the more likely you were to die.
The recently published Italian study (which is subject to the same caveats, as many of the patients are still in ICUs) has an overall mortality rate for ICU patients of 'only' 26%.
Something I have not heard reported (just anecdata) is how long does it take to recover post-ICU? The anecdata I have heard says weeks with some people who got this early on saying that they are nowhere near 100%.
My own anecdote is from my mother and my uncle, both of whom where in ICU for pneumonia (6 or 7 years ago). Neither completely recovered and even now, my mother says she gets breathless very easily.
My biggest gripe with personal space are runners. They seem to come charging up far too close and, of course, panting volumes of breath into one's vicinity.
And cyclists.
And dog walkers, who allow their foul mutt to run around and impede others or dopey pedestrians listening to music oblivious to everyone else.
I am a runner, cyclist and walker. All groups are equally to blame.
No, you are wrong. Cyclists and runners need to take special measures to prevent contact with walkers. The hierarchy is as simple as that.
Sorry, I flagged you as off topic, it's very small on my phone, and don't seem to be able to unflag it. But surely a runner is a pedestrian and has equal priority with a walker. Personally, I have been trying to run against the flow of traffic so I can more safely step into the road. Most people are very good but you get offenders of all types. Including couples and family groups of walkers who insist on taking the whole pavement, and runners and cyclists who will not adjust their line or slow down (or cycle on the pavement). It's a bit like driving on a narrow country lane: you need to have a passing strategy and plan passing places ahead
Runners and cyclists are both moving faster, and more likely to be panting (& therefore far more likely to be generating aerosol), so they ought to bear a greater responsibility.
True, although I don't normally run fast enough to pant. But if you are running along a pavement next to a busy road and the pedestrians are bimbling around in a bunch, it cuts down your options. What's wrong with walking line astern? (And why are you exercising with family members anyway? You are banged up with them 24/7, surely you need time to yourself?)
The latest fashion appears to be walking along, talking to someone next to you, about a metre apart. Not actually social distancing, but nicely blocking the pavement.
I've tried locally suggesting that people walking west go on the north side of the road, east on the south etc.
An off-topic flashback to my schooldays, and one teacher helping to manage staircase congestion with her cry of, "up on the left; down on the right".
Going up on the left means your sword arm is free to engage
Indeed. One of the more interesting quirks about how we end up with doing things the way we do. Our trains run on the left because most people are right handed so that's how we fight on a horse, and the track gauge was set by the wainwrights who furnished the Roman army.
Whilst I would drop the remnants of the imperial measurements system in a heartbeat, I do love the historical reasons for some of Britain's quirks.
Is this a metropolitan conversation?
I've been out on the bike for a number of days, and had no problems at all.
Yesterday I went out and back through one of our country parks - only about a mile and a half though - and only saw about a dozen people, all of whom were impeccably behaved. The only real risk for a cyclist is dogs on extendi-leads on the opposite side to the owner.
It may be because one of the joys of a former mining area is that we have hundreds of acres of country park largely accessible on foot from nearly everywhere made on former spoil heaps.
@TGOHF666 your party political partisanship is not needed, helpful, or welcome at this time. Give it a rest.
+1 x 10,000,000
As per my message. Well said.
I thought you were writing a novel
I am. Even a thriller writer needs to come up for air sometimes.
Actually in truth I wanted to see if there was any update on poor Boris. I see Michael Gove has said the PM wasn't on a ventilator overnight. A cautious smidgen of hope but it's tentative.
In grey are those who have died. In deep blue are those discharged.
The reporting has been simply the grey versus the deep blue, when it has ignored those who spend longer in ICU than the time taken for fast resolution either way (because there simply hasn't been the time to resolve these).
So the ratio is somewhere between the fraction of the grey as a fraction of the whole, and the fraction of the deep blue as a fraction of the whole.
I think the evidence from China was that the longer you spent in critical care, the more likely you were to die.
The recently published Italian study (which is subject to the same caveats, as many of the patients are still in ICUs) has an overall mortality rate for ICU patients of 'only' 26%.
Something I have not heard reported (just anecdata) is how long does it take to recover post-ICU? The anecdata I have heard says weeks with some people who got this early on saying that they are nowhere near 100%.
My own anecdote is from my mother and my uncle, both of whom where in ICU for pneumonia (6 or 7 years ago). Neither completely recovered and even now, my mother says she gets breathless very easily.
