Japan’s health service is on the brink of collapse today, yet according to this thread header we are doing badly. Get real
What, no.
It’s one of headlines on BBC news
Do you have a link though? I don't see it on the top page (your geolocation may vary.)
Here's an AP report:
The outbreak has highlighted underlying weaknesses in medical care in Japan, which has long been praised for its high quality insurance system and reasonable costs. Apart from a general unwillingness to embrace social distancing, experts fault government incompetence and a widespread shortage of the protective gear and equipment medical workers need to do their jobs.
Japan lacks enough hospital beds, medical workers or equipment. Forcing hospitalization of anyone with the virus, even those with mild symptoms, has left hospitals overcrowded and understaffed.
The “collapse of emergency medicine” has already happened, a precursor to the overall collapse of medicine, the Japanese Association for Acute Medicine and the Japanese Society for Emergency Medicine said in a joint statement. By turning away patients, hospitals are putting an excessive burden on the limited number of advanced and critical emergency centers, the groups said.
i) Are you without severe covid-19 symptons. ii) Do you have a job still or means of supporting yourself. iii) Are your friends and family all still alive and able to eat with a roof over their heads.
If you can get near 3 out of 3, that's the best case scenario till a vaccine comes out.
I'm afraid it isn't because it could take 1-2 years for a vaccine to come out and be implemented and it doesn't take into account the economic consequences nor the social ones: if our economy is smaller we won't be able to pay the taxes to fund good healthcare meaning many others will die from things like cancer, dementia and other diseases and we will see a massive rise in mental health disorders and a traumatised generation of youth.
Then you have the social consequences of a society where a culture snitching on your neighbours and others to the rozzers becomes embedded, which is perhaps what worries me worst of all.
I understand the frustration but the die is already cast, most of us are going to have our living standards reduced significantly for the next 5 years or more. You may as well accept it now and adjust. Until there is a vaccine life or the economy are not going to return to anything like the old "normal".
I don't agree with your "snitching" point. If the vast majority of us are complying with the lockdown for the sake of the country we are going to get very piss*d off indeed with the arrogant and selfish idiots that think they can flout the rules.
I don't agree with accepting reduced living standards, which can rapidly feed into broader economic self-confidence and become a self-fulfilling prophecy. We don't know yet how the world will collectively respond to the economic challenges this virus has thrown up in its aftermath yet and we shouldn't throw our hands up immediately in surrender.
On the snitching point: I disagree. We have seen plenty of examples of spectacularly misjudged public hectoring of people lawfully going about their business, curtain twitchers enjoying spying on their neighbours and shopping them far too much (in some instances out of previous jealously or in pursuit of a petty personal vendetta) and such reports then being enthusiastically pounced on by the rozzers. In the meantime unscrupulous employers who are insisting their employees come into work whilst failing to maintain social distancing are a far bigger issue for the spread of the dynamic, but the police aren't interested. It takes place behind closed doors out of sight and the only social drama people are interested in is the public one.
We see now why collaboration takes place so easily in occupied countries accompanied with a police state. People simply get off on the sense of power they can lever and they have to both see the "crime" and then the enforcement to get that satisfaction. It's like a real life soap where everyone can play.
I think it stinks. And I think defensive arguments like "we can't set a precedent", "if one does it everyone will do it" and similar clichés are just excusing authoritative behaviour and am shocked more people don't think the same.
On curtain twitchers I think this outbreak has given people who instinctively are already curtain twitchers the feeling they have the right/responsibility to be even more twitchery and obnoxious than they would be normally.
Anecdote but my wife (healthcare worker) takes the bus to work everyday. Since just before the lockdown rules were changed that she needed to come into work in casual clothes then get changed at work.
She said that since just after the lockdown an old man has been sat in his garden by the bus stop and has been shouting at people who go to the bus stop demanding to know why they're out and about, but the old man hadn't shouted at her despite not wearing her uniform and she wasn't sure why. I suggested he'd probably been watching the street before this began and recognised her from wearing her uniform in the past and has seen her travel daily.
Japan’s health service is on the brink of collapse today, yet according to this thread header we are doing badly. Get real
What, no.
It’s one of headlines on BBC news
See my point up-thread about Britain's most loved institutions being its shittiest. Do you have a link though? I don't see it on the top page (your geolocation may vary.)
This does connect to one of the points behind David Herdson's riddle though, because Britain's fellow failure cases are the ones Britain gets most reporting about (US, France/Italy/Spain) whereas the (relative) success cases are in Asia, which Britain media can generally only report through the lens of some kind of cultural fluff.
5. There is a growing divide in the populace between those terrified of the virus and those dismissive of it. "Is that it" is something I am already hearing / reading - if we go on well into May in the current lockdown state I expect increasing numbers to simply ignore the instructions. And thanks to the cuts there aren't enough police to enforce it.
I'm not so pessimistic on this point, but I think that avoiding that situation is dependent on the Government not holding off for too long on the plan to ease the lockdown.
Basically, if the population is given hope of a move towards a position that is easier to live with, then most people will keep working with the Government. If they're made to keep plodding along indefinitely with the current measures, which are clearly economically unsustainable in any event, then they will despair and the lockdown will eventually begin to unravel.
When we get towards the end of this second three-week period then we should be looking for an indication from Government as to how close we are to easing the lockdown, and what the order of priority is for reopening various sectors of the economy. Discretionary retail should be doable with restrictions to customer numbers that allow for social distancing, similar to what's seen in supermarkets; restaurants and cafes could also reopen, with the use of fewer, more spaced-out tables and/or partitioning, and perhaps masks for serving staff; ditto services like hairdressers; and there will have to be at least a worked-out plan for the reopening of nurseries and schools.
The more of the economy that we can get back up and running, and the wider the range of amenities that is reopened for the general population to enjoy, then clearly the less serious the economic damage and the more likely it is that the remaining social distancing measures will continue to retain broad public support.
I think there is a cultural issue with lockdown, which is one reason why East Asia is doing better than Europe right now. In Asia people are used to social control and having the residents committee and Mrs Takihashi telling them what to do. The police don't need to be involved in enforcing lockdown.
Really not sure I agree with this piece at all. Let's look at the timing of the lockdown as an example. Our GDP is roughly £2trn or £40bn a week. The shutdown is costing us at least 30% of output which means that there is £12bn of lost GDP each week it is in operation. In fact it is much worse than that because government spending is being massively increased (whatever it takes) and private sector tax generating income has largely stopped outside of supermarkets. The longer term economic consequences are frankly horrendous and we do not want to be in lock down for a day more than we need to be.
Why are we in lockdown? It is not to stop the spread of the virus, that is ultimately futile. It is to protect the NHS. This has been achieved. We have seen none of the overwhelming of health services that we have seen in other countries. Indeed you could make the case for much of the country that we locked down too soon. Ninewells hospital in Dundee, the biggest in Tayside, currently has 7 people on ventilators. 7. The resources available are actually not being used to full advantage.
Why is our death rate marginally above average? I would tentatively suggest several reasons. In London we have the most densely populated area in Europe and England generally is some of the most densely populated landmass. This virus loves dense populations, see New York, Madrid, Belgium. We have a large BAME population who seem particularly vulnerable. We have a major obesity problem that does not help. There is no good evidence that we are doing worse than anyone else once these factors are taken into account.
So protect the NHS, tick, don't lock down too soon (tick for London), protect the economy as much as possible in this nightmare, tick. Not everything is right, there are frustrations with PPE and the bravery of NHS staff is remarkable but we are doing alright, possibly slightly better than that.
What he said.
There are multiple factors involved - and some early "successes" are now having "second waves":
Although, as in much of Asia, casual racism is not far below the surface with the implication that its not such a big problem as they are foreign work permit holders who live in cramped communal dorms. Who could have seen that coming?
Once this is all over I do think PHE will have "questions to answer" (and Ministers for not asking them) - "command and control centralised testing" and PPE distribution among them. Also I suspect Care Home lock down should have started sooner - that was a disaster waiting to happen. Finally I remain mystified over this fetishisation of unrestricted international travel - we're among the last to allow it. If it is to carry on, then at least force all arrivals to self quarantine for 14 days on arrival.
Merkel's explanation of the sensitivity of R0 the other day was hard to improve upon.
I hope Boris (or someone) pinches it - it was masterful and the most lucid explanation of the importance of keeping R below 1 I've heard. Even 1.1 leads in short order to disaster.
Short to medium term - a deal of economic pain and unfortunately for some it will be the end of their business and I understand that, I really do. The problem is Sunak's long hands, shallow pockets policies will only take us so far and will only last for so long.
As no one really knows, the "experts" are floundering round between "everything will bounce back" and "nothing will ever be the same again" which covers most of the bases - the truth is likely, as always, to be somewhere between the two.
How much will this experience change us? Don't know but it will - there will be changes which don't last and changes that do. We can hope for some positive outcomes but there will be some negative ones too.
I'll just throw a thought or two out there - will we see more people opting to care for elderly relatives at home within the family? Initially, some speculated the big death toll in Italy was due to larger families living together but on the other hand you have care homes and they may be one of the big horror stories from this (quite apart from those who will be found to have died alone).
Second, will this give a big boost to home working? Talking to my colleagues we are all coping well with not being in office. There's talk of a monthly get together but that doesn't require an office - just a meeting room which you could rent on a daily or even hourly basis. That said, it requires different forms of management and leadership and it will cause organisations to evolve (and those that don't or can't may not survive).
Home working isn't possible for everyone but I wonder if we will see a move toward a more freelancing workforce with individuals offering their skills to each other or to other organisations - this won't happen overnight but it seems a plausible evolution.
My guess is that a lot of people will realise just how much money they were wasting on takeaways, rather than cooking for themselves.
I've actually started ordering takeaways again just because my wife and I became exhausted of cooking and clearing up on top of everything else we have to do, but still only twice a week or so.
Blimey, how busy can your home life be? It's just you, yer Mrs and nipper, isn't it?
Indeed - we are only 2 and the cooking and cleaning [2 adults 4 bed 4 bath house] takes up less than 10% of the day max. It's really not rocket science.
commuting long distances and the ability to wfh are almost exclusively white collar workers and only ~10% of the workforce. The average commute is something 1 to 2 miles. if there is a shift to wfh the impact will be massively skewed to London and the professions. train and tube finances will be horrible.
Pre lockdown commuters were crammed into London tubes and trains like cattle. Any easing of that is a win
Japan’s health service is on the brink of collapse today, yet according to this thread header we are doing badly. Get real
What, no.
It’s one of headlines on BBC news
Do you have a link though? I don't see it on the top page (your geolocation may vary.)
Here's an AP report:
The outbreak has highlighted underlying weaknesses in medical care in Japan, which has long been praised for its high quality insurance system and reasonable costs. Apart from a general unwillingness to embrace social distancing, experts fault government incompetence and a widespread shortage of the protective gear and equipment medical workers need to do their jobs.
Japan lacks enough hospital beds, medical workers or equipment. Forcing hospitalization of anyone with the virus, even those with mild symptoms, has left hospitals overcrowded and understaffed.
The “collapse of emergency medicine” has already happened, a precursor to the overall collapse of medicine, the Japanese Association for Acute Medicine and the Japanese Society for Emergency Medicine said in a joint statement. By turning away patients, hospitals are putting an excessive burden on the limited number of advanced and critical emergency centers, the groups said.
The PPE thing is correct, IIUC the bit about forcing hospitalization of people with mild symptoms is out-of-date, at least in Tokyo, as they've now changed the rules and started stashing contagious-but-otherwise-healthy people in hotels.
Mr. Royale, sorry for the slow response, been out.
I played England as Eleanor of Aquitaine and had Scotland right next to me. We actually got on incredibly well, even after my supreme cultural power made every city (even the capital) swear loyalty to me. The only exception was a far flung little city in the middle of nowhere.
Beyond saying Trump is insane I have no idea what to say.
The answer is that the USA is one of the most individualistic countries in the world, and people are conditioned to be inherently sceptical of almost everything the government does. That should really be governments plural, as a lot of decisions are devolved to states and cities, which are competing with each other and with the feds for supplies. Their biggest cities are also among the most densely populated areas in the Western world.
Japan’s health service is on the brink of collapse today, yet according to this thread header we are doing badly. Get real
What, no.
It’s one of headlines on BBC news
Do you have a link though? I don't see it on the top page (your geolocation may vary.)
