168 Spanish cruise passengers disembarking in Barcelona: the Government of Spain is coordinating an operation to facilitate the disembarkation of 168 Spaniards and other European passengers who had been sailing on a cruise ship since January and which, due to severe restrictions due to the COVID19 pandemic , had not been able to touch land since last March 14, as reported by the Government itself in a statement. The operation, which is taking place from early this morning in the Port of Barcelona thanks to a special authorization from the Ministry of Healthcare that exempts the ship from the general prohibition of docking in Spanish ports, is making it easier for Spaniards to return to their homes, from which they left earlier this year to enjoy a cruise whose final destination was Venice. Can’t imagine that was fun!
Do you know the ship's name. We have disembarked cruise ships twice in Barcelona
@ianb2 would be the best source of info I think, the news article didn’t name it
Any bailout to any company should be limited to the amount of tax that they have paid in the last 3 years.
If they are registered in another tax domain, let that place bail them out. If an essential company for some reason, buy up the assets at firesale prices upon liquidation.
Companies need to learn the financial cost of off shoring, as well as the effect on stability of manufacturing chains.
Slight drawback to that first suggestion of yours: any non-monopolistic, non-gouging, non-rent-seeking company would be screwed, no matter how honest they've been.
I was always taught that profit margins of 3% (for manufacturing) and 4% (for services) were about par. Above that, and they're doing something funky (maybe they are incredibly efficient (so why isn't everyone copying them?), or maybe they've got a dedicated band of customers who they can gouge at will, or maybe they're monopolistic, or dodgy). So, say you're at that level and you spend nothing on growth or paying down debt. You pay the full 20% on your profits. After three years, you've paid 1.8%-2.4% of your turnover on tax, so that's the limit of what you'd allow them.
That's 6 to 9 days of turnover.
The richest companies, and the most monopolistic and gouging and rent-seeking - they'd be fine, though. Those who have the least markup for their customers: bye-bye.
One thing that the BBC should do, that would be educationalist to follow some small businesses through startup etc. Documentary style.
One thing that became clear when that comedy about the cereal cafe near Brick Lane in London came up - a big portion of the population have absolutely no idea of how a business works, the bills they pay and legal obligations they have.
I reduced a couple of people I know to slack jawed astonishment... I just pointed that even if you are selling nothing, just providing a chair in an inhabitable space, and maybe Wifi, *someone* need to pay a serious amount per hour for it to work.
I still remember Harvey Jones's "Troubleshooter" series which sadly ended 20 years ago now. It was a little simplistic but gave some idea of how to run a business. In more recent times there was Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares which included explanations to those who thought that they could run a restaurant because they could cook. But the lack of interest in business and indeed making money is endemic in our media, not just the BBC.
The problem is compounded by things like the Apprentice, where the Pound Shop Donald Trump teaches spivery = business.
Firstly the UK does not have the highest death toll in Europe but only the 4th highest and second if it was raining today scotgoespop would say that made a powerful new case for independence.
And you would indubitably say that the wet stuff strengthens the Union.
We could certainly do with some rain. The woodland paths I am frequenting on my daily permitted exercise are turning into dust bowls and the burns are as low as mid summer. Time @SouthamObserver was forecasting a drought. That always brings a good dose of rain.
Yep, a few well timed cloudbursts between 1am-6am would be just the thing.
If Nicola can't organise this I may never vote SNP again!
Any bailout to any company should be limited to the amount of tax that they have paid in the last 3 years.
If they are registered in another tax domain, let that place bail them out. If an essential company for some reason, buy up the assets at firesale prices upon liquidation.
Companies need to learn the financial cost of off shoring, as well as the effect on stability of manufacturing chains.
Companies shouldn’t be bailed out at all, unless they’re of national strategic importance to dealing with the crisis. People should be bailed out if they lose their jobs, which is what’s happening in practice.
The crunch will co e when the furlough scheme ends, and a lot of people move from earning £2k a month in support to the more usual unemployment benefit and universal credit.
Not sure I agree with this. We need a viable working economy. If enough companies fall over even those that might have survived will fall too. Bad debt and supply issues will kill them. These are extraordinary times but I think that the public purse is going to have to take the strain of this so that people remain employed, taxes continue to be paid in the medium turn and life returns to something approaching normalcy. The cost is mind boggling and QE still scares me but the alternatives are worse.
Why don't the entrepreneurs and wealth creators just create more wealth?
That's what they do isn't it?
Because the government isn't permitting them to do so?
You mean they need a functioning society to operate in?
Next you will be telling me they make their money by extracting the surplus value of other's labour.
"Mr Johnson is concerned that relatively little is known about the effect that easing individual restrictions could have on the transmission rate."
Er, Sweden?
The issue is that their stats are worth precisely zero. It's not a cover up there so much as it is purposefully under counting by not testing and not hospitalising likely cases and they only count deaths in hospitals and don't have a general data release on total weekly/monthly deaths like we do to see what's happening outside of hospitals.
Liam Fox was talking about deaths per million citizens today and pointed out that the country with the highest rate on that measure is lockdown Belgium, with more than 400.
Mayor of Middlesbrough has a problem; he has closed all the parks near where people live on the basis of questionable spreadsheet from an obscure thinktank.
Now he is making unnecessary journeys around the city making videos telling people where he thinks they should be exercising. Including dogs off leads and small children in the same place.
Robert Jenrick said the other day that parks should remain open.
We had a funny cycle here where they closed the cemeteries for one day, then reopened them after all the other local councils did not close them.
Which is weird, I have cycled through our central cemetery half a dozen times on exercise and it has been almost deserted. But we are still I think ramping up in this area.
The only possible issue was 2 lads on bikes sitting at opposite ends of a bench, who could have been friends - but gathering of two are explicitly permitted in the law.
I think the MoL has committed himself to a hole and can't stop digging.
ne thing that the BBC should do, that would be educationalist to follow some small businesses through startup etc. Documentary style.
One thing that became clear when that comedy about the cereal cafe near Brick Lane in London came up - a big portion of the population have absolutely no idea of how a business works, the bills they pay and legal obligations they have.
I reduced a couple of people I know to slack jawed astonishment... I just pointed that even if you are selling nothing, just providing a chair in an inhabitable space, and maybe Wifi, *someone* need to pay a serious amount per hour for it to work.
People think stuff just happens. Local yokels on Twitbook very upset with the council owned hotel wanting to charge for rooms for key workers. "JUST GIVE THEM AWAY AT COST" is the cry. Yes. A partially closed hotel unable to generate any revenue other than rooms to keyworkers will have a pretty heavy loading of fixed costs per room. That it is partially closed does nothing to reduce / remove its fixed costs, and its operating costs won't have shrunk by that much. Nor would they be happy picking up these bills...
A local hotel in West London was advertising (big banners) £20-30 a night for NHS and essential workers. Within 1 hours walk of a bunch of hospitals (probably 30 min for a couple).
A number of people on a local forum tried to have a go for price gouging. Has anyone *outside* London seen a hotel room that cheap in decades?
In more normal times, you’d struggle to get any room in central London much under £100 a night.
Just as we were slow to enter I suspect we'll be slow to exit.
Most European countries are starting to lift some restrictions now.
Although for many, that is involving returning to a lockdown state that is still no less restrictive than the U.K.
Really? From BBC news:
“ On Monday, in Germany small shops will be allowed to open and schools will resume for those classes that have graduation exams coming up.
Last week Berlin said the infection rate had slowed and that the outbreak was under control - while warning that people had to remain vigilant to avoid a second wave of infections.
Also from Monday, Poland will re-open parks and forests and in Norway, nursery schools will reopen their doors to children. The Czech Republic will allow open-air markets to trade and in Albania, the mining and oil industries can operate again.”
Well, that's mixed. We haven't (mostly) closed parks and forests and my local market is certainly still operating.
The U.K. lockdown is not as strict as measures imposed in many other countries, who are not allowing any leaving of the house except to buy groceries or medicines, and have police and even army on the streets enforcing the measures.
I think it is only Spain in Europe that has even banned outside exercise
Russia has. One of my Russian friends on Strava is running laps of his dacha. Both Italy and France have brought in much stricter conditions - in France it has to be a maximum of 1 hour and within a km of your home, and at least in some places including Paris, not during daytime.
I’d assumed that that the idea was to let people get some fresh air, walk the dog etc. I was surprised to hear that people are doing 10km runs, 40km bike rides and getting in cars to go to parks - none of which seem to me to be in the spirit of the regulations.
I go for 10-12km walks pretty much every day which typically takes 2 hours. I am not just getting fresh air but exercise that will improve fitness and lung capacity. Along with forsaking alcohol and losing some weight this is my cunning plan to beat the virus. I would be seriously disappointed if this was stopped because there is a problem with social distancing in the likes of London.
168 Spanish cruise passengers disembarking in Barcelona: the Government of Spain is coordinating an operation to facilitate the disembarkation of 168 Spaniards and other European passengers who had been sailing on a cruise ship since January and which, due to severe restrictions due to the COVID19 pandemic , had not been able to touch land since last March 14, as reported by the Government itself in a statement. The operation, which is taking place from early this morning in the Port of Barcelona thanks to a special authorization from the Ministry of Healthcare that exempts the ship from the general prohibition of docking in Spanish ports, is making it easier for Spaniards to return to their homes, from which they left earlier this year to enjoy a cruise whose final destination was Venice. Can’t imagine that was fun!
Do you know the ship's name. We have disembarked cruise ships twice in Barcelona
@ianb2 would be the best source of info I think, the news article didn’t name it
168 Spanish cruise passengers disembarking in Barcelona: the Government of Spain is coordinating an operation to facilitate the disembarkation of 168 Spaniards and other European passengers who had been sailing on a cruise ship since January and which, due to severe restrictions due to the COVID19 pandemic , had not been able to touch land since last March 14, as reported by the Government itself in a statement. The operation, which is taking place from early this morning in the Port of Barcelona thanks to a special authorization from the Ministry of Healthcare that exempts the ship from the general prohibition of docking in Spanish ports, is making it easier for Spaniards to return to their homes, from which they left earlier this year to enjoy a cruise whose final destination was Venice. Can’t imagine that was fun!
Do you know the ship's name. We have disembarked cruise ships twice in Barcelona
Looking at the data there are two critical government actions that have made a difference. The date the lockdown was stated and the amount of testing performed. On the first criteria the UK was about average and on the second well below average. The respirator issue has been a bit of a red herring as we have learnt they don't save that many patients overall. The PPE issue is important as it saves key worker lives but in the end as most isolation staff are young, fit and healthy the impact on death rates is fairly low. The care homes issue has also been an issue globally with no easy answers outside better testing.
The net result is we are sitting in the bottom half of the table. Can the Government now do better? If we are too slow to ease lockdown our industry will be wiped out by competition and the pound will crash. If we don't manage it well we have a second outbreak. On a final point if we don't get our testing in place then no one in the UK will be going anywhere for a long time. Brexit will be true isolation as we become a leper colony.
Firstly the UK does not have the highest death toll in Europe but only the 4th highest and second if it was raining today scotgoespop would say that made a powerful new case for independence.
And you would indubitably say that the wet stuff strengthens the Union.
We could certainly do with some rain. The woodland paths I am frequenting on my daily permitted exercise are turning into dust bowls and the burns are as low as mid summer. Time @SouthamObserver was forecasting a drought. That always brings a good dose of rain.
They haven't used the d-word on the RTÉ weather forecasts yet, but they do show soil moisture deficits and they say that they're currently high enough to inhibit crop growth in Ulster, spreading south to parts of Connacht and Leinster by the end of the week.
ne thing that the BBC should do, that would be educationalist to follow some small businesses through startup etc. Documentary style.
One thing that became clear when that comedy about the cereal cafe near Brick Lane in London came up - a big portion of the population have absolutely no idea of how a business works, the bills they pay and legal obligations they have.
I reduced a couple of people I know to slack jawed astonishment... I just pointed that even if you are selling nothing, just providing a chair in an inhabitable space, and maybe Wifi, *someone* need to pay a serious amount per hour for it to work.
