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So the lockdown conitnues and looks set to be with us in the UK for at least another three weeks. What is quite remarkable is how well the public, that is all of us, are putting up with it.
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I get quite cross seeing people flout the rules while we make sacrifices.
That the Excel facility is hardly being used is surely a good sign?
Long may it continue.
Cant really see now how we can come out after the 12 weeks now in fact how can we come out before a vaccine is found
Depressing stuff
Differential media coverage, particularly with respect to access to the chaotic bits? Or the coffins?
Do overcrowded ICUs and people not even being admitted actually make no substantial difference unless it's really really bad - up to a certain point perhaps only those with near-zero chance of survival, or those who were likely to get better anyway so didn't really require an ICU bed (but had one been free, might have been given one "just in case"), were missing out over there?
Do scenes look better here just because, although cases are somewhat concentrated in London and a few other places, they're still relatively more spread out than Italy/Spain?
Something else I'm missing entirely?
I've no idea on this one.
Though, as Peston blogged today, this means government cash is crowding out COVID entrepreneurship because of "the CBA factor"!
There is an upper salary limit. I read that its 50k
Only slot we have been able to get for over a week
I do wonder if this is it.
Maybe there's a genetic marker that predisposes some people to a poor outcome regardless of the intervention.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52243605
Just a thought that if the hospitals were packed to the gunnels how many people were turned away or never went to the hospital and ended up dying at home?
so the numbers look similar but one side has a higher number of home deaths than the other side?
Suspect we wont know till the statto's have had a chance to pull apart the mortality numbers at some point down the line.
Edit: Defintely!
We started off with 5,500 and have managed to get up to 8,400 and have succeeded so far in not being overwhelmed touch wood so far
My packer has been furloughed and my shop/shipping manager WFH. So guess who did the picking and packing today?!
Luckily we're still doing about 30% of the business we usually do - so we can maintain this position and I can keep the majority of my staff on throughout. Just....
It needs to be noted that the folk memory of the blitz and collective home front endeavour for good is common to remainers and leavers, even though we interpret it differently. Even if it has served us remainers badly in the recent past, it stands us all in good stead here.
The European folk memory, which in many places is of everyone being in the resistance: perhaps not quite so useful to current circumstances.
But, it is one point of difference amongst many other at least as practical things, good or ill, that we are doing to combat Coronavirus, so do not take it as an 'its the war spirit wot won it' comment - it simply helps.
Germany started in the same position as us and made the right calls. Tonight they are recording 100 deaths and their cases are on a clear downward trend.
"Behind every death is a friend, a family member, a loved one. We are focused on ensuring that every New Yorker who died because of COVID-19 gets counted," said Health Commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot.
The 10,000 figure includes all coronavirus deaths since March 11.
https://twitter.com/darrengrimes_/status/1250179286675456000?s=21
Re "the ICUs were overwhelmed and people of all ages started dying", that was certainly the narrative we got from the news media. But have a look at this link (data only up to end of March unfortunately)
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2020/04/09/adjusting-covid-19-expectations-to-the-age-profile-of-deaths/
There it doesn't look so clear-cut to me. Even in Italy the vast majority of deaths are among the old, so deaths among the young aren't what's driving mortality. And in proportionate terms, their mortality rate per million population in the different age bands are not massively out of line, proportionately, with other countries. So, dunno.
(The standardised Diamond Princess figures there are appallingly grim.)
Thanks to the other PBers for all the other replies too - obviously this is something multifactorial but it still puzzles me.
If we can now say 7200/8400 are available to COVID, distress point is closer to 100 cases/100000. On Sky's figures, we are close and concentration of most hotspots around core cities doesn't hinder in this respect.
This definitely is a war. And we have a wartime economy to prove it...
Some of my competitors have simply shut up shop for the duration, everyone furloughed. But I can't actually imagine ever not doing some work. Rare books would be my passion if it weren't my job. The idea of furloughing myself seems unthinkable, and I'd definitely be the last to be furloughed...but if things get really bad, or it is a really long lockdown, I suspect many like me would have to for reasons of cash flow...
If he just keeps walking, we can fund the NHS on his donations alone!
You have to have faith that this is the right decision, and I wish you all the very best.
Gedi digital, an Italian tracker, has annoyed me by varying its graphs too much, but the regional variation in mortality from Umbria at 4% to Lombardy at around 18% is quite stark. (Bottom chart, at least today)
https://lab.gedidigital.it/gedi-visual/2020/coronavirus-i-contagi-in-italia/?ref=RHPPTP-BH-I250551341-C12-P4-S1.8-T2
I don't think that it is brutal rationing of ICU/ventilators. Our age spectrum in ICU is not very different to other nations reports. Neither are Britons sicker or fatter, or not by enough.