Here's an AP report:
The outbreak has highlighted underlying weaknesses in medical care in Japan, which has long been praised for its high quality insurance system and reasonable costs. Apart from a general unwillingness to embrace social distancing, experts fault government incompetence and a widespread shortage of the protective gear and equipment medical workers need to do their jobs.
Japan lacks enough hospital beds, medical workers or equipment. Forcing hospitalization of anyone with the virus, even those with mild symptoms, has left hospitals overcrowded and understaffed.
The “collapse of emergency medicine” has already happened, a precursor to the overall collapse of medicine, the Japanese Association for Acute Medicine and the Japanese Society for Emergency Medicine said in a joint statement. By turning away patients, hospitals are putting an excessive burden on the limited number of advanced and critical emergency centers, the groups said.
I remember reading years ago that the economy in Japan was very strong with a relatively weak public infrastructure and sector compared to Europe. I used to watch NHK a lot and had assumed things were now much better. They had a show called 'At home with Venetia in Kyoto' about an English ex upper class woman whose lived there for years and integrated into the lifestyle. Loved it.
Life in the aftermath. A vaccine is not on the horizon, so we must live with the virus somehow when we come out of lockdown. We know that our population splits into identifiable susceptible/resistant groups - old and young for example. So while the young could return to some version of their earlier life, including work, cafes, cinemas etc, the old must be kept away from mixing with them. But it will be okay for the old to socialise amongst themselves if their peers are not a source of contagion. For example, my bowling club comprises mainly older people, so that should be a safe recreation, but the members might need to show evidence of a negative test for CV19.
On daily life the segregation could be done at shops - oldies shopping a.m. and others p.m. perhaps. Or in buses oldies downstairs and others upstairs, with orderly queues of the two groups left and right of the bus stop. Or walking in the town, oldies on one side of the road others on the opposite side. I hope all these kind of considerations are being chewed over by the nudge unit and other behavioural specialists.
1. The government aren't doing that badly at a macro level. People are largely doing as they're told, the NHS hasn't collapsed, there's been a concerted Blitz spirit push. Scenes of horror early on from the likes of Italy not seen here 2. The government have shown remarkable flexibility of thinking. Some of the stuff that Sunak has had to announce is outrageously radical for a Tory government 3. The disconnect between what is announced and what is reality has become increasingly stark. Its ok to announce loans for business or expansion of Universal Credit,but when almost everyone applying can't get it, there is a massive problem. The scale of the problem has been bubbling away for a few weeks now, and as we start to see businesses collapse thanks to the non-availability of the Sunak loan and suicides as people literally run out of cash the negative reality won't be blustered away 4. The impact of a decade of cuts is here for all to see. Its fine to say "Bravo NHS" but on the front line its literally reliant on charitable donations of food and equipment. Doctors having to rely on visors made by a local school and being told to reuse single use gowns is Not Good Enough. Same with HMRC and DWP - simply not enough people 5. There is a growing divide in the populace between those terrified of the virus and those dismissive of it. "Is that it" is something I am already hearing / reading - if we go on well into May in the current lockdown state I expect increasing numbers to simply ignore the instructions. And thanks to the cuts there aren't enough police to enforce it.
You are being far too generous to the government in points 1 and 2. At the macro level we seem on course to have the highest absolute number of deaths in Europe, and that after being relatively late into the cycle which should have afforded a bit more time to prepare and learn. In addition to the three areas of focus identified by David in the bold part of his excellent thread header I would be adding a fourth: Why was contact tracing abandoned in haste in contrast to practice in other countries and against all the advice from the WHO?
I think those who are isolating with their families or partners don’t appreciate how lonely and demoralising it is when you don’t have those things. Zoom does not make up for human contact.
Indeed, we've been debating whether to have one of my partner's friends move in with us for the remainder. She's feeling very lonely by herself and only lives up the road, she's not a suicide risk by any means but she isn't handling the isolation very well. As you say zoom doesn't make up for real contact, plus it's scheduled and for a couple of hours a day.
It really does depend on the type of person you are.
My wife and younger twin are complaining about not seeing people, the older twin and myself can't see what the problem is - neither of us are that social at the best of times.
Mind you we have a house big enough to allow us to all work separately so we aren't getting on top of each other, which I'm hearing from other friends is a real problem.
She and my partner have both been furloughed, the only worry is that our flat isn't massive but it should be ok. I think that's part of the issue, she's basically got no human contact (video or otherwise) for pretty much most of the week. Her family lives in Australia so they aren't easily contactible at a reasonable time of the day and she doesn't have a huge network of friends either that she can just call at any time.
Anyway, I think I'm lucky that I've got someone to share the boredom with. I think we'll probably ask her if she wants to come and stay today. It's only three or four weeks...
Latest YouGov shows the divide between those who are scared witless (16%) and those who don't give a damn (7%).
It also shows that 10% are now wearing a mask in public. There is no difference between male/female or leave/remain but a big geographical difference. 17% in London are wearing masks in public (I'm one of them) but only 6% in Scotland. I guess that is not surprising.
1. The government aren't doing that badly at a macro level. People are largely doing as they're told, the NHS hasn't collapsed, there's been a concerted Blitz spirit push. Scenes of horror early on from the likes of Italy not seen here 2. The government have shown remarkable flexibility of thinking. Some of the stuff that Sunak has had to announce is outrageously radical for a Tory government 3. The disconnect between what is announced and what is reality has become increasingly stark. Its ok to announce loans for business or expansion of Universal Credit,but when almost everyone applying can't get it, there is a massive problem. The scale of the problem has been bubbling away for a few weeks now, and as we start to see businesses collapse thanks to the non-availability of the Sunak loan and suicides as people literally run out of cash the negative reality won't be blustered away 4. The impact of a decade of cuts is here for all to see. Its fine to say "Bravo NHS" but on the front line its literally reliant on charitable donations of food and equipment. Doctors having to rely on visors made by a local school and being told to reuse single use gowns is Not Good Enough. Same with HMRC and DWP - simply not enough people 5. There is a growing divide in the populace between those terrified of the virus and those dismissive of it. "Is that it" is something I am already hearing / reading - if we go on well into May in the current lockdown state I expect increasing numbers to simply ignore the instructions. And thanks to the cuts there aren't enough police to enforce it.
My take:
1. Take measures early, including lockdown. The government mucked this up with the consequence that there will be more death, longer lockdown and greater economic damage. We are where we are. 2. Use lockdown to buy time to put mitigation in place, including boosting treatment capabilities. The government has done OK on this 3. Institute a big programme of testing and tracing that allows the infected to be isolated from the healthy, so the healthy can go about its business. The government has barely got going on this. 4. Gradually ease off restrictions on a risk controlled basis. Still to come.
All this is way too premature, and also assumes there will be a vaccine and/or anti-virals
If these don’t happen, then the Swedish reaction will seem wiser, as countries like Korea, Japan, etc, suffer terrible second waves, as happened with Spanish flu in 1919
Sadly, we are only in the first act of this drama
The context is avoiding the spike of death, or multi year World War levels of death in a couple of months, (hundreds of thousands in the UK). See the 1919 chart I posted above. In that context none of this is premature.
A vaccine would be a game changer but we need to do this stuff to avoid the spike of death anyway.
Japan’s health service is on the brink of collapse today, yet according to this thread header we are doing badly. Get real
What, no.
It’s one of headlines on BBC news
Do you have a link though? I don't see it on the top page (your geolocation may vary.)
Here's an AP report:
The outbreak has highlighted underlying weaknesses in medical care in Japan, which has long been praised for its high quality insurance system and reasonable costs. Apart from a general unwillingness to embrace social distancing, experts fault government incompetence and a widespread shortage of the protective gear and equipment medical workers need to do their jobs.
Japan lacks enough hospital beds, medical workers or equipment. Forcing hospitalization of anyone with the virus, even those with mild symptoms, has left hospitals overcrowded and understaffed.
The “collapse of emergency medicine” has already happened, a precursor to the overall collapse of medicine, the Japanese Association for Acute Medicine and the Japanese Society for Emergency Medicine said in a joint statement. By turning away patients, hospitals are putting an excessive burden on the limited number of advanced and critical emergency centers, the groups said.
The PPE thing is correct, IIUC the bit about forcing hospitalization of people with mild symptoms is out-of-date, at least in Tokyo, as they've now changed the rules and started stashing contagious-but-otherwise-healthy people in hotels.
More from the same article:
Japanese hospitals also lack ICUs, with only five per 100,000 people, compared to about 30 in Germany, 35 in the U.S. and 12 in Italy, said Osamu Nishida, head of the Japanese Society of Intensive Care Medicine.
Italy’s 10% mortality rate, compared to Germany’s 1%, is partly due to the shortage of ICU facilities, Nishida said. “Japan, with ICUs not even half of Italy's, is expected to face a fatality overshoot very quickly,” he said.
Japan has been limiting testing for the coronavirus mainly because of rules requiring any patients to be hospitalized. Surging infections have prompted the Health Ministry to loosen those rules and move patients with milder symptoms to hotels to free up beds for those requiring more care.
The 2012 OECD report had UK Critical Care beds in the UK at 6.6 per 100,000.
The days of popping on and off planes like buses are, sadly, gone and we should get with the program.
You may very well be right, in which case international tourism also becomes an expensive luxury. Think of a Eurostar trip to Paris or Amsterdam as a reasonably affordable treat, but two weeks sunning oneself on Rhodes or the Algarve as something that most people on reasonably good incomes only do once every three or four years.
Britain's tourism sector might be able to make good most of the losses from staycationers, but the likes of Spain and Greece will be absolutely fucked.
The greatest failure of the government at present is the failure to increase testing per head, it is mass testing which has seen the likes of Germany and South Korea and Austria and Norway have a relatively low death rate per head.
The need for more PPE equipment is more a specific concern for hospital staff.
Locking down earlier would not necessarily have made much difference either given Sweden has still not locked down and still has the same death rate per head as the UK if not slightly better but the Swedes are also testing a bit more than we are.
Yesterday even France overtook us on tests per capita and the USA is also well ahead of us too as is Italy and Spain. So if the UK government should be focusing on anything it is expanding testing and tracing for Covid 19
The greatest failure of the government at present is the failure to increase testing per head, it is mass testing which has seen the likes of Germany and South Korea and Austria and Norway have a relatively low death rate per head.
The need for more PPE equipment is more a specific concern for hospital staff.
Locking down earlier would not necessarily have made much difference either given Sweden has still not locked down and still has the same death rate per head as the UK if not slightly better but the Swedes are also testing a bit more than we are.
Yesterday even France overtook us on tests per capita and the USA is also well ahead of us too as is Italy and Spain. So if the UK government should be focusing on anything it is expanding testing and tracing for Covid 19
Short to medium term - a deal of economic pain and unfortunately for some it will be the end of their business and I understand that, I really do. The problem is Sunak's long hands, shallow pockets policies will only take us so far and will only last for so long.
As no one really knows, the "experts" are floundering round between "everything will bounce back" and "nothing will ever be the same again" which covers most of the bases - the truth is likely, as always, to be somewhere between the two.
How much will this experience change us? Don't know but it will - there will be changes which don't last and changes that do. We can hope for some positive outcomes but there will be some negative ones too.
I'll just throw a thought or two out there - will we see more people opting to care for elderly relatives at home within the family? Initially, some speculated the big death toll in Italy was due to larger families living together but on the other hand you have care homes and they may be one of the big horror stories from this (quite apart from those who will be found to have died alone).
Second, will this give a big boost to home working? Talking to my colleagues we are all coping well with not being in office. There's talk of a monthly get together but that doesn't require an office - just a meeting room which you could rent on a daily or even hourly basis. That said, it requires different forms of management and leadership and it will cause organisations to evolve (and those that don't or can't may not survive).
Home working isn't possible for everyone but I wonder if we will see a move toward a more freelancing workforce with individuals offering their skills to each other or to other organisations - this won't happen overnight but it seems a plausible evolution.
My guess is that a lot of people will realise just how much money they were wasting on takeaways, rather than cooking for themselves.
We're still getting takeaways, had one last night. Less choice now though.
No kidding, I had a pizza last week and the available toppings were reduced from like 20 to 10. Times are hard.
Not even pineapple?
