So I think it's time for the government to consider the unpalatable idea of holing people up in hotels for 14 days if they test positive. We need to start separating people with the virus from the rest of the public until they are definitely no longer infectious. Leaving them to their own devices isn't working.
If we have the capability to test 100k people per day we will be catching a significant proportion of the people who have the virus everyday, enough to lower the R to well below 1 in just a few days.
It's not going to be a cheap way of doing it but it will work.
I'd guess we'll need somewhere between 150k and 200k hotel rooms and other temporary accommodation at peak. Is that feasible? I don't know but we definitely need to try, what we're doing at the moment isn't working and will not only result in another 20,000 people dying it will prevent the reopening of the economy for another 3 months.
I would suggest that countries/cities/states fall into one of three categories:
(1) Totally fucked it up. Overloaded healthcare system. High death rates. Lockdown too late. Lombardy and New York City are the key standouts here.
(2) Locked down a little later than they should have done, but broadly did "OK". These countries - like France and the UK and much of the US - are mostly looking now to how they ease restrictions.
(3) Did really well, and have contained the virus. Which is a very small number of countries, like South Korea and some of China.
The UK is comfortably in the second group. We've done OK. We could have done better. But we've done OK.
China, subject to an independent audit. That we will never get.
China did massively stringent lockdowns in a way we didn't.
Now, I realise this is an anecdote from one person in one city, but:
- during lockdown only one person from any household was allowed out to do essential shopping - shops had temperature monitors at the door - masks were compulsory when you were on the street - everything, on public transport and in shops, was regularly sprayed with disinfectant. Event the corridors and lift in his apartment block were sprayed twice a day - people were proactively tested, and if you were positive you were taken away from your family and moved to coronavirus "hostel" so you couldn't infect others - and if one person got it in a household, the rest of the members would be tested every three or four days over a two week period to make sure there was no inter-family transmission
That's much more stringent than anything we've done in Western Europe, or in the US.
Now, does that mean I believe the numbers? No, of course not, I'm not an idiot. But I do believe that they took far more stringent measures than we did, and therefore they did a better job of crushing R to a lower level than us.
And there was a lot of footage of tanker lorries driving 6 abreast spraying the street with some sort of disinfectant. Nothing like that elsewhere.
Because nobody spits on the streets like the Chinese?
You must walk down different streets to me.
Plenty of flob to avoid stepping in.
@Marqueemark is right, noone spits like the chinese.
I would suggest that countries/cities/states fall into one of three categories:
(1) Totally fucked it up. Overloaded healthcare system. High death rates. Lockdown too late. Lombardy and New York City are the key standouts here.
(2) Locked down a little later than they should have done, but broadly did "OK". These countries - like France and the UK and much of the US - are mostly looking now to how they ease restrictions.
(3) Did really well, and have contained the virus. Which is a very small number of countries, like South Korea and some of China.
The UK is comfortably in the second group. We've done OK. We could have done better. But we've done OK.
China, subject to an independent audit. That we will never get.
China did massively stringent lockdowns in a way we didn't.
Now, I realise this is an anecdote from one person in one city, but:
- during lockdown only one person from any household was allowed out to do essential shopping - shops had temperature monitors at the door - masks were compulsory when you were on the street - everything, on public transport and in shops, was regularly sprayed with disinfectant. Event the corridors and lift in his apartment block were sprayed twice a day - people were proactively tested, and if you were positive you were taken away from your family and moved to coronavirus "hostel" so you couldn't infect others - and if one person got it in a household, the rest of the members would be tested every three or four days over a two week period to make sure there was no inter-family transmission
That's much more stringent than anything we've done in Western Europe, or in the US.
Now, does that mean I believe the numbers? No, of course not, I'm not an idiot. But I do believe that they took far more stringent measures than we did, and therefore they did a better job of crushing R to a lower level than us.
And there was a lot of footage of tanker lorries driving 6 abreast spraying the street with some sort of disinfectant. Nothing like that elsewhere.
Because nobody spits on the streets like the Chinese?
You must walk down different streets to me.
Plenty of flob to avoid stepping in.
Aberdeen always seem to me the worst city in Scotland for it. Greeners we called them up there..
He has one shot - to redeem himself as a born again serious politician having been touched (literally) by birth and death over the past month. There were traces of that today although that might just have been exhaustion and the effects of CV-19.
Johnson can reboot his premiership if necessary at some point by firing Dominic Cummings.
I suspect he'd be a very different Prime Minister with a very different keeper.
So I think it's time for the government to consider the unpalatable idea of holing people up in hotels for 14 days if they test positive. We need to start separating people with the virus from the rest of the public until they are definitely no longer infectious. Leaving them to their own devices isn't working.
If we have the capability to test 100k people per day we will be catching a significant proportion of the people who have the virus everyday, enough to lower the R to well below 1 in just a few days.
It's not going to be a cheap way of doing it but it will work.
I'd guess we'll need somewhere between 150k and 200k hotel rooms and other temporary accommodation at peak. Is that feasible? I don't know but we definitely need to try, what we're doing at the moment isn't working and will not only result in another 20,000 people dying it will prevent the reopening of the economy for another 3 months.
Seems high. 6000 found positive today is 84k people. Positive numbers should be going down too.
It should keep coming down - look at other countries (e.g., Austria / Switzerland) they have seen very substantial reductions since their peak without resorting to separating families. It seems quite possible we will be able to achieve the same here.
The more fundamental problem in the UK is that we have (historically) not performed enough tests so previous numbers have been artificially deflated - it seems almost certain that if we could have tested 80000 people at the peak we would have had tens of thousands of positives (plus of course have reduced ongoing infections substantially). Hence, it will take us longer to get the rate down, but there's every reason to hope that this will happen reasonably soon.
If you’re saying we had it worse and are only finding out belatedly, that’s good in one sense, but bad in another, leaving our relatively bad performance (which is starting to be noticed around the world) in search of an explanation.
So I think it's time for the government to consider the unpalatable idea of holing people up in hotels for 14 days if they test positive. We need to start separating people with the virus from the rest of the public until they are definitely no longer infectious. Leaving them to their own devices isn't working.
If we have the capability to test 100k people per day we will be catching a significant proportion of the people who have the virus everyday, enough to lower the R to well below 1 in just a few days.
It's not going to be a cheap way of doing it but it will work.
I'd guess we'll need somewhere between 150k and 200k hotel rooms and other temporary accommodation at peak. Is that feasible? I don't know but we definitely need to try, what we're doing at the moment isn't working and will not only result in another 20,000 people dying it will prevent the reopening of the economy for another 3 months.
Seems high. 6000 found positive today is 84k people. Positive numbers should be going down too.
It should keep coming down - look at other countries (e.g., Austria / Switzerland) they have seen very substantial reductions since their peak without resorting to separating families. It seems quite possible we will be able to achieve the same here.
The more fundamental problem in the UK is that we have (historically) not performed enough tests so previous numbers have been artificially deflated - it seems almost certain that if we could have tested 80000 people at the peak we would have had tens of thousands of positives (plus of course have reduced ongoing infections substantially). Hence, it will take us longer to get the rate down, but there's every reason to hope that this will happen reasonably soon.
Why wait and hope, it's time for action. I'm sure if you asked the public the question they would be up for it. 14-21 days of full separation of people who have the virus followed by an almost full opening up of the economy or 6 more weeks of the current situation plus a slow opening up of the economy. That's the choice right now and I think I'd rather go down the drastic action route, even if it's expensive.
Actually, there are two things that are more important than shear numbers. Time from test taken to getting results. It needs to be max 24hrs. And priority based testing i.e. those in front-line positions or likely to spread it to lots of other people, need to be getting a test and result in hours.
In comparison, a pleb like me, who only lives with Mrs U, can easily self isolate and can work from home, it really isn't as important that its takes a bit longer to get test / result.
I'm like you - I'm not a high priority but in time I'd like to think I could get a test by whatever route.
I'm concerned the test isn't accurate which is a bit of a drawback and we need to get the results back as you say as quickly as possible.
No doubt the Hancock fan club will praise their man to the skies when he reaches the target tomorrow - I won't. It's a meaningless target given the caveats. I'll be much more impressed when large numbers of people are tested once with an accurate test and the results returned within a day or less.
I believe the main accuracy issue is a function of swab collection procedure. It is just one of those things that ramming a swab from your nose doesn't always collect what is required. The UK isn't alone in this, I don't believe any country has a swab based antigen test that is really any more accurate. It is why in places like Japan and South Korea, common to have multiple tests.