I have no idea - and given the pandemic started so recently, I suspect no one will for some time. It is a serious concern, as you say.
@TGOHF666 your party political partisanship is not needed, helpful, or welcome at this time. Give it a rest.
Eternal vigilance against leftism is essential - even in these dark times.
None of us on the left are remotely interested in right-left or remain-brexit memes.
.
She says minutes after posting a link to a Guardian attack piece falsely representing the Conservative governments policy.
Which is fine - but don't expect us not to laugh at the hypocrisy.
Wow, pot kettle black. It's not the Conservative governments (sic) policy. It may have been presented as policy previously (contentious) but most certainly isn't now. Which was the point of the article.
What is it with you right-wing headbangers that you can't just drop partisan party politics? It's so unbecoming of you, your party and this nation right now.
The BBC is recycling Gavin and Stacy which is a great contribution to the morale of the nation
One of those programmes, like Will and Grace, where all the comedy is outside the named protagonists.
I‘ve only managed about 20 mins of G&S.
I've just started S1E1 of Modern Family. Plenty of distractions in the crisis and another 250 episodes to go if the lockdown is extended.
I saw G&S and thought Gilbert & Sullivan. Now that would cheer me up.
Sadly for me as a participant in a school production of the Pirates of Penzance (I can picture it now/am back there) put me off G&S (your one) for good.
@TGOHF666 your party political partisanship is not needed, helpful, or welcome at this time. Give it a rest.
Eternal vigilance against leftism is essential - even in these dark times.
None of us on the left are remotely interested in right-left or remain-brexit memes.
.
She says minutes after posting a link to a Guardian attack piece falsely representing the Conservative governments policy.
Which is fine - but don't expect us not to laugh at the hypocrisy.
Wow, pot kettle black. It's not the Conservative governments (sic) policy. It may have been presented as policy previously (contentious) but most certainly isn't now. Which was the point of the article.
What is it with you right-wing headbangers that you can't just drop partisan party politics? It's so unbecoming of you, your party and this nation right now.
We're all rooting for Boris. Get with it.
Post what you like dear - I don't believe debate should be shut down.
A free exchange of ideas is what separates us from the Chinese government.
@TGOHF666 your party political partisanship is not needed, helpful, or welcome at this time. Give it a rest.
+1 x 10,000,000
As per my message. Well said.
I thought you were writing a novel
Whilst running a marathon - on a treadmill etc.
I'm assuming it will be an autobiography to be filed under fiction.
You really are an utter prick aren't you. I won't even bother with the ?
I'm a bestselling author but I keep my cards just a little closer to my chest than my new-found friend Sean. I mean Tom. I mean Eadric. I could post up my links and my pen-name but you're not worth it. (You I mean, not the rest of pb.com who are gracious and intelligent and sensible for the most part.)
Whatever your views of China (vile regime we shouldn't do business with/vile regime we have little option but to do some business with...), this is a very interesting article:
How Chinese Apps Handled Covid-19 http://dangrover.com/blog/2020/04/05/covid-in-ui.html ...The point of these “fever clinics” (发热门诊), as distinguished from ordinary hospitals, was to give anyone who thought they might be even a little sick a way to get tested and, more importantly, control the spread by isolating even asymptomatic carriers away from their family and co-workers and give them a place to wait it out. Some of these had been established for this reason on a permanent basis during the SARS outbreak in 2003, while others were established only recently.
As the country mobilized, all of the major apps promoted features that clearly listed the hospitals that were handling Coronavirus. This included all the fever clinics that had sprung up as well as normal, pre-existing hospitals with ICUs that had been specially designated for handling serious cases of coronavirus (定点收治医院):
The other aspect Aylward mentions is the use of online consultations. Changes in regulations in the past few years have resulted in an explosion of telemedicine apps in China with plays by tech companies like Tencent and Alibaba, traditional companies like Ping An, and existing online medical information resource sites like Dingxiang.
These apps combine a bunch of things: simple ecommerce (for medicine and medical devices), lead generation/vertical search for specialists offline, and online consultations with doctors at top hospitals. Doctors giving online consultations can write prescriptions which can then be filled in the app. The consultations can be paid for a-la-carte or with an annual plan and are sometimes a loss-leader for their online pharmacy business...
We used to do that here. In 1893 the The Fountain Hospital in Tooting was built in a few weeks as a fever hospital.
@TGOHF666 your party political partisanship is not needed, helpful, or welcome at this time. Give it a rest.