You know, for some strange reason I did not notice
Really not sure I agree with this piece at all. Let's look at the timing of the lockdown as an example. Our GDP is roughly £2trn or £40bn a week. The shutdown is costing us at least 30% of output which means that there is £12bn of lost GDP each week it is in operation. In fact it is much worse than that because government spending is being massively increased (whatever it takes) and private sector tax generating income has largely stopped outside of supermarkets. The longer term economic consequences are frankly horrendous and we do not want to be in lock down for a day more than we need to be.
Why are we in lockdown? It is not to stop the spread of the virus, that is ultimately futile. It is to protect the NHS. This has been achieved. We have seen none of the overwhelming of health services that we have seen in other countries. Indeed you could make the case for much of the country that we locked down too soon. Ninewells hospital in Dundee, the biggest in Tayside, currently has 7 people on ventilators. 7. The resources available are actually not being used to full advantage.
Why is our death rate marginally above average? I would tentatively suggest several reasons. In London we have the most densely populated area in Europe and England generally is some of the most densely populated landmass. This virus loves dense populations, see New York, Madrid, Belgium. We have a large BAME population who seem particularly vulnerable. We have a major obesity problem that does not help. There is no good evidence that we are doing worse than anyone else once these factors are taken into account.
So protect the NHS, tick, don't lock down too soon (tick for London), protect the economy as much as possible in this nightmare, tick. Not everything is right, there are frustrations with PPE and the bravery of NHS staff is remarkable but we are doing alright, possibly slightly better than that.
What he said.
There are multiple factors involved - and some early "successes" are now having "second waves":
Although, as in much of Asia, casual racism is not far below the surface with the implication that its not such a big problem as they are foreign work permit holders who live in cramped communal dorms. Who could have seen that coming?
Once this is all over I do think PHE will have "questions to answer" (and Ministers for not asking them) - "command and control centralised testing" and PPE distribution among them. Also I suspect Care Home lock down should have started sooner - that was a disaster waiting to happen. Finally I remain mystified over this fetishisation of unrestricted international travel - we're among the last to allow it. If it is to carry on, then at least force all arrivals to self quarantine for 14 days on arrival.
Merkel's explanation of the sensitivity of R0 the other day was hard to improve upon.
I hope Boris (or someone) pinches it - it was masterful and the most lucid explanation of the importance of keeping R below 1 I've heard. Even 1.1 leads in short order to disaster.
It showed the difference of having a politician who was a proper scientist. One thing that this crisis has highlighted is that the overwhelming prevalence of arts/PPE graduates in both our politics and our media has done us no favours at all.
The NHS hasn't been overwhelmed and I think that's the threshold most people will judge the performance on.
Quibbling over days before lockdown won't be here nor there. As far as international comparisons go we can see idiots like those across the pond calling this a "hoax". Our officials and government took this seriously and took serious action.
On your first para I think youre right...for now. Later, everyone will focus more on why we havent had results like Germany or South Korea, whether that unreasonable or not.
No they won't. Later everyone will focus on the next Tiger King or Love Island. Later everyone will focus on going to the pub.
A few obsessives (overly on websites like this one) will focus on slicing differences between us and Germany or South Korea.
Broadly, yes, but things of significance to filer through to the non-wonks as well.
i) Are you without severe covid-19 symptons. ii) Do you have a job still or means of supporting yourself. iii) Are your friends and family all still alive and able to eat with a roof over their heads.
If you can get near 3 out of 3, that's the best case scenario till a vaccine comes out.
I'm afraid it isn't because it could take 1-2 years for a vaccine to come out and be implemented and it doesn't take into account the economic consequences nor the social ones: if our economy is smaller we won't be able to pay the taxes to fund good healthcare meaning many others will die from things like cancer, dementia and other diseases and we will see a massive rise in mental health disorders and a traumatised generation of youth.
Then you have the social consequences of a society where a culture snitching on your neighbours and others to the rozzers becomes embedded, which is perhaps what worries me worst of all.
I understand the frustration but the die is already cast, most of us are going to have our living standards reduced significantly for the next 5 years or more. You may as well accept it now and adjust. Until there is a vaccine life or the economy are not going to return to anything like the old "normal".
I don't agree with your "snitching" point. If the vast majority of us are complying with the lockdown for the sake of the country we are going to get very piss*d off indeed with the arrogant and selfish idiots that think they can flout the rules.
I don't agree with accepting reduced living standards, which can rapidly feed into broader economic self-confidence and become a self-fulfilling prophecy. We don't know yet how the world will collectively respond to the economic challenges this virus has thrown up in its aftermath yet and we shouldn't throw our hands up immediately in surrender.
On the snitching point: I disagree. We have seen plenty of examples of spectacularly misjudged public hectoring of people lawfully going about their business, curtain twitchers enjoying spying on their neighbours and shopping them far too much (in some instances out of previous jealously or in pursuit of a petty personal vendetta) and such reports then being enthusiastically pounced on by the rozzers. In the meantime unscrupulous employers who are insisting their employees come into work whilst failing to maintain social distancing are a far bigger issue for the spread of the dynamic, but the police aren't interested. It takes place behind closed doors out of sight and the only social drama people are interested in is the public one.
We see now why collaboration takes place so easily in occupied countries accompanied with a police state. People simply get off on the sense of power they can lever and they have to both see the "crime" and then the enforcement to get that satisfaction. It's like a real life soap where everyone can play.
I think it stinks. And I think defensive arguments like "we can't set a precedent", "if one does it everyone will do it" and similar clichés are just excusing authoritative behaviour and am shocked more people don't think the same.
Whether you "accept" reduced living standards is beside the point. Taxation and inflation are going to rise, the only question is by how much. Unemployment is going to rise steeply even after lockdown ends, many businesses particularly in the retail and leisure will never reopen. For example, I don't see myself going to a restaurant for the rest of this year at least and we used to 3 or 4 times a week.
The bill for all this is going to be gigantic and we are the ones who are going to paying for it one way or another. You are kidding yourself if you think you are going to be maintaining your pre-virus living standard.
You are itching for the lockdown to end so are egging on people breaking it a la Trump. Obviously some people will over step the mark in telling off others, there have always been people like that but comparing the vast majority of people who just want to see the rules fairly apply to everyone to wartime collaborators is ridiculous.
Yesterday morning THE main headline on the BBC website was that the head of an NHS trust had phoned the BBC to get Burberry's phone number to get gowns...
Yesterday morning THE main headline on the BBC website was that the head of an NHS trust had phoned the BBC to get Burberry's phone number to get gowns...
1. The government aren't doing that badly at a macro level. People are largely doing as they're told, the NHS hasn't collapsed, there's been a concerted Blitz spirit push. Scenes of horror early on from the likes of Italy not seen here 2. The government have shown remarkable flexibility of thinking. Some of the stuff that Sunak has had to announce is outrageously radical for a Tory government 3. The disconnect between what is announced and what is reality has become increasingly stark. Its ok to announce loans for business or expansion of Universal Credit,but when almost everyone applying can't get it, there is a massive problem. The scale of the problem has been bubbling away for a few weeks now, and as we start to see businesses collapse thanks to the non-availability of the Sunak loan and suicides as people literally run out of cash the negative reality won't be blustered away 4. The impact of a decade of cuts is here for all to see. Its fine to say "Bravo NHS" but on the front line its literally reliant on charitable donations of food and equipment. Doctors having to rely on visors made by a local school and being told to reuse single use gowns is Not Good Enough. Same with HMRC and DWP - simply not enough people 5. There is a growing divide in the populace between those terrified of the virus and those dismissive of it. "Is that it" is something I am already hearing / reading - if we go on well into May in the current lockdown state I expect increasing numbers to simply ignore the instructions. And thanks to the cuts there aren't enough police to enforce it.
You are being far too generous to the government in points 1 and 2. At the macro level we seem on course to have the highest absolute number of deaths in Europe, and that after being relatively late into the cycle which should have afforded a bit more time to prepare and learn. In addition to the three areas of focus identified by David in the bold part of his excellent thread header I would be adding a fourth: Why was contact tracing abandoned in haste in contrast to practice in other countries and against all the advice from the WHO?
Nonsense. Spain is not properly counting care home deaths. You might have to multiply their death toll by 3, according to some reports. Ditto Italy. You think they’re really testing every dead oldster in Calabria?
With so much variation between jurisdictions, the only genuinely useful stats for comparisons are going to be based on total deaths against a baseline. At least in Western countries, deaths are almost always recorded within a day or two.
This helps to explain why the plateau phase could last a long time and how dangerous the post-lockdown phase could be.
"An interesting study has emerged in the US which found that the number of people infected with coronavirus could be as much as 85 times higher than previously thought.
The study from Stanford University, which was released Friday, tested samples from 3,330 people in Santa Clara county, in California, and found the virus was 50 to 85 times more common than official figures indicated.
The study, the first large-scale one of its kind and has yet to be peer reviewed, was conducted by identifying antibodies in healthy individuals through a finger prick test, indicating whether they had already contracted and recovered from the virus.
At the time of the study, Santa Clara county had 1,094 confirmed cases of Covid-19, resulting in 50 deaths. But, based on the rate of people who have antibodies, it is likely that between 48,000 and 81,000 people had been infected in the county by early April – a number approximately 50 to 80 times higher."
Yesterday morning THE main headline on the BBC website was that the head of an NHS trust had phoned the BBC to get Burberry's phone number to get gowns...
Yesterday morning THE main headline on the BBC website was that the head of an NHS trust had phoned the BBC to get Burberry's phone number to get gowns...
Yesterday morning THE main headline on the BBC website was that the head of an NHS trust had phoned the BBC to get Burberry's phone number to get gowns...
Really not sure I agree with this piece at all. Let's look at the timing of the lockdown as an example. Our GDP is roughly £2trn or £40bn a week. The shutdown is costing us at least 30% of output which means that there is £12bn of lost GDP each week it is in operation. In fact it is much worse than that because government spending is being massively increased (whatever it takes) and private sector tax generating income has largely stopped outside of supermarkets. The longer term economic consequences are frankly horrendous and we do not want to be in lock down for a day more than we need to be.
Why are we in lockdown? It is not to stop the spread of the virus, that is ultimately futile. It is to protect the NHS. This has been achieved. We have seen none of the overwhelming of health services that we have seen in other countries. Indeed you could make the case for much of the country that we locked down too soon. Ninewells hospital in Dundee, the biggest in Tayside, currently has 7 people on ventilators. 7. The resources available are actually not being used to full advantage.
Why is our death rate marginally above average? I would tentatively suggest several reasons. In London we have the most densely populated area in Europe and England generally is some of the most densely populated landmass. This virus loves dense populations, see New York, Madrid, Belgium. We have a large BAME population who seem particularly vulnerable. We have a major obesity problem that does not help. There is no good evidence that we are doing worse than anyone else once these factors are taken into account.
So protect the NHS, tick, don't lock down too soon (tick for London), protect the economy as much as possible in this nightmare, tick. Not everything is right, there are frustrations with PPE and the bravery of NHS staff is remarkable but we are doing alright, possibly slightly better than that.
What he said.
There are multiple factors involved - and some early "successes" are now having "second waves":
Although, as in much of Asia, casual racism is not far below the surface with the implication that its not such a big problem as they are foreign work permit holders who live in cramped communal dorms. Who could have seen that coming?
Once this is all over I do think PHE will have "questions to answer" (and Ministers for not asking them) - "command and control centralised testing" and PPE distribution among them. Also I suspect Care Home lock down should have started sooner - that was a disaster waiting to happen. Finally I remain mystified over this fetishisation of unrestricted international travel - we're among the last to allow it. If it is to carry on, then at least force all arrivals to self quarantine for 14 days on arrival.
Merkel's explanation of the sensitivity of R0 the other day was hard to improve upon.
I hope Boris (or someone) pinches it - it was masterful and the most lucid explanation of the importance of keeping R below 1 I've heard. Even 1.1 leads in short order to disaster.
It showed the difference of having a politician who was a proper scientist. One thing that this crisis has highlighted is that the overwhelming prevalence of arts/PPE graduates in both our politics and our media has done us no favours at all.
We chose the wrong time to have an arty libertarian as PM. I’m a layabout drunk but i was shocked by the blasé foolishness of Boris telling everyone he was still shaking hands
What I found frustrating was how slow our politicians were to pick up on the perils of exponential growth and its health system implications. It was obvious to anyone who looked at the numbers and thought about it. You said so at the time and so did I. Neither of us are scientists but the lack of numeracy in government is troubling. Dominic Cummings is absolutely right about this.