Now apparently they have found that a spit test can be just as good (if not better), but this is all recent science. And given how the government were burned over antibody tests, they aren't going to go place any publicly put any faith in new procedures before they have been extensively independently assessed.
So I think it's time for the government to consider the unpalatable idea of holing people up in hotels for 14 days if they test positive. We need to start separating people with the virus from the rest of the public until they are definitely no longer infectious. Leaving them to their own devices isn't working.
If we have the capability to test 100k people per day we will be catching a significant proportion of the people who have the virus everyday, enough to lower the R to well below 1 in just a few days.
It's not going to be a cheap way of doing it but it will work.
I'd guess we'll need somewhere between 150k and 200k hotel rooms and other temporary accommodation at peak. Is that feasible? I don't know but we definitely need to try, what we're doing at the moment isn't working and will not only result in another 20,000 people dying it will prevent the reopening of the economy for another 3 months.
Seems high. 6000 found positive today is 84k people. Positive numbers should be going down too.
It should keep coming down - look at other countries (e.g., Austria / Switzerland) they have seen very substantial reductions since their peak without resorting to separating families. It seems quite possible we will be able to achieve the same here.
The more fundamental problem in the UK is that we have (historically) not performed enough tests so previous numbers have been artificially deflated - it seems almost certain that if we could have tested 80000 people at the peak we would have had tens of thousands of positives (plus of course have reduced ongoing infections substantially). Hence, it will take us longer to get the rate down, but there's every reason to hope that this will happen reasonably soon.
If you’re saying we had it worse and are only finding out belatedly, that’s good in one sense, but bad in another, leaving our relatively bad performance (which is starting to be noticed around the world) in search of an explanation.
I'm focusing only on tests and the number of positives. In that context, other countries have observed a similar phenomena - as @rcs1000 pointed out, the numbers in Italy stayed stubbornly high in terms of positives as they kept ramping up the number of tests they were performing (and finding more and more mild cases).
So I think it's time for the government to consider the unpalatable idea of holing people up in hotels for 14 days if they test positive. We need to start separating people with the virus from the rest of the public until they are definitely no longer infectious. Leaving them to their own devices isn't working.
If we have the capability to test 100k people per day we will be catching a significant proportion of the people who have the virus everyday, enough to lower the R to well below 1 in just a few days.
It's not going to be a cheap way of doing it but it will work.
I'd guess we'll need somewhere between 150k and 200k hotel rooms and other temporary accommodation at peak. Is that feasible? I don't know but we definitely need to try, what we're doing at the moment isn't working and will not only result in another 20,000 people dying it will prevent the reopening of the economy for another 3 months.
Seems high. 6000 found positive today is 84k people. Positive numbers should be going down too.
It should keep coming down - look at other countries (e.g., Austria / Switzerland) they have seen very substantial reductions since their peak without resorting to separating families. It seems quite possible we will be able to achieve the same here.
The more fundamental problem in the UK is that we have (historically) not performed enough tests so previous numbers have been artificially deflated - it seems almost certain that if we could have tested 80000 people at the peak we would have had tens of thousands of positives (plus of course have reduced ongoing infections substantially). Hence, it will take us longer to get the rate down, but there's every reason to hope that this will happen reasonably soon.
Why wait and hope, it's time for action. I'm sure if you asked the public the question they would be up for it. 14-21 days of full separation of people who have the virus followed by an almost full opening up of the economy or 6 more weeks of the current situation plus a slow opening up of the economy. That's the choice right now and I think I'd rather go down the drastic action route, even if it's expensive.
What makes you think that transmission is happening because of people who've tested positive already?
Ok, scrub Nigel banging his pan, Gangs of London is the worst thing I'll see today. Knew I shouldn't have persisted, ahm oot.
I wasted part of an evening watching that the other day. What a pile of shit. The premise could have been good, but the ridiculous unnecessary, often comical, violence, made Westworld Season 3 look like a masterpiece.
So I think it's time for the government to consider the unpalatable idea of holing people up in hotels for 14 days if they test positive. We need to start separating people with the virus from the rest of the public until they are definitely no longer infectious. Leaving them to their own devices isn't working.
If we have the capability to test 100k people per day we will be catching a significant proportion of the people who have the virus everyday, enough to lower the R to well below 1 in just a few days.
It's not going to be a cheap way of doing it but it will work.
I'd guess we'll need somewhere between 150k and 200k hotel rooms and other temporary accommodation at peak. Is that feasible? I don't know but we definitely need to try, what we're doing at the moment isn't working and will not only result in another 20,000 people dying it will prevent the reopening of the economy for another 3 months.
Seems high. 6000 found positive today is 84k people. Positive numbers should be going down too.
It should keep coming down - look at other countries (e.g., Austria / Switzerland) they have seen very substantial reductions since their peak without resorting to separating families. It seems quite possible we will be able to achieve the same here.
The more fundamental problem in the UK is that we have (historically) not performed enough tests so previous numbers have been artificially deflated - it seems almost certain that if we could have tested 80000 people at the peak we would have had tens of thousands of positives (plus of course have reduced ongoing infections substantially). Hence, it will take us longer to get the rate down, but there's every reason to hope that this will happen reasonably soon.
If you’re saying we had it worse and are only finding out belatedly, that’s good in one sense, but bad in another, leaving our relatively bad performance (which is starting to be noticed around the world) in search of an explanation.
International travel still continuing, the 7 day send home policy and lack of testing, IMO. The government are to blame for all three as well and it is going to cost us many thousands of extra deaths and many hundreds of billions in economic value.
I think any other government would have done the same because it is a problem with our "experts" as well as our politicians.
FPT RKRKRK said 'Rates fell from the start of the crisis to 2010 even as we borrowed incredible amounts. They are rock bottom now even though we have more debt than before and our deficit is going to be massive.
Your thesis doesn't stack up.
Instead, I think it's just that during a crisis people want to buy safe govt bonds. UK govt bonds are safe because we have our own currency.'
Absolutely correct. Moreover, longterm 10 year borrowing rates have been falling since the early 1990s. When the Major Govt left office in May 1997 the rate was circa 7.4% - almost double the 3.8% bequeathed in May 2010 to Osborne.
People knowing they're positive helps - its the difference between popping out the shops and munching through the emergency pasta pile (Well it would be for me)
At least five other people had died from the coronavirus in the UK by the time the government reported the first death from the outbreak, new data has revealed.
Mr Recode from Iceland is confident coronavirus was widespread a lot earlier than the official numbers show.
I had a very bad flu-like illness which lasted until about 3rd January this year. The gap between that date and the earliest known case of Covid-19 in Europe seems to be getting smaller all the time. A lot of other people have been saying something similar.
The problem with the virus is that the symptoms match plenty of other viruses too and in normal circumstances you'd just feel rotten not think coronavirus.
My wife had all of the coronavirus symptoms on Mother's Day last year. Confident that wasn't Covid19 but if she'd had those identical symptoms this year instead from the same virus she must have had last year we'd have mistakenly assumed it was Covid19.
There are a shed load of viruses squirrelling around that whack you.....
About every month or so I'll have an off day for no reason....and every six months something that lasts for a couple of days or more....
The problem now with Covid 19....is that when I have one of these days...I'll be imagining myself in 3 weeks time about to being put on a ventilator holding the hand of some poor nurse and gasping for breadth....
Covid is a frightening, miserable way to die...I think that sums it up quite nicely...
Now, does that mean I believe the numbers? No, of course not, I'm not an idiot. But I do believe that they took far more stringent measures than we did, and therefore they did a better job of crushing R to a lower level than us.
The more difficult question to answer is how (if?) they managed to prevent sustained community transmission in China outside Hubei without doing those things, given that there was a lag of at least a few weeks between the start of the outbreak and any serious countermeasures.
Well, they didn't. Obviously.
But if you are able to reduce intra-family transmission down to very low levels through pulling people out of families and testing people 3-4 times a week if a family member is infected, then you dramatically lower spread.
The rising proportion of oldies means spending on pensions and healthcare rises, even while the number of workers providing tax income falls.
That is the inevitable consequence of a TFR below 2, and rising life expectancies.
There is nothing any government can do about it, well nothing much, and it therefore means that either spending on other services is cut, or taxpayers need to reach into their pockets and pay more in taxes.
That is - however you cut it - austerity.
Raise the pension age.
Scrap remaining defined benefit pensions paid by the public purse.
You can raise the retirement age, and that helps.