I hypothesise, and it is just a guess, is that the stay at home and self medicate approach is causing a lot of late presentations, too far gone to reverse.
Countries that encourage early diagnosis and treatment may well be receiving patients a day or two earlier, less distressed, less hypotensive, and more amenable to recovery with supportive measures.
It could be possible to look at this by looking at admission bloods, oxygen stats etc, or by looking at time to death from admission.
If Boris had left it another day or two, before going to Tommy's, would he be pushing up daisies?
In three months' time there will be more familiarity with daily admissions, deaths, and the routines of queueing at the shops, wearing face masks, etc.
I don't think the public are putting up with the lockdown out of acquiescence to the government. They are accepting it for now because they are too scared to continue their normal lives, but this will change in time.
Fever clinic - Isolation hospital - bloods, CT scan and covid 19 swab - stay until discharge with 2 negative swabs plus 14 days quarantine - if deterioration then to Acute hospital.
The system breaks the transmission before the household all get it, thereby decreasing overall numbers, and cases that worsen get identified early and transferred.
That is how the Nightingales should be used. Obviously need better, faster testing too.
I have a feeling a lot of people won't be happy at that prospect.
A month later Trump was still calling it a hoax.
Clearly Trump was not monitoring its advice.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-52287920
Coronavirus: Labour calls for lockdown exit strategy this week (1 hour ago)
The government said talking about an exit before the virus had reached its peak risks confusing the public.
In a letter to Dominic Raab, who is deputising for Prime Minister Boris Johnson while he continues his recovery from coronavirus, Sir Keir offered Labour's support for an extension.
But he said: "The question for Thursday therefore is no longer about whether the lockdown should be extended, but about what the government's position is on how and when it can be eased in due course and on what criteria that decision will be taken."
Millions of people had "played their part" and made sacrifices, he added, and "in return, the government needs to be open and transparent with the public about how it believes the lockdown will ease and eventually end".
Sir Keir warned the "silent pressures" on communities across the UK "cannot be underestimated", and said that to maintain morale and hope "people need a sense of what comes next".
He urged Mr Raab to commit to setting out the criteria the government will use to inform how and when it intends to ease the lockdown.
And he called on the government to publish an exit strategy now or in the coming week; and to outline the sectors and core public services that are most likely to see restrictions eased.
I mean, I do want the government to be thinking about its exit strategy from the lockdown, and for the crisis in the round, but is this really the right time to commit to exactly what they'll do? If they could do so with certainty then I can see it would help people (especially businesses) plan and prepare. But they can't, so that advantage doesn't apply, whereas several disadvantages do.
Firstly, the end of lockdown will clearly be a very trial and error, iterative, feedback-loop-driven affair. Secondly, since ours is not about to end in the immediate future, I'd much rather we got the benefit of watching what happens as other countries experiment with getting out of their lockdowns before we say how we'll get out of our own. Committing to a strategy prematurely just means you'll get accused of U-turns later. And thirdly, if we do end up with government talking up getting out of the lockdown, and then ending up - as seems inevitable - toing-and-froing about it, I don't think it's going to help people's spirits or compliance.
Frankly I suspect if Starmer were PM he'd not be in a hurry to commit to anything either. But as Leader of the Opposition, maybe it's a cheap win - makes you look more decisive than an indecisive government, gets people who are struggling with the lockdown to see that you understand their frustrations, get the opportunity to slap the government down on any plan it might foolishly lay out and then end up pulling back from.
Perhaps, just possibly, because of their previous experience of SARS, they knew the importance of strict measures, and had a worked out process.
That is why Wuhan is returning to normal.
There are times where we really do need to learn from other countries, rather than re-invent the wheel, so that it is a British wheel.
So we have to go the enforced lockdown route (something clearly Boris really didn't want to do) and still today we have people playing cricket, having parties etc (albeit in fairly small numbers).
I can see a lot of people thinking I will just hide at home rather than having to go and live in a dorm in a conference centre. As a nation, we have become rather soft and we like our creature comforts. That was what the concern by the egg-heads that the public mentally just couldn't manage 3 months in total hard lockdown.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/over-500-000-zoom-accounts-sold-on-hacker-forums-the-dark-web/
Both things can be true at the same time, neither the WHO nor Trump have covered themselves in glory.
Now I’m seeing the whole thing as a kind of detective show on tv. I can never tell whodunnit while it’s being played out, but at the end they go through it but by bit and it all seems obvious in hindsight. There must be some known unknown that we just haven’t twigged yet
I don't actually agree with pulling the funding for the WHO. It needs reform not destruction. But it has certainly failed in its basic duties over this pandemic - which it is worth noting the WHO refused to declare until 11th March.
https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1250168740873986050?s=20
Utter madness, and not just from Trump!