I think those who are isolating with their families or partners don’t appreciate how lonely and demoralising it is when you don’t have those things. Zoom does not make up for human contact.
Indeed, we've been debating whether to have one of my partner's friends move in with us for the remainder. She's feeling very lonely by herself and only lives up the road, she's not a suicide risk by any means but she isn't handling the isolation very well. As you say zoom doesn't make up for real contact, plus it's scheduled and for a couple of hours a day.
It really does depend on the type of person you are.
My wife and younger twin are complaining about not seeing people, the older twin and myself can't see what the problem is - neither of us are that social at the best of times.
Mind you we have a house big enough to allow us to all work separately so we aren't getting on top of each other, which I'm hearing from other friends is a real problem.
She and my partner have both been furloughed, the only worry is that our flat isn't massive but it should be ok. I think that's part of the issue, she's basically got no human contact (video or otherwise) for pretty much most of the week. Her family lives in Australia so they aren't easily contactible at a reasonable time of the day and she doesn't have a huge network of friends either that she can just call at any time.
Anyway, I think I'm lucky that I've got someone to share the boredom with. I think we'll probably ask her if she wants to come and stay today. It's only three or four weeks...
Just make sure the room she will be living in isn't the room you are wfhing in. That may be obvious but in times like this obvious things are missed until it's too late.
Good morning fellow PB-ers. How are we all feeling about not being trusted and treated like children?
Oh and about the fact that we don't have a PM right now?
All tickety boo?
Jeez I have for ages been asking these questions and it seems the press is finally catching up.
They've been asking the PM question constantly for more than a week, I don't know what they, or you, expect. Nor even what exactly you think a PM does, since you seem to think the country falls to bits if we don't have one, even when they are formally deputised.
Yesterday morning THE main headline on the BBC website was that the head of an NHS trust had phoned the BBC to get Burberry's phone number to get gowns...
Really not sure I agree with this piece at all. Let's look at the timing of the lockdown as an example. Our GDP is roughly £2trn or £40bn a week. The shutdown is costing us at least 30% of output which means that there is £12bn of lost GDP each week it is in operation. In fact it is much worse than that because government spending is being massively increased (whatever it takes) and private sector tax generating income has largely stopped outside of supermarkets. The longer term economic consequences are frankly horrendous and we do not want to be in lock down for a day more than we need to be.
Why are we in lockdown? It is not to stop the spread of the virus, that is ultimately futile. It is to protect the NHS. This has been achieved. We have seen none of the overwhelming of health services that we have seen in other countries. Indeed you could make the case for much of the country that we locked down too soon. Ninewells hospital in Dundee, the biggest in Tayside, currently has 7 people on ventilators. 7. The resources available are actually not being used to full advantage.
Why is our death rate marginally above average? I would tentatively suggest several reasons. In London we have the most densely populated area in Europe and England generally is some of the most densely populated landmass. This virus loves dense populations, see New York, Madrid, Belgium. We have a large BAME population who seem particularly vulnerable. We have a major obesity problem that does not help. There is no good evidence that we are doing worse than anyone else once these factors are taken into account.
So protect the NHS, tick, don't lock down too soon (tick for London), protect the economy as much as possible in this nightmare, tick. Not everything is right, there are frustrations with PPE and the bravery of NHS staff is remarkable but we are doing alright, possibly slightly better than that.
What he said.
There are multiple factors involved - and some early "successes" are now having "second waves":
Although, as in much of Asia, casual racism is not far below the surface with the implication that its not such a big problem as they are foreign work permit holders who live in cramped communal dorms. Who could have seen that coming?
Once this is all over I do think PHE will have "questions to answer" (and Ministers for not asking them) - "command and control centralised testing" and PPE distribution among them. Also I suspect Care Home lock down should have started sooner - that was a disaster waiting to happen. Finally I remain mystified over this fetishisation of unrestricted international travel - we're among the last to allow it. If it is to carry on, then at least force all arrivals to self quarantine for 14 days on arrival.
Merkel's explanation of the sensitivity of R0 the other day was hard to improve upon.
I hope Boris (or someone) pinches it - it was masterful and the most lucid explanation of the importance of keeping R below 1 I've heard. Even 1.1 leads in short order to disaster.
It showed the difference of having a politician who was a proper scientist. One thing that this crisis has highlighted is that the overwhelming prevalence of arts/PPE graduates in both our politics and our media has done us no favours at all.
We chose the wrong time to have an arty libertarian as PM. I’m a layabout drunk but i was shocked by the blasé foolishness of Boris telling everyone he was still shaking hands
I reckon Boris will have major regret that he didn’t stay with the herd immunity strategy. It’s obviously what he believed was right
The greatest failure of the government at present is the failure to increase testing per head, it is mass testing which has seen the likes of Germany and South Korea and Austria and Norway have a relatively low death rate per head.
The need for more PPE equipment is more a specific concern for hospital staff.
Locking down earlier would not necessarily have made much difference either given Sweden has still not locked down and still has the same death rate per head as the UK if not slightly better but the Swedes are also testing a bit more than we are.
Yesterday even France overtook us on tests per capita and the USA is also well ahead of us too as is Italy and Spain. So if the UK government should be focusing on anything it is expanding testing and tracing for Covid 19
I think the greatest failure (although it is common to most countries) has been the absence of aggressive contact tracing linked to targeted testing and quarantine of those found. An expansion of testing is fine and is probably a necessary part of the above but is not enough on its own. Testing surely has to be focused on those most at risk of spreading the virus either through their work (eg. care home staff and home carers) or past contacts.
The days of popping on and off planes like buses are, sadly, gone and we should get with the program.
You may very well be right, in which case international tourism also becomes an expensive luxury. Think of a Eurostar trip to Paris or Amsterdam as a reasonably affordable treat, but two weeks sunning oneself on Rhodes or the Algarve as something that most people on reasonably good incomes only do once every three or four years.
Britain's tourism sector might be able to make good most of the losses from staycationers, but the likes of Spain and Greece will be absolutely fucked.
I doubt that’s true. People and countries will just factor in the risk. Air travel boomed when air travel was still quite dangerous. And what came after ww1 and Spanish flu? The Roaring Twenties
That was a hundred years ago, and most people living in the 1920s were not enjoying upmarket lifestyles.
I think you have an accumulation of factors working against the travel and tourism sector coming out of all this. A lot of people are going to see their finances hit very hard and won't be able to afford to travel, or at any rate to travel abroad, for years. There will be the lingering folk memory of the disasters that have befallen a great many people - and not just cruise ship passengers - who found themselves stuck abroad at the wrong time. Air transportation is bound to become significantly dearer if much of the competition on air routes is removed through collapse or merger of airlines, and if aircraft are taking off half-empty (through lack of available customers and/or the imposition of social distancing measures.) And the environmental lobby loathes air travel above almost all else, and will want green taxes on aviation held in place and ideally extended.
In short, if there isn't a major ongoing recession in air travel and international tourism, even after the coronavirus is finally brought under control, then that might be considered something of a surprise?
Yesterday morning THE main headline on the BBC website was that the head of an NHS trust had phoned the BBC to get Burberry's phone number to get gowns...
Really not sure I agree with this piece at all. Let's look at the timing of the lockdown as an example. Our GDP is roughly £2trn or £40bn a week. The shutdown is costing us at least 30% of output which means that there is £12bn of lost GDP each week it is in operation. In fact it is much worse than that because government spending is being massively increased (whatever it takes) and private sector tax generating income has largely stopped outside of supermarkets. The longer term economic consequences are frankly horrendous and we do not want to be in lock down for a day more than we need to be.
Why are we in lockdown? It is not to stop the spread of the virus, that is ultimately futile. It is to protect the NHS. This has been achieved. We have seen none of the overwhelming of health services that we have seen in other countries. Indeed you could make the case for much of the country that we locked down too soon. Ninewells hospital in Dundee, the biggest in Tayside, currently has 7 people on ventilators. 7. The resources available are actually not being used to full advantage.
Why is our death rate marginally above average? I would tentatively suggest several reasons. In London we have the most densely populated area in Europe and England generally is some of the most densely populated landmass. This virus loves dense populations, see New York, Madrid, Belgium. We have a large BAME population who seem particularly vulnerable. We have a major obesity problem that does not help. There is no good evidence that we are doing worse than anyone else once these factors are taken into account.
So protect the NHS, tick, don't lock down too soon (tick for London), protect the economy as much as possible in this nightmare, tick. Not everything is right, there are frustrations with PPE and the bravery of NHS staff is remarkable but we are doing alright, possibly slightly better than that.
What he said.
There are multiple factors involved - and some early "successes" are now having "second waves":
Although, as in much of Asia, casual racism is not far below the surface with the implication that its not such a big problem as they are foreign work permit holders who live in cramped communal dorms. Who could have seen that coming?
Once this is all over I do think PHE will have "questions to answer" (and Ministers for not asking them) - "command and control centralised testing" and PPE distribution among them. Also I suspect Care Home lock down should have started sooner - that was a disaster waiting to happen. Finally I remain mystified over this fetishisation of unrestricted international travel - we're among the last to allow it. If it is to carry on, then at least force all arrivals to self quarantine for 14 days on arrival.
Merkel's explanation of the sensitivity of R0 the other day was hard to improve upon.
I hope Boris (or someone) pinches it - it was masterful and the most lucid explanation of the importance of keeping R below 1 I've heard. Even 1.1 leads in short order to disaster.
It showed the difference of having a politician who was a proper scientist. One thing that this crisis has highlighted is that the overwhelming prevalence of arts/PPE graduates in both our politics and our media has done us no favours at all.
We chose the wrong time to have an arty libertarian as PM. I’m a layabout drunk but i was shocked by the blasé foolishness of Boris telling everyone he was still shaking hands
What I found frustrating was how slow our politicians were to pick up on the perils of exponential growth and its health system implications. It was obvious to anyone who looked at the numbers and thought about it. You said so at the time and so did I. Neither of us are scientists but the lack of numeracy in government is troubling. Dominic Cummings is absolutely right about this.
I agreed with everything you said up til the remark about Cummings. I think he took a while to 'get' exponential growth.
Really not sure I agree with this piece at all. Let's look at the timing of the lockdown as an example. Our GDP is roughly £2trn or £40bn a week. The shutdown is costing us at least 30% of output which means that there is £12bn of lost GDP each week it is in operation. In fact it is much worse than that because government spending is being massively increased (whatever it takes) and private sector tax generating income has largely stopped outside of supermarkets. The longer term economic consequences are frankly horrendous and we do not want to be in lock down for a day more than we need to be.
Why are we in lockdown? It is not to stop the spread of the virus, that is ultimately futile. It is to protect the NHS. This has been achieved. We have seen none of the overwhelming of health services that we have seen in other countries. Indeed you could make the case for much of the country that we locked down too soon. Ninewells hospital in Dundee, the biggest in Tayside, currently has 7 people on ventilators. 7. The resources available are actually not being used to full advantage.
Why is our death rate marginally above average? I would tentatively suggest several reasons. In London we have the most densely populated area in Europe and England generally is some of the most densely populated landmass. This virus loves dense populations, see New York, Madrid, Belgium. We have a large BAME population who seem particularly vulnerable. We have a major obesity problem that does not help. There is no good evidence that we are doing worse than anyone else once these factors are taken into account.
So protect the NHS, tick, don't lock down too soon (tick for London), protect the economy as much as possible in this nightmare, tick. Not everything is right, there are frustrations with PPE and the bravery of NHS staff is remarkable but we are doing alright, possibly slightly better than that.
What he said.
There are multiple factors involved - and some early "successes" are now having "second waves":
Although, as in much of Asia, casual racism is not far below the surface with the implication that its not such a big problem as they are foreign work permit holders who live in cramped communal dorms. Who could have seen that coming?
Once this is all over I do think PHE will have "questions to answer" (and Ministers for not asking them) - "command and control centralised testing" and PPE distribution among them. Also I suspect Care Home lock down should have started sooner - that was a disaster waiting to happen. Finally I remain mystified over this fetishisation of unrestricted international travel - we're among the last to allow it. If it is to carry on, then at least force all arrivals to self quarantine for 14 days on arrival.
Merkel's explanation of the sensitivity of R0 the other day was hard to improve upon.
I hope Boris (or someone) pinches it - it was masterful and the most lucid explanation of the importance of keeping R below 1 I've heard. Even 1.1 leads in short order to disaster.