But it's also unbelievably unpopular. And labour participation rates drop off as people get older even with a rising retirement age.
You can offer no more defined benefit plans in future, but you can't change the ones that we already owe (and have not saved for).
I wrote a report a couple of years ago, showing the rising spend on healthcare and pensions in the UK. It's really scary, because you can't make the number go backwards easily.
Might CV19 be helping? Oh dear, have I said something I shouldn't have?
This is why I know CV-19 is not a disease created to wage economic war.
Because CV-19 - if left unchecked to wipe out the oldies - would be a massive economic boon, reducing pension payments, freeing up housing, and improving the dependency ratio.
Unless it was a virus created by Chinese boffins... for China!
Kill the obese, the morbidly chronic, and the old.
Also, kill off more men, because China has a gender imbalance in favour of men
Bingo, China has a fitter, younger workforce, with an equal gender balance, and suddenly the nation will have the urge to reproduce again, as that is the usual result of massive death
There you go. Corona was meant for China herself, but it got out i=of hand
I love it.
I reckon I can get a million views on YouTube with that
So I think it's time for the government to consider the unpalatable idea of holing people up in hotels for 14 days if they test positive. We need to start separating people with the virus from the rest of the public until they are definitely no longer infectious. Leaving them to their own devices isn't working.
If we have the capability to test 100k people per day we will be catching a significant proportion of the people who have the virus everyday, enough to lower the R to well below 1 in just a few days.
It's not going to be a cheap way of doing it but it will work.
I'd guess we'll need somewhere between 150k and 200k hotel rooms and other temporary accommodation at peak. Is that feasible? I don't know but we definitely need to try, what we're doing at the moment isn't working and will not only result in another 20,000 people dying it will prevent the reopening of the economy for another 3 months.
Seems high. 6000 found positive today is 84k people. Positive numbers should be going down too.
It should keep coming down - look at other countries (e.g., Austria / Switzerland) they have seen very substantial reductions since their peak without resorting to separating families. It seems quite possible we will be able to achieve the same here.
The more fundamental problem in the UK is that we have (historically) not performed enough tests so previous numbers have been artificially deflated - it seems almost certain that if we could have tested 80000 people at the peak we would have had tens of thousands of positives (plus of course have reduced ongoing infections substantially). Hence, it will take us longer to get the rate down, but there's every reason to hope that this will happen reasonably soon.
Why wait and hope, it's time for action. I'm sure if you asked the public the question they would be up for it. 14-21 days of full separation of people who have the virus followed by an almost full opening up of the economy or 6 more weeks of the current situation plus a slow opening up of the economy. That's the choice right now and I think I'd rather go down the drastic action route, even if it's expensive.
What makes you think that transmission is happening because of people who've tested positive already?
If you have 6k people who have tested positive and an R of 0.7, those 6k will infect another 4k people, my proposal means those 4k people won't be infected. Then follow that up for 14 days worth of taking people into hotel rooms and you're suddenly reducing the R to 0.2 from 0.7, it may be artificial but it will work. It's how China did it and, IMO, they had a much more serious outbreak in Hubei than we have had. I have no doubt their test and separate policy was a huge factor in getting the R from 3 to 0.1 in a very short period of time.
I'd like for the government to level with the public and basically ask which route we'd like to take, the severe test and separate route followed by track and trace with a Korean style full opening of the economy, or another 6 weeks of slowly opening things back up. I think the British people are made of much sterner stuff than our scientists give us credit for and will live with test and separate.
The rising proportion of oldies means spending on pensions and healthcare rises, even while the number of workers providing tax income falls.
That is the inevitable consequence of a TFR below 2, and rising life expectancies.
There is nothing any government can do about it, well nothing much, and it therefore means that either spending on other services is cut, or taxpayers need to reach into their pockets and pay more in taxes.
That is - however you cut it - austerity.
Raise the pension age.
Scrap remaining defined benefit pensions paid by the public purse.
You can raise the retirement age, and that helps.
But it's also unbelievably unpopular. And labour participation rates drop off as people get older even with a rising retirement age.
You can offer no more defined benefit plans in future, but you can't change the ones that we already owe (and have not saved for).
I wrote a report a couple of years ago, showing the rising spend on healthcare and pensions in the UK. It's really scary, because you can't make the number go backwards easily.
Might CV19 be helping? Oh dear, have I said something I shouldn't have?
This is why I know CV-19 is not a disease created to wage economic war.
Because CV-19 - if left unchecked to wipe out the oldies - would be a massive economic boon, reducing pension payments, freeing up housing, and improving the dependency ratio.
Unless it was a virus created by Chinese boffins... for China!
Kill the obese, the morbidly chronic, and the old.
Also, kill off more men, because China has a gender imbalance in favour of men
Bingo, China has a fitter, younger workforce, with an equal gender balance, and suddenly the nation will have the urge to reproduce again, as that is the usual result of massive death
There you go. Corona was meant for China herself, but it got out i=of hand
A better conspiracy theory is what might actually happen by cock up rather than conspiracy.
Western countries destroy their economies by poor control and overreaction and then China steps into the void.
It's probably knocked 15-20 years off their world domination plans so... Result.
Now, does that mean I believe the numbers? No, of course not, I'm not an idiot. But I do believe that they took far more stringent measures than we did, and therefore they did a better job of crushing R to a lower level than us.
The more difficult question to answer is how (if?) they managed to prevent sustained community transmission in China outside Hubei without doing those things, given that there was a lag of at least a few weeks between the start of the outbreak and any serious countermeasures.
Well, they didn't. Obviously.
But if you are able to reduce intra-family transmission down to very low levels through pulling people out of families and testing people 3-4 times a week if a family member is infected, then you dramatically lower spread.
Italy's disease is almost exclusively within family clusters now...we are so far away from that still, weeks away.........
It would appear that people who stockpiled ludicrous quantities of bog roll are now contacting the supplier asking if they can return it and get a refund.
Everyone who had last winter’s cold now suddenly thinks they had the virus already. Lol
No they don't. I've said on here whatever I had wasn't covid-19 but it wasn't a "winter cold" nor was it any kind of flu I've ever had. It was a virus but fortunately one which responded to antibiotics.
Too many people have reported too many strange illnesses for this to be mere coincidence - I've said on here as well I think the anomalously mild winter across the northern hemisphere was a factor in allowing the spread of viruses and perhaps a degree of mutation or increased severity.
Jesus. Viruses do not respond to antibiotics
Secondary bacterial infections can which I hope is what stodge meant.
The rising proportion of oldies means spending on pensions and healthcare rises, even while the number of workers providing tax income falls.
That is the inevitable consequence of a TFR below 2, and rising life expectancies.
There is nothing any government can do about it, well nothing much, and it therefore means that either spending on other services is cut, or taxpayers need to reach into their pockets and pay more in taxes.
That is - however you cut it - austerity.
Raise the pension age.
Scrap remaining defined benefit pensions paid by the public purse.
You can raise the retirement age, and that helps.
But it's also unbelievably unpopular. And labour participation rates drop off as people get older even with a rising retirement age.
You can offer no more defined benefit plans in future, but you can't change the ones that we already owe (and have not saved for).
I wrote a report a couple of years ago, showing the rising spend on healthcare and pensions in the UK. It's really scary, because you can't make the number go backwards easily.
Might CV19 be helping? Oh dear, have I said something I shouldn't have?
This is why I know CV-19 is not a disease created to wage economic war.
Because CV-19 - if left unchecked to wipe out the oldies - would be a massive economic boon, reducing pension payments, freeing up housing, and improving the dependency ratio.
Unless it was a virus created by Chinese boffins... for China!
Kill the obese, the morbidly chronic, and the old.
Also, kill off more men, because China has a gender imbalance in favour of men
Bingo, China has a fitter, younger workforce, with an equal gender balance, and suddenly the nation will have the urge to reproduce again, as that is the usual result of massive death
There you go. Corona was meant for China herself, but it got out i=of hand
Also if your medium term plan is to subjugate the world, it would be useful to produce the same effect in the countries you intend to subjugate.
So Mr Swedish EggHead has said their mistake (and main reason for excessive deaths) was slowness to lockdown old people's homes, not the general strategy and he is going to public research on this next week.
So I think it's time for the government to consider the unpalatable idea of holing people up in hotels for 14 days if they test positive. We need to start separating people with the virus from the rest of the public until they are definitely no longer infectious. Leaving them to their own devices isn't working.