People think stuff just happens. Local yokels on Twitbook very upset with the council owned hotel wanting to charge for rooms for key workers. "JUST GIVE THEM AWAY AT COST" is the cry. Yes. A partially closed hotel unable to generate any revenue other than rooms to keyworkers will have a pretty heavy loading of fixed costs per room. That it is partially closed does nothing to reduce / remove its fixed costs, and its operating costs won't have shrunk by that much. Nor would they be happy picking up these bills...
A local hotel in West London was advertising (big banners) £20-30 a night for NHS and essential workers. Within 1 hours walk of a bunch of hospitals (probably 30 min for a couple).
A number of people on a local forum tried to have a go for price gouging. Has anyone *outside* London seen a hotel room that cheap in decades?
In more normal times, you’d struggle to get any room in central London much under £100 a night.
Quite - the going rate for barely habitable stuff is north of £50 locally, in normal times
Mr Hopson gave the example of an expected consignment of 200,000 gowns from China which actually only contained 20,000 gowns when it arrived last week.
"We know that with other orders, when the boxes were opened up and it said on the outside 'gowns', when you opened it up, they were actually masks," he said
The stories of supplies from China when it is more crucial than ever that they are what they say they are...dodgy test kits, masks that are worse than wearing a scarf, the list goes on and on.
Going forward it is clear it is a national security issue to be able to produce crucial items.
Just as we were slow to enter I suspect we'll be slow to exit.
Most European countries are starting to lift some restrictions now.
Although for many, that is involving returning to a lockdown state that is still no less restrictive than the U.K.
Really? From BBC news:
“ On Monday, in Germany small shops will be allowed to open and schools will resume for those classes that have graduation exams coming up.
Last week Berlin said the infection rate had slowed and that the outbreak was under control - while warning that people had to remain vigilant to avoid a second wave of infections.
Also from Monday, Poland will re-open parks and forests and in Norway, nursery schools will reopen their doors to children. The Czech Republic will allow open-air markets to trade and in Albania, the mining and oil industries can operate again.”
Well, that's mixed. We haven't (mostly) closed parks and forests and my local market is certainly still operating.
The U.K. lockdown is not as strict as measures imposed in many other countries, who are not allowing any leaving of the house except to buy groceries or medicines, and have police and even army on the streets enforcing the measures.
I think it is only Spain in Europe that has even banned outside exercise
Russia has. One of my Russian friends on Strava is running laps of his dacha. Both Italy and France have brought in much stricter conditions - in France it has to be a maximum of 1 hour and within a km of your home, and at least in some places including Paris, not during daytime.
I’d assumed that that the idea was to let people get some fresh air, walk the dog etc. I was surprised to hear that people are doing 10km runs, 40km bike rides and getting in cars to go to parks - none of which seem to me to be in the spirit of the regulations.
I go for 10-12km walks pretty much every day which typically takes 2 hours. I am not just getting fresh air but exercise that will improve fitness and lung capacity. Along with forsaking alcohol and losing some weight this is my cunning plan to beat the virus. I would be seriously disappointed if this was stopped because there is a problem with social distancing in the likes of London.
That’s a fair point. Maybe I’m just a grumpy young-ish city dweller who hasn’t left his 1,000 sq ft apartment in three weeks!
When the cabinet sees the avalanche of businesses and workers applying for relief, perhaps the sheer scale of the damage to the economy their policy is causing will start to get real for them.
Up until now its just been numbers and predictions and, above all, little coverage from the media.
Looking at the data there are two critical government actions that have made a difference. The date the lockdown was stated and the amount of testing performed. On the first criteria the UK was about average and on the second well below average. The respirator issue has been a bit of a red herring as we have learnt they don't save that many patients overall. The PPE issue is important as it saves key worker lives but in the end as most isolation staff are young, fit and healthy the impact on death rates is fairly low. The care homes issue has also been an issue globally with no easy answers outside better testing.
The net result is we are sitting in the bottom half of the table. Can the Government now do better? If we are too slow to ease lockdown our industry will be wiped out by competition and the pound will crash. If we don't manage it well we have a second outbreak. On a final point if we don't get our testing in place then no one in the UK will be going anywhere for a long time. Brexit will be true isolation as we become a leper colony.
Good summary. One other thing to add is effective quarantine for those with a high likelihood of infection. The testing tells us who they are, but they need to be properly isolated.
Just as we were slow to enter I suspect we'll be slow to exit.
Most European countries are starting to lift some restrictions now.
Although for many, that is involving returning to a lockdown state that is still no less restrictive than the U.K.
Really? From BBC news:
“ On Monday, in Germany small shops will be allowed to open and schools will resume for those classes that have graduation exams coming up.
Last week Berlin said the infection rate had slowed and that the outbreak was under control - while warning that people had to remain vigilant to avoid a second wave of infections.
Also from Monday, Poland will re-open parks and forests and in Norway, nursery schools will reopen their doors to children. The Czech Republic will allow open-air markets to trade and in Albania, the mining and oil industries can operate again.”
Well, that's mixed. We haven't (mostly) closed parks and forests and my local market is certainly still operating.
The U.K. lockdown is not as strict as measures imposed in many other countries, who are not allowing any leaving of the house except to buy groceries or medicines, and have police and even army on the streets enforcing the measures.
I think it is only Spain in Europe that has even banned outside exercise
Russia has. One of my Russian friends on Strava is running laps of his dacha. Both Italy and France have brought in much stricter conditions - in France it has to be a maximum of 1 hour and within a km of your home, and at least in some places including Paris, not during daytime.
I’d assumed that that the idea was to let people get some fresh air, walk the dog etc. I was surprised to hear that people are doing 10km runs, 40km bike rides and getting in cars to go to parks - none of which seem to me to be in the spirit of the regulations.
Depends where one lives. We're fine; small town, open countryside within 5 minutes walk. In the somewhat larger town not far away it's a good 10-15 minutes from the centre to even open-ish country, apart from the park.
Any bailout to any company should be limited to the amount of tax that they have paid in the last 3 years.
If they are registered in another tax domain, let that place bail them out. If an essential company for some reason, buy up the assets at firesale prices upon liquidation.
Companies need to learn the financial cost of off shoring, as well as the effect on stability of manufacturing chains.
Slight drawback to that first suggestion of yours: any non-monopolistic, non-gouging, non-rent-seeking company would be screwed, no matter how honest they've been.
I was always taught that profit margins of 3% (for manufacturing) and 4% (for services) were about par. Above that, and they're doing something funky (maybe they are incredibly efficient (so why isn't everyone copying them?), or maybe they've got a dedicated band of customers who they can gouge at will, or maybe they're monopolistic, or dodgy). So, say you're at that level and you spend nothing on growth or paying down debt. You pay the full 20% on your profits. After three years, you've paid 1.8%-2.4% of your turnover on tax, so that's the limit of what you'd allow them.
That's 6 to 9 days of turnover.
The richest companies, and the most monopolistic and gouging and rent-seeking - they'd be fine, though. Those who have the least markup for their customers: bye-bye.
One thing that the BBC should do, that would be educationalist to follow some small businesses through startup etc. Documentary style.
One thing that became clear when that comedy about the cereal cafe near Brick Lane in London came up - a big portion of the population have absolutely no idea of how a business works, the bills they pay and legal obligations they have.
I reduced a couple of people I know to slack jawed astonishment... I just pointed that even if you are selling nothing, just providing a chair in an inhabitable space, and maybe Wifi, *someone* need to pay a serious amount per hour for it to work.
I still remember Harvey Jones's "Troubleshooter" series which sadly ended 20 years ago now. It was a little simplistic but gave some idea of how to run a business. In more recent times there was Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares which included explanations to those who thought that they could run a restaurant because they could cook. But the lack of interest in business and indeed making money is endemic in our media, not just the BBC.
The problem is compounded by things like the Apprentice, where the Pound Shop Donald Trump teaches spivery = business.
I know business as celebrity culture. I just can't bear it.
France has a more stringent lock-down than the UK yet their numbers are worse than ours. That may be because they're including care homes in their data while we aren't.
I go for 10-12km walks pretty much every day which typically takes 2 hours. I am not just getting fresh air but exercise that will improve fitness and lung capacity. Along with forsaking alcohol and losing some weight this is my cunning plan to beat the virus. I would be seriously disappointed if this was stopped because there is a problem with social distancing in the likes of London.
I did 76km on the bike this morning. 218w average power. 2 x caffeine gel shot + painkillers so mildly doped.
The spin when he was sick was that he was completely in charge, even as he was being wheeled into ICU.
The spin now is that he was completely in charge by not attending the meetings and trusting other people.
They are flailing
I don't think you appreciate what the proper role of the person at the top is.
I appreciate that in February, when the country was facing a looming pandemic, the Prime Minister took a fortnight off to spend time at his grace-and-favour residence with his partner.
Have we ever had an adequate explanation as to why Johnson decided to take two weeks off from being PM for the second half of February and spent it at Chevening with his girlfriend?
It seems particularly insensitive given the two weeks they had recently spent in the Carribbean a few weeks earlier (which I had no problem with)
The optics are that he really doesn't take the thing that seriously and he' a lazy sod at heart.
Mayor of Middlesbrough has a problem; he has closed all the parks near where people live on the basis of questionable spreadsheet from an obscure thinktank.
Now he is making unnecessary journeys around the city making videos telling people where he thinks they should be exercising. Including dogs off leads and small children in the same place.
Dunno. He isn't Labour, which is a big positive and has that independent "I do what I think" vibe. Yes he's keeping the parks shut against government advice. But he's not a Tory and so often the government advice has been counter-factual and not enforceable.
I do love the rationale of "I'm the mayor, they're critical of me keeping the parks shut, so here's somewhere thats open 'and there's nobody here' which I'll then put up on Twitter. Yes Andy. There won't be "nobody here" once you post it. Knob.
Just as we were slow to enter I suspect we'll be slow to exit.
Most European countries are starting to lift some restrictions now.
Although for many, that is involving returning to a lockdown state that is still no less restrictive than the U.K.
Really? From BBC news:
“ On Monday, in Germany small shops will be allowed to open and schools will resume for those classes that have graduation exams coming up.
Last week Berlin said the infection rate had slowed and that the outbreak was under control - while warning that people had to remain vigilant to avoid a second wave of infections.
Also from Monday, Poland will re-open parks and forests and in Norway, nursery schools will reopen their doors to children. The Czech Republic will allow open-air markets to trade and in Albania, the mining and oil industries can operate again.”
Well, that's mixed. We haven't (mostly) closed parks and forests and my local market is certainly still operating.
The U.K. lockdown is not as strict as measures imposed in many other countries, who are not allowing any leaving of the house except to buy groceries or medicines, and have police and even army on the streets enforcing the measures.
I think it is only Spain in Europe that has even banned outside exercise
Russia has. One of my Russian friends on Strava is running laps of his dacha. Both Italy and France have brought in much stricter conditions - in France it has to be a maximum of 1 hour and within a km of your home, and at least in some places including Paris, not during daytime.
I’d assumed that that the idea was to let people get some fresh air, walk the dog etc. I was surprised to hear that people are doing 10km runs, 40km bike rides and getting in cars to go to parks - none of which seem to me to be in the spirit of the regulations.
Depends where one lives. We're fine; small town, open countryside within 5 minutes walk. In the somewhat larger town not far away it's a good 10-15 minutes from the centre to even open-ish country, apart from the park.
I think in previous decades the government would have issued slightly different advice to people living in urban and rural areas, and trusted them to follow it without trying to get round it by pretending to live in in rural areas when they didn't, driving to other areas, etc.
Looking at the data there are two critical government actions that have made a difference. The date the lockdown was stated and the amount of testing performed. On the first criteria the UK was about average and on the second well below average. The respirator issue has been a bit of a red herring as we have learnt they don't save that many patients overall. The PPE issue is important as it saves key worker lives but in the end as most isolation staff are young, fit and healthy the impact on death rates is fairly low. The care homes issue has also been an issue globally with no easy answers outside better testing.
The net result is we are sitting in the bottom half of the table. Can the Government now do better? If we are too slow to ease lockdown our industry will be wiped out by competition and the pound will crash. If we don't manage it well we have a second outbreak. On a final point if we don't get our testing in place then no one in the UK will be going anywhere for a long time. Brexit will be true isolation as we become a leper colony.