It showed the difference of having a politician who was a proper scientist. One thing that this crisis has highlighted is that the overwhelming prevalence of arts/PPE graduates in both our politics and our media has done us no favours at all.
We chose the wrong time to have an arty libertarian as PM. I’m a layabout drunk but i was shocked by the blasé foolishness of Boris telling everyone he was still shaking hands
What I found frustrating was how slow our politicians were to pick up on the perils of exponential growth and its health system implications. It was obvious to anyone who looked at the numbers and thought about it. You said so at the time and so did I. Neither of us are scientists but the lack of numeracy in government is troubling. Dominic Cummings is absolutely right about this.
I agreed with everything you said up til the remark about Cummings. I think he took a while to 'get' exponential growth.
What took a while was Cummings convincing everyone else around the table.
Good morning fellow PB-ers. How are we all feeling about not being trusted and treated like children?
Oh and about the fact that we don't have a PM right now?
All tickety boo?
Jeez I have for ages been asking these questions and it seems the press is finally catching up.
They've been asking the PM question constantly for more than a week, I don't know what they, or you, expect. Nor even what exactly you think a PM does, since you seem to think the country falls to bits if we don't have one, even when they are formally deputised.
How long do you think it would be a good idea not to have a PM during these times? When would you say ok enough is enough?
A deputy isn't a leader it is a deputy for a leader who is out of commission.
Yesterday morning THE main headline on the BBC website was that the head of an NHS trust had phoned the BBC to get Burberry's phone number to get gowns...
Wow. That’s quite a correction. In context, its a sackable offence.
I will tell you what is a sackable offence.
Running out of gowns meaning rationing of intubation and ventilation.
Stop your pathetic whataboutery
But you were whatabouting Japan just now, and Japan has fucked up ten times as badly as us on the PPE gowns front. Recriminations are not at this stage all that fruitful.
I think those who are isolating with their families or partners don’t appreciate how lonely and demoralising it is when you don’t have those things. Zoom does not make up for human contact.
Indeed, we've been debating whether to have one of my partner's friends move in with us for the remainder. She's feeling very lonely by herself and only lives up the road, she's not a suicide risk by any means but she isn't handling the isolation very well. As you say zoom doesn't make up for real contact, plus it's scheduled and for a couple of hours a day.
It really does depend on the type of person you are.
My wife and younger twin are complaining about not seeing people, the older twin and myself can't see what the problem is - neither of us are that social at the best of times.
Mind you we have a house big enough to allow us to all work separately so we aren't getting on top of each other, which I'm hearing from other friends is a real problem.
She and my partner have both been furloughed, the only worry is that our flat isn't massive but it should be ok. I think that's part of the issue, she's basically got no human contact (video or otherwise) for pretty much most of the week. Her family lives in Australia so they aren't easily contactible at a reasonable time of the day and she doesn't have a huge network of friends either that she can just call at any time.
Anyway, I think I'm lucky that I've got someone to share the boredom with. I think we'll probably ask her if she wants to come and stay today. It's only three or four weeks...
Just make sure the room she will be living in isn't the room you are wfhing in. That may be obvious but in times like this obvious things are missed until it's too late.
Yeah I'll have to move my WFH stuff into the bedroom, but it's not such a big deal, tbh the company is about to offer a 20% salary cut for voluntary furlough, I may or may not take it. I need the break from work, it's been almost 5 years in this industry without more than 8-9 days off at a time.
FFS - some old biddie in Sutherland is going to walk up and down her stairs 500 times. This nonsense needs to stop.
Careful. Unless you go outside and clap the old cow until your hands bleed you'll be shipped off to a re-education camp until you are sufficiently mawkish and dimwitted.
While we are being properly grumpy about well intentioned people let us remind ourselves, as no-one else is going to, that Captain Moore's efforts (so far) will add roughly 35p per head per year to the roughly £2000 per head per year that the NHS spends. His value as addition to the gaiety of nations is of course beyond price.
Beyond saying Trump is insane I have no idea what to say.
The answer is that the USA is one of the most individualistic countries in the world, and people are conditioned to be inherently sceptical of almost everything the government does. That should really be governments plural, as a lot of decisions are devolved to states and cities, which are competing with each other and with the feds for supplies. Their biggest cities are also among the most densely populated areas in the Western world.
USA is the western democracy where social order is most likely to collapse during this crisis. Millions of gun-toting nutters led by the Nutter-in-Chief. Very glad I don't live there right now.
The days of popping on and off planes like buses are, sadly, gone and we should get with the program.
You may very well be right, in which case international tourism also becomes an expensive luxury. Think of a Eurostar trip to Paris or Amsterdam as a reasonably affordable treat, but two weeks sunning oneself on Rhodes or the Algarve as something that most people on reasonably good incomes only do once every three or four years.
Britain's tourism sector might be able to make good most of the losses from staycationers, but the likes of Spain and Greece will be absolutely fucked.
I doubt that’s true. People and countries will just factor in the risk. Air travel boomed when air travel was still quite dangerous. And what came after ww1 and Spanish flu? The Roaring Twenties
The Roaring Twenties were a USA thing, the UK was very different.
Yesterday morning THE main headline on the BBC website was that the head of an NHS trust had phoned the BBC to get Burberry's phone number to get gowns...
Yesterday morning THE main headline on the BBC website was that the head of an NHS trust had phoned the BBC to get Burberry's phone number to get gowns...
Wow. That’s quite a correction. In context, its a sackable offence.
I will tell you what is a sackable offence.
Running out of gowns meaning rationing of intubation and ventilation.
Stop your pathetic whataboutery
But you were whatabouting Japan just now, and Japan has fucked up ten times as badly as us on the PPE gowns front. Recriminations are not at this stage all that fruitful.
Nerys Hughes compared Japan with us to try to argue we werent doing bad. I just pointed out their 190 deaths to us with 14000.
This helps to explain why the plateau phase could last a long time and how dangerous the post-lockdown phase could be.
Well it was a pleasure to read that El Pais article as it was written without sensationalism or apparent side and with no distracting popups or spurious adverts.
I think David's header has some well argued points but maybe with hindsight, it is easier to be critical.
I would make the following points and they are in IMHO
Matt Hancock is under huge pressure and it is showing. I heard a report on 5 live this morning which to be fair was very much more balanced and the issue with gowns is extremely complex and just attacking Hancock is lazy and easy journalism. However, his promise of 100,000 test by the end of this month was always going to be a hostage to fortune and it was a promise he did not need to make, it is a self inflicted error that could be costly to him
On masks I accept, that apart from their obvious use in a medical environment, a case can be made for their use whenever close contact becomes inevitable, including using public transport and work environments. I do not support their use when safe distancing is being practised and of course widescale use of masks will be yet another logistic problem, as I cannot see how we achieve millions of masks required daily. Sky did a piece on a textile manufacturer in Lancashire that can produce masks but only at 1,000 a day, which is a small fraction of the daily production needed. Furthermore the fabrics needed mainly have to be imported from China and the far east
On lockdown I do think that at the end of this period HMG needs to look at lifting access to dentists, chiropodists, (both subject to strict covid control procedures) hairdressers, diy and garden centres, again with strict safe spacing and to please eadric, all with face masks. It seems absurd that people have to stay at home but cannot access ordinary diy material such as paints, wallpaper, etc
It does look as if Boris has been very ill with covid but his return, even part time, is really needed to give direction back to HMG which is going through a difficult period, though I am not at all sure that any combination of any of our politicians would have been in a better place. The point was made today that the decision process to date has been shared jointly with the devolved govenments headed by the SNP, Labour and the DUP and so far they have acted in lockstep acoss their political divide
commuting long distances and the ability to wfh are almost exclusively white collar workers and only ~10% of the workforce. The average commute is something 1 to 2 miles. if there is a shift to wfh the impact will be massively skewed to London and the professions. train and tube finances will be horrible.
Pre lockdown commuters were crammed into London tubes and trains like cattle. Any easing of that is a win
Of course any reduction in the use of public transport will make it less viable, certainly for the UK model of making users pay through fares. We may see ourselves moving to a more European model where it is seen more as an essential part of communal living to be funded mostly by government. We could conceivably find that more people want to use public transport, as if people continue to use their cars less, they will find less reason to run multiple cars so will need to use PT occasionally. So less use, but more users.
The days of popping on and off planes like buses are, sadly, gone and we should get with the program.
You may very well be right, in which case international tourism also becomes an expensive luxury. Think of a Eurostar trip to Paris or Amsterdam as a reasonably affordable treat, but two weeks sunning oneself on Rhodes or the Algarve as something that most people on reasonably good incomes only do once every three or four years.
Britain's tourism sector might be able to make good most of the losses from staycationers, but the likes of Spain and Greece will be absolutely fucked.
I doubt that’s true. People and countries will just factor in the risk. Air travel boomed when air travel was still quite dangerous. And what came after ww1 and Spanish flu? The Roaring Twenties
The Roaring Twenties were a USA thing, the UK was very different.
The days of popping on and off planes like buses are, sadly, gone and we should get with the program.
You may very well be right, in which case international tourism also becomes an expensive luxury. Think of a Eurostar trip to Paris or Amsterdam as a reasonably affordable treat, but two weeks sunning oneself on Rhodes or the Algarve as something that most people on reasonably good incomes only do once every three or four years.
Britain's tourism sector might be able to make good most of the losses from staycationers, but the likes of Spain and Greece will be absolutely fucked.
I doubt that’s true. People and countries will just factor in the risk. Air travel boomed when air travel was still quite dangerous. And what came after ww1 and Spanish flu? The Roaring Twenties
The Roaring Twenties were a USA thing, the UK was very different.
We are not going back to how things were. That is pretty much all we can know from here. It will be fascinating to see how things play out.
I can’t say I am enjoying the lockdown, but I am enjoying the fact that nature is getting a breather after decades of relentless human assault. Obviously, it won’t last, but the opportunity to get a glimpse of how things used to be is a huge positive for me.
However, there are many who do not have time to contemplate such things. I imagine that mental health cases are multiplying alongside financial woes. A lot of people are really suffering and the linger it goes on the more if them there will be.
Yesterday morning THE main headline on the BBC website was that the head of an NHS trust had phoned the BBC to get Burberry's phone number to get gowns...
Wow. That’s quite a correction. In context, its a sackable offence.
I will tell you what is a sackable offence.
Running out of gowns meaning rationing of intubation and ventilation.
Stop your pathetic whataboutery
But you were whatabouting Japan just now, and Japan has fucked up ten times as badly as us on the PPE gowns front. Recriminations are not at this stage all that fruitful.
I think there is a cultural issue with lockdown, which is one reason why East Asia is doing better than Europe right now. In Asia people are used to social control and having the residents committee and Mrs Takihashi telling them what to do. The police don't need to be involved in enforcing lockdown.
This is all bollocks, as we've seen no population on earth is as servile to authority as the British, and compliance here with the (non-compulsory) try-to-stay-at-home orders in places where they've been issued is pretty patchy. Young people in the cities generally don't join their neighbourhood associations, and old people don't want to go out and get coronavirus anyhow.
I suppose it might be true somewhere else, but I can't really think where, since I don't think lockdowns were a big part of the strategy in SK or Taiwan, China and Singapore are big on compulsion, and the people of HK are currently not in a mood to be obedient to their government, to put it mildly.
There may be some cultural issues to do with mask-wearing, hand-shaking and general hygiene, but the main difference has been about what the *governments* did, and in particular how fast they did it.
Yesterday morning THE main headline on the BBC website was that the head of an NHS trust had phoned the BBC to get Burberry's phone number to get gowns...
Wow. That’s quite a correction. In context, its a sackable offence.
I will tell you what is a sackable offence.
Running out of gowns meaning rationing of intubation and ventilation.
Stop your pathetic whataboutery
But you were whatabouting Japan just now, and Japan has fucked up ten times as badly as us on the PPE gowns front. Recriminations are not at this stage all that fruitful.
If any one country or group of countries has truly f'd up at all in this respect, of course.
If the entire planetary supply of some of this PPE is insufficient to satisfy present demand, then there will be shortages and they will continue either until sufficient manufacturing capacity is created or until the peak of cases is well past us, whichever happens first.
As I've suggested previously, I'd be surprised if the aftermath of this disaster doesn't include the creation of a much larger domestic industry to make this sort of equipment, along with a huge strategic stockpile of PPE to hedge against any possible recurrence.