If we have the capability to test 100k people per day we will be catching a significant proportion of the people who have the virus everyday, enough to lower the R to well below 1 in just a few days.
It's not going to be a cheap way of doing it but it will work.
I'd guess we'll need somewhere between 150k and 200k hotel rooms and other temporary accommodation at peak. Is that feasible? I don't know but we definitely need to try, what we're doing at the moment isn't working and will not only result in another 20,000 people dying it will prevent the reopening of the economy for another 3 months.
Seems high. 6000 found positive today is 84k people. Positive numbers should be going down too.
It should keep coming down - look at other countries (e.g., Austria / Switzerland) they have seen very substantial reductions since their peak without resorting to separating families. It seems quite possible we will be able to achieve the same here.
The more fundamental problem in the UK is that we have (historically) not performed enough tests so previous numbers have been artificially deflated - it seems almost certain that if we could have tested 80000 people at the peak we would have had tens of thousands of positives (plus of course have reduced ongoing infections substantially). Hence, it will take us longer to get the rate down, but there's every reason to hope that this will happen reasonably soon.
Why wait and hope, it's time for action. I'm sure if you asked the public the question they would be up for it. 14-21 days of full separation of people who have the virus followed by an almost full opening up of the economy or 6 more weeks of the current situation plus a slow opening up of the economy. That's the choice right now and I think I'd rather go down the drastic action route, even if it's expensive.
What makes you think that transmission is happening because of people who've tested positive already?
If you have 6k people who have tested positive and an R of 0.7, those 6k will infect another 4k people, my proposal means those 4k people won't be infected. Then follow that up for 14 days worth of taking people into hotel rooms and you're suddenly reducing the R to 0.2 from 0.7, it may be artificial but it will work. It's how China did it and, IMO, they had a much more serious outbreak in Hubei than we have had. I have no doubt their test and separate policy was a huge factor in getting the R from 3 to 0.1 in a very short period of time.
I'd like for the government to level with the public and basically ask which route we'd like to take, the severe test and separate route followed by track and trace with a Korean style full opening of the economy, or another 6 weeks of slowly opening things back up. I think the British people are made of much sterner stuff than our scientists give us credit for and will live with test and separate.
Bit brutal the Chinese Funnel system, but very effective at breaking transmission.
The daftest thing we did was to abandon testing in early March. It has taken 6 weeks to catch up to where we should have been.
It would appear that people who stockpiled ludicrous quantities of bog roll are now contacting the supplier asking if they can return it and get a refund.
for those flowing US Presidential elections, basically everybody on here. US Congressman Justin Amash, who left the Republican party last year has joined the Libertarian Party, and will try to be its candidate for POTUS.
Will he win, almost certainly not, but in these uncertain times, maybe, just maybe.
I will be chearing him on and wish him all the best, for what little that is worth.
Will it change the dynamics of the election, probably not a lot, but perhaps more than last time, after a legal battle, its more likely that he will be in at least one of the TV Debates.
any thoughts?
Thoughts?
Jo Swinson has the same chance of being next Prime Minister as Amash has of being next President.
As good as that? I would be surprised if Amash polled 1%
Meanwhile the Republican Governor of Maryland has placed 1/2 A million test kits under armed guard at an undisclosed location to protect it from seizure by the Federal government. America is a very weird place indeed.
It would appear that people who stockpiled ludicrous quantities of bog roll are now contacting the supplier asking if they can return it and get a refund.
So I think it's time for the government to consider the unpalatable idea of holing people up in hotels for 14 days if they test positive. We need to start separating people with the virus from the rest of the public until they are definitely no longer infectious. Leaving them to their own devices isn't working.
If we have the capability to test 100k people per day we will be catching a significant proportion of the people who have the virus everyday, enough to lower the R to well below 1 in just a few days.
It's not going to be a cheap way of doing it but it will work.
I'd guess we'll need somewhere between 150k and 200k hotel rooms and other temporary accommodation at peak. Is that feasible? I don't know but we definitely need to try, what we're doing at the moment isn't working and will not only result in another 20,000 people dying it will prevent the reopening of the economy for another 3 months.
Center Parcs.
Least it's nice (sort of).
It was nice in the late 80s and early 90s before it became overcrowded.
It would appear that people who stockpiled ludicrous quantities of bog roll are now contacting the supplier asking if they can return it and get a refund.
Another big daily death toll in Brazil, +390. Had this feeling for a while now: they're going to be worse than anywhere except the US.
Russia says "hold my vodka...."
I've no idea if this fact is correct, but check this out.
Testing throughout February and most of March was handled by a single lab in Siberia, meaning that most covid-19 cases across Russia’s 11 time zones were being wrongly classified as pneumonia, bronchitis, flu, etc.
It would appear that people who stockpiled ludicrous quantities of bog roll are now contacting the supplier asking if they can return it and get a refund.
So I think it's time for the government to consider the unpalatable idea of holing people up in hotels for 14 days if they test positive. We need to start separating people with the virus from the rest of the public until they are definitely no longer infectious. Leaving them to their own devices isn't working.
If we have the capability to test 100k people per day we will be catching a significant proportion of the people who have the virus everyday, enough to lower the R to well below 1 in just a few days.
It's not going to be a cheap way of doing it but it will work.
I'd guess we'll need somewhere between 150k and 200k hotel rooms and other temporary accommodation at peak. Is that feasible? I don't know but we definitely need to try, what we're doing at the moment isn't working and will not only result in another 20,000 people dying it will prevent the reopening of the economy for another 3 months.
Seems high. 6000 found positive today is 84k people. Positive numbers should be going down too.
It should keep coming down - look at other countries (e.g., Austria / Switzerland) they have seen very substantial reductions since their peak without resorting to separating families. It seems quite possible we will be able to achieve the same here.
The more fundamental problem in the UK is that we have (historically) not performed enough tests so previous numbers have been artificially deflated - it seems almost certain that if we could have tested 80000 people at the peak we would have had tens of thousands of positives (plus of course have reduced ongoing infections substantially). Hence, it will take us longer to get the rate down, but there's every reason to hope that this will happen reasonably soon.
Why wait and hope, it's time for action. I'm sure if you asked the public the question they would be up for it. 14-21 days of full separation of people who have the virus followed by an almost full opening up of the economy or 6 more weeks of the current situation plus a slow opening up of the economy. That's the choice right now and I think I'd rather go down the drastic action route, even if it's expensive.
What makes you think that transmission is happening because of people who've tested positive already?
If you have 6k people who have tested positive and an R of 0.7, those 6k will infect another 4k people, my proposal means those 4k people won't be infected. Then follow that up for 14 days worth of taking people into hotel rooms and you're suddenly reducing the R to 0.2 from 0.7, it may be artificial but it will work. It's how China did it and, IMO, they had a much more serious outbreak in Hubei than we have had. I have no doubt their test and separate policy was a huge factor in getting the R from 3 to 0.1 in a very short period of time.
I'd like for the government to level with the public and basically ask which route we'd like to take, the severe test and separate route followed by track and trace with a Korean style full opening of the economy, or another 6 weeks of slowly opening things back up. I think the British people are made of much sterner stuff than our scientists give us credit for and will live with test and separate.
You're making a flawed assumption that (a) the R rate for people who have tested positive is the same as the R rate for the general population who have not tested positive and (b) the people who have tested positive won't have already infected anyone prior to testing positive and (c) that everyone who is positive is tested and tests positive.
If any of those assumptions are wrong (and I think they all are) a premature lifting of lockdown would raise R by more than separation would lower it.
It would appear that people who stockpiled ludicrous quantities of bog roll are now contacting the supplier asking if they can return it and get a refund.
So I think it's time for the government to consider the unpalatable idea of holing people up in hotels for 14 days if they test positive. We need to start separating people with the virus from the rest of the public until they are definitely no longer infectious. Leaving them to their own devices isn't working.
If we have the capability to test 100k people per day we will be catching a significant proportion of the people who have the virus everyday, enough to lower the R to well below 1 in just a few days.
It's not going to be a cheap way of doing it but it will work.
I'd guess we'll need somewhere between 150k and 200k hotel rooms and other temporary accommodation at peak. Is that feasible? I don't know but we definitely need to try, what we're doing at the moment isn't working and will not only result in another 20,000 people dying it will prevent the reopening of the economy for another 3 months.
Seems high. 6000 found positive today is 84k people. Positive numbers should be going down too.
It should keep coming down - look at other countries (e.g., Austria / Switzerland) they have seen very substantial reductions since their peak without resorting to separating families. It seems quite possible we will be able to achieve the same here.