And another point. It's largely about the R figure. As we ease off restrictions, these will increase the R figure above 1 and the exponential increase starts again. We need to be significantly below 1 each time we ease off a restriction. At the moment we're probably on the nail. We have very little margin, and less than other countries that acted to control the epidemic sooner.
Mr Hopson gave the example of an expected consignment of 200,000 gowns from China which actually only contained 20,000 gowns when it arrived last week.
"We know that with other orders, when the boxes were opened up and it said on the outside 'gowns', when you opened it up, they were actually masks," he sai
One aspect of supply chains that is often neglected is the sociological/game theory aspects of it.
Building trust is something that is generally neglected, in the chains that involve mass produced low cost items. The suppliers know they will be dropped in a heart beat if they *suggest* they can't deliver. So a tendency to say yes and argue later develops.
*We* may think of suppliers in China et al as unreliable - but what do they see, from their point of view? What are the rational choices from their POV?
In six months time, the public will not give one jot for this public enquiry or whether the government was late, early, blah blah blah.
They will be asking why they have lost their job, why they can't get another one, why their living standards have crashed through the floor, why the pound is so weak, why we appear to owe a gargantuan sum in debt and why their taxes are soaring.
And why we are having to slash funding to our beloved NHS because our denuded economy cannot support what we spend on services
Just as we were slow to enter I suspect we'll be slow to exit.
Most European countries are starting to lift some restrictions now.
Although for many, that is involving returning to a lockdown state that is still no less restrictive than the U.K.
Really? From BBC news:
“ On Monday, in Germany small shops will be allowed to open and schools will resume for those classes that have graduation exams coming up.
Last week Berlin said the infection rate had slowed and that the outbreak was under control - while warning that people had to remain vigilant to avoid a second wave of infections.
Also from Monday, Poland will re-open parks and forests and in Norway, nursery schools will reopen their doors to children. The Czech Republic will allow open-air markets to trade and in Albania, the mining and oil industries can operate again.”
Well, that's mixed. We haven't (mostly) closed parks and forests and my local market is certainly still operating.
The U.K. lockdown is not as strict as measures imposed in many other countries, who are not allowing any leaving of the house except to buy groceries or medicines, and have police and even army on the streets enforcing the measures.
I think it is only Spain in Europe that has even banned outside exercise
Russia has. One of my Russian friends on Strava is running laps of his dacha. Both Italy and France have brought in much stricter conditions - in France it has to be a maximum of 1 hour and within a km of your home, and at least in some places including Paris, not during daytime.
I’d assumed that that the idea was to let people get some fresh air, walk the dog etc. I was surprised to hear that people are doing 10km runs, 40km bike rides and getting in cars to go to parks - none of which seem to me to be in the spirit of the regulations.
Depends where one lives. We're fine; small town, open countryside within 5 minutes walk. In the somewhat larger town not far away it's a good 10-15 minutes from the centre to even open-ish country, apart from the park.
I think in previous decades the government would have issued slightly different advice to people living in urban and rural areas, and trusted them to follow it without trying to get round it by pretending to live in in rural area, driving to other areas, etc.
Its why we wont be able to reopen parts of the country (or different countries of the UK). Wales opens first and half the west country will go to cardiff for a piss up.
Just as we were slow to enter I suspect we'll be slow to exit.
Most European countries are starting to lift some restrictions now.
Although for many, that is involving returning to a lockdown state that is still no less restrictive than the U.K.
Really? From BBC news:
“ On Monday, in Germany small shops will be allowed to open and schools will resume for those classes that have graduation exams coming up.
Last week Berlin said the infection rate had slowed and that the outbreak was under control - while warning that people had to remain vigilant to avoid a second wave of infections.
Also from Monday, Poland will re-open parks and forests and in Norway, nursery schools will reopen their doors to children. The Czech Republic will allow open-air markets to trade and in Albania, the mining and oil industries can operate again.”
Well, that's mixed. We haven't (mostly) closed parks and forests and my local market is certainly still operating.
The U.K. lockdown is not as strict as measures imposed in many other countries, who are not allowing any leaving of the house except to buy groceries or medicines, and have police and even army on the streets enforcing the measures.
I think it is only Spain in Europe that has even banned outside exercise
Russia has. One of my Russian friends on Strava is running laps of his dacha. Both Italy and France have brought in much stricter conditions - in France it has to be a maximum of 1 hour and within a km of your home, and at least in some places including Paris, not during daytime.
I’d assumed that that the idea was to let people get some fresh air, walk the dog etc. I was surprised to hear that people are doing 10km runs, 40km bike rides and getting in cars to go to parks - none of which seem to me to be in the spirit of the regulations.
The idea is to get out for physical exercise, regular daily exercise is good for both mental and physical health. I did a 15 mile run early yesterday morning and saw no-one. It was lovely running on deserted roads and I was never much more than 4 miles from my front door. Most people won't want to do this but it's a good time to dust off that C25k app. Michael Gove did at one point say "exercise as much as you normally would". It's much liwer
Any bailout to any company should be limited to the amount of tax that they have paid in the last 3 years.
If they are registered in another tax domain, let that place bail them out. If an essential company for some reason, buy up the assets at firesale prices upon liquidation.
Companies need to learn the financial cost of off shoring, as well as the effect on stability of manufacturing chains.
Slight drawback to that first suggestion of yours: any non-monopolistic, non-gouging, non-rent-seeking company would be screwed, no matter how honest they've been.
I was always taught that profit margins of 3% (for manufacturing) and 4% (for services) were about par. Above that, and they're doing something funky (maybe they are incredibly efficient (so why isn't everyone copying them?), or maybe they've got a dedicated band of customers who they can gouge at will, or maybe they're monopolistic, or dodgy). So, say you're at that level and you spend nothing on growth or paying down debt. You pay the full 20% on your profits. After three years, you've paid 1.8%-2.4% of your turnover on tax, so that's the limit of what you'd allow them.
That's 6 to 9 days of turnover.
The richest companies, and the most monopolistic and gouging and rent-seeking - they'd be fine, though. Those who have the least markup for their customers: bye-bye.
One thing that the BBC should do, that would be educationalist to follow some small businesses through startup etc. Documentary style.
One thing that became clear when that comedy about the cereal cafe near Brick Lane in London came up - a big portion of the population have absolutely no idea of how a business works, the bills they pay and legal obligations they have.
I reduced a couple of people I know to slack jawed astonishment... I just pointed that even if you are selling nothing, just providing a chair in an inhabitable space, and maybe Wifi, *someone* need to pay a serious amount per hour for it to work.
I still remember Harvey Jones's "Troubleshooter" series which sadly ended 20 years ago now. It was a little simplistic but gave some idea of how to run a business. In more recent times there was Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares which included explanations to those who thought that they could run a restaurant because they could cook. But the lack of interest in business and indeed making money is endemic in our media, not just the BBC.
The problem is compounded by things like the Apprentice, where the Pound Shop Donald Trump teaches spivery = business.
I know business as celebrity culture. I just can't bear it.
I've just realised I was very unfair. To Pound Shop - which consistently delivers value for money, in my experience.
Just as we were slow to enter I suspect we'll be slow to exit.
Most European countries are starting to lift some restrictions now.
Although for many, that is involving returning to a lockdown state that is still no less restrictive than the U.K.
Really? From BBC news:
“ On Monday, in Germany small shops will be allowed to open and schools will resume for those classes that have graduation exams coming up.
Last week Berlin said the infection rate had slowed and that the outbreak was under control - while warning that people had to remain vigilant to avoid a second wave of infections.
Also from Monday, Poland will re-open parks and forests and in Norway, nursery schools will reopen their doors to children. The Czech Republic will allow open-air markets to trade and in Albania, the mining and oil industries can operate again.”
Well, that's mixed. We haven't (mostly) closed parks and forests and my local market is certainly still operating.
The U.K. lockdown is not as strict as measures imposed in many other countries, who are not allowing any leaving of the house except to buy groceries or medicines, and have police and even army on the streets enforcing the measures.
I think it is only Spain in Europe that has even banned outside exercise
Russia has. One of my Russian friends on Strava is running laps of his dacha. Both Italy and France have brought in much stricter conditions - in France it has to be a maximum of 1 hour and within a km of your home, and at least in some places including Paris, not during daytime.
I’d assumed that that the idea was to let people get some fresh air, walk the dog etc. I was surprised to hear that people are doing 10km runs, 40km bike rides and getting in cars to go to parks - none of which seem to me to be in the spirit of the regulations.
The idea is to get out for physical exercise, regular daily exercise is good for both mental and physical health. I did a 15 mile run early yesterday morning and saw no-one. It was lovely running on deserted roads and I was never much more than 4 miles from my front door. Most people won't want to do this but it's a good time to dust off that C25k app. Michael Gove did at one point say "exercise as much as you normally would". It's much liwer
... lower risk than popping to the shop every day, which a lot of people are doing.
Any bailout to any company should be limited to the amount of tax that they have paid in the last 3 years.
If they are registered in another tax domain, let that place bail them out. If an essential company for some reason, buy up the assets at firesale prices upon liquidation.
Companies need to learn the financial cost of off shoring, as well as the effect on stability of manufacturing chains.
Slight drawback to that first suggestion of yours: any non-monopolistic, non-gouging, non-rent-seeking company would be screwed, no matter how honest they've been.
I was always taught that profit margins of 3% (for manufacturing) and 4% (for services) were about par. Above that, and they're doing something funky (maybe they are incredibly efficient (so why isn't everyone copying them?), or maybe they've got a dedicated band of customers who they can gouge at will, or maybe they're monopolistic, or dodgy). So, say you're at that level and you spend nothing on growth or paying down debt. You pay the full 20% on your profits. After three years, you've paid 1.8%-2.4% of your turnover on tax, so that's the limit of what you'd allow them.
That's 6 to 9 days of turnover.
The richest companies, and the most monopolistic and gouging and rent-seeking - they'd be fine, though. Those who have the least markup for their customers: bye-bye.
One thing that the BBC should do, that would be educationalist to follow some small businesses through startup etc. Documentary style.
One thing that became clear when that comedy about the cereal cafe near Brick Lane in London came up - a big portion of the population have absolutely no idea of how a business works, the bills they pay and legal obligations they have.
I reduced a couple of people I know to slack jawed astonishment... I just pointed that even if you are selling nothing, just providing a chair in an inhabitable space, and maybe Wifi, *someone* need to pay a serious amount per hour for it to work.
I still remember Harvey Jones's "Troubleshooter" series which sadly ended 20 years ago now. It was a little simplistic but gave some idea of how to run a business. In more recent times there was Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares which included explanations to those who thought that they could run a restaurant because they could cook. But the lack of interest in business and indeed making money is endemic in our media, not just the BBC.
There's no shortage of tv about making money by buying and selling houses.
Looking at the data there are two critical government actions that have made a difference. The date the lockdown was stated and the amount of testing performed. On the first criteria the UK was about average and on the second well below average. The respirator issue has been a bit of a red herring as we have learnt they don't save that many patients overall. The PPE issue is important as it saves key worker lives but in the end as most isolation staff are young, fit and healthy the impact on death rates is fairly low. The care homes issue has also been an issue globally with no easy answers outside better testing.
The net result is we are sitting in the bottom half of the table. Can the Government now do better? If we are too slow to ease lockdown our industry will be wiped out by competition and the pound will crash. If we don't manage it well we have a second outbreak. On a final point if we don't get our testing in place then no one in the UK will be going anywhere for a long time. Brexit will be true isolation as we become a leper colony.
And another point. It's largely about the R figure. As we ease off restrictions, these will increase the R figure above 1 and the exponential increase starts again. We need to be significantly below 1 each time we ease off a restriction. At the moment we're probably on the nail. We have very little margin, and less than other countries that acted to control the epidemic sooner.
Sorry I thought our beloved NHS now had a ton of spare capacity to cope with a second peak. I thought that was the whole idea of lockdown
Over a third of all NHS beds are empty, far higher than is normal for this time of year.
"Mr Johnson is concerned that relatively little is known about the effect that easing individual restrictions could have on the transmission rate."
Er, Sweden?
The issue is that their stats are worth precisely zero. It's not a cover up there so much as it is purposefully under counting by not testing and not hospitalising likely cases and they only count deaths in hospitals and don't have a general data release on total weekly/monthly deaths like we do to see what's happening outside of hospitals.