I wondered how long it would take to have my first social distancing altercation. Well it happened this morning.
I've been doing a five mile walk every day for the last month. I think the chances of contracting something whilst out walking are incredibly low and, unsurprisingly, the people you encounter whilst out walking feel the same. Most people are being extra courteous and giving more room when they pass etc. But it's just people being polite. I have changed my regular route; not because I'm worried about getting/spreading the virus, but because I want to spend less time worrying about encountering the one twat who thinks other people shouldn't be out.
Unfortunately, that happened this morning. My route goes over a footbridge over a canal. It's twice the width of a regular pavement and people are crossing on the bridge as normal. This is unlike the railway bridge which is much narrower and people are hanging back waiting for the bridge to be clear until crossing.
Anyway, I get on to the canal bridge and coming on to the bridge at the other end is a couple (yes, a couple) walking a dog. They stop side by side on the bridge and the guy holds his arms out as if to say "what are you doing?" I keep walking towards them and they start to go back only to stop when they see someone is behind them. Anyway, they stepped aside and give me the dirtiest of looks as I - quickly - walk past them.
I was so tempted to tell them what I thought of them, but that probably would be a bit risky and they weren't worth it. Ultimately it is up to those who are more concerned to change their behaviour. If they are that concerned then 1) they shouldn't be going out as a couple and 2) go out early in the morning/late at night.
Really not sure I agree with this piece at all. Let's look at the timing of the lockdown as an example. Our GDP is roughly £2trn or £40bn a week. The shutdown is costing us at least 30% of output which means that there is £12bn of lost GDP each week it is in operation. In fact it is much worse than that because government spending is being massively increased (whatever it takes) and private sector tax generating income has largely stopped outside of supermarkets. The longer term economic consequences are frankly horrendous and we do not want to be in lock down for a day more than we need to be.
Why are we in lockdown? It is not to stop the spread of the virus, that is ultimately futile. It is to protect the NHS. This has been achieved. We have seen none of the overwhelming of health services that we have seen in other countries. Indeed you could make the case for much of the country that we locked down too soon. Ninewells hospital in Dundee, the biggest in Tayside, currently has 7 people on ventilators. 7. The resources available are actually not being used to full advantage.
Why is our death rate marginally above average? I would tentatively suggest several reasons. In London we have the most densely populated area in Europe and England generally is some of the most densely populated landmass. This virus loves dense populations, see New York, Madrid, Belgium. We have a large BAME population who seem particularly vulnerable. We have a major obesity problem that does not help. There is no good evidence that we are doing worse than anyone else once these factors are taken into account.
So protect the NHS, tick, don't lock down too soon (tick for London), protect the economy as much as possible in this nightmare, tick. Not everything is right, there are frustrations with PPE and the bravery of NHS staff is remarkable but we are doing alright, possibly slightly better than that.
What he said.
There are multiple factors involved - and some early "successes" are now having "second waves":
Although, as in much of Asia, casual racism is not far below the surface with the implication that its not such a big problem as they are foreign work permit holders who live in cramped communal dorms. Who could have seen that coming?
Once this is all over I do think PHE will have "questions to answer" (and Ministers for not asking them) - "command and control centralised testing" and PPE distribution among them. Also I suspect Care Home lock down should have started sooner - that was a disaster waiting to happen. Finally I remain mystified over this fetishisation of unrestricted international travel - we're among the last to allow it. If it is to carry on, then at least force all arrivals to self quarantine for 14 days on arrival.
Merkel's explanation of the sensitivity of R0 the other day was hard to improve upon.
I hope Boris (or someone) pinches it - it was masterful and the most lucid explanation of the importance of keeping R below 1 I've heard. Even 1.1 leads in short order to disaster.
It showed the difference of having a politician who was a proper scientist. One thing that this crisis has highlighted is that the overwhelming prevalence of arts/PPE graduates in both our politics and our media has done us no favours at all.
We chose the wrong time to have an arty libertarian as PM. I’m a layabout drunk but i was shocked by the blasé foolishness of Boris telling everyone he was still shaking hands
What I found frustrating was how slow our politicians were to pick up on the perils of exponential growth and its health system implications. It was obvious to anyone who looked at the numbers and thought about it. You said so at the time and so did I. Neither of us are scientists but the lack of numeracy in government is troubling. Dominic Cummings is absolutely right about this.
I don't really buy that because as you say "Neither of us are scientists" and nor am I, but we all understand what Merkel was saying and could if pressed have made the point correctly, if less lucidly. And if you litigate, surely you routinely have to understand scientific evidence more complicated than that well enough to defend or attack it, as appropriate? And you and I don't have the benefit of our own scientific advisors who if they are any good are as good at explaining things as they are at understanding them. So I don't think "not a scientist" should be advanced as an excuse or an explanation for any government failure.
We are not going back to how things were. That is pretty much all we can know from here. It will be fascinating to see how things play out.
I can’t say I am enjoying the lockdown, but I am enjoying the fact that nature is getting a breather after decades of relentless human assault. Obviously, it won’t last, but the opportunity to get a glimpse of how things used to be is a huge positive for me.
However, there are many who do not have time to contemplate such things. I imagine that mental health cases are multiplying alongside financial woes. A lot of people are really suffering and the linger it goes on the more if them there will be.
Yes the breather that nature is getting is lovely. I personally don’t want things to go back to how they were. If life post lockdown is a mixture of how it is now and was before, that’s better in my opinion.
Mental health may be improving under lockdown. A couple of my friends who have their own businesses say they feel clear minded for the first time in years. No commuting is a relief to many. People with a tendency to worry/fear the worst are saying they feel strangely comfortable with being proved right! I am sure there are arguments on the other side.
Helps that the govt is paying for people to stay home and not work though
Yesterday morning THE main headline on the BBC website was that the head of an NHS trust had phoned the BBC to get Burberry's phone number to get gowns...
Wow. That’s quite a correction. In context, its a sackable offence.
I will tell you what is a sackable offence.
Running out of gowns meaning rationing of intubation and ventilation.
Stop your pathetic whataboutery
But you were whatabouting Japan just now, and Japan has fucked up ten times as badly as us on the PPE gowns front. Recriminations are not at this stage all that fruitful.
I wondered how long it would take to have my first social distancing altercation. Well it happened this morning.
I've been doing a five mile walk every day for the last month. I think the chances of contracting something whilst out walking are incredibly low and, unsurprisingly, the people you encounter whilst out walking feel the same. Most people are being extra courteous and giving more room when they pass etc. But it's just people being polite. I have changed my regular route; not because I'm worried about getting/spreading the virus, but because I want to spend less time worrying about encountering the one twat who thinks other people shouldn't be out.
Unfortunately, that happened this morning. My route goes over a footbridge over a canal. It's twice the width of a regular pavement and people are crossing on the bridge as normal. This is unlike the railway bridge which is much narrower and people are hanging back waiting for the bridge to be clear until crossing.
Anyway, I get on to the canal bridge and coming on to the bridge at the other end is a couple (yes, a couple) walking a dog. They stop side by side on the bridge and the guy holds his arms out as if to say "what are you doing?" I keep walking towards them and they start to go back only to stop when they see someone is behind them. Anyway, they stepped aside and give me the dirtiest of looks as I - quickly - walk past them.
I was so tempted to tell them what I thought of them, but that probably would be a bit risky and they weren't worth it. Ultimately it is up to those who are more concerned to change their behaviour. If they are that concerned then 1) they shouldn't be going out as a couple and 2) go out early in the morning/late at night.
Who was actually on the bridge first? That's the rule that seems to be observed locally.
Of course any reduction in the use of public transport will make it less viable, certainly for the UK model of making users pay through fares. We may see ourselves moving to a more European model where it is seen more as an essential part of communal living to be funded mostly by government. We could conceivably find that more people want to use public transport, as if people continue to use their cars less, they will find less reason to run multiple cars so will need to use PT occasionally. So less use, but more users.
It's interesting - TfL buses in London are free as of Monday and while, as a public transport user, I'd be delighted to see free tube and train travel, the last time we tried heavily discounted travel the system was overwhelmed because everyone thought free (or very cheap) was a good idea.
Car drivers will of course be angry and they have a point - I do think we need more incentives to car pool and car share but I know from colleagues the car driver "likes their personal space" which I assume means listening to Radiohead or similar.
Yesterday morning THE main headline on the BBC website was that the head of an NHS trust had phoned the BBC to get Burberry's phone number to get gowns...
Wow. That’s quite a correction. In context, its a sackable offence.
I will tell you what is a sackable offence.
Running out of gowns meaning rationing of intubation and ventilation.
Stop your pathetic whataboutery
But you were whatabouting Japan just now, and Japan has fucked up ten times as badly as us on the PPE gowns front. Recriminations are not at this stage all that fruitful.
If any one country or group of countries has truly f'd up at all in this respect, of course.
If the entire planetary supply of some of this PPE is insufficient to satisfy present demand, then there will be shortages and they will continue either until sufficient manufacturing capacity is created or until the peak of cases is well past us, whichever happens first.
As I've suggested previously, I'd be surprised if the aftermath of this disaster doesn't include the creation of a much larger domestic industry to make this sort of equipment, along with a huge strategic stockpile of PPE to hedge against any possible recurrence.
It should do.
But whether the government understands that I have great doubts.
Really not sure I agree with this piece at all. Let's look at the timing of the lockdown as an example. Our GDP is roughly £2trn or £40bn a week. The shutdown is costing us at least 30% of output which means that there is £12bn of lost GDP each week it is in operation. In fact it is much worse than that because government spending is being massively increased (whatever it takes) and private sector tax generating income has largely stopped outside of supermarkets. The longer term economic consequences are frankly horrendous and we do not want to be in lock down for a day more than we need to be.
Why are we in lockdown? It is not to stop the spread of the virus, that is ultimately futile. It is to protect the NHS. This has been achieved. We have seen none of the overwhelming of health services that we have seen in other countries. Indeed you could make the case for much of the country that we locked down too soon. Ninewells hospital in Dundee, the biggest in Tayside, currently has 7 people on ventilators. 7. The resources available are actually not being used to full advantage.
Why is our death rate marginally above average? I would tentatively suggest several reasons. In London we have the most densely populated area in Europe and England generally is some of the most densely populated landmass. This virus loves dense populations, see New York, Madrid, Belgium. We have a large BAME population who seem particularly vulnerable. We have a major obesity problem that does not help. There is no good evidence that we are doing worse than anyone else once these factors are taken into account.
So protect the NHS, tick, don't lock down too soon (tick for London), protect the economy as much as possible in this nightmare, tick. Not everything is right, there are frustrations with PPE and the bravery of NHS staff is remarkable but we are doing alright, possibly slightly better than that.
What he said.
There are multiple factors involved - and some early "successes" are now having "second waves":
Although, as in much of Asia, casual racism is not far below the surface with the implication that its not such a big problem as they are foreign work permit holders who live in cramped communal dorms. Who could have seen that coming?
Once this is all over I do think PHE will have "questions to answer" (and Ministers for not asking them) - "command and control centralised testing" and PPE distribution among them. Also I suspect Care Home lock down should have started sooner - that was a disaster waiting to happen. Finally I remain mystified over this fetishisation of unrestricted international travel - we're among the last to allow it. If it is to carry on, then at least force all arrivals to self quarantine for 14 days on arrival.
Merkel's explanation of the sensitivity of R0 the other day was hard to improve upon.
I hope Boris (or someone) pinches it - it was masterful and the most lucid explanation of the importance of keeping R below 1 I've heard. Even 1.1 leads in short order to disaster.
It showed the difference of having a politician who was a proper scientist. One thing that this crisis has highlighted is that the overwhelming prevalence of arts/PPE graduates in both our politics and our media has done us no favours at all.
We chose the wrong time to have an arty libertarian as PM. I’m a layabout drunk but i was shocked by the blasé foolishness of Boris telling everyone he was still shaking hands
I reckon Boris will have major regret that he didn’t stay with the herd immunity strategy. It’s obviously what he believed was right
It's easy to be critical with hindsight though. If the UK had been only a few days later in locking down, the heath system could have been totally overwhelmed and the headlines would all be about old people being denied access to ventilators. As it is, the media is full of people asking why it happened so late.
You're right that the government is more libertarian in nature than most, and it will have been against all their instincts to trust the scientists and accept the lockdown.