The more fundamental problem in the UK is that we have (historically) not performed enough tests so previous numbers have been artificially deflated - it seems almost certain that if we could have tested 80000 people at the peak we would have had tens of thousands of positives (plus of course have reduced ongoing infections substantially). Hence, it will take us longer to get the rate down, but there's every reason to hope that this will happen reasonably soon.
Why wait and hope, it's time for action. I'm sure if you asked the public the question they would be up for it. 14-21 days of full separation of people who have the virus followed by an almost full opening up of the economy or 6 more weeks of the current situation plus a slow opening up of the economy. That's the choice right now and I think I'd rather go down the drastic action route, even if it's expensive.
What makes you think that transmission is happening because of people who've tested positive already?
If you have 6k people who have tested positive and an R of 0.7, those 6k will infect another 4k people, my proposal means those 4k people won't be infected. Then follow that up for 14 days worth of taking people into hotel rooms and you're suddenly reducing the R to 0.2 from 0.7, it may be artificial but it will work. It's how China did it and, IMO, they had a much more serious outbreak in Hubei than we have had. I have no doubt their test and separate policy was a huge factor in getting the R from 3 to 0.1 in a very short period of time.
I'd like for the government to level with the public and basically ask which route we'd like to take, the severe test and separate route followed by track and trace with a Korean style full opening of the economy, or another 6 weeks of slowly opening things back up. I think the British people are made of much sterner stuff than our scientists give us credit for and will live with test and separate.
Bit brutal the Chinese Funnel system, but very effective at breaking transmission.
The daftest thing we did was to abandon testing in early March. It has taken 6 weeks to catch up to where we should have been.
Exactly, we both said it on here at the time. Back then the government should have been looking at getting to 200k testing capacity per day and building up 200k worth of isolated room spaces at universities and hotels and a volunteer corps to service the rooms/apartments.
The funnel system is the only viable method to beat this.
So I think it's time for the government to consider the unpalatable idea of holing people up in hotels for 14 days if they test positive. We need to start separating people with the virus from the rest of the public until they are definitely no longer infectious. Leaving them to their own devices isn't working.
If we have the capability to test 100k people per day we will be catching a significant proportion of the people who have the virus everyday, enough to lower the R to well below 1 in just a few days.
It's not going to be a cheap way of doing it but it will work.
I'd guess we'll need somewhere between 150k and 200k hotel rooms and other temporary accommodation at peak. Is that feasible? I don't know but we definitely need to try, what we're doing at the moment isn't working and will not only result in another 20,000 people dying it will prevent the reopening of the economy for another 3 months.
Center Parcs.
Least it's nice (sort of).
It was nice in the late 80s and early 90s before it became overcrowded.
We once booked a long weekend to meet some old friends....we arrived half an hour early, enough time to make our escape and tell them that sadly our car had broken down en route and couldn't make it....
So I think it's time for the government to consider the unpalatable idea of holing people up in hotels for 14 days if they test positive. We need to start separating people with the virus from the rest of the public until they are definitely no longer infectious. Leaving them to their own devices isn't working.
If we have the capability to test 100k people per day we will be catching a significant proportion of the people who have the virus everyday, enough to lower the R to well below 1 in just a few days.
It's not going to be a cheap way of doing it but it will work.
I'd guess we'll need somewhere between 150k and 200k hotel rooms and other temporary accommodation at peak. Is that feasible? I don't know but we definitely need to try, what we're doing at the moment isn't working and will not only result in another 20,000 people dying it will prevent the reopening of the economy for another 3 months.
Seems high. 6000 found positive today is 84k people. Positive numbers should be going down too.
It should keep coming down - look at other countries (e.g., Austria / Switzerland) they have seen very substantial reductions since their peak without resorting to separating families. It seems quite possible we will be able to achieve the same here.
The more fundamental problem in the UK is that we have (historically) not performed enough tests so previous numbers have been artificially deflated - it seems almost certain that if we could have tested 80000 people at the peak we would have had tens of thousands of positives (plus of course have reduced ongoing infections substantially). Hence, it will take us longer to get the rate down, but there's every reason to hope that this will happen reasonably soon.
Why wait and hope, it's time for action. I'm sure if you asked the public the question they would be up for it. 14-21 days of full separation of people who have the virus followed by an almost full opening up of the economy or 6 more weeks of the current situation plus a slow opening up of the economy. That's the choice right now and I think I'd rather go down the drastic action route, even if it's expensive.
Isn't this what old TB clinics were for?
I'm inclined to agree, but fear our population won't accept this medicine. Nor will they accept mass invasion of privacy a la SK's tracing, or German 'scientists in hazmat suits arriving to test your blood'.
We're in for a slow easing of the lockdown. Today was for me pure Boosterism.
Suspect next Thursday its going to be announced that one more 3 week push then we can have some easing. The easing which is then announced at a later date would surely be minimal to avoid increasing the R too much.
So I think it's time for the government to consider the unpalatable idea of holing people up in hotels for 14 days if they test positive. We need to start separating people with the virus from the rest of the public until they are definitely no longer infectious. Leaving them to their own devices isn't working.
If we have the capability to test 100k people per day we will be catching a significant proportion of the people who have the virus everyday, enough to lower the R to well below 1 in just a few days.
It's not going to be a cheap way of doing it but it will work.
I'd guess we'll need somewhere between 150k and 200k hotel rooms and other temporary accommodation at peak. Is that feasible? I don't know but we definitely need to try, what we're doing at the moment isn't working and will not only result in another 20,000 people dying it will prevent the reopening of the economy for another 3 months.
The government hasn't implemented proper quarantine, nor as far as I can tell seriously considered it. It is however vital in controlling the virus. It's the third part of track and trace and the reason why you do it. You don't necessarily have to be exiled into a dedicated facility but you do need to be completely isolated for up to two weeks. I believe Korea and Hong Kong tags people with suspected infections and woe betide you if you step outside your front door
So I think it's time for the government to consider the unpalatable idea of holing people up in hotels for 14 days if they test positive. We need to start separating people with the virus from the rest of the public until they are definitely no longer infectious. Leaving them to their own devices isn't working.
If we have the capability to test 100k people per day we will be catching a significant proportion of the people who have the virus everyday, enough to lower the R to well below 1 in just a few days.
It's not going to be a cheap way of doing it but it will work.
I'd guess we'll need somewhere between 150k and 200k hotel rooms and other temporary accommodation at peak. Is that feasible? I don't know but we definitely need to try, what we're doing at the moment isn't working and will not only result in another 20,000 people dying it will prevent the reopening of the economy for another 3 months.
Seems high. 6000 found positive today is 84k people. Positive numbers should be going down too.
It should keep coming down - look at other countries (e.g., Austria / Switzerland) they have seen very substantial reductions since their peak without resorting to separating families. It seems quite possible we will be able to achieve the same here.
The more fundamental problem in the UK is that we have (historically) not performed enough tests so previous numbers have been artificially deflated - it seems almost certain that if we could have tested 80000 people at the peak we would have had tens of thousands of positives (plus of course have reduced ongoing infections substantially). Hence, it will take us longer to get the rate down, but there's every reason to hope that this will happen reasonably soon.
Why wait and hope, it's time for action. I'm sure if you asked the public the question they would be up for it. 14-21 days of full separation of people who have the virus followed by an almost full opening up of the economy or 6 more weeks of the current situation plus a slow opening up of the economy. That's the choice right now and I think I'd rather go down the drastic action route, even if it's expensive.
Isn't this what old TB clinics were for?
I'm inclined to agree, but fear our population won't accept this medicine. Nor will they accept mass invasion of privacy a la SK's tracing, or German 'scientists in hazmat suits arriving to test your blood'.
We're in for a slow easing of the lockdown. Today was for me pure Boosterism.
Suspect next Thursday its going to be announced that one more 3 week push then we can have some easing. The easing which is then announced at a later date would surely be minimal to avoid increasing the R too much.
I think the SK solution is sellable. Just slap a "Saving the NHS" label on it.
So I think it's time for the government to consider the unpalatable idea of holing people up in hotels for 14 days if they test positive. We need to start separating people with the virus from the rest of the public until they are definitely no longer infectious. Leaving them to their own devices isn't working.
If we have the capability to test 100k people per day we will be catching a significant proportion of the people who have the virus everyday, enough to lower the R to well below 1 in just a few days.
It's not going to be a cheap way of doing it but it will work.