Liam Fox was talking about deaths per million citizens today and pointed out that the country with the highest rate on that measure is lockdown Belgium, with more than 400.
Britain is at around 200, and the US 119.
I pointed that out ages ago, but the problem is the comparability of the statistics. Belgium are counting care home deaths in their daily tally now, like France and Ireland, but the daily totals from the UK do not. No idea what they're doing in the US - and it may vary by State.
Any bailout to any company should be limited to the amount of tax that they have paid in the last 3 years.
If they are registered in another tax domain, let that place bail them out. If an essential company for some reason, buy up the assets at firesale prices upon liquidation.
Companies need to learn the financial cost of off shoring, as well as the effect on stability of manufacturing chains.
Slight drawback to that first suggestion of yours: any non-monopolistic, non-gouging, non-rent-seeking company would be screwed, no matter how honest they've been.
I was always taught that profit margins of 3% (for manufacturing) and 4% (for services) were about par. Above that, and they're doing something funky (maybe they are incredibly efficient (so why isn't everyone copying them?), or maybe they've got a dedicated band of customers who they can gouge at will, or maybe they're monopolistic, or dodgy). So, say you're at that level and you spend nothing on growth or paying down debt. You pay the full 20% on your profits. After three years, you've paid 1.8%-2.4% of your turnover on tax, so that's the limit of what you'd allow them.
That's 6 to 9 days of turnover.
The richest companies, and the most monopolistic and gouging and rent-seeking - they'd be fine, though. Those who have the least markup for their customers: bye-bye.
One thing that the BBC should do, that would be educationalist to follow some small businesses through startup etc. Documentary style.
One thing that became clear when that comedy about the cereal cafe near Brick Lane in London came up - a big portion of the population have absolutely no idea of how a business works, the bills they pay and legal obligations they have.
I reduced a couple of people I know to slack jawed astonishment... I just pointed that even if you are selling nothing, just providing a chair in an inhabitable space, and maybe Wifi, *someone* need to pay a serious amount per hour for it to work.
I still remember Harvey Jones's "Troubleshooter" series which sadly ended 20 years ago now. It was a little simplistic but gave some idea of how to run a business. In more recent times there was Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares which included explanations to those who thought that they could run a restaurant because they could cook. But the lack of interest in business and indeed making money is endemic in our media, not just the BBC.
There's no shortage of tv about making money by buying and selling houses.
True. The British obsession with bricks and mortar is a constant.
France has a more stringent lock-down than the UK yet their numbers are worse than ours. That may be because they're including care homes in their data while we aren't.
“This is a question for politicians, not for scientists,” he added. “But politicians need the data to make an informed risk assessment.” Mr. Hoelscher got the idea for the antibody study in the shower. It was March 19, the day before the state of Bavaria announced its lockdown.
“I thought to myself if we’re going into lockdown, we need to start working on an exit strategy now,” he said.
The next day, he said he wrote a short pitch to the Bavarian government. Six hours later, he had the green light. It took another three weeks until the test kits had arrived, a new lab was opened and teams of medics started fanning out across the city...
When the cabinet sees the avalanche of businesses and workers applying for relief, perhaps the sheer scale of the damage to the economy their policy is causing will start to get real for them.
Up until now its just been numbers and predictions and, above all, little coverage from the media.
In a few months time, when unemployment reaches as much as 20%, as it is now predicted to do, when the tax base has crumbled and there is no money left to pay for the NHS, when people are getting evicted from their homes or foreclosed, and the economy is in a free-falling death spiral, the deaths of a few thousand mostly elderly people who might have only lived another year or two at best will seem like too high a price to have paid.
Call me a career psychopath if you like, but our aim should not be to protect every life at any cost. The cost to us all is simply too high. The aim should be to minimise deaths while supporting the economy as much as possible. It is a balancing act, one that the government is getting badly wrong at the moment.
The mortality rate for this among the under 45s is 0.014%, for heaven's sake. With medical intervention this disease is easily survivable for most under 65. Give the oldies the choice of quarantine or taking the risk. Let everyone else get on with their lives.
There are a number of prerequisites, the most important of which is getting a nationwide network of test and trace teams in place in order that new cases can be quickly detected and isolated.
It’s a good idea to get people who volunteered as NHS helpers to do this, but perhaps managed by someone from Sandhurst rather than PHE.
Concise public communications is also going to be vital. Telling everyone to stay put is one thing, a more nuanced message quite another.
But this is not the same as treating us like fools....
At least its ahowing a lot more sense than the Daily Jackboot.
What the fuck is the "Daily Jackboot"? And what kind of twat uses that term?
Hurrah for the Blackshirts
It has always intrigued me that the Daily Mail is never allowed to forget its brief flirtation with Mosley while nobody ever mentions that the Daily Mirror was far more enthusiastic about them for far longer.
Maybe it's the suspicion that the DM would still be supporting the black shirts if they were around now?
The Daily Mirror supported Corbyn *innocent face*
Or the Guardian having as one of its main columnists a man who supported Stalin. The tolerance of those who supported or excused the crimes of Communism is both baffling and morally repellent.
It is possible to abhor both regimes.
And not to excuse Stalin’s crimes one bit, I do wonder if without the iron grip he had on the USSR they would have been able, albeit after a disastrous 1941, to eventually beat Nazi Germany. Would it have been worse to see Stalin defeated with Hitler dominating Europe? Hitler would’ve then gone for the Middle East and into India, given half a chance. He wanted global domination, not just Eastern Europe.
I obviously don’t know the answers, it’s just an interesting ’what if?...’
Looking at the data there are two critical government actions that have made a difference. The date the lockdown was stated and the amount of testing performed. On the first criteria the UK was about average and on the second well below average. The respirator issue has been a bit of a red herring as we have learnt they don't save that many patients overall. The PPE issue is important as it saves key worker lives but in the end as most isolation staff are young, fit and healthy the impact on death rates is fairly low. The care homes issue has also been an issue globally with no easy answers outside better testing.
The net result is we are sitting in the bottom half of the table. Can the Government now do better? If we are too slow to ease lockdown our industry will be wiped out by competition and the pound will crash. If we don't manage it well we have a second outbreak. On a final point if we don't get our testing in place then no one in the UK will be going anywhere for a long time. Brexit will be true isolation as we become a leper colony.
And another point. It's largely about the R figure. As we ease off restrictions, these will increase the R figure above 1 and the exponential increase starts again. We need to be significantly below 1 each time we ease off a restriction. At the moment we're probably on the nail. We have very little margin, and less than other countries that acted to control the epidemic sooner.
If I was the government I would pinch Merkel's explanation of this verbatim. It would be a lot more useful than telling us yet again how much we admire/respect/want to thank today's particular heroes.
I go for 10-12km walks pretty much every day which typically takes 2 hours. I am not just getting fresh air but exercise that will improve fitness and lung capacity. Along with forsaking alcohol and losing some weight this is my cunning plan to beat the virus. I would be seriously disappointed if this was stopped because there is a problem with social distancing in the likes of London.
I did 76km on the bike this morning. 218w average power. 2 x caffeine gel shot + painkillers so mildly doped.
Any bailout to any company should be limited to the amount of tax that they have paid in the last 3 years.
If they are registered in another tax domain, let that place bail them out. If an essential company for some reason, buy up the assets at firesale prices upon liquidation.
Companies need to learn the financial cost of off shoring, as well as the effect on stability of manufacturing chains.
Slight drawback to that first suggestion of yours: any non-monopolistic, non-gouging, non-rent-seeking company would be screwed, no matter how honest they've been.
I was always taught that profit margins of 3% (for manufacturing) and 4% (for services) were about par. Above that, and they're doing something funky (maybe they are incredibly efficient (so why isn't everyone copying them?), or maybe they've got a dedicated band of customers who they can gouge at will, or maybe they're monopolistic, or dodgy). So, say you're at that level and you spend nothing on growth or paying down debt. You pay the full 20% on your profits. After three years, you've paid 1.8%-2.4% of your turnover on tax, so that's the limit of what you'd allow them.
That's 6 to 9 days of turnover.
The richest companies, and the most monopolistic and gouging and rent-seeking - they'd be fine, though. Those who have the least markup for their customers: bye-bye.
One thing that the BBC should do, that would be educationalist to follow some small businesses through startup etc. Documentary style.
One thing that became clear when that comedy about the cereal cafe near Brick Lane in London came up - a big portion of the population have absolutely no idea of how a business works, the bills they pay and legal obligations they have.
I reduced a couple of people I know to slack jawed astonishment... I just pointed that even if you are selling nothing, just providing a chair in an inhabitable space, and maybe Wifi, *someone* need to pay a serious amount per hour for it to work.
I still remember Harvey Jones's "Troubleshooter" series which sadly ended 20 years ago now. It was a little simplistic but gave some idea of how to run a business. In more recent times there was Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares which included explanations to those who thought that they could run a restaurant because they could cook. But the lack of interest in business and indeed making money is endemic in our media, not just the BBC.
There's no shortage of tv about making money by buying and selling houses.
For business I can't think of anything other than Dragon's Den and the programmes that hang off it, and perhaps a couple on the radio - In Business does it occasionally. Does "Wake up to Money" do anything?
The Harvey Jones series was about sorting out small businesses with problems, and which (he thought) lacked professional management.
In my ex-mining area there are local support schemes available to an extent, but the main work is done by Chambers of Commerce, who have been running courses for at least 30 years (I took one in 1996).
The greatest challenges are finance and lack of premises to grow into when you want to jump from 2-3 founders to 10-20 employees ie units of say 3000-6000 sqft.
I backed a tenant starting a gym, which has now created a number of jobs (and has put 2 projects on hold), but they had to jump from a 700n per month unit to a 3000 per month unit to find growth.
The best support infrastructure I can think of are probably tech incubators.
Firstly the UK does not have the highest death toll in Europe but only the 4th highest and second if it was raining today scotgoespop would say that made a powerful new case for independence.
And you would indubitably say that the wet stuff strengthens the Union.
We could certainly do with some rain. The woodland paths I am frequenting on my daily permitted exercise are turning into dust bowls and the burns are as low as mid summer. Time @SouthamObserver was forecasting a drought. That always brings a good dose of rain.
Yep, a few well timed cloudbursts between 1am-6am would be just the thing.
One thing I will not be wishing for is rain, long may the sun shine. Just a pity I am stuck indoors working.
Firstly the UK does not have the highest death toll in Europe but only the 4th highest and second if it was raining today scotgoespop would say that made a powerful new case for independence.
And you would indubitably say that the wet stuff strengthens the Union.
We could certainly do with some rain. The woodland paths I am frequenting on my daily permitted exercise are turning into dust bowls and the burns are as low as mid summer. Time @SouthamObserver was forecasting a drought. That always brings a good dose of rain.
Yep, a few well timed cloudbursts between 1am-6am would be just the thing.
If Nicola can't organise this I may never vote SNP again!
Did Carcrash phone you and tell you to say that David.
Mayor of Middlesbrough has a problem; he has closed all the parks near where people live on the basis of questionable spreadsheet from an obscure thinktank.
Now he is making unnecessary journeys around the city making videos telling people where he thinks they should be exercising. Including dogs off leads and small children in the same place.
Dunno. He isn't Labour, which is a big positive and has that independent "I do what I think" vibe. Yes he's keeping the parks shut against government advice. But he's not a Tory and so often the government advice has been counter-factual and not enforceable.
I do love the rationale of "I'm the mayor, they're critical of me keeping the parks shut, so here's somewhere thats open 'and there's nobody here' which I'll then put up on Twitter. Yes Andy. There won't be "nobody here" once you post it. Knob.
I think it's potentially of value. When the weather is nice, people take themselves off to the obvious places and end up congregating. It's worth telling people about where they can go that they might not have thought of
Looking at the data there are two critical government actions that have made a difference. The date the lockdown was stated and the amount of testing performed. On the first criteria the UK was about average and on the second well below average. The respirator issue has been a bit of a red herring as we have learnt they don't save that many patients overall. The PPE issue is important as it saves key worker lives but in the end as most isolation staff are young, fit and healthy the impact on death rates is fairly low. The care homes issue has also been an issue globally with no easy answers outside better testing.