We are not going back to how things were. That is pretty much all we can know from here. It will be fascinating to see how things play out.
I can’t say I am enjoying the lockdown, but I am enjoying the fact that nature is getting a breather after decades of relentless human assault. Obviously, it won’t last, but the opportunity to get a glimpse of how things used to be is a huge positive for me.
However, there are many who do not have time to contemplate such things. I imagine that mental health cases are multiplying alongside financial woes. A lot of people are really suffering and the linger it goes on the more if them there will be.
Mental health cases. Suicides. Physical deterioration from people denied routine surgery or too frightened to seek treatment. People taking less exercise. Higher rates of obesity and related illnesses. Thousands of undiagnosed cancers allowed to keep progressing through the lack of routine screening. There's undoubtedly a tsunami wave of illness coming, it'll certainly be with us long after Covid-19 has been brought under control, and its overall effects on public health may very well be considerably worse than those of the disease itself.
Not that anybody much cares about any of that, or will do in the future. As a diffuse and slow-moving calamity, it will appear as background noise to other events and be very easy for those unaffected by it to ignore.
I wondered how long it would take to have my first social distancing altercation. Well it happened this morning.
I've been doing a five mile walk every day for the last month. I think the chances of contracting something whilst out walking are incredibly low and, unsurprisingly, the people you encounter whilst out walking feel the same. Most people are being extra courteous and giving more room when they pass etc. But it's just people being polite. I have changed my regular route; not because I'm worried about getting/spreading the virus, but because I want to spend less time worrying about encountering the one twat who thinks other people shouldn't be out.
Unfortunately, that happened this morning. My route goes over a footbridge over a canal. It's twice the width of a regular pavement and people are crossing on the bridge as normal. This is unlike the railway bridge which is much narrower and people are hanging back waiting for the bridge to be clear until crossing.
Anyway, I get on to the canal bridge and coming on to the bridge at the other end is a couple (yes, a couple) walking a dog. They stop side by side on the bridge and the guy holds his arms out as if to say "what are you doing?" I keep walking towards them and they start to go back only to stop when they see someone is behind them. Anyway, they stepped aside and give me the dirtiest of looks as I - quickly - walk past them.
I was so tempted to tell them what I thought of them, but that probably would be a bit risky and they weren't worth it. Ultimately it is up to those who are more concerned to change their behaviour. If they are that concerned then 1) they shouldn't be going out as a couple and 2) go out early in the morning/late at night.
It seems it is completely impossible for couples to walk line ahead. In general I can see the virtue in walking side by side as it facilitates talking, but dropping into line when passing someone seems obvious to me.
I wondered how long it would take to have my first social distancing altercation. Well it happened this morning.
I've been doing a five mile walk every day for the last month. I think the chances of contracting something whilst out walking are incredibly low and, unsurprisingly, the people you encounter whilst out walking feel the same. Most people are being extra courteous and giving more room when they pass etc. But it's just people being polite. I have changed my regular route; not because I'm worried about getting/spreading the virus, but because I want to spend less time worrying about encountering the one twat who thinks other people shouldn't be out.
Unfortunately, that happened this morning. My route goes over a footbridge over a canal. It's twice the width of a regular pavement and people are crossing on the bridge as normal. This is unlike the railway bridge which is much narrower and people are hanging back waiting for the bridge to be clear until crossing.
Anyway, I get on to the canal bridge and coming on to the bridge at the other end is a couple (yes, a couple) walking a dog. They stop side by side on the bridge and the guy holds his arms out as if to say "what are you doing?" I keep walking towards them and they start to go back only to stop when they see someone is behind them. Anyway, they stepped aside and give me the dirtiest of looks as I - quickly - walk past them.
I was so tempted to tell them what I thought of them, but that probably would be a bit risky and they weren't worth it. Ultimately it is up to those who are more concerned to change their behaviour. If they are that concerned then 1) they shouldn't be going out as a couple and 2) go out early in the morning/late at night.
Who was actually on the bridge first? That's the rule that seems to be observed locally.
Me, just, though they seemed to think that I should have turned back because there was someone behind them (who I couldn't see).
To be honest I was just incredulous that anyone would be that worried about passing on that bridge and were walking together as a couple.
For quite a number of people it is less 'being placed under house arrest' than having a conscience free opportunity to get paid most or all of your pay for not working. The question for now is not 'Does this beat freedom?' but 'Does this beat work?'
This group - millions strong, and added to by millions more 'working' from home - is keeping fairly quiet for now.
The days of popping on and off planes like buses are, sadly, gone and we should get with the program.
You may very well be right, in which case international tourism also becomes an expensive luxury. Think of a Eurostar trip to Paris or Amsterdam as a reasonably affordable treat, but two weeks sunning oneself on Rhodes or the Algarve as something that most people on reasonably good incomes only do once every three or four years.
Britain's tourism sector might be able to make good most of the losses from staycationers, but the likes of Spain and Greece will be absolutely fucked.
I doubt that’s true. People and countries will just factor in the risk. Air travel boomed when air travel was still quite dangerous. And what came after ww1 and Spanish flu? The Roaring Twenties
The Roaring Twenties were a USA thing, the UK was very different.
America did much better than the UK in the 1920s, granted, but even in the UK there was a general surge in growth after the horrors of 1914-1920.
My larger point is about human nature. Young people will still want to travel, explore, make money. The global population is still growing. Technological innovation will not end.
I see light at the end of this somewhat dismal tunnel.
Also worth noting that the 1920s and 30s were amazing for scientific and artistic advances. Possibly the most fertile decades, in that sense, in human history
The desire will be there.
Whether the means and opportunities will be is doubtful.
I wondered how long it would take to have my first social distancing altercation. Well it happened this morning.
I've been doing a five mile walk every day for the last month. I think the chances of contracting something whilst out walking are incredibly low and, unsurprisingly, the people you encounter whilst out walking feel the same. Most people are being extra courteous and giving more room when they pass etc. But it's just people being polite. I have changed my regular route; not because I'm worried about getting/spreading the virus, but because I want to spend less time worrying about encountering the one twat who thinks other people shouldn't be out.
Unfortunately, that happened this morning. My route goes over a footbridge over a canal. It's twice the width of a regular pavement and people are crossing on the bridge as normal. This is unlike the railway bridge which is much narrower and people are hanging back waiting for the bridge to be clear until crossing.
Anyway, I get on to the canal bridge and coming on to the bridge at the other end is a couple (yes, a couple) walking a dog. They stop side by side on the bridge and the guy holds his arms out as if to say "what are you doing?" I keep walking towards them and they start to go back only to stop when they see someone is behind them. Anyway, they stepped aside and give me the dirtiest of looks as I - quickly - walk past them.
I was so tempted to tell them what I thought of them, but that probably would be a bit risky and they weren't worth it. Ultimately it is up to those who are more concerned to change their behaviour. If they are that concerned then 1) they shouldn't be going out as a couple and 2) go out early in the morning/late at night.
It seems it is completely impossible for couples to walk line ahead. In general I can see the virtue in walking side by side as it facilitates talking, but dropping into line when passing someone seems obvious to me.
It's surprising how many couples don't actually do that. Not only do they not care about the virus (understandable), they're not worried about politeness.
What I found frustrating was how slow our politicians were to pick up on the perils of exponential growth and its health system implications. It was obvious to anyone who looked at the numbers and thought about it.
That was what Thatcher understood about compound growth and the pernicious nature of "managed decline" and the then poisonous acceptance in the governing classes that Britain was "destined" to grow more slowly than her peers.
We are not going back to how things were. That is pretty much all we can know from here. It will be fascinating to see how things play out.
I can’t say I am enjoying the lockdown, but I am enjoying the fact that nature is getting a breather after decades of relentless human assault. Obviously, it won’t last, but the opportunity to get a glimpse of how things used to be is a huge positive for me.
However, there are many who do not have time to contemplate such things. I imagine that mental health cases are multiplying alongside financial woes. A lot of people are really suffering and the linger it goes on the more if them there will be.
Yes the breather that nature is getting is lovely. I personally don’t want things to go back to how they were. If life post lockdown is a mixture of how it is now and was before, that’s better in my opinion.
Mental health may be improving under lockdown. A couple of my friends who have their own businesses say they feel clear minded for the first time in years. No commuting is a relief to many. People with a tendency to worry/fear the worst are saying they feel strangely comfortable with being proved right! I am sure there are arguments on the other side.
Helps that the govt is paying for people to stay home and not work though
Tell me all about this 'gov't paying for people to stay at home and not work through'. I am yet to see any sign of a penny.
I’ve noticed. Tuned back into the news yesterday to see that we’re moving into Italy, Spain territory. The difference with Germany is stark.
Hasn't that always been the case? Certainly it might have been hoped our numbers would end up better than Spain or Italy, but there was a lot of talk about being 1-2 weeks 'behind' them, so I thought it was less a case of us 'moving' into that territory as always being in it.
The days of popping on and off planes like buses are, sadly, gone and we should get with the program.
You may very well be right, in which case international tourism also becomes an expensive luxury. Think of a Eurostar trip to Paris or Amsterdam as a reasonably affordable treat, but two weeks sunning oneself on Rhodes or the Algarve as something that most people on reasonably good incomes only do once every three or four years.
Britain's tourism sector might be able to make good most of the losses from staycationers, but the likes of Spain and Greece will be absolutely fucked.
I doubt that’s true. People and countries will just factor in the risk. Air travel boomed when air travel was still quite dangerous. And what came after ww1 and Spanish flu? The Roaring Twenties
That was a hundred years ago, and most people living in the 1920s were not enjoying upmarket lifestyles.
I think you have an accumulation of factors working against the travel and tourism sector coming out of all this. A lot of people are going to see their finances hit very hard and won't be able to afford to travel, or at any rate to travel abroad, for years. There will be the lingering folk memory of the disasters that have befallen a great many people - and not just cruise ship passengers - who found themselves stuck abroad at the wrong time. Air transportation is bound to become significantly dearer if much of the competition on air routes is removed through collapse or merger of airlines, and if aircraft are taking off half-empty (through lack of available customers and/or the imposition of social distancing measures.) And the environmental lobby loathes air travel above almost all else, and will want green taxes on aviation held in place and ideally extended.
In short, if there isn't a major ongoing recession in air travel and international tourism, even after the coronavirus is finally brought under control, then that might be considered something of a surprise?
The air travel and tourism industry is going to be totally screwed by this, there's going to be an awful lot of bankruptcies and redundancies across the sector. Not a good time to be an airline or a plane manufacturer.
There's going to be a general aversion to being very close to others for a long time to come, and that definitely includes queues to check in, clear the security theatre and sit in an economy-class seat for hours on end. Countries that rely on inbound tourism (Spain and Greece again) are going to suffer massively in the aftermath as people choose to holiday locally rather than fly abroad.
Business travel will also be down, as people have quickly adapted to remote working and realise that Skype and Webex can achieve the majority of what an in-person meeting can do, for a fraction of the cost. Conferences and exhibitions are also going to be very difficult for the next few years.
On the positive side, it will be good news for old, neglected seaside towns such as Blackpool and Southend.
Comments
The outbreak has highlighted underlying weaknesses in medical care in Japan, which has long been praised for its high quality insurance system and reasonable costs. Apart from a general unwillingness to embrace social distancing, experts fault government incompetence and a widespread shortage of the protective gear and equipment medical workers need to do their jobs.
Japan lacks enough hospital beds, medical workers or equipment. Forcing hospitalization of anyone with the virus, even those with mild symptoms, has left hospitals overcrowded and understaffed.
The “collapse of emergency medicine” has already happened, a precursor to the overall collapse of medicine, the Japanese Association for Acute Medicine and the Japanese Society for Emergency Medicine said in a joint statement. By turning away patients, hospitals are putting an excessive burden on the limited number of advanced and critical emergency centers, the groups said.
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/wave-infections-threatens-collapse-japan-hospitals-70220083
Anecdote but my wife (healthcare worker) takes the bus to work everyday. Since just before the lockdown rules were changed that she needed to come into work in casual clothes then get changed at work.
She said that since just after the lockdown an old man has been sat in his garden by the bus stop and has been shouting at people who go to the bus stop demanding to know why they're out and about, but the old man hadn't shouted at her despite not wearing her uniform and she wasn't sure why. I suggested he'd probably been watching the street before this began and recognised her from wearing her uniform in the past and has seen her travel daily.