Eternal vigilance against leftism is essential - even in these dark times.
None of us on the left are remotely interested in right-left or remain-brexit memes.
.
She says minutes after posting a link to a Guardian attack piece falsely representing the Conservative governments policy.
Which is fine - but don't expect us not to laugh at the hypocrisy.
Wow, pot kettle black. It's not the Conservative governments (sic) policy. It may have been presented as policy previously (contentious) but most certainly isn't now. Which was the point of the article.
What is it with you right-wing headbangers that you can't just drop partisan party politics? It's so unbecoming of you, your party and this nation right now.
We're all rooting for Boris. Get with it.
Post what you like dear - I don't believe debate should be shut down.
A free exchange of ideas is what separates us from the Chinese government.
'Dear'? Wow. Haven't heard that one since Cameron in the Commons embarassingly used it. Tells us all an awful lot about you and your inner character.
I have no probs with a free exchange of ideas. I do have a problem with you trying to drag this site back to petty partisan party politics when we are pretty much all to a man or woman genuinely and sincerely rooting for Boris.
So grow up. Go and make yourself a cup of tea and when you feel the surging desire to come back on here, get a grip of your manhood, work off the pent up frustration and then post things that are rather more becoming of this site and, indeed, your great party.
Whatever your views of China (vile regime we shouldn't do business with/vile regime we have little option but to do some business with...), this is a very interesting article:
How Chinese Apps Handled Covid-19 http://dangrover.com/blog/2020/04/05/covid-in-ui.html ...The point of these “fever clinics” (发热门诊), as distinguished from ordinary hospitals, was to give anyone who thought they might be even a little sick a way to get tested and, more importantly, control the spread by isolating even asymptomatic carriers away from their family and co-workers and give them a place to wait it out. Some of these had been established for this reason on a permanent basis during the SARS outbreak in 2003, while others were established only recently.
As the country mobilized, all of the major apps promoted features that clearly listed the hospitals that were handling Coronavirus. This included all the fever clinics that had sprung up as well as normal, pre-existing hospitals with ICUs that had been specially designated for handling serious cases of coronavirus (定点收治医院):
The other aspect Aylward mentions is the use of online consultations. Changes in regulations in the past few years have resulted in an explosion of telemedicine apps in China with plays by tech companies like Tencent and Alibaba, traditional companies like Ping An, and existing online medical information resource sites like Dingxiang.
These apps combine a bunch of things: simple ecommerce (for medicine and medical devices), lead generation/vertical search for specialists offline, and online consultations with doctors at top hospitals. Doctors giving online consultations can write prescriptions which can then be filled in the app. The consultations can be paid for a-la-carte or with an annual plan and are sometimes a loss-leader for their online pharmacy business...
The big thing they did was once you went to one of these clinics. You got funnelled through the system and while you were suspected (or found to have it) you were not allowed to go back into the general population.
Those 16 hospitals they talk about, 2 were "proper" hospitals, but 14 were basically holding pens for those who had it.
The other interesting thing was the vast number of CT chest scans they claimed to have carried out - as many as 200 per day on a machine. The 14 were triage centres AND holding pens.
Interesting Spanish article on the slow stages back to 'normality' after the peak and subsequent decline of the virus. The gist is: very slow return with continues isolation for all risk groups well into the summer and beyond. Slow return to work, even slower re-opening of tourist centres, bars, restaurants , etc. In short no return to normality much beyond getting more people back to work who can do so relatively safely. Remember, the UK is signficantly further back down the road than Spain and Italy.
Against that there is recent evidence from China that the large majority of coronavirus infections do not result in symptoms. Tom Jefferson, an epidemiologist and honorary research fellow at the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at the University of Oxford, said the findings were “very, very important.” He told The BMJ, “The sample is small, and more data will become available. Also, it’s not clear exactly how these cases were identified. But let’s just say they are generalisable. And even if they are 10% out, then this suggests the virus is everywhere. If—and I stress, if—the results are representative, then we have to ask, ‘What the hell are we locking down for?’” https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1375
The almost global lockdown applies the 'precautionary principle' to the whole of society and economy at a staggering cost. The uncertain trade-off between economic/social damage and deaths/respiratory morbidity surely needs modification and revision as we learn more facts like these. The Swedish approach is often called an 'experiment', but we are all experimenting with this known unknown. What is sure is that strict adherence to the precautionary principle will be seen retrospectively as a deviation from optimal treatment of the pandemic. Hindsight will be a wonderful thing.