The net result is we are sitting in the bottom half of the table. Can the Government now do better? If we are too slow to ease lockdown our industry will be wiped out by competition and the pound will crash. If we don't manage it well we have a second outbreak. On a final point if we don't get our testing in place then no one in the UK will be going anywhere for a long time. Brexit will be true isolation as we become a leper colony.
And another point. It's largely about the R figure. As we ease off restrictions, these will increase the R figure above 1 and the exponential increase starts again. We need to be significantly below 1 each time we ease off a restriction. At the moment we're probably on the nail. We have very little margin, and less than other countries that acted to control the epidemic sooner.
If I was the government I would pinch Merkel's explanation of this verbatim. It would be a lot more useful than telling us yet again how much we admire/respect/want to thank today's particular heroes.
I would rather they pinched the German testing regime.
Looking at the data there are two critical government actions that have made a difference. The date the lockdown was stated and the amount of testing performed. On the first criteria the UK was about average and on the second well below average. The respirator issue has been a bit of a red herring as we have learnt they don't save that many patients overall. The PPE issue is important as it saves key worker lives but in the end as most isolation staff are young, fit and healthy the impact on death rates is fairly low. The care homes issue has also been an issue globally with no easy answers outside better testing.
The net result is we are sitting in the bottom half of the table. Can the Government now do better? If we are too slow to ease lockdown our industry will be wiped out by competition and the pound will crash. If we don't manage it well we have a second outbreak. On a final point if we don't get our testing in place then no one in the UK will be going anywhere for a long time. Brexit will be true isolation as we become a leper colony.
And another point. It's largely about the R figure. As we ease off restrictions, these will increase the R figure above 1 and the exponential increase starts again. We need to be significantly below 1 each time we ease off a restriction. At the moment we're probably on the nail. We have very little margin, and less than other countries that acted to control the epidemic sooner.
If I was the government I would pinch Merkel's explanation of this verbatim. It would be a lot more useful than telling us yet again how much we admire/respect/want to thank today's particular heroes.
Absolutely. Dealing with this epidemic is about organisation and system. The medium term goal is to find a modus vivendi with a deadly disease.
I go for 10-12km walks pretty much every day which typically takes 2 hours. I am not just getting fresh air but exercise that will improve fitness and lung capacity. Along with forsaking alcohol and losing some weight this is my cunning plan to beat the virus. I would be seriously disappointed if this was stopped because there is a problem with social distancing in the likes of London.
I did 76km on the bike this morning. 218w average power. 2 x caffeine gel shot + painkillers so mildly doped.
When the cabinet sees the avalanche of businesses and workers applying for relief, perhaps the sheer scale of the damage to the economy their policy is causing will start to get real for them.
Up until now its just been numbers and predictions and, above all, little coverage from the media.
In a few months time, when unemployment reaches as much as 20%, as it is now predicted to do, when the tax base has crumbled and there is no money left to pay for the NHS, when people are getting evicted from their homes or foreclosed, and the economy is in a free-falling death spiral, the deaths of a few thousand mostly elderly people who might have only lived another year or two at best will seem like too high a price to have paid.
Call me a career psychopath if you like, but our aim should not be to protect every life at any cost. The cost to us all is simply too high. The aim should be to minimise deaths while supporting the economy as much as possible. It is a balancing act, one that the government is getting badly wrong at the moment.
The mortality rate for this among the under 45s is 0.014%, for heaven's sake. With medical intervention this disease is easily survivable for most under 65. Give the oldies the choice of quarantine or taking the risk. Let everyone else get on with their lives.
The final insult will be people like Piers Morgan and Beth Rigby shouting from the rooftops
Mayor of Middlesbrough has a problem; he has closed all the parks near where people live on the basis of questionable spreadsheet from an obscure thinktank.
Now he is making unnecessary journeys around the city making videos telling people where he thinks they should be exercising. Including dogs off leads and small children in the same place.
Dunno. He isn't Labour, which is a big positive and has that independent "I do what I think" vibe. Yes he's keeping the parks shut against government advice. But he's not a Tory and so often the government advice has been counter-factual and not enforceable.
I do love the rationale of "I'm the mayor, they're critical of me keeping the parks shut, so here's somewhere thats open 'and there's nobody here' which I'll then put up on Twitter. Yes Andy. There won't be "nobody here" once you post it. Knob.
I think it's potentially of value. When the weather is nice, people take themselves off to the obvious places and end up congregating. It's worth telling people about where they can go that they might not have thought of
Sure, its just that there are a lot of very big parks in Boro and not a lot of other places that you'd want to go walking in.
There are a number of prerequisites, the most important of which is getting a nationwide network of test and trace teams in place in order that new cases can be quickly detected and isolated.
It’s a good idea to get people who volunteered as NHS helpers to do this, but perhaps managed by someone from Sandhurst rather than PHE.
Concise public communications is also going to be vital. Telling everyone to stay put is one thing, a more nuanced message quite another.
But this is not the same as treating us like fools....
At least its ahowing a lot more sense than the Daily Jackboot.
What the fuck is the "Daily Jackboot"? And what kind of twat uses that term?
Hurrah for the Blackshirts
It has always intrigued me that the Daily Mail is never allowed to forget its brief flirtation with Mosley while nobody ever mentions that the Daily Mirror was far more enthusiastic about them for far longer.
Maybe it's the suspicion that the DM would still be supporting the black shirts if they were around now?
The Daily Mirror supported Corbyn *innocent face*
Or the Guardian having as one of its main columnists a man who supported Stalin. The tolerance of those who supported or excused the crimes of Communism is both baffling and morally repellent.
It is possible to abhor both regimes.
And not to excuse Stalin’s crimes one bit, I do wonder if without the iron grip he had on the USSR they would have been able, albeit after a disastrous 1941, to eventually beat Nazi Germany. Would it have been worse to see Stalin defeated with Hitler dominating Europe? Hitler would’ve then gone for the Middle East and into India, given half a chance. He wanted global domination, not just Eastern Europe.
I obviously don’t know the answers, it’s just an interesting ’what if?...’
Just before WWI Russia was growing like China was before this. Take a look at their plans for a fleet of dreadnoughts - the tax money was piling in like crazy, foreigners could make ludicrously easy money investing in industrialisation....
In fact, many would argue that it was this growth in the industrial population, combined with the baroque corruption and incompetence of the regime that led to the revolution.
There are a number of prerequisites, the most important of which is getting a nationwide network of test and trace teams in place in order that new cases can be quickly detected and isolated.
It’s a good idea to get people who volunteered as NHS helpers to do this, but perhaps managed by someone from Sandhurst rather than PHE.
Concise public communications is also going to be vital. Telling everyone to stay put is one thing, a more nuanced message quite another.
But this is not the same as treating us like fools....
At least its ahowing a lot more sense than the Daily Jackboot.
What the fuck is the "Daily Jackboot"? And what kind of twat uses that term?
Hurrah for the Blackshirts
It has always intrigued me that the Daily Mail is never allowed to forget its brief flirtation with Mosley while nobody ever mentions that the Daily Mirror was far more enthusiastic about them for far longer.
Maybe it's the suspicion that the DM would still be supporting the black shirts if they were around now?
The Daily Mirror supported Corbyn *innocent face*
Or the Guardian having as one of its main columnists a man who supported Stalin. The tolerance of those who supported or excused the crimes of Communism is both baffling and morally repellent.
It is possible to abhor both regimes.
And not to excuse Stalin’s crimes one bit, I do wonder if without the iron grip he had on the USSR they would have been able, albeit after a disastrous 1941, to eventually beat Nazi Germany. Would it have been worse to see Stalin defeated with Hitler dominating Europe? Hitler would’ve then gone for the Middle East and into India, given half a chance. He wanted global domination, not just Eastern Europe.
I obviously don’t know the answers, it’s just an interesting ’what if?...’
Just before WWI Russia was growing like China was before this. Take a look at their plans for a fleet of dreadnoughts - the tax money was piling in like crazy, foreigners could make ludicrously easy money investing in industrialisation....
In fact, many would argue that it was this growth in the industrial population, combined with the baroque corruption and incompetence of the regime that led to the revolution.
And millions being slaughtered by the German army.....
Those riots are quite quite different to the normal French farmers dumping manure on a minister.
These are the bainlieues rising up. Potentially disastrous
There are two sides to this. French police are brutal and the state does a bad job of integrating, but there are also loads of videos of the BAME communities in the French suburbs completely ignoring the lockdown and laughing at police trying to enforce it.
A collision was inevitable
While we are very down on the prospects for the UK. France is a very troubled country. Even before CV huge social issues and econmic issues, and unlike the UK, a very rigid labour market and a people who won't accept even modest reform.
In six months time, the public will not give one jot for this public enquiry or whether the government was late, early, blah blah blah.
They will be asking why they have lost their job, why they can't get another one, why their living standards have crashed through the floor, why the pound is so weak, why we appear to owe a gargantuan sum in debt and why their taxes are soaring.
And why we are having to slash funding to our beloved NHS because our denuded economy cannot support what we spend on services
That depends on the virus - how deadly it really is - and how well we respond to it.
If we've already experienced a second wave, deadlier than the first, because we ended lockdown too early and didn't return to it, then I don't think issues about the response to the virus will have entirely faded.
How confident are you that the virus will end up being at the less deadly end of the likely range?
There are a number of prerequisites, the most important of which is getting a nationwide network of test and trace teams in place in order that new cases can be quickly detected and isolated.
It’s a good idea to get people who volunteered as NHS helpers to do this, but perhaps managed by someone from Sandhurst rather than PHE.
Concise public communications is also going to be vital. Telling everyone to stay put is one thing, a more nuanced message quite another.
But this is not the same as treating us like fools....
At least its ahowing a lot more sense than the Daily Jackboot.
What the fuck is the "Daily Jackboot"? And what kind of twat uses that term?
Hurrah for the Blackshirts
It has always intrigued me that the Daily Mail is never allowed to forget its brief flirtation with Mosley while nobody ever mentions that the Daily Mirror was far more enthusiastic about them for far longer.
Maybe it's the suspicion that the DM would still be supporting the black shirts if they were around now?
The Daily Mirror supported Corbyn *innocent face*
Or the Guardian having as one of its main columnists a man who supported Stalin. The tolerance of those who supported or excused the crimes of Communism is both baffling and morally repellent.
It is possible to abhor both regimes.
And not to excuse Stalin’s crimes one bit, I do wonder if without the iron grip he had on the USSR they would have been able, albeit after a disastrous 1941, to eventually beat Nazi Germany. Would it have been worse to see Stalin defeated with Hitler dominating Europe? Hitler would’ve then gone for the Middle East and into India, given half a chance. He wanted global domination, not just Eastern Europe.
I obviously don’t know the answers, it’s just an interesting ’what if?...’
Just before WWI Russia was growing like China was before this. Take a look at their plans for a fleet of dreadnoughts - the tax money was piling in like crazy, foreigners could make ludicrously easy money investing in industrialisation....
In fact, many would argue that it was this growth in the industrial population, combined with the baroque corruption and incompetence of the regime that led to the revolution.
o/t but wasn't it you who posed the riddle of the Amry fags and the tropical disease? Has the answer been posted, please? I am in agony waiting to find out ...
I go for 10-12km walks pretty much every day which typically takes 2 hours. I am not just getting fresh air but exercise that will improve fitness and lung capacity. Along with forsaking alcohol and losing some weight this is my cunning plan to beat the virus. I would be seriously disappointed if this was stopped because there is a problem with social distancing in the likes of London.
I did 76km on the bike this morning. 218w average power. 2 x caffeine gel shot + painkillers so mildly doped.
Painkillers?
Non opiate analgesics are significant PEDs for cycling. They let you get into the 'red zone' (90%+ maximum heart rate, 120%+ functional threshold power) where you normally feel like you're going to die and stay there longer.
Mrs DA draws the line at blood bags in the fridge.
Firstly the UK does not have the highest death toll in Europe but only the 4th highest and second if it was raining today scotgoespop would say that made a powerful new case for independence.
And you would indubitably say that the wet stuff strengthens the Union.
We could certainly do with some rain. The woodland paths I am frequenting on my daily permitted exercise are turning into dust bowls and the burns are as low as mid summer. Time @SouthamObserver was forecasting a drought. That always brings a good dose of rain.
Yep, a few well timed cloudbursts between 1am-6am would be just the thing.