I'd guess we'll need somewhere between 150k and 200k hotel rooms and other temporary accommodation at peak. Is that feasible? I don't know but we definitely need to try, what we're doing at the moment isn't working and will not only result in another 20,000 people dying it will prevent the reopening of the economy for another 3 months.
Seems high. 6000 found positive today is 84k people. Positive numbers should be going down too.
It should keep coming down - look at other countries (e.g., Austria / Switzerland) they have seen very substantial reductions since their peak without resorting to separating families. It seems quite possible we will be able to achieve the same here.
The more fundamental problem in the UK is that we have (historically) not performed enough tests so previous numbers have been artificially deflated - it seems almost certain that if we could have tested 80000 people at the peak we would have had tens of thousands of positives (plus of course have reduced ongoing infections substantially). Hence, it will take us longer to get the rate down, but there's every reason to hope that this will happen reasonably soon.
Why wait and hope, it's time for action. I'm sure if you asked the public the question they would be up for it. 14-21 days of full separation of people who have the virus followed by an almost full opening up of the economy or 6 more weeks of the current situation plus a slow opening up of the economy. That's the choice right now and I think I'd rather go down the drastic action route, even if it's expensive.
What makes you think that transmission is happening because of people who've tested positive already?
If you have 6k people who have tested positive and an R of 0.7, those 6k will infect another 4k people, my proposal means those 4k people won't be infected. Then follow that up for 14 days worth of taking people into hotel rooms and you're suddenly reducing the R to 0.2 from 0.7, it may be artificial but it will work. It's how China did it and, IMO, they had a much more serious outbreak in Hubei than we have had. I have no doubt their test and separate policy was a huge factor in getting the R from 3 to 0.1 in a very short period of time.
I'd like for the government to level with the public and basically ask which route we'd like to take, the severe test and separate route followed by track and trace with a Korean style full opening of the economy, or another 6 weeks of slowly opening things back up. I think the British people are made of much sterner stuff than our scientists give us credit for and will live with test and separate.
You're making a flawed assumption that (a) the R rate for people who have tested positive is the same as the R rate for the general population who have not tested positive and (b) the people who have tested positive won't have already infected anyone prior to testing positive and (c) that everyone who is positive is tested and tests positive.
If any of those assumptions are wrong (and I think they all are) a premature lifting of lockdown would raise R by more than separation would lower it.
I think the best analogy (and I know how we love an analogy here) is of a fire. This virus is a fire that doubles in size basically every day if nothing is done. Our measures have allowed us to remove enough of its new fuel source and oxygen so it has started to burn itself out. What China did and what I think we should do is literally looking at the fire, getting parts of it that are still on fire and putting it somewhere that only has inert gases so it stops burning. What I'm proposing is reducing the number of infected people in the general population, do that for two or three weeks and the problem solved itself.
It would appear that people who stockpiled ludicrous quantities of bog roll are now contacting the supplier asking if they can return it and get a refund.
Give them some laxatives, they'll be grateful for their stockpile then...
Times reporting EPL will vote on what to do about the footy season next Thursday. One of the (crazy) ideas is playing matches at secret neutral locations....that isn't going to work is it. Somebody will leak be leaking them.
Everyone who had last winter’s cold now suddenly thinks they had the virus already. Lol
No they don't. I've said on here whatever I had wasn't covid-19 but it wasn't a "winter cold" nor was it any kind of flu I've ever had. It was a virus but fortunately one which responded to antibiotics.
Too many people have reported too many strange illnesses for this to be mere coincidence - I've said on here as well I think the anomalously mild winter across the northern hemisphere was a factor in allowing the spread of viruses and perhaps a degree of mutation or increased severity.
I suspect quite a few of us have had a dose of Coronachondria. I know I had a bout just as lockdown kicked in. Seem to have got over it now though, happily.
Times reporting EPL will vote on what to do about the footy season next Thursday. One of the (crazy) ideas is trying to keep the location of matches secret.
Non-League, I know, but the National League (ex-Conference) last week voted to end the season with immediate effect.
I'm inclined to agree, but fear our population won't accept this medicine. Nor will they accept mass invasion of privacy a la SK's tracing, or German 'scientists in hazmat suits arriving to test your blood'.
The Washington Post had a story that half of Americans probably or definitely wouldn't use tracing apps. Combined with smartphone ownership levels that means about 40% of the US population are going to be willing and able to take part in such tracing. The figures are also skewed politically, so in some states such tracing will be a non-starter.
Times reporting EPL will vote on what to do about the footy season next Thursday. One of the (crazy) ideas is playing matches at secret neutral locations....that isn't going to work is it. Somebody will leak be leaking them.
Is the fear that supporters will come to the grounds anyway evenif it's behind closed doors?
I'm back in London, temporarily (work, IanB, work)
It's a weird atmos. Much more subdued than I expected. The clapping definitely felt a bit half hearted.
But also, for all its many flaws, what a beautiful city it is: the late April sunshine flashing off Georgian sash windows, the rain all silver and glistening on the cobbles in the mews.
I have been too long exiled in sarf Wales.
You do realise that the police won't let you back into Wales?
It would appear that people who stockpiled ludicrous quantities of bog roll are now contacting the supplier asking if they can return it and get a refund.
Give them some laxatives, they'll be grateful for their stockpile then...
That's a crap suggestion if you don't mind me saying so.
Times reporting EPL will vote on what to do about the footy season next Thursday. One of the (crazy) ideas is playing matches at secret neutral locations....that isn't going to work is it. Somebody will leak be leaking them.
Is the fear that supporters will come to the grounds anyway evenif it's behind closed doors?
Times reporting EPL will vote on what to do about the footy season next Thursday. One of the (crazy) ideas is playing matches at secret neutral locations....that isn't going to work is it. Somebody will leak be leaking them.
How the hell would that work? There are only so many possible locations with the right facilities for a top flight match, even without leaks it would be quite obvious that a match is about to be held.
So I think it's time for the government to consider the unpalatable idea of holing people up in hotels for 14 days if they test positive. We need to start separating people with the virus from the rest of the public until they are definitely no longer infectious. Leaving them to their own devices isn't working.
If we have the capability to test 100k people per day we will be catching a significant proportion of the people who have the virus everyday, enough to lower the R to well below 1 in just a few days.
It's not going to be a cheap way of doing it but it will work.
I'd guess we'll need somewhere between 150k and 200k hotel rooms and other temporary accommodation at peak. Is that feasible? I don't know but we definitely need to try, what we're doing at the moment isn't working and will not only result in another 20,000 people dying it will prevent the reopening of the economy for another 3 months.
Seems high. 6000 found positive today is 84k people. Positive numbers should be going down too.
It should keep coming down - look at other countries (e.g., Austria / Switzerland) they have seen very substantial reductions since their peak without resorting to separating families. It seems quite possible we will be able to achieve the same here.
The more fundamental problem in the UK is that we have (historically) not performed enough tests so previous numbers have been artificially deflated - it seems almost certain that if we could have tested 80000 people at the peak we would have had tens of thousands of positives (plus of course have reduced ongoing infections substantially). Hence, it will take us longer to get the rate down, but there's every reason to hope that this will happen reasonably soon.
Why wait and hope, it's time for action. I'm sure if you asked the public the question they would be up for it. 14-21 days of full separation of people who have the virus followed by an almost full opening up of the economy or 6 more weeks of the current situation plus a slow opening up of the economy. That's the choice right now and I think I'd rather go down the drastic action route, even if it's expensive.
Isn't this what old TB clinics were for?
I'm inclined to agree, but fear our population won't accept this medicine. Nor will they accept mass invasion of privacy a la SK's tracing, or German 'scientists in hazmat suits arriving to test your blood'.
We're in for a slow easing of the lockdown. Today was for me pure Boosterism.
Suspect next Thursday its going to be announced that one more 3 week push then we can have some easing. The easing which is then announced at a later date would surely be minimal to avoid increasing the R too much.
No I think the public would accept test and separate if it was sold as a faster route to everything going back to normal.
Times reporting EPL will vote on what to do about the footy season next Thursday. One of the (crazy) ideas is playing matches at secret neutral locations....that isn't going to work is it. Somebody will leak be leaking them.
How the hell would that work? There are only so many possible locations with the right facilities for a top flight match, even without leaks it would be quite obvious that a match is about to be held.
Tbf with some teams it's hard to tell whther they are playing or not.
Times reporting EPL will vote on what to do about the footy season next Thursday. One of the (crazy) ideas is playing matches at secret neutral locations....that isn't going to work is it. Somebody will leak be leaking them.