I don't understand how they could draw any conclusion from those figures without knowing how those asymptomatic infections were detected.
Ideally it would be a random sample of the population but in practice it is quite opaque: "Citing classified data, the South China Morning Post said that China had already found more than 43 000 cases of asymptomatic infection through contact tracing."
Do they have reliable antibody tests?
Nobody does at the moment.
That's what I thought, so if this actually refers to people testing positive for the virus, why have they not published the stats as active cases, and why would data about the number of infections be 'classified'?
Under s24 IHTA 1984 gifts to political parties are exempt from IHT if at the most recent General Election either 2 MPs were elected for that party, or 1 MP and not less than 150,000 votes for candidates for that party.
As UKIP had no elected MPs in the 2010 general election it did not meet the conditions in s24.
Aaron Banks was claiming that s24 discriminated against his political rights under the European Convention of Human Rights and therefore his gifts (via his personal company) to UKIP should be IHT exempt.
The tribunal held that s24 was not discriminatory, so Aaron Banks lost.
Gifts to UKIP during the 2015 parliament would have qualified.
My biggest gripe with personal space are runners. They seem to come charging up far too close and, of course, panting volumes of breath into one's vicinity.
And cyclists.
And dog walkers, who allow their foul mutt to run around and impede others or dopey pedestrians listening to music oblivious to everyone else.
I am a runner, cyclist and walker. All groups are equally to blame.
No, you are wrong. Cyclists and runners need to take special measures to prevent contact with walkers. The hierarchy is as simple as that.
Sorry, I flagged you as off topic, it's very small on my phone, and don't seem to be able to unflag it. But surely a runner is a pedestrian and has equal priority with a walker. Personally, I have been trying to run against the flow of traffic so I can more safely step into the road. Most people are very good but you get offenders of all types. Including couples and family groups of walkers who insist on taking the whole pavement, and runners and cyclists who will not adjust their line or slow down (or cycle on the pavement). It's a bit like driving on a narrow country lane: you need to have a passing strategy and plan passing places ahead
Runners and cyclists are both moving faster, and more likely to be panting (& therefore far more likely to be generating aerosol), so they ought to bear a greater responsibility.
True, although I don't normally run fast enough to pant. But if you are running along a pavement next to a busy road and the pedestrians are bimbling around in a bunch, it cuts down your options. What's wrong with walking line astern? (And why are you exercising with family members anyway? You are banged up with them 24/7, surely you need time to yourself?)
The latest fashion appears to be walking along, talking to someone next to you, about a metre apart. Not actually social distancing, but nicely blocking the pavement.
I've tried locally suggesting that people walking west go on the north side of the road, east on the south etc.
An off-topic flashback to my schooldays, and one teacher helping to manage staircase congestion with her cry of, "up on the left; down on the right".
Going up on the left means your sword arm is free to engage
That would mean you were the attacker. I always note when spiral staircases are round the wrong way, giving the attacker the advantage.
I assumed the attacker starts at the bottom. It’s only Errol Flynn who does it the other way round 😆
Assuming (and hoping) that Johnson survives and fights the next election, it's going to be damn near impossible for Starmer to lead with the usual "who loves the NHS more" line.
We might not have an economy left to pay for the NHS if we don't take a balanced approach to lifting the lockdown.
Certainly we can't afford a Labour government for at least another decade.
over verbose. the last 5 words are not required.
You think it is possible for them to spend (and commit to spend) more than this govt? You may not have noticed, but the current officeholders are hosing money all over the place and even pre-lockdown, Boris was being accused of implementing Corbyn/McDonnell's policies
you obviously have missed the elephant in the room. accusations are not facts, its just Labour shrilling
If there is an elephant that has been missed, it is the infection rate in the general population and the effects that has had on the population. If this virus has been prevalent since Xmas or January and the "80% show no symptoms" is correct then the destruction of the economy is going to look unjustified. We are fighting a battle here on the basis of incomplete information.
Is the slowdown in new infections caused by the lockdown or by herd immunity kicking in?
These are questions that I hope the statisticians may be able to throw some light on in the coming weeks since we seem to lack reliable tests for answering the question directly. It cannot impact current policy, but it should certainly influence policy going forward for any second or third waves of this virus.
The consensus on here is that the MSM news coverage has been poor (to say the least) and I admit to several bouts of apoplexy. This has serious implications doesn't it? They are supposed to be the bulwark against fake news and the waves of social media hysteria and misinformation.
