Almost as lovely as the rate at which it has been slipping!
Boris has managed to put the entire country under house arrest, tank the economy, nationalise half of it, and let a killer virus run rampant through our care homes, killing off thousands of people's grandparents.
Despte this, the Tories still have a lead.
38% of care homes, what a horrendous failure. It's probably in 3.8% of households generally. A failure by a factor of 10.
Considering there's more than 10 staff working in a care home I'm struggling to understand why you think that's a failure. Actually 3.8% of households (if true) makes 62% of homes not having an outbreak seem like a remarkable success.
If you're right that 3.8% of households have the virus then in order to have a 38% chance of at least one staff member having the virus you'd need only 12 staff. However I suspect most homes have many more than 12 staff. (1 - 0.962^12)
If you're right that 3.8% of households then if a home has 25 staff members there's there's a 62% chance that at least one of those staff does have the virus.
Thanks for doing those Maths. I'd wondered about whether the rate of infection of care homes was actually a partial success (even if it could have been better).
When you factor in that some of the infections are from hospital discharges rather than staff, and that you have agency staff working across multiple care homes, etc, then it seems clear there's been some success in keeping the virus out of care homes.
Mostly places where people shout, sing and otherwise exhale hard in confined spaces. Would make sense.
We may find a few months down the line that most businesses can be allowed to reopen and trade as normal with little consequence, but that pubs (unless they're gastropubs and effectively convert themselves fully into restaurants,) nightclubs, rowdy spectator sports and gyms have all had their chips. Oh, and no hymn singing in churches.
Relative to the dire circumstances in which we presently find ourselves that would be something of a result. I'm filing it in my "too good to be true" drawer.
Should the onus switch back from care in the residential home sector to care within the family with proper Government financial help to expedite it?
I see no prospect of a large scale adoption of inter-generational households. In order for that to work you need, first and most obviously, houses big enough to accommodate everyone comfortably - a luxury for the wealthy in and of itself - and then the whole family need to be willing to give up their individual space and live on top of one another for the rest of the elders' lives. After that, there are the enormous problems of care for the frail. An arrangement that might work perfectly satisfactorily when Granny is reasonably mobile and has all her marbles will quickly turn into a total nightmare when she becomes demented (and many dementia patients are violent with it,) or is incapacitated by a stroke, and then requires 24-hour care.
Families working on their own are very likely to lack the skills and the personnel to cope. And so what if the state pays for a carer to come in a couple of times a day? They're still stuck with the crippled relative for the remaining 22 hours of every day, in a home that may not be adapted to their needs and would be ruinously expensive to convert even if it were possible to do so. And, of course, we know what happens as soon as a killer disease goes into circulation. Carers moving between homes are going to spread it everywhere.
A lot of people here tend to forget that working from home is a luxury of the well off, with the ability to afford the extra space, as well as the type of job that can accommodate it.
My personal view is that if my employer wants to shut down its office and turn my home into one it can increase my wages to pay for the extra space I'll require.
Otherwise it is just outsourcing their cost onto me.
In terms of this disease young men (unless they've got some serious medical problems) are, to all intents and purposes, invincible. They're highly unlikely to fall seriously ill and are more likely to be killed by a meteorite strike than by the virus.
I see no reason why most office-based workers should ever return to commuting, on a full-time basis at any rate. Canary Wharf and half the office blocks in the City of London might as well be dynamited and the land repurposed for homes and parks. Needless to say the bulk of those support services will fold and their employees will end up on the scrapheap.
Thank you for the response and apologies for snipping the first paragraph just for brevity.
The problem is while young men may be statistically invincible the people with whom they interact may not be and if young people are asymptomatic that won't stop them transmitting the virus to older and more vulnerable people.
Canary Wharf is an extreme example but many towns are dependent on office workers to keep the local economy active through buying lunch, using other services etc. If the office workers don't come back and the value of commercial real estate collapses, some of the regeneration projects are going to be disasters.
London, New York etc hollowed out to the suburbs in the Sixties and Seventies. Perhaps those days will return.
A lot of suburbia has been in decline for about 20 years so perhaps under-priced and available for revitalisation.
I suspect to hipsters quarantined In Clerkenwell apartments, the Goode Life in Surbiton must appeal.
I suspect the places which will be hit hardest will be those too far from the centre of their town or city to walk in but not far enough out to have a garden and parking.
Such offices can already be converted to residential without any need for Planning Permission.
Mostly places where people shout, sing and otherwise exhale hard in confined spaces. Would make sense.
We may find a few months down the line that most businesses can be allowed to reopen and trade as normal with little consequence, but that pubs (unless they're gastropubs and effectively convert themselves fully into restaurants,) nightclubs, rowdy spectator sports and gyms have all had their chips. Oh, and no hymn singing in churches.
Relative to the dire circumstances in which we presently find ourselves that would be something of a result. I'm filing it in my "too good to be true" drawer.
Buddhists and Quakers Will be eyeing up the new markets.