"WTF are the Americans doing"
Beyond saying Trump is insane I have no idea what to say.
You are trying to argue we haven't done badly
Get real
Basically, if the population is given hope of a move towards a position that is easier to live with, then most people will keep working with the Government. If they're made to keep plodding along indefinitely with the current measures, which are clearly economically unsustainable in any event, then they will despair and the lockdown will eventually begin to unravel.
When we get towards the end of this second three-week period then we should be looking for an indication from Government as to how close we are to easing the lockdown, and what the order of priority is for reopening various sectors of the economy. Discretionary retail should be doable with restrictions to customer numbers that allow for social distancing, similar to what's seen in supermarkets; restaurants and cafes could also reopen, with the use of fewer, more spaced-out tables and/or partitioning, and perhaps masks for serving staff; ditto services like hairdressers; and there will have to be at least a worked-out plan for the reopening of nurseries and schools.
The more of the economy that we can get back up and running, and the wider the range of amenities that is reopened for the general population to enjoy, then clearly the less serious the economic damage and the more likely it is that the remaining social distancing measures will continue to retain broad public support.
I played England as Eleanor of Aquitaine and had Scotland right next to me. We actually got on incredibly well, even after my supreme cultural power made every city (even the capital) swear loyalty to me. The only exception was a far flung little city in the middle of nowhere.
On daily life the segregation could be done at shops - oldies shopping a.m. and others p.m. perhaps. Or in buses oldies downstairs and others upstairs, with orderly queues of the two groups left and right of the bus stop. Or walking in the town, oldies on one side of the road others on the opposite side. I hope all these kind of considerations are being chewed over by the nudge unit and other behavioural specialists.
Anyway, I think I'm lucky that I've got someone to share the boredom with. I think we'll probably ask her if she wants to come and stay today. It's only three or four weeks...
It also shows that 10% are now wearing a mask in public. There is no difference between male/female or leave/remain but a big geographical difference. 17% in London are wearing masks in public (I'm one of them) but only 6% in Scotland. I guess that is not surprising.
https://tinyurl.com/yabkuw4z
A vaccine would be a game changer but we need to do this stuff to avoid the spike of death anyway.
Japanese hospitals also lack ICUs, with only five per 100,000 people, compared to about 30 in Germany, 35 in the U.S. and 12 in Italy, said Osamu Nishida, head of the Japanese Society of Intensive Care Medicine.
Italy’s 10% mortality rate, compared to Germany’s 1%, is partly due to the shortage of ICU facilities, Nishida said. “Japan, with ICUs not even half of Italy's, is expected to face a fatality overshoot very quickly,” he said.
Japan has been limiting testing for the coronavirus mainly because of rules requiring any patients to be hospitalized. Surging infections have prompted the Health Ministry to loosen those rules and move patients with milder symptoms to hotels to free up beds for those requiring more care.
The 2012 OECD report had UK Critical Care beds in the UK at 6.6 per 100,000.
Britain's tourism sector might be able to make good most of the losses from staycationers, but the likes of Spain and Greece will be absolutely fucked.
The need for more PPE equipment is more a specific concern for hospital staff.
Locking down earlier would not necessarily have made much difference either given Sweden has still not locked down and still has the same death rate per head as the UK if not slightly better but the Swedes are also testing a bit more than we are.
Yesterday even France overtook us on tests per capita and the USA is also well ahead of us too as is Italy and Spain. So if the UK government should be focusing on anything it is expanding testing and tracing for Covid 19
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=121435242847210&set=gm.2550780201862560&type=3&eid=ARB6IdAVVJLmbjC32r2DNr_JLkfD2RMW9SwqFI3K_ZArI3Tokfm1xhxwN5j6tNUPZqXmybQMAh7wWl2w
The bill for all this is going to be gigantic and we are the ones who are going to paying for it one way or another. You are kidding yourself if you think you are going to be maintaining your pre-virus living standard.
You are itching for the lockdown to end so are egging on people breaking it a la Trump. Obviously some people will over step the mark in telling off others, there have always been people like that but comparing the vast majority of people who just want to see the rules fairly apply to everyone to wartime collaborators is ridiculous.
Whoops.... 'clarify'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52333540
This helps to explain why the plateau phase could last a long time and how dangerous the post-lockdown phase could be.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/world/europe/coronavirus-antibody-test-uk.html
"An interesting study has emerged in the US which found that the number of people infected with coronavirus could be as much as 85 times higher than previously thought.
The study from Stanford University, which was released Friday, tested samples from 3,330 people in Santa Clara county, in California, and found the virus was 50 to 85 times more common than official figures indicated.
The study, the first large-scale one of its kind and has yet to be peer reviewed, was conducted by identifying antibodies in healthy individuals through a finger prick test, indicating whether they had already contracted and recovered from the virus.
At the time of the study, Santa Clara county had 1,094 confirmed cases of Covid-19, resulting in 50 deaths. But, based on the rate of people who have antibodies, it is likely that between 48,000 and 81,000 people had been infected in the county by early April – a number approximately 50 to 80 times higher."
(Guardian blog)
Oh and about the fact that we don't have a PM right now?
All tickety boo?
Jeez I have for ages been asking these questions and it seems the press is finally catching up.
Running out of gowns meaning rationing of intubation and ventilation.
Stop your pathetic whataboutery
https://twitter.com/stefsimanowitz/status/1250894405323628545?s=21
PS. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/17/test-trace-lessons-hong-kong-avoiding-coronavirus-lockdown
I think you have an accumulation of factors working against the travel and tourism sector coming out of all this. A lot of people are going to see their finances hit very hard and won't be able to afford to travel, or at any rate to travel abroad, for years. There will be the lingering folk memory of the disasters that have befallen a great many people - and not just cruise ship passengers - who found themselves stuck abroad at the wrong time. Air transportation is bound to become significantly dearer if much of the competition on air routes is removed through collapse or merger of airlines, and if aircraft are taking off half-empty (through lack of available customers and/or the imposition of social distancing measures.) And the environmental lobby loathes air travel above almost all else, and will want green taxes on aviation held in place and ideally extended.
In short, if there isn't a major ongoing recession in air travel and international tourism, even after the coronavirus is finally brought under control, then that might be considered something of a surprise?
https://twitter.com/commons41570174/status/1251444936823713792?s=21
A deputy isn't a leader it is a deputy for a leader who is out of commission.
Unless, perish the thought, how could I think it, someone was seeking publicity or to make a political point.
https://twitter.com/chrisshipitv/status/1251439252967174145?s=20
https://twitter.com/chrisshipitv/status/1251441220825624587?s=20
Has Hancock resigned over gowns yet?
https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1251286389913784321?s=20
There seems to be plenty of criticism here.
I think David's header has some well argued points but maybe with hindsight, it is easier to be critical.
I would make the following points and they are in IMHO
Matt Hancock is under huge pressure and it is showing. I heard a report on 5 live this morning which to be fair was very much more balanced and the issue with gowns is extremely complex and just attacking Hancock is lazy and easy journalism. However, his promise of 100,000 test by the end of this month was always going to be a hostage to fortune and it was a promise he did not need to make, it is a self inflicted error that could be costly to him
On masks I accept, that apart from their obvious use in a medical environment, a case can be made for their use whenever close contact becomes inevitable, including using public transport and work environments. I do not support their use when safe distancing is being practised and of course widescale use of masks will be yet another logistic problem, as I cannot see how we achieve millions of masks required daily. Sky did a piece on a textile manufacturer in Lancashire that can produce masks but only at 1,000 a day, which is a small fraction of the daily production needed. Furthermore the fabrics needed mainly have to be imported from China and the far east
On lockdown I do think that at the end of this period HMG needs to look at lifting access to dentists, chiropodists, (both subject to strict covid control procedures) hairdressers, diy and garden centres, again with strict safe spacing and to please eadric, all with face masks. It seems absurd that people have to stay at home but cannot access ordinary diy material such as paints, wallpaper, etc
It does look as if Boris has been very ill with covid but his return, even part time, is really needed to give direction back to HMG which is going through a difficult period, though I am not at all sure that any combination of any of our politicians would have been in a better place. The point was made today that the decision process to date has been shared jointly with the devolved govenments headed by the SNP, Labour and the DUP and so far they have acted in lockstep acoss their political divide
I can’t say I am enjoying the lockdown, but I am enjoying the fact that nature is getting a breather after decades of relentless human assault. Obviously, it won’t last, but the opportunity to get a glimpse of how things used to be is a huge positive for me.
However, there are many who do not have time to contemplate such things. I imagine that mental health cases are multiplying alongside financial woes. A lot of people are really suffering and the linger it goes on the more if them there will be.
I suppose it might be true somewhere else, but I can't really think where, since I don't think lockdowns were a big part of the strategy in SK or Taiwan, China and Singapore are big on compulsion, and the people of HK are currently not in a mood to be obedient to their government, to put it mildly.
There may be some cultural issues to do with mask-wearing, hand-shaking and general hygiene, but the main difference has been about what the *governments* did, and in particular how fast they did it.
If the entire planetary supply of some of this PPE is insufficient to satisfy present demand, then there will be shortages and they will continue either until sufficient manufacturing capacity is created or until the peak of cases is well past us, whichever happens first.
As I've suggested previously, I'd be surprised if the aftermath of this disaster doesn't include the creation of a much larger domestic industry to make this sort of equipment, along with a huge strategic stockpile of PPE to hedge against any possible recurrence.
But more significantly, I received a letter this morning that my fathers care home now has 3 cases and 8 symptomatic residents. 😱
I've been doing a five mile walk every day for the last month. I think the chances of contracting something whilst out walking are incredibly low and, unsurprisingly, the people you encounter whilst out walking feel the same. Most people are being extra courteous and giving more room when they pass etc. But it's just people being polite. I have changed my regular route; not because I'm worried about getting/spreading the virus, but because I want to spend less time worrying about encountering the one twat who thinks other people shouldn't be out.
Unfortunately, that happened this morning. My route goes over a footbridge over a canal. It's twice the width of a regular pavement and people are crossing on the bridge as normal. This is unlike the railway bridge which is much narrower and people are hanging back waiting for the bridge to be clear until crossing.
Anyway, I get on to the canal bridge and coming on to the bridge at the other end is a couple (yes, a couple) walking a dog. They stop side by side on the bridge and the guy holds his arms out as if to say "what are you doing?" I keep walking towards them and they start to go back only to stop when they see someone is behind them. Anyway, they stepped aside and give me the dirtiest of looks as I - quickly - walk past them.
I was so tempted to tell them what I thought of them, but that probably would be a bit risky and they weren't worth it. Ultimately it is up to those who are more concerned to change their behaviour. If they are that concerned then 1) they shouldn't be going out as a couple and 2) go out early in the morning/late at night.
Mental health may be improving under lockdown. A couple of my friends who have their own businesses say they feel clear minded for the first time in years. No commuting is a relief to many. People with a tendency to worry/fear the worst are saying they feel strangely comfortable with being proved right! I am sure there are arguments on the other side.
Helps that the govt is paying for people to stay home and not work though
Car drivers will of course be angry and they have a point - I do think we need more incentives to car pool and car share but I know from colleagues the car driver "likes their personal space" which I assume means listening to Radiohead or similar.
But whether the government understands that I have great doubts.
You're right that the government is more libertarian in nature than most, and it will have been against all their instincts to trust the scientists and accept the lockdown.
Best of luck to you both.
Not that anybody much cares about any of that, or will do in the future. As a diffuse and slow-moving calamity, it will appear as background noise to other events and be very easy for those unaffected by it to ignore.
To be honest I was just incredulous that anyone would be that worried about passing on that bridge and were walking together as a couple.
This group - millions strong, and added to by millions more 'working' from home - is keeping fairly quiet for now.
Whether the means and opportunities will be is doubtful.
There's going to be a general aversion to being very close to others for a long time to come, and that definitely includes queues to check in, clear the security theatre and sit in an economy-class seat for hours on end. Countries that rely on inbound tourism (Spain and Greece again) are going to suffer massively in the aftermath as people choose to holiday locally rather than fly abroad.
Business travel will also be down, as people have quickly adapted to remote working and realise that Skype and Webex can achieve the majority of what an in-person meeting can do, for a fraction of the cost. Conferences and exhibitions are also going to be very difficult for the next few years.
On the positive side, it will be good news for old, neglected seaside towns such as Blackpool and Southend.