How the hell would that work? There are only so many possible locations with the right facilities for a top flight match, even without leaks it would be quite obvious that a match is about to be held.
Well exactly, if they are going to televise them all, Sky / BT will have to be there to setup all the cameras and I believe they normally start doing that the day before. And I some how doubt they will be playing games the games at Accrington Stanley.
BBC bigging up the forthcoming UK-Italy death figure crossover.
Which isn't a correct comparison because the Italian figure doesn't include care homes while the UK figure includes some.
Italian figures is the deaths among people who previously tested positive. During the peak, almost all deaths from positive people were in hospitals....because no tests in care homes took place and people who died at home without tests weren't tested post-mortem.
Veneto region now gives the breakdown of deaths by hospital/not hospital: 1141 out their 1459 official Covid deaths took place in hospitals.
Now tests in care homes is getting more widespread. The result from the main public care home of Milan just came out: 308 positive and 583 negative patients.
I'm back in London, temporarily (work, IanB, work)
It's a weird atmos. Much more subdued than I expected. The clapping definitely felt a bit half hearted.
But also, for all its many flaws, what a beautiful city it is: the late April sunshine flashing off Georgian sash windows, the rain all silver and glistening on the cobbles in the mews.
I have been too long exiled in sarf Wales.
You do realise that the police won't let you back into Wales?
'Don't you know who I am?!'
'Well sir, there does seem to some doubt about this.."
I'm back in London, temporarily (work, IanB, work)
It's a weird atmos. Much more subdued than I expected. The clapping definitely felt a bit half hearted.
But also, for all its many flaws, what a beautiful city it is: the late April sunshine flashing off Georgian sash windows, the rain all silver and glistening on the cobbles in the mews.
I have been too long exiled in sarf Wales.
You do realise that the police won't let you back into Wales?
NOT BEING LET BACK INTO WALES
To be fair, in the annals of history, there are worse fates
Just tell them you are going to a gangsters funeral, the police seem ok with those.
Times reporting EPL will vote on what to do about the footy season next Thursday. One of the (crazy) ideas is playing matches at secret neutral locations....that isn't going to work is it. Somebody will leak be leaking them.
Is the fear that supporters will come to the grounds anyway evenif it's behind closed doors?
They really do sèe the fans as utter and total morons don't they? Some are. But no mo6than the general population.
So I think it's time for the government to consider the unpalatable idea of holing people up in hotels for 14 days if they test positive. We need to start separating people with the virus from the rest of the public until they are definitely no longer infectious. Leaving them to their own devices isn't working.
If we have the capability to test 100k people per day we will be catching a significant proportion of the people who have the virus everyday, enough to lower the R to well below 1 in just a few days.
It's not going to be a cheap way of doing it but it will work.
I'd guess we'll need somewhere between 150k and 200k hotel rooms and other temporary accommodation at peak. Is that feasible? I don't know but we definitely need to try, what we're doing at the moment isn't working and will not only result in another 20,000 people dying it will prevent the reopening of the economy for another 3 months.
Seems high. 6000 found positive today is 84k people. Positive numbers should be going down too.
It should keep coming down - look at other countries (e.g., Austria / Switzerland) they have seen very substantial reductions since their peak without resorting to separating families. It seems quite possible we will be able to achieve the same here.
The more fundamental problem in the UK is that we have (historically) not performed enough tests so previous numbers have been artificially deflated - it seems almost certain that if we could have tested 80000 people at the peak we would have had tens of thousands of positives (plus of course have reduced ongoing infections substantially). Hence, it will take us longer to get the rate down, but there's every reason to hope that this will happen reasonably soon.
Why wait and hope, it's time for action. I'm sure if you asked the public the question they would be up for it. 14-21 days of full separation of people who have the virus followed by an almost full opening up of the economy or 6 more weeks of the current situation plus a slow opening up of the economy. That's the choice right now and I think I'd rather go down the drastic action route, even if it's expensive.
Isn't this what old TB clinics were for?
I'm inclined to agree, but fear our population won't accept this medicine. Nor will they accept mass invasion of privacy a la SK's tracing, or German 'scientists in hazmat suits arriving to test your blood'.
We're in for a slow easing of the lockdown. Today was for me pure Boosterism.
Suspect next Thursday its going to be announced that one more 3 week push then we can have some easing. The easing which is then announced at a later date would surely be minimal to avoid increasing the R too much.
No I think the public would accept test and separate if it was sold as a faster route to everything going back to normal.
Behaviourally, for those dead set against it, it would encourage people to not get tested.
Given most people don't seem to share your desire to get straight down the pub, I think its a non starter.
Which is a shame, because like the other possible solutions, its better than the 'wait it out' model that we'll almost certainly adopt.
Times reporting EPL will vote on what to do about the footy season next Thursday. One of the (crazy) ideas is playing matches at secret neutral locations....that isn't going to work is it. Somebody will leak be leaking them.
How the hell would that work? There are only so many possible locations with the right facilities for a top flight match, even without leaks it would be quite obvious that a match is about to be held.
Maybe the secret neutral location is Moonbase Alpha.
Another 4 weeks of lockdown then some easing seems right. I do however look forward to the info about schools - we have to start back with education. Both curricular and social interaction, our kids are missing so much that's critical.
With the future of air travel in doubt for many years to come, might now be a time to reconsider the need for the third runway at Heathrow, and also the economic case for HS2. The money would be much better spent on wider access to high speed broadband.
I'm back in London, temporarily (work, IanB, work)
It's a weird atmos. Much more subdued than I expected. The clapping definitely felt a bit half hearted.
But also, for all its many flaws, what a beautiful city it is: the late April sunshine flashing off Georgian sash windows, the rain all silver and glistening on the cobbles in the mews.
I have been too long exiled in sarf Wales.
You do realise that the police won't let you back into Wales?
NOT BEING LET BACK INTO WALES
To be fair, in the annals of history, there are worse fates
It would appear that people who stockpiled ludicrous quantities of bog roll are now contacting the supplier asking if they can return it and get a refund.
Give them some laxatives, they'll be grateful for their stockpile then...
That's a crap suggestion if you don't mind me saying so.
Another 4 weeks of lockdown then some easing seems right. I do however look forward to the info about schools - we have to start back with education. Both curricular and social interaction, our kids are missing so much that's critical.
Four weeks? You might as well make another 3 million unemployed.
It would appear that people who stockpiled ludicrous quantities of bog roll are now contacting the supplier asking if they can return it and get a refund.
Give them some laxatives, they'll be grateful for their stockpile then...
That's a crap suggestion if you don't mind me saying so.
A bog standard refund is all he wants.
He'll be flush if he gets a refund for all of those.
So I think it's time for the government to consider the unpalatable idea of holing people up in hotels for 14 days if they test positive. We need to start separating people with the virus from the rest of the public until they are definitely no longer infectious. Leaving them to their own devices isn't working.
If we have the capability to test 100k people per day we will be catching a significant proportion of the people who have the virus everyday, enough to lower the R to well below 1 in just a few days.
It's not going to be a cheap way of doing it but it will work.
I'd guess we'll need somewhere between 150k and 200k hotel rooms and other temporary accommodation at peak. Is that feasible? I don't know but we definitely need to try, what we're doing at the moment isn't working and will not only result in another 20,000 people dying it will prevent the reopening of the economy for another 3 months.
Seems high. 6000 found positive today is 84k people. Positive numbers should be going down too.
It should keep coming down - look at other countries (e.g., Austria / Switzerland) they have seen very substantial reductions since their peak without resorting to separating families. It seems quite possible we will be able to achieve the same here.
The more fundamental problem in the UK is that we have (historically) not performed enough tests so previous numbers have been artificially deflated - it seems almost certain that if we could have tested 80000 people at the peak we would have had tens of thousands of positives (plus of course have reduced ongoing infections substantially). Hence, it will take us longer to get the rate down, but there's every reason to hope that this will happen reasonably soon.
Why wait and hope, it's time for action. I'm sure if you asked the public the question they would be up for it. 14-21 days of full separation of people who have the virus followed by an almost full opening up of the economy or 6 more weeks of the current situation plus a slow opening up of the economy. That's the choice right now and I think I'd rather go down the drastic action route, even if it's expensive.
Isn't this what old TB clinics were for?
I'm inclined to agree, but fear our population won't accept this medicine. Nor will they accept mass invasion of privacy a la SK's tracing, or German 'scientists in hazmat suits arriving to test your blood'.