Wearing a surgical mask can reduce the spread by 75% study claims.
In hamsters.
Because it was so good, I unashamedly adduce, once again, NigelB’s superb summary of the research on the utility of masks
Associations of stay-at-home order and face-masking recommendation with trends in daily new cases and deaths of laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 in the United States
A simple model to show the relative risk of viral aerosol infection from breathing and the benefit of wearing masks in different settings with implications for Covid-19
The scientific rationale for the use of simple masks or improvised facial coverings to trap exhaled aerosols and possibly reduce the breathborne spread of COVID-19
There are fears Britain could be dragged into a global trade war with China after Beijing slapped an 80 per cent tariff on Australian exports as punishment for demanding an independent coronavirus inquiry - which 100 nations including the UK supported
Given that Australia (essentially) only exports commodities, and those commodities have global markets, I can't see how this such a serious problem for the Australians.
You what??? Export-wise, Australia is utterly dependent on China. Go visit the iron and coal mines of the Kimberley.
China could also hurt Oz, very badly, by banning tourists and students from going there. It would barely graze China, they have choices, Australia could not source another huge Asian superpower to milk
If China doesn't buy coal from Australia, it has to buy it from somewhere else, like South Africa. This means that whoever was getting South African exports now needs a new supplier.
Re the tourists and students, yes that's a better point.
Wearing a surgical mask can reduce the spread by 75% study claims.
In hamsters.
Because it was so good, I unashamedly adduce, once again, NigelB’s superb summary of the research on the utility of masks
Associations of stay-at-home order and face-masking recommendation with trends in daily new cases and deaths of laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 in the United States
A simple model to show the relative risk of viral aerosol infection from breathing and the benefit of wearing masks in different settings with implications for Covid-19
The scientific rationale for the use of simple masks or improvised facial coverings to trap exhaled aerosols and possibly reduce the breathborne spread of COVID-19
Wearing a surgical mask can reduce the spread by 75% study claims.
In hamsters.
Because it was so good, I unashamedly adduce, once again, NigelB’s superb summary of the research on the utility of masks
Associations of stay-at-home order and face-masking recommendation with trends in daily new cases and deaths of laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 in the United States
A simple model to show the relative risk of viral aerosol infection from breathing and the benefit of wearing masks in different settings with implications for Covid-19
The scientific rationale for the use of simple masks or improvised facial coverings to trap exhaled aerosols and possibly reduce the breathborne spread of COVID-19
Mostly places where people shout, sing and otherwise exhale hard in confined spaces. Would make sense.
We may find a few months down the line that most businesses can be allowed to reopen and trade as normal with little consequence, but that pubs (unless they're gastropubs and effectively convert themselves fully into restaurants,) nightclubs, rowdy spectator sports and gyms have all had their chips. Oh, and no hymn singing in churches.
Relative to the dire circumstances in which we presently find ourselves that would be something of a result. I'm filing it in my "too good to be true" drawer.
Buddhists and Quakers Will be eyeing up the new markets.
Obviously we would rather than half or more of the population had had it asymptomatically because the end would then be in sight; however, if the true proportion of the population that have had it is as high as 8% then that is actually quite encouraging in some respects - both in terms of the Government's efforts to coax people out of hiding and for the general population outside of the medically vulnerable and the elderly.
35,000 Covid deaths out of 5.3m cases would put the mortality rate at comfortably under 1%; it's not that far from the value published by the ONS for England and Wales for April, which is available here:
These data suggest that, for anyone under the age of about 60, the probability of kicking the bucket from this thing (even if you catch it in the first place, which it seems most people haven't even during the peak of the epidemic) is below this average, and it's below one in a thousand cases when you get under the age of 50. Allowing for the fact that a large chunk of the cases in younger cohorts will be those with significant pre-existing medical conditions, then reasonably fit people under 50 would have to be extremely unlucky to succumb to the virus. The risk to children and twentysomethings is astronomically low.
Perhaps instead of droning on about relatively unrevealing transport statistics at every daily briefing, the Government and its boffins should start offering people of working age a realistic appraisal of the risks that they face if they go outside and try to resume some semblance of a normal life? A comparison with other everyday activities that we take for granted, yet are actually more hazardous to most of the population, might also help to provide a sense of perspective?
Lockdown can't go on forever. People require a crash course in the principles of risk management, in an effort to try to get at least a fair proportion of them to stop wetting themselves in fear.
Should the onus switch back from care in the residential home sector to care within the family with proper Government financial help to expedite it?
I see no prospect of a large scale adoption of inter-generational households. In order for that to work you need, first and most obviously, houses big enough to accommodate everyone comfortably - a luxury for the wealthy in and of itself - and then the whole family need to be willing to give up their individual space and live on top of one another for the rest of the elders' lives. After that, there are the enormous problems of care for the frail. An arrangement that might work perfectly satisfactorily when Granny is reasonably mobile and has all her marbles will quickly turn into a total nightmare when she becomes demented (and many dementia patients are violent with it,) or is incapacitated by a stroke, and then requires 24-hour care.