Why are you posting this in response to my comments? Since I am in Ireland at present I am hardly likely to apply, and even when I was in England, I was in the NorthWest, not the SouthWest
The consensus on here is that the MSM news coverage has been poor (to say the least) and I admit to several bouts of apoplexy. This has serious implications doesn't it? They are supposed to be the bulwark against fake news and the waves of social media hysteria and misinformation.
I have no idea - and given the pandemic started so recently, I suspect no one will for some time. It is a serious concern, as you say.
Plenty of it in my family of which my sister got it the worst. She's in her 50s and very healthy. Has led a virtuous life. Also a tough person who always understates sickness - would describe acute bronchitis as "feeling a bit chesty" - so when she told me that this virus made her feel more ill than she has ever felt in her life, it hit home. In the clear now but still a bit weak 4 weeks after onset. So I do sense that the "80% get a mild illness" message is a little rosy. It seems that it can be, and often is, a nasty and lengthy illness (even while being short of hospital) for an awful lot of people who are neither old nor fat nor smokers nor with other medical conditions. Bottom line - I do not want it, thank you very much.
Aside on the betting. Betfair have suspended their "exit date" market - presumably on the grounds that the 2020 option has become effectively a market on him dying of Covid-19. Looking at the greyed out content it was trading at around 2.2, i.e. giving him a slightly better than 50/50 chance. I laid at 4.5 pre ICU, before suspension, since I am confident he will pull through, and I would lay again now at 2.1 if I could. In fact I'm slightly annoyed that I can't, although I understand the reason.
Have we heard anything from them about why they've suspended it? If it's because it's a market on him dying then you have to wonder what they think Biden's so far off a cert for the nomination. OTOH it might just be because there's a lot of potential for people to have inside information right now.
Well, that's a misleading way of writing it. On some recent bars, deaths dated for that date are maybe 80% higher than the deaths reported on that day, but the way of writing makes it sounds like 80% of deaths are missing on the reported day (rather than more like 40%)
My biggest gripe with personal space are runners. They seem to come charging up far too close and, of course, panting volumes of breath into one's vicinity.
And cyclists.
And dog walkers, who allow their foul mutt to run around and impede others or dopey pedestrians listening to music oblivious to everyone else.
I am a runner, cyclist and walker. All groups are equally to blame.
No, you are wrong. Cyclists and runners need to take special measures to prevent contact with walkers. The hierarchy is as simple as that.
Sorry, I flagged you as off topic, it's very small on my phone, and don't seem to be able to unflag it. But surely a runner is a pedestrian and has equal priority with a walker. Personally, I have been trying to run against the flow of traffic so I can more safely step into the road. Most people are very good but you get offenders of all types. Including couples and family groups of walkers who insist on taking the whole pavement, and runners and cyclists who will not adjust their line or slow down (or cycle on the pavement). It's a bit like driving on a narrow country lane: you need to have a passing strategy and plan passing places ahead
Runners and cyclists are both moving faster, and more likely to be panting (& therefore far more likely to be generating aerosol), so they ought to bear a greater responsibility.
True, although I don't normally run fast enough to pant. But if you are running along a pavement next to a busy road and the pedestrians are bimbling around in a bunch, it cuts down your options. What's wrong with walking line astern? (And why are you exercising with family members anyway? You are banged up with them 24/7, surely you need time to yourself?)
The latest fashion appears to be walking along, talking to someone next to you, about a metre apart. Not actually social distancing, but nicely blocking the pavement.
I've tried locally suggesting that people walking west go on the north side of the road, east on the south etc.
An off-topic flashback to my schooldays, and one teacher helping to manage staircase congestion with her cry of, "up on the left; down on the right".
Going up on the left means your sword arm is free to engage
That would mean you were the attacker. I always note when spiral staircases are round the wrong way, giving the attacker the advantage.
I assumed the attacker starts at the bottom. It’s only Errol Flynn who does it the other way round 😆
Yes he does. But if you're the defender, you will have built your castle so that you gain the upper, ie free hand as you descend to protect your domain from intruders thus putting the attacker at a disadvantage (cf spiral staircases also as @Morris has also noted).
Assuming (and hoping) that Johnson survives and fights the next election, it's going to be damn near impossible for Starmer to lead with the usual "who loves the NHS more" line.
We might not have an economy left to pay for the NHS if we don't take a balanced approach to lifting the lockdown.