We're in for a slow easing of the lockdown. Today was for me pure Boosterism.
Suspect next Thursday its going to be announced that one more 3 week push then we can have some easing. The easing which is then announced at a later date would surely be minimal to avoid increasing the R too much.
No I think the public would accept test and separate if it was sold as a faster route to everything going back to normal.
Behaviourally, for those dead set against it, it would encourage people to not get tested.
Given most people don't seem to share your desire to get straight down the pub, I think its a non starter.
Which is a shame, because like the other possible solutions, its better than the 'wait it out' model that we'll almost certainly adopt.
Just like distancing, we don't need 100% to sign up, we need 80% to be up for it and it will have a huge effect. We've managed to get the R from 3 down to 0.7 with mostly voluntary social distancing and isolation and there's a huge number of people ignoring it. These measures are intended to get us down to a low enough level that we can implement a SK type of solution where we can test, track and trace.
It would appear that people who stockpiled ludicrous quantities of bog roll are now contacting the supplier asking if they can return it and get a refund.
Give them some laxatives, they'll be grateful for their stockpile then...
That's a crap suggestion if you don't mind me saying so.
A bog standard refund is all he wants.
He'll be flush if he gets a refund for all of those.
Times reporting EPL will vote on what to do about the footy season next Thursday. One of the (crazy) ideas is playing matches at secret neutral locations....that isn't going to work is it. Somebody will leak be leaking them.
How the hell would that work? There are only so many possible locations with the right facilities for a top flight match, even without leaks it would be quite obvious that a match is about to be held.
Maybe the secret neutral location is Moonbase Alpha.
With the future of air travel in doubt for many years to come, might now be a time to reconsider the need for the third runway at Heathrow, and also the economic case for HS2. The money would be much better spent on wider access to high speed broadband.
I think we do need to see some easing next Thur 7 May.
COVID-19 is now largely in hospitals and care homes.
Some non-essential shops to reopen with social distancing from 11 May together with a small relaxation of restrictions on people meeting at their houses - family groups in particular.
I'm back in London, temporarily (work, IanB, work)
It's a weird atmos. Much more subdued than I expected. The clapping definitely felt a bit half hearted.
But also, for all its many flaws, what a beautiful city it is: the late April sunshine flashing off Georgian sash windows, the rain all silver and glistening on the cobbles in the mews.
I have been too long exiled in sarf Wales.
You do realise that the police won't let you back into Wales?
NOT BEING LET BACK INTO WALES
To be fair, in the annals of history, there are worse fates
This work trip must be lucrative, seeing as it involves going back into the plague pit.
In any other country, men with guns invading parliament demanding their policy is followed would be described as a coup in progress.
If Trump loses in November, I suspect we will see a good deal of trouble along these lines. Or maybe worse.
It may not be much better if he wins.
Populism often ends with people shooting each other. If there was a major economic slump, I could see that happening. Not much of a welfare state in the USA.
Times reporting EPL will vote on what to do about the footy season next Thursday. One of the (crazy) ideas is playing matches at secret neutral locations....that isn't going to work is it. Somebody will leak be leaking them.
I thought they were all being played at St George’s Park?
I think we do need to see some easing next Thur 7 May.
COVID-19 is now largely in hospitals and care homes.
Some non-essential shops to reopen with social distancing from 11 May together with a small relaxation of restrictions on people meeting at their houses - family groups in particular.
Pretty sure we will see something thrown to the public in time for 8th May VE day celebrations.
It would appear that people who stockpiled ludicrous quantities of bog roll are now contacting the supplier asking if they can return it and get a refund.
Give them some laxatives, they'll be grateful for their stockpile then...
That's a crap suggestion if you don't mind me saying so.
A bog standard refund is all he wants.
He'll be flush if he gets a refund for all of those.
A crapper investment decision it is hard to imagine.
I think we do need to see some easing next Thur 7 May.
COVID-19 is now largely in hospitals and care homes.
Some non-essential shops to reopen with social distancing from 11 May together with a small relaxation of restrictions on people meeting at their houses - family groups in particular.
Schools to go back after Spring half term, shops to reopen with social distancing. Pubs, and restaurants etc to reopen July.
It would appear that people who stockpiled ludicrous quantities of bog roll are now contacting the supplier asking if they can return it and get a refund.
Give them some laxatives, they'll be grateful for their stockpile then...
That's a crap suggestion if you don't mind me saying so.
A bog standard refund is all he wants.
He'll be flush if he gets a refund for all of those.
A crapper investment decision it is hard to imagine.
Comments
Least it's nice (sort of).
Now apparently they have found that a spit test can be just as good (if not better), but this is all recent science. And given how the government were burned over antibody tests, they aren't going to go place any publicly put any faith in new procedures before they have been extensively independently assessed.
I think any other government would have done the same because it is a problem with our "experts" as well as our politicians.
RKRKRK said
'Rates fell from the start of the crisis to 2010 even as we borrowed incredible amounts. They are rock bottom now even though we have more debt than before and our deficit is going to be massive.
Your thesis doesn't stack up.
Instead, I think it's just that during a crisis people want to buy safe govt bonds. UK govt bonds are safe because we have our own currency.'
Absolutely correct. Moreover, longterm 10 year borrowing rates have been falling since the early 1990s. When the Major Govt left office in May 1997 the rate was circa 7.4% - almost double the 3.8% bequeathed in May 2010 to Osborne.
America is a weird place.
About every month or so I'll have an off day for no reason....and every six months something that lasts for a couple of days or more....
The problem now with Covid 19....is that when I have one of these days...I'll be imagining myself in 3 weeks time about to being put on a ventilator holding the hand of some poor nurse and gasping for breadth....
Covid is a frightening, miserable way to die...I think that sums it up quite nicely...
But if you are able to reduce intra-family transmission down to very low levels through pulling people out of families and testing people 3-4 times a week if a family member is infected, then you dramatically lower spread.
I reckon I can get a million views on YouTube with that
I'd like for the government to level with the public and basically ask which route we'd like to take, the severe test and separate route followed by track and trace with a Korean style full opening of the economy, or another 6 weeks of slowly opening things back up. I think the British people are made of much sterner stuff than our scientists give us credit for and will live with test and separate.
Western countries destroy their economies by poor control and overreaction and then China steps into the void.
It's probably knocked 15-20 years off their world domination plans so... Result.
last in lock down, last out of lock down
It would appear that people who stockpiled ludicrous quantities of bog roll are now contacting the supplier asking if they can return it and get a refund.
The daftest thing we did was to abandon testing in early March. It has taken 6 weeks to catch up to where we should have been.
America is a very weird place indeed.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/29/putin-has-just-made-two-huge-mistakes-his-timing-couldnt-be-worse/
If any of those assumptions are wrong (and I think they all are) a premature lifting of lockdown would raise R by more than separation would lower it.
The funnel system is the only viable method to beat this.
I'm inclined to agree, but fear our population won't accept this medicine. Nor will they accept mass invasion of privacy a la SK's tracing, or German 'scientists in hazmat suits arriving to test your blood'.
We're in for a slow easing of the lockdown. Today was for me pure Boosterism.
Suspect next Thursday its going to be announced that one more 3 week push then we can have some easing. The easing which is then announced at a later date would surely be minimal to avoid increasing the R too much.
Trump erupts over poll slump and threatens to sue campaign manager
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/30/trump-brad-parscale-campaign-manager
Veneto region now gives the breakdown of deaths by hospital/not hospital: 1141 out their 1459 official Covid deaths took place in hospitals.
Now tests in care homes is getting more widespread. The result from the main public care home of Milan just came out: 308 positive and 583 negative patients.
'Well sir, there does seem to some doubt about this.."
Given most people don't seem to share your desire to get straight down the pub, I think its a non starter.
Which is a shame, because like the other possible solutions, its better than the 'wait it out' model that we'll almost certainly adopt.
**innocent face**
https://twitter.com/SenPolehanki/status/1255899318210314241?s=20
You wanna bet Donald?
COVID-19 is now largely in hospitals and care homes.
Some non-essential shops to reopen with social distancing from 11 May together with a small relaxation of restrictions on people meeting at their houses - family groups in particular.
https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1255946138894643200?s=21
Populism often ends with people shooting each other. If there was a major economic slump, I could see that happening. Not much of a welfare state in the USA.
I thought they were all being played at St George’s Park?
Classic Boris.
I'm quite refreshed just now. Virtual drinks aren't all that virtual.