If Nicola can't organise this I may never vote SNP again!
Did Carcrash phone you and tell you to say that David.
There are a number of prerequisites, the most important of which is getting a nationwide network of test and trace teams in place in order that new cases can be quickly detected and isolated.
It’s a good idea to get people who volunteered as NHS helpers to do this, but perhaps managed by someone from Sandhurst rather than PHE.
Concise public communications is also going to be vital. Telling everyone to stay put is one thing, a more nuanced message quite another.
But this is not the same as treating us like fools....
At least its ahowing a lot more sense than the Daily Jackboot.
What the fuck is the "Daily Jackboot"? And what kind of twat uses that term?
Hurrah for the Blackshirts
It has always intrigued me that the Daily Mail is never allowed to forget its brief flirtation with Mosley while nobody ever mentions that the Daily Mirror was far more enthusiastic about them for far longer.
Maybe it's the suspicion that the DM would still be supporting the black shirts if they were around now?
The Daily Mirror supported Corbyn *innocent face*
Or the Guardian having as one of its main columnists a man who supported Stalin. The tolerance of those who supported or excused the crimes of Communism is both baffling and morally repellent.
It is possible to abhor both regimes.
And not to excuse Stalin’s crimes one bit, I do wonder if without the iron grip he had on the USSR they would have been able, albeit after a disastrous 1941, to eventually beat Nazi Germany. Would it have been worse to see Stalin defeated with Hitler dominating Europe? Hitler would’ve then gone for the Middle East and into India, given half a chance. He wanted global domination, not just Eastern Europe.
I obviously don’t know the answers, it’s just an interesting ’what if?...’
Just before WWI Russia was growing like China was before this. Take a look at their plans for a fleet of dreadnoughts - the tax money was piling in like crazy, foreigners could make ludicrously easy money investing in industrialisation....
In fact, many would argue that it was this growth in the industrial population, combined with the baroque corruption and incompetence of the regime that led to the revolution.
And millions being slaughtered by the German army.....
Any bailout to any company should be limited to the amount of tax that they have paid in the last 3 years.
If they are registered in another tax domain, let that place bail them out. If an essential company for some reason, buy up the assets at firesale prices upon liquidation.
Companies need to learn the financial cost of off shoring, as well as the effect on stability of manufacturing chains.
Companies shouldn’t be bailed out at all, unless they’re of national strategic importance to dealing with the crisis. People should be bailed out if they lose their jobs, which is what’s happening in practice.
The crunch will co e when the furlough scheme ends, and a lot of people move from earning £2k a month in support to the more usual unemployment benefit and universal credit.
Not sure I agree with this. We need a viable working economy. If enough companies fall over even those that might have survived will fall too. Bad debt and supply issues will kill them. These are extraordinary times but I think that the public purse is going to have to take the strain of this so that people remain employed, taxes continue to be paid in the medium turn and life returns to something approaching normalcy. The cost is mind boggling and QE still scares me but the alternatives are worse.
They can just fire up the presses David or cancel all the debt to themselves. It is mostly funny money smoke and mirrors.
Yes and I have no doubt that is what is going to happen but at what price Malcolm? As an investor you should be worried that your capital is going to be further depreciated.
David, Yes it is all very concerning as I have almost all my money invested in shares, plan was to live off the dividends and so far lucky I do not need to leave work , but who knows I may be in one of the annual culls, but hopefully will have enough left to have a dent life , I am better off than majority.
Those riots are quite quite different to the normal French farmers dumping manure on a minister.
These are the bainlieues rising up. Potentially disastrous
There are two sides to this. French police are brutal and the state does a bad job of integrating, but there are also loads of videos of the BAME communities in the French suburbs completely ignoring the lockdown and laughing at police trying to enforce it.
A collision was inevitable
While we are very down on the prospects for the UK. France is a very troubled country. Even before CV huge social issues and unlike Germany or UK, a very rigid labour market and a people who won't accept even modest reform.
eadric will soon learn that truths like BAME communities flouting lockdown laws will not be tolerated because they are racist truths.
Those riots are quite quite different to the normal French farmers dumping manure on a minister.
These are the bainlieues rising up. Potentially disastrous
There are two sides to this. French police are brutal and the state does a bad job of integrating, but there are also loads of videos of the BAME communities in the French suburbs completely ignoring the lockdown and laughing at police trying to enforce it.
A collision was inevitable
While we are very down on the prospects for the UK. France is a very troubled country. Even before CV huge social issues and unlike Germany or UK, a very rigid labour market and a people who won't accept even modest reform.
Surely now is the time to ram through labour market reforms. While I'm sure the UK will see very high unemployment levels for some time, I also know that it will go down pretty quickly as companies see the fog clear and start bringing roles back. In France the weather will need to be completely clear and no chance of storms on the horizon before they start hiring.
There are a number of prerequisites, the most important of which is getting a nationwide network of test and trace teams in place in order that new cases can be quickly detected and isolated.
It’s a good idea to get people who volunteered as NHS helpers to do this, but perhaps managed by someone from Sandhurst rather than PHE.
Concise public communications is also going to be vital. Telling everyone to stay put is one thing, a more nuanced message quite another.
But this is not the same as treating us like fools....
At least its ahowing a lot more sense than the Daily Jackboot.
What the fuck is the "Daily Jackboot"? And what kind of twat uses that term?
Hurrah for the Blackshirts
It has always intrigued me that the Daily Mail is never allowed to forget its brief flirtation with Mosley while nobody ever mentions that the Daily Mirror was far more enthusiastic about them for far longer.
Maybe it's the suspicion that the DM would still be supporting the black shirts if they were around now?
The Daily Mirror supported Corbyn *innocent face*
Or the Guardian having as one of its main columnists a man who supported Stalin. The tolerance of those who supported or excused the crimes of Communism is both baffling and morally repellent.
It is possible to abhor both regimes.
And not to excuse Stalin’s crimes one bit, I do wonder if without the iron grip he had on the USSR they would have been able, albeit after a disastrous 1941, to eventually beat Nazi Germany. Would it have been worse to see Stalin defeated with Hitler dominating Europe? Hitler would’ve then gone for the Middle East and into India, given half a chance. He wanted global domination, not just Eastern Europe.
I obviously don’t know the answers, it’s just an interesting ’what if?...’
Just before WWI Russia was growing like China was before this. Take a look at their plans for a fleet of dreadnoughts - the tax money was piling in like crazy, foreigners could make ludicrously easy money investing in industrialisation....
In fact, many would argue that it was this growth in the industrial population, combined with the baroque corruption and incompetence of the regime that led to the revolution.
And millions being slaughtered by the German army.....
France survived Verdun - just.
True but they had the BEF on their Northern flank.
A nice rebuff to the endless stupid whining about the Government's response.
Not really. During a crisis, people want the government to succeed and incline toward supporting it. If there is any punishment to be deserved, it will be meted out afterwards.
The rejection of the Sunday Times accusations by number 10 has been thorough and shown it as inaccurate and irresponsible journalism at this moment in the crisis
Can I refer you to an earlier answer from Mandy Rice-Davies?
Has Johnson's near death experience turned him into a virus dove, who does not want to unlock until vaccine/sure the plague has passed? Before he became ill we were told his libertarian instincts were to the fore and kept the pubs open. Discuss?
Few things mess with the mind more than abandoning a good idea, throwing your lot in with the majority who were criticising you, then being right and having nothing to show for it. I reckon Boris is going to have to deal with that.
When the cabinet sees the avalanche of businesses and workers applying for relief, perhaps the sheer scale of the damage to the economy their policy is causing will start to get real for them.
Up until now its just been numbers and predictions and, above all, little coverage from the media.
In a few months time, when unemployment reaches as much as 20%, as it is now predicted to do, when the tax base has crumbled and there is no money left to pay for the NHS, when people are getting evicted from their homes or foreclosed, and the economy is in a free-falling death spiral, the deaths of a few thousand mostly elderly people who might have only lived another year or two at best will seem like too high a price to have paid.
Call me a career psychopath if you like, but our aim should not be to protect every life at any cost. The cost to us all is simply too high. The aim should be to minimise deaths while supporting the economy as much as possible. It is a balancing act, one that the government is getting badly wrong at the moment.
The mortality rate for this among the under 45s is 0.014%, for heaven's sake. With medical intervention this disease is easily survivable for most under 65. Give the oldies the choice of quarantine or taking the risk. Let everyone else get on with their lives.
The final insult will be people like Piers Morgan and Beth Rigby shouting from the rooftops
I go for 10-12km walks pretty much every day which typically takes 2 hours. I am not just getting fresh air but exercise that will improve fitness and lung capacity. Along with forsaking alcohol and losing some weight this is my cunning plan to beat the virus. I would be seriously disappointed if this was stopped because there is a problem with social distancing in the likes of London.
I did 76km on the bike this morning. 218w average power. 2 x caffeine gel shot + painkillers so mildly doped.
Impressive. About 3 hours?
About 2h 40m. 29km/h average. I was with my much younger and faster mate so it wasn't a solo effort.
I go for 10-12km walks pretty much every day which typically takes 2 hours. I am not just getting fresh air but exercise that will improve fitness and lung capacity. Along with forsaking alcohol and losing some weight this is my cunning plan to beat the virus. I would be seriously disappointed if this was stopped because there is a problem with social distancing in the likes of London.
I did 76km on the bike this morning. 218w average power. 2 x caffeine gel shot + painkillers so mildly doped.
Painkillers?
Non opiate analgesics are significant PEDs for cycling. They let you get into the 'red zone' (90%+ maximum heart rate, 120%+ functional threshold power) where you normally feel like you're going to die and stay there longer.
Mrs DA draws the line at blood bags in the fridge.
What sort of painkillers? A lot of runners apparently routinely take NSAIDs for muscular aches and pains and unsurprisingly it isn't good for you. If your muscles ache after a hard week then the inflammatory response is your body's response to fix those broken muscles, you need to live with it not block it. I do agree with caffeine though.
Looking at the data there are two critical government actions that have made a difference. The date the lockdown was stated and the amount of testing performed. On the first criteria the UK was about average and on the second well below average. The respirator issue has been a bit of a red herring as we have learnt they don't save that many patients overall. The PPE issue is important as it saves key worker lives but in the end as most isolation staff are young, fit and healthy the impact on death rates is fairly low. The care homes issue has also been an issue globally with no easy answers outside better testing.
The net result is we are sitting in the bottom half of the table. Can the Government now do better? If we are too slow to ease lockdown our industry will be wiped out by competition and the pound will crash. If we don't manage it well we have a second outbreak. On a final point if we don't get our testing in place then no one in the UK will be going anywhere for a long time. Brexit will be true isolation as we become a leper colony.
And another point. It's largely about the R figure. As we ease off restrictions, these will increase the R figure above 1 and the exponential increase starts again. We need to be significantly below 1 each time we ease off a restriction. At the moment we're probably on the nail. We have very little margin, and less than other countries that acted to control the epidemic sooner.
If I was the government I would pinch Merkel's explanation of this verbatim. It would be a lot more useful than telling us yet again how much we admire/respect/want to thank today's particular heroes.
I would rather they pinched the German testing regime.
Why? I mean that I get that it is a convenient stick to beat the government with but what would 10x the current testing achieve? We would probably have a much lower death rate amongst those found to be positive but the death rate would be unchanged. We would have a better idea of the validity of the "iceberg" model but what would change so far as our policy is concerned? We could perhaps reduce the vector of health workers and care workers either being infected or infecting others but for NHS workers it is quite hard to say what else we could do.
Testing was key in phase 1 which I accept we made a mess of by being slow out of the blocks. Now? I am not sure other than trying to confirm how many front line staff have immunity and can work more safely with patients.
Those riots are quite quite different to the normal French farmers dumping manure on a minister.
These are the bainlieues rising up. Potentially disastrous
There are two sides to this. French police are brutal and the state does a bad job of integrating, but there are also loads of videos of the BAME communities in the French suburbs completely ignoring the lockdown and laughing at police trying to enforce it.
A collision was inevitable
While we are very down on the prospects for the UK. France is a very troubled country. Even before CV huge social issues and econmic issues, and unlike the UK, a very rigid labour market and a people who won't accept even modest reform.