Certainly we can't afford a Labour government for at least another decade.
over verbose. the last 5 words are not required.
You think it is possible for them to spend (and commit to spend) more than this govt? You may not have noticed, but the current officeholders are hosing money all over the place and even pre-lockdown, Boris was being accused of implementing Corbyn/McDonnell's policies
you obviously have missed the elephant in the room. accusations are not facts, its just Labour shrilling
If there is an elephant that has been missed, it is the infection rate in the general population and the effects that has had on the population. If this virus has been prevalent since Xmas or January and the "80% show no symptoms" but is correct then the destruction of the economy is going to look unjustified. We are fighting a battle here on the basis of incomplete information.
Is the slowdown in new infections caused by the lockdown or by herd immunity kicking in?
These are questions that I hope the statisticians may be able to throw some light on in the coming weeks since we seem to lack reliable tests for answering the question directly. It cannot impact current policy, but it should certainly influence policy going forward for any second or third waves of this virus.
The chancellor's 300bn is a facility at this stage, not all committed spending. The day we prove asymptomatic prevalence is the day we can either commit to the hit (the UK is lucky not to be sitting on a natural disaster big one - Japan, Italy, the US have the mindset that things may happen at this magnitude of cost at any yime, the 2011 tsunami was on this scale) or wind back the economic restriction with, hopefully, a fraction of the facility spent.
Well, that's a misleading way of writing it. On some recent bars, deaths dated for that date are maybe 80% higher than the deaths reported on that day, but the way of writing makes it sounds like 80% of deaths are missing on the reported day (rather than more like 40%)
I think the bigger takeaway is the 1600 or so deaths on March 27.
The consensus on here is that the MSM news coverage has been poor (to say the least) and I admit to several bouts of apoplexy. This has serious implications doesn't it? They are supposed to be the bulwark against fake news and the waves of social media hysteria and misinformation.
I keep hoping as this moved from could be serious, to is serious, to f##k this is WWIII levels serious, they might drop all the usual crap, but if anything they have got worse.
We have the head of government in ICU and they are still acting like they are reporting on somebody tweeting something inappropriate or been spotted in Waitrose when they said they only shop in Morrisons.
Comments
"Citing classified data, the South China Morning Post said that China had already found more than 43 000 cases of asymptomatic infection through contact tracing."
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It's not complicated - well it might be for you.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-52183157
I can understand a jury coming to a different view to judges. That makes sense to me. But I can't really understand how a lower court finds one thing, and then a higher court unanimously finds the opposite?
I have no knowledge of the Australian legal system. It just seems very strange to a complete layperson, and not a little discomforting, to think that it is apparently so arbitrary whether you are guilty or not?
If the lower court judges are wrong, should there be some consequence for them?
Are there consequences for judges who frequently make the 'wrong' decision?
https://twitter.com/holysmoke/status/1247347809117970439?s=20
https://twitter.com/timothy_stanley/status/1247441680808194048?s=20
https://twitter.com/montie/status/1247445351344287750?s=20
The jury, acting rationally on the whole of the evidence, ought to have entertained a doubt as to the applicant's guilt.
If judges can assess questions like that, what is the point of the jury system in the first place?
On a separate note, the Supreme Court's ruling that the proroguing of Parliament last year was unlawful was also unanimous. At the time, I found it bizarre that they could all agree on something when the High Court had already found the opposite.
I’d say the only comedies of the last decade I truly enjoyed were ‘The Trip’, ‘Ja’mie Private Schoolgirl’ and ‘Detectorists’
Apologies for my tone. Not appropriate at this time.
https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1247448552718192641
So it is with the messages of support for Boris...
‘ family, children and girlfriend.
I think it’s best to say nothing rather than that. It just looks like your trying to look virtuous but can’t hide your contempt. Ash Sarkar was straight from the Jezza playbook
https://twitter.com/ayocaesar/status/1247264798900981760?s=21
"Why did his appeal succeed this time?
The cardinal argued that the jury, and previous appeal judges, had relied too heavily on the "compelling" evidence of the alleged victim.
The cleric's lawyers didn't seek to discredit that testimony, but rather argued that the jury had not properly considered other evidence.
The High Court agreed, ruling that other testimonies had introduced "a reasonable possibility that the offending had not taken place".
"The jury, acting rationally on the whole of the evidence, ought to have entertained a doubt as to the applicant's guilt," said the court in its summary judgement."
How Chinese Apps Handled Covid-19
http://dangrover.com/blog/2020/04/05/covid-in-ui.html
...The point of these “fever clinics” (发热门诊), as distinguished from ordinary hospitals, was to give anyone who thought they might be even a little sick a way to get tested and, more importantly, control the spread by isolating even asymptomatic carriers away from their family and co-workers and give them a place to wait it out. Some of these had been established for this reason on a permanent basis during the SARS outbreak in 2003, while others were established only recently.
As the country mobilized, all of the major apps promoted features that clearly listed the hospitals that were handling Coronavirus. This included all the fever clinics that had sprung up as well as normal, pre-existing hospitals with ICUs that had been specially designated for handling serious cases of coronavirus (定点收治医院):
The other aspect Aylward mentions is the use of online consultations. Changes in regulations in the past few years have resulted in an explosion of telemedicine apps in China with plays by tech companies like Tencent and Alibaba, traditional companies like Ping An, and existing online medical information resource sites like Dingxiang.
These apps combine a bunch of things: simple ecommerce (for medicine and medical devices), lead generation/vertical search for specialists offline, and online consultations with doctors at top hospitals. Doctors giving online consultations can write prescriptions which can then be filled in the app. The consultations can be paid for a-la-carte or with an annual plan and are sometimes a loss-leader for their online pharmacy business...
Those 16 hospitals they talk about, 2 were "proper" hospitals, but 14 were basically holding pens for those who had it.
There's a significant coronavirus cluster there centred around two brothels, but police were unable to divulge *which* brothels, as the establishments in question refused to give them permission.
The other day the dining association finally seems to have decided this situation was bad for its otherwise wholesome reputation and sent out a letter telling its members that anyone who opened would be barred from the association. Apparently this is similar to being shut down. Or rather, quite a lot worse than being shut down...
https://twitter.com/Colin_P_A_Jones/status/1246372140372201472
It emphasises (in bold) on page 8: "Due to the relatively low proportion of patients that have completed their critical care, all outcomes should be interpreted with caution." This has, of course, been given a stiff ignoring by all commentators and media.
If they were representative of all those in critical care, it wouldn't be so bad. But we can tell from the report that they are not.
The median time for resolution of those resolved (one way or the other: death or discharge) is 4-5 days (Table 3, page 10).
In Table 6, in the Appendix, we have the data underlying it.
The numbers in critical care as at 03/04/2020 (latest day given) was 2269 (of whom, full 24 hour data was given for 1559 and 710 just had notifications received). In addition, 346 had been in critical care and died, while 344 had been in critical care and been discharged. Total who had been admitted to U was therefore 2959.
Let's look back 10 days - twice the median time of those who were resolved.
Number in critical care: 643 total. Discharged dead: 245; discharged recovered: 217. Total admitted to ICU by that date was therefore 1105.
So - in that 10 days, 1854 were admitted to ICU, while 228 were discharged (either dead or recovered). Or, to put it differently - if all the discharges and deaths were from those in critical care 10 days ago, it would still only account for a third of the population in critical care that day.
And that's assuming none of those admitted in the last 10 days (which is, to repeat myself, twice the median time taken by those discharged one way or the other) have been resolved at all.
Conclusion: the data only tells us anything about people who were so ill as to die quickly or well enough to recover quickly. The significant majority of those in ICU are in neither of those areas and we, as yet, know nothing about their prognosis. Merely that they didn't recover quickly or die quickly.
All we can say about the whole population prognosis is that outcomes are highly likely to be between 85% survival and 15% survival of those sent to ICU. Which is one hell of a range, but any more precise than that is unjustifiable on the data yet given.
Whilst I would drop the remnants of the imperial measurements system in a heartbeat, I do love the historical reasons for some of Britain's quirks.
In grey are those who have died.
In deep blue are those discharged.
The reporting has been simply the grey versus the deep blue, when it has ignored those who spend longer in ICU than the time taken for fast resolution either way (because there simply hasn't been the time to resolve these).
So the ratio is somewhere between the fraction of the grey as a fraction of the whole, and the fraction of the deep blue as a fraction of the whole.
Aside on the betting. Betfair have suspended their "exit date" market - presumably on the grounds that the 2020 option has become effectively a market on him dying of Covid-19. Looking at the greyed out content it was trading at around 2.2, i.e. giving him a slightly better than 50/50 chance. I laid at 4.5 pre ICU, before suspension, since I am confident he will pull through, and I would lay again now at 2.1 if I could. In fact I'm slightly annoyed that I can't, although I understand the reason.