You only have to count the refugees fleeing across the Channel every day. They're not stupid. They know what a failed state looks like.
"Mr Johnson is concerned that relatively little is known about the effect that easing individual restrictions could have on the transmission rate."
Er, Sweden?
The issue is that their stats are worth precisely zero. It's not a cover up there so much as it is purposefully under counting by not testing and not hospitalising likely cases and they only count deaths in hospitals and don't have a general data release on total weekly/monthly deaths like we do to see what's happening outside of hospitals.
Liam Fox was talking about deaths per million citizens today and pointed out that the country with the highest rate on that measure is lockdown Belgium, with more than 400.
Britain is at around 200, and the US 119.
USA 123, Sweden 152, Netherlands 215, UK 237,Italy 391, Spain 446 & Belgium 503.
Those riots are quite quite different to the normal French farmers dumping manure on a minister.
These are the bainlieues rising up. Potentially disastrous
There are two sides to this. French police are brutal and the state does a bad job of integrating, but there are also loads of videos of the BAME communities in the French suburbs completely ignoring the lockdown and laughing at police trying to enforce it.
A collision was inevitable
While we are very down on the prospects for the UK. France is a very troubled country. Even before CV huge social issues and econmic issues, and unlike Germany or UK, a very rigid labour market and a people who won't accept even modest reform.
Actually macron’s reforms were just starting to pay off as this virus hit. Check the stats on new business starts in the last couple of years. A huge surge. This bug came at just the wrong moment.
If you want to see real trouble in Europe look further south, to Italy
The article is good but what’s truly fascinating is the comment section underneath. It is full of Dutch, French, German and Italian readers all laying into each other. The insults between the Italians and the Dutch are particularly savage. The Dutch accuse the Italians of being feckless thieves, the Italians say the Dutch are soulless hypocrites.
A mighty storm is brewing in the eurozone. They need coronabonds to weather it, but the Dutch and probably the Germans won’t allow this. Something has to give. The Italians might default
Is there a history of antipathy between the Dutch and Italians?
France has a more stringent lock-down than the UK yet their numbers are worse than ours. That may be because they're including care homes in their data while we aren't.
It is because of the care home deaths, which are at about 7500 of that total figure. Figure is currently 12069 hospital deaths. So actually the UK is currently doing worse than France in a like for like comparison.
I don't know whether care home deaths will end up being as severe or not in the UK but at least on current numbers it seems that France is doing better in death toll terms.
Those riots are quite quite different to the normal French farmers dumping manure on a minister.
These are the bainlieues rising up. Potentially disastrous
There are two sides to this. French police are brutal and the state does a bad job of integrating, but there are also loads of videos of the BAME communities in the French suburbs completely ignoring the lockdown and laughing at police trying to enforce it.
A collision was inevitable
While we are very down on the prospects for the UK. France is a very troubled country. Even before CV huge social issues and econmic issues, and unlike Germany or UK, a very rigid labour market and a people who won't accept even modest reform.
Actually macron’s reforms were just starting to pay off as this virus hit. Check the stats on new business starts in the last couple of years. A huge surge. This bug came at just the wrong moment.
If you want to see real trouble in Europe look further south, to Italy
The article is good but what’s truly fascinating is the comment section underneath. It is full of Dutch, French, German and Italian readers all laying into each other. The insults between the Italians and the Dutch are particularly savage. The Dutch accuse the Italians of being feckless thieves, the Italians say the Dutch are soulless hypocrites.
A mighty storm is brewing in the eurozone. They need coronabonds to weather it, but the Dutch and probably the Germans won’t allow this. Something has to give. The Italians might default
'A mighty storm is brewing in the eurozone'
I'm overwhelmed by a wearying wave of déjà vu.
Fwiw Agnès Poirier on Start the Week this am said that coronabonds were likely to come about, mainly because polling showed that the German populace were very much in favour of them.
A nice rebuff to the endless stupid whining about the Government's response.
I think whatever concerns people have about the response they're are being relatively reasonable and would not punish the government in polling whilst in the middle of it. Any such reaction, if there is one, is a little way off.
When the cabinet sees the avalanche of businesses and workers applying for relief, perhaps the sheer scale of the damage to the economy their policy is causing will start to get real for them.
Up until now its just been numbers and predictions and, above all, little coverage from the media.
In a few months time, when unemployment reaches as much as 20%, as it is now predicted to do, when the tax base has crumbled and there is no money left to pay for the NHS, when people are getting evicted from their homes or foreclosed, and the economy is in a free-falling death spiral, the deaths of a few thousand mostly elderly people who might have only lived another year or two at best will seem like too high a price to have paid.
Call me a career psychopath if you like, but our aim should not be to protect every life at any cost. The cost to us all is simply too high. The aim should be to minimise deaths while supporting the economy as much as possible. It is a balancing act, one that the government is getting badly wrong at the moment.
The mortality rate for this among the under 45s is 0.014%, for heaven's sake. With medical intervention this disease is easily survivable for most under 65. Give the oldies the choice of quarantine or taking the risk. Let everyone else get on with their lives.
The final insult will be people like Piers Morgan and Beth Rigby shouting from the rooftops
'why do we have this awful economic crisis'
Deaths from Corona will be completely forgotten.
Yes. Rent-a-gobs have a free option on this; they will moan about everything the govt do or don’t do now, then moan about the cost of what they were demanding later.
Looking at the data there are two critical government actions that have made a difference. The date the lockdown was stated and the amount of testing performed. On the first criteria the UK was about average and on the second well below average. The respirator issue has been a bit of a red herring as we have learnt they don't save that many patients overall. The PPE issue is important as it saves key worker lives but in the end as most isolation staff are young, fit and healthy the impact on death rates is fairly low. The care homes issue has also been an issue globally with no easy answers outside better testing.
The net result is we are sitting in the bottom half of the table. Can the Government now do better? If we are too slow to ease lockdown our industry will be wiped out by competition and the pound will crash. If we don't manage it well we have a second outbreak. On a final point if we don't get our testing in place then no one in the UK will be going anywhere for a long time. Brexit will be true isolation as we become a leper colony.
And another point. It's largely about the R figure. As we ease off restrictions, these will increase the R figure above 1 and the exponential increase starts again. We need to be significantly below 1 each time we ease off a restriction. At the moment we're probably on the nail. We have very little margin, and less than other countries that acted to control the epidemic sooner.
If I was the government I would pinch Merkel's explanation of this verbatim. It would be a lot more useful than telling us yet again how much we admire/respect/want to thank today's particular heroes.
I would rather they pinched the German testing regime.
Why? I mean that I get that it is a convenient stick to beat the government with but what would 10x the current testing achieve? We would probably have a much lower death rate amongst those found to be positive but the death rate would be unchanged. We would have a better idea of the validity of the "iceberg" model but what would change so far as our policy is concerned? We could perhaps reduce the vector of health workers and care workers either being infected or infecting others but for NHS workers it is quite hard to say what else we could do.
Testing was key in phase 1 which I accept we made a mess of by being slow out of the blocks. Now? I am not sure other than trying to confirm how many front line staff have immunity and can work more safely with patients.
There has been and still is a wrong assumption that you cannot maintain a track and trace policy over a long term basis. Next week we will be introducing environmental test swabs that can identify 20 strands of COVID DNA / RNA and give a numeric on the level of COVID from the swab. To give some context the human body has 3000 trillion strands of DNA. This will allow the authorities to quickly identify any uptake in the virus well before it has become a big issue and start local lock downs.
Those riots are quite quite different to the normal French farmers dumping manure on a minister.
These are the bainlieues rising up. Potentially disastrous
There are two sides to this. French police are brutal and the state does a bad job of integrating, but there are also loads of videos of the BAME communities in the French suburbs completely ignoring the lockdown and laughing at police trying to enforce it.
A collision was inevitable
While we are very down on the prospects for the UK. France is a very troubled country. Even before CV huge social issues and econmic issues, and unlike Germany or UK, a very rigid labour market and a people who won't accept even modest reform.
Actually macron’s reforms were just starting to pay off as this virus hit. Check the stats on new business starts in the last couple of years. A huge surge. This bug came at just the wrong moment.
If you want to see real trouble in Europe look further south, to Italy
The article is good but what’s truly fascinating is the comment section underneath. It is full of Dutch, French, German and Italian readers all laying into each other. The insults between the Italians and the Dutch are particularly savage. The Dutch accuse the Italians of being feckless thieves, the Italians say the Dutch are soulless hypocrites.
A mighty storm is brewing in the eurozone. They need coronabonds to weather it, but the Dutch and probably the Germans won’t allow this. Something has to give. The Italians might default
It's what I have being saying for a while. The one criticism I would have of that article is suggesting that the Pandemic Emergency Purchase program is a partial solution. It isn't. It simply allows the country using it to pile up more debt that it then has to service at a premium cost in Italy's case as default becomes ever more likely. They need QE and they need it now.
Just as we were slow to enter I suspect we'll be slow to exit.
Most European countries are starting to lift some restrictions now.
Although for many, that is involving returning to a lockdown state that is still no less restrictive than the U.K.
Really? From BBC news:
“ On Monday, in Germany small shops will be allowed to open and schools will resume for those classes that have graduation exams coming up.
Last week Berlin said the infection rate had slowed and that the outbreak was under control - while warning that people had to remain vigilant to avoid a second wave of infections.
Also from Monday, Poland will re-open parks and forests and in Norway, nursery schools will reopen their doors to children. The Czech Republic will allow open-air markets to trade and in Albania, the mining and oil industries can operate again.”
Well, that's mixed. We haven't (mostly) closed parks and forests and my local market is certainly still operating.
The U.K. lockdown is not as strict as measures imposed in many other countries, who are not allowing any leaving of the house except to buy groceries or medicines, and have police and even army on the streets enforcing the measures.
I think it is only Spain in Europe that has even banned outside exercise
Russia has. One of my Russian friends on Strava is running laps of his dacha. Both Italy and France have brought in much stricter conditions - in France it has to be a maximum of 1 hour and within a km of your home, and at least in some places including Paris, not during daytime.
I’d assumed that that the idea was to let people get some fresh air, walk the dog etc. I was surprised to hear that people are doing 10km runs, 40km bike rides and getting in cars to go to parks - none of which seem to me to be in the spirit of the regulations.
Depends where one lives. We're fine; small town, open countryside within 5 minutes walk. In the somewhat larger town not far away it's a good 10-15 minutes from the centre to even open-ish country, apart from the park.
I think it also depends on what counts as a proper bit of exercise for the individual. I'm no Dura Ace when it comes to a bike ride, but a proper workout for me may be more than someone else needs (though when jogging I regularly seem to get overtaken by people who look to be about 130).
I go for 10-12km walks pretty much every day which typically takes 2 hours. I am not just getting fresh air but exercise that will improve fitness and lung capacity. Along with forsaking alcohol and losing some weight this is my cunning plan to beat the virus. I would be seriously disappointed if this was stopped because there is a problem with social distancing in the likes of London.
I did 76km on the bike this morning. 218w average power. 2 x caffeine gel shot + painkillers so mildly doped.
Seeing as the various world dashboards just give lump sum totals for deaths in France now, if you want to see the split between hospital and care home deaths, the below website shows the split in the dashboard section and is updated daily towards the end of the day.
Those riots are quite quite different to the normal French farmers dumping manure on a minister.
These are the bainlieues rising up. Potentially disastrous
There are two sides to this. French police are brutal and the state does a bad job of integrating, but there are also loads of videos of the BAME communities in the French suburbs completely ignoring the lockdown and laughing at police trying to enforce it.
A collision was inevitable
While we are very down on the prospects for the UK. France is a very troubled country. Even before CV huge social issues and econmic issues, and unlike Germany or UK, a very rigid labour market and a people who won't accept even modest reform.
Actually macron’s reforms were just starting to pay off as this virus hit. Check the stats on new business starts in the last couple of years. A huge surge. This bug came at just the wrong moment.
If you want to see real trouble in Europe look further south, to Italy
The article is good but what’s truly fascinating is the comment section underneath. It is full of Dutch, French, German and Italian readers all laying into each other. The insults between the Italians and the Dutch are particularly savage. The Dutch accuse the Italians of being feckless thieves, the Italians say the Dutch are soulless hypocrites.