I’ll not get my coat, but I am just off for my daily bike ride.
See you later.
None of us on the left are remotely interested in right-left or remain-brexit memes.
I couldn't give a flying fuck. I just want Boris to get better.
The recently published Italian study (which is subject to the same caveats, as many of the patients are still in ICUs) has an overall mortality rate for ICU patients of 'only' 26%.
As per my message. Well said.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-07/japan-s-abe-declares-state-of-emergency-over-coronavirus
She says minutes after posting a link to a Guardian attack piece falsely representing the Conservative governments policy.
Which is fine - but don't expect us not to laugh at the hypocrisy.
With the memories of my own father's death in intensive care flooding back, I do wonder whether your moral compass is a little skewed right now. I appreciate you're concerned about Boris, but searching for "contempt", rather than giving someone the benefit of the doubt might not be the best way to deal with it.
My own anecdote is from my mother and my uncle, both of whom where in ICU for pneumonia (6 or 7 years ago). Neither completely recovered and even now, my mother says she gets breathless very easily.
I've been out on the bike for a number of days, and had no problems at all.
Yesterday I went out and back through one of our country parks - only about a mile and a half though - and only saw about a dozen people, all of whom were impeccably behaved. The only real risk for a cyclist is dogs on extendi-leads on the opposite side to the owner.
It may be because one of the joys of a former mining area is that we have hundreds of acres of country park largely accessible on foot from nearly everywhere made on former spoil heaps.
Actually in truth I wanted to see if there was any update on poor Boris. I see Michael Gove has said the PM wasn't on a ventilator overnight. A cautious smidgen of hope but it's tentative.
It is a serious concern, as you say.
What is it with you right-wing headbangers that you can't just drop partisan party politics? It's so unbecoming of you, your party and this nation right now.
We're all rooting for Boris. Get with it.
I'm assuming it will be an autobiography to be filed under fiction.
A free exchange of ideas is what separates us from the Chinese government.
I'm a bestselling author but I keep my cards just a little closer to my chest than my new-found friend Sean. I mean Tom. I mean Eadric. I could post up my links and my pen-name but you're not worth it. (You I mean, not the rest of pb.com who are gracious and intelligent and sensible for the most part.)
Back to it.
"I'm the most modest person I know.."
http://www.workhouses.org.uk/MAB-Fountain/
It is now St George's Hospital in Tooting, old St George's on Hyde Park Corner closed in 1981, now the Lanesborough Hotel.
I have no probs with a free exchange of ideas. I do have a problem with you trying to drag this site back to petty partisan party politics when we are pretty much all to a man or woman genuinely and sincerely rooting for Boris.
So grow up. Go and make yourself a cup of tea and when you feel the surging desire to come back on here, get a grip of your manhood, work off the pent up frustration and then post things that are rather more becoming of this site and, indeed, your great party.
Ciao
xx
The 14 were triage centres AND holding pens.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5e8b3f8486650c18c82f0702/Arron_Banks_v_HMRC.pdf
Under s24 IHTA 1984 gifts to political parties are exempt from IHT if at the most recent General Election either 2 MPs were elected for that party, or 1 MP and not less than 150,000 votes for candidates for that party.
As UKIP had no elected MPs in the 2010 general election it did not meet the conditions in s24.
Aaron Banks was claiming that s24 discriminated against his political rights under the European Convention of Human Rights and therefore his gifts (via his personal company) to UKIP should be IHT exempt.
The tribunal held that s24 was not discriminatory, so Aaron Banks lost.
Gifts to UKIP during the 2015 parliament would have qualified.
Is the slowdown in new infections caused by the lockdown or by herd immunity kicking in?
These are questions that I hope the statisticians may be able to throw some light on in the coming weeks since we seem to lack reliable tests for answering the question directly. It cannot impact current policy, but it should certainly influence policy going forward for any second or third waves of this virus.
Why are you posting this in response to my comments? Since I am in Ireland at present I am hardly likely to apply, and even when I was in England, I was in the NorthWest, not the SouthWest
Have at thee!
We have the head of government in ICU and they are still acting like they are reporting on somebody tweeting something inappropriate or been spotted in Waitrose when they said they only shop in Morrisons.
And yeah, it'll be a few minutes after the crisis when they start wondering why alternative media sources are gaining popularity.
The mainstream's great asset is credibility, and in recent years they've done their best to tarnish that by having more opinions and fewer facts.