A mighty storm is brewing in the eurozone. They need coronabonds to weather it, but the Dutch and probably the Germans won’t allow this. Something has to give. The Italians might default
Is there a history of antipathy between the Dutch and Italians?
Not a history per se but this crisis will see a reemergence of a North/South Eurozone split that had shown signs of healing before the crisis hit. Everyone has their own problems, but they're not the same problems and, while I know this sounds callous, the UK's are amongst the least of them.
In the US and the EU a conflict is emerging between the state/national and federal/EU level authority respectively, which worries me far more long term than anything else. Where would that leave the West? My mother-in-law in Connecticut, a woman not prone to overstatement, was telling the wife the other day that while she doesn't see a split in the Union as being that likely, it is no longer completely unthinkable. You have regional state groupings in the Tri-State Area, the Pacific Coast and the Midwest emerging to co-ordinate in the absence of proper Federal direction. I can see the rest of New England casting in its lot with CT to group with NY and NJ. That kind of thing is what keeps me awake at night.
Looking at the data there are two critical government actions that have made a difference. The date the lockdown was stated and the amount of testing performed. On the first criteria the UK was about average and on the second well below average. The respirator issue has been a bit of a red herring as we have learnt they don't save that many patients overall. The PPE issue is important as it saves key worker lives but in the end as most isolation staff are young, fit and healthy the impact on death rates is fairly low. The care homes issue has also been an issue globally with no easy answers outside better testing.
The net result is we are sitting in the bottom half of the table. Can the Government now do better? If we are too slow to ease lockdown our industry will be wiped out by competition and the pound will crash. If we don't manage it well we have a second outbreak. On a final point if we don't get our testing in place then no one in the UK will be going anywhere for a long time. Brexit will be true isolation as we become a leper colony.
And another point. It's largely about the R figure. As we ease off restrictions, these will increase the R figure above 1 and the exponential increase starts again. We need to be significantly below 1 each time we ease off a restriction. At the moment we're probably on the nail. We have very little margin, and less than other countries that acted to control the epidemic sooner.
If I was the government I would pinch Merkel's explanation of this verbatim. It would be a lot more useful than telling us yet again how much we admire/respect/want to thank today's particular heroes.
I would rather they pinched the German testing regime.
Why? I mean that I get that it is a convenient stick to beat the government with but what would 10x the current testing achieve? We would probably have a much lower death rate amongst those found to be positive but the death rate would be unchanged. We would have a better idea of the validity of the "iceberg" model but what would change so far as our policy is concerned? We could perhaps reduce the vector of health workers and care workers either being infected or infecting others but for NHS workers it is quite hard to say what else we could do.
Testing was key in phase 1 which I accept we made a mess of by being slow out of the blocks. Now? I am not sure other than trying to confirm how many front line staff have immunity and can work more safely with patients.
There has been and still is a wrong assumption that you cannot maintain a track and trace policy over a long term basis. Next week we will be introducing environmental test swabs that can identify 20 strands of COVID DNA / RNA and give a numeric on the level of COVID from the swab. To give some context the human body has 3000 trillion strands of DNA. This will allow the authorities to quickly identify any uptake in the virus well before it has become a big issue and start local lock downs.
If we had that in phase 1 it would really have helped. Now? We would surely need to reduce the number infected significantly first or we would run out of places to isolate people. And this is a different point from the testing to date which is merely trying to identify the presence of the virus.
Those riots are quite quite different to the normal French farmers dumping manure on a minister.
These are the bainlieues rising up. Potentially disastrous
There are two sides to this. French police are brutal and the state does a bad job of integrating, but there are also loads of videos of the BAME communities in the French suburbs completely ignoring the lockdown and laughing at police trying to enforce it.
A collision was inevitable
While we are very down on the prospects for the UK. France is a very troubled country. Even before CV huge social issues and econmic issues, and unlike Germany or UK, a very rigid labour market and a people who won't accept even modest reform.
Actually macron’s reforms were just starting to pay off as this virus hit. Check the stats on new business starts in the last couple of years. A huge surge. This bug came at just the wrong moment.
If you want to see real trouble in Europe look further south, to Italy
The article is good but what’s truly fascinating is the comment section underneath. It is full of Dutch, French, German and Italian readers all laying into each other. The insults between the Italians and the Dutch are particularly savage. The Dutch accuse the Italians of being feckless thieves, the Italians say the Dutch are soulless hypocrites.
A mighty storm is brewing in the eurozone. They need coronabonds to weather it, but the Dutch and probably the Germans won’t allow this. Something has to give. The Italians might default
'A mighty storm is brewing in the eurozone'
I'm overwhelmed by a wearying wave of déjà vu.
Fwiw Agnès Poirier on Start the Week this am said that coronabonds were likely to come about, mainly because polling showed that the German populace were very much in favour of them.
What matters is getting it approved by the Bundestag & Merkel has said on numerous occasions no coronabonds.
Comments
Next you will be telling me they make their money by extracting the surplus value of other's labour.
Britain is at around 200, and the US 119.
Which is weird, I have cycled through our central cemetery half a dozen times on exercise and it has been almost deserted. But we are still I think ramping up in this area.
The only possible issue was 2 lads on bikes sitting at opposite ends of a bench, who could have been friends - but gathering of two are explicitly permitted in the law.
I think the MoL has committed himself to a hole and can't stop digging.
https://twitter.com/LawDavF/status/1241868467499872257?s=20
https://twitter.com/LawDavF/status/1241868551419543552?s=20
https://twitter.com/LawDavF/status/1241868772451012610?s=20
https://twitter.com/LawDavF/status/1241868985429381120?s=20
https://twitter.com/LawDavF/status/1241869089490046981?s=20
The net result is we are sitting in the bottom half of the table. Can the Government now do better? If we are too slow to ease lockdown our industry will be wiped out by competition and the pound will crash. If we don't manage it well we have a second outbreak. On a final point if we don't get our testing in place then no one in the UK will be going anywhere for a long time. Brexit will be true isolation as we become a leper colony.
"We know that with other orders, when the boxes were opened up and it said on the outside 'gowns', when you opened it up, they were actually masks," he said
The stories of supplies from China when it is more crucial than ever that they are what they say they are...dodgy test kits, masks that are worse than wearing a scarf, the list goes on and on.
Going forward it is clear it is a national security issue to be able to produce crucial items.
Up until now its just been numbers and predictions and, above all, little coverage from the media.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
It seems particularly insensitive given the two weeks they had recently spent in the Carribbean a few weeks earlier (which I had no problem with)
The optics are that he really doesn't take the thing that seriously and he' a lazy sod at heart.
I do love the rationale of "I'm the mayor, they're critical of me keeping the parks shut, so here's somewhere thats open 'and there's nobody here' which I'll then put up on Twitter. Yes Andy. There won't be "nobody here" once you post it. Knob.
Building trust is something that is generally neglected, in the chains that involve mass produced low cost items. The suppliers know they will be dropped in a heart beat if they *suggest* they can't deliver. So a tendency to say yes and argue later develops.
*We* may think of suppliers in China et al as unreliable - but what do they see, from their point of view? What are the rational choices from their POV?
In six months time, the public will not give one jot for this public enquiry or whether the government was late, early, blah blah blah.
They will be asking why they have lost their job, why they can't get another one, why their living standards have crashed through the floor, why the pound is so weak, why we appear to owe a gargantuan sum in debt and why their taxes are soaring.
And why we are having to slash funding to our beloved NHS because our denuded economy cannot support what we spend on services
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8235307/Riots-break-suburbs-Paris-amid-anger-French-police-heavy-handedness-lockdown.html
Some things are timeless ........
Over a third of all NHS beds are empty, far higher than is normal for this time of year.
It is not particularly complicated; it simply requires a focussed effort:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/18/world/europe/with-broad-random-tests-for-antibodies-germany-seeks-path-out-of-lockdown.html
...…“We are at a crossroads,” said Mr. Hoelscher, the professor. “Are we going the route of loosening more and increasing immunity in the summer to slow the spread of this in the winter and gain more freedom to live public life? Or are we going to try to minimize transmissions until we have a vaccine?” he asked.
“This is a question for politicians, not for scientists,” he added. “But politicians need the data to make an informed risk assessment.”
Mr. Hoelscher got the idea for the antibody study in the shower. It was March 19, the day before the state of Bavaria announced its lockdown.
“I thought to myself if we’re going into lockdown, we need to start working on an exit strategy now,” he said.
The next day, he said he wrote a short pitch to the Bavarian government. Six hours later, he had the green light. It took another three weeks until the test kits had arrived, a new lab was opened and teams of medics started fanning out across the city...
Datos actualizados de Sanidad:
Casos totales: 200.210
Casos últimas 24 horas: 4.266
Recuperados: 80.587
Fallecidos: 20.852
339 deaths, weekend figures!
Call me a career psychopath if you like, but our aim should not be to protect every life at any cost. The cost to us all is simply too high. The aim should be to minimise deaths while supporting the economy as much as possible. It is a balancing act, one that the government is getting badly wrong at the moment.
The mortality rate for this among the under 45s is 0.014%, for heaven's sake. With medical intervention this disease is easily survivable for most under 65. Give the oldies the choice of quarantine or taking the risk. Let everyone else get on with their lives.
And not to excuse Stalin’s crimes one bit, I do wonder if without the iron grip he had on the USSR they would have been able, albeit after a disastrous 1941, to eventually beat Nazi Germany. Would it have been worse to see Stalin defeated with Hitler dominating Europe? Hitler would’ve then gone for the Middle East and into India, given half a chance. He wanted global domination, not just Eastern Europe.
I obviously don’t know the answers, it’s just an interesting ’what if?...’
The Harvey Jones series was about sorting out small businesses with problems, and which (he thought) lacked professional management.
In my ex-mining area there are local support schemes available to an extent, but the main work is done by Chambers of Commerce, who have been running courses for at least 30 years (I took one in 1996).
The greatest challenges are finance and lack of premises to grow into when you want to jump from 2-3 founders to 10-20 employees ie units of say 3000-6000 sqft.
I backed a tenant starting a gym, which has now created a number of jobs (and has put 2 projects on hold), but they had to jump from a 700n per month unit to a 3000 per month unit to find growth.
The best support infrastructure I can think of are probably tech incubators.
'why do we have this awful economic crisis'
Deaths from Corona will be completely forgotten.
In fact, many would argue that it was this growth in the industrial population, combined with the baroque corruption and incompetence of the regime that led to the revolution.
If we've already experienced a second wave, deadlier than the first, because we ended lockdown too early and didn't return to it, then I don't think issues about the response to the virus will have entirely faded.
How confident are you that the virus will end up being at the less deadly end of the likely range?
Mrs DA draws the line at blood bags in the fridge.
Testing was key in phase 1 which I accept we made a mess of by being slow out of the blocks. Now? I am not sure other than trying to confirm how many front line staff have immunity and can work more safely with patients.
USA 123, Sweden 152, Netherlands 215, UK 237,Italy 391, Spain 446 & Belgium 503.
I don't know whether care home deaths will end up being as severe or not in the UK but at least on current numbers it seems that France is doing better in death toll terms.
I'm overwhelmed by a wearying wave of déjà vu.
Fwiw Agnès Poirier on Start the Week this am said that coronabonds were likely to come about, mainly because polling showed that the German populace were very much in favour of them.
https://www.santepubliquefrance.fr/maladies-et-traumatismes/maladies-et-infections-respiratoires/infection-a-coronavirus/articles/infection-au-nouveau-coronavirus-sars-cov-2-covid-19-france-et-monde#block-242818
In the US and the EU a conflict is emerging between the state/national and federal/EU level authority respectively, which worries me far more long term than anything else. Where would that leave the West? My mother-in-law in Connecticut, a woman not prone to overstatement, was telling the wife the other day that while she doesn't see a split in the Union as being that likely, it is no longer completely unthinkable. You have regional state groupings in the Tri-State Area, the Pacific Coast and the Midwest emerging to co-ordinate in the absence of proper Federal direction. I can see the rest of New England casting in its lot with CT to group with NY and NJ. That kind of thing is what keeps me awake at night.
Singapore has confirmed 1,426 new Covid-19 cases - its biggest daily jump yet.
What matters is getting it approved by the Bundestag & Merkel has said on numerous occasions no coronabonds.