Families working on their own are very likely to lack the skills and the personnel to cope. And so what if the state pays for a carer to come in a couple of times a day? They're still stuck with the crippled relative for the remaining 22 hours of every day, in a home that may not be adapted to their needs and would be ruinously expensive to convert even if it were possible to do so. And, of course, we know what happens as soon as a killer disease goes into circulation. Carers moving between homes are going to spread it everywhere.
You're describing a model which is commonplace in Eastern and Southern Europe and much of Asia - yes, it's unusual in Britain, though a lot of families knock themselves out looking after elderly relatives. It's a good model in many ways if properly applied - the oldest generation get a new lease of life looking after the youngest while the ones in bewtween work. It's why China has a low retirement age - they don't do many care homes, because the family expects to do the job. Personally I find your concept of the elderly as a bunch of decaying dementia cases rather horrific; I lived with my parents and looked after them till they died - my father with dementia, my mother bedridden. It never occurred to me to do anything else - it was simply part of the deal.
Might Britain change? Maybe - I don't think we can predict how society will evolve now.
Mostly places where people shout, sing and otherwise exhale hard in confined spaces. Would make sense.
We may find a few months down the line that most businesses can be allowed to reopen and trade as normal with little consequence, but that pubs (unless they're gastropubs and effectively convert themselves fully into restaurants,) nightclubs, rowdy spectator sports and gyms have all had their chips. Oh, and no hymn singing in churches.
Relative to the dire circumstances in which we presently find ourselves that would be something of a result. I'm filing it in my "too good to be true" drawer.
Buddhists and Quakers Will be eyeing up the new markets.
Should the onus switch back from care in the residential home sector to care within the family with proper Government financial help to expedite it?
I see no prospect of a large scale adoption of inter-generational households. In order for that to work you need, first and most obviously, houses big enough to accommodate everyone comfortably - a luxury for the wealthy in and of itself - and then the whole family need to be willing to give up their individual space and live on top of one another for the rest of the elders' lives. After that, there are the enormous problems of care for the frail. An arrangement that might work perfectly satisfactorily when Granny is reasonably mobile and has all her marbles will quickly turn into a total nightmare when she becomes demented (and many dementia patients are violent with it,) or is incapacitated by a stroke, and then requires 24-hour care.
Families working on their own are very likely to lack the skills and the personnel to cope. And so what if the state pays for a carer to come in a couple of times a day? They're still stuck with the crippled relative for the remaining 22 hours of every day, in a home that may not be adapted to their needs and would be ruinously expensive to convert even if it were possible to do so. And, of course, we know what happens as soon as a killer disease goes into circulation. Carers moving between homes are going to spread it everywhere.
A lot of people here tend to forget that working from home is a luxury of the well off, with the ability to afford the extra space, as well as the type of job that can accommodate it.
My personal view is that if my employer wants to shut down its office and turn my home into one it can increase my wages to pay for the extra space I'll require.
Otherwise it is just outsourcing their cost onto me.
You need a helluva lot less space for a home office than you do for an elderly relative of course - though on that cost saving point, you may very well find that wages do go up if and when employers get rid of their offices. In any sector where there is a shortage of skilled staff or employers just generally want to attract good people, then the news may be that not all the savings from shutting down the offices end up going straight onto the balance sheet. Why not use some of them to lure away your competitors' best workers?
Though of course, if you're no longer having to commute then that will probably pay serve to cover the smaller costs inherent in working from home many times over, in any event.
Should the onus switch back from care in the residential home sector to care within the family with proper Government financial help to expedite it?
I see no prospect of a large scale adoption of inter-generational households. In order for that to work you need, first and most obviously, houses big enough to accommodate everyone comfortably - a luxury for the wealthy in and of itself - and then the whole family need to be willing to give up their individual space and live on top of one another for the rest of the elders' lives. After that, there are the enormous problems of care for the frail. An arrangement that might work perfectly satisfactorily when Granny is reasonably mobile and has all her marbles will quickly turn into a total nightmare when she becomes demented (and many dementia patients are violent with it,) or is incapacitated by a stroke, and then requires 24-hour care.
Families working on their own are very likely to lack the skills and the personnel to cope. And so what if the state pays for a carer to come in a couple of times a day? They're still stuck with the crippled relative for the remaining 22 hours of every day, in a home that may not be adapted to their needs and would be ruinously expensive to convert even if it were possible to do so. And, of course, we know what happens as soon as a killer disease goes into circulation. Carers moving between homes are going to spread it everywhere.
A lot of people here tend to forget that working from home is a luxury of the well off, with the ability to afford the extra space, as well as the type of job that can accommodate it.
My personal view is that if my employer wants to shut down its office and turn my home into one it can increase my wages to pay for the extra space I'll require.
Otherwise it is just outsourcing their cost onto me.
I've thought long before this pandemic that there would come a tipping point like that - increasingly home working was being encouraged in many places, my office like many has a person to desk ratio of something like 3:2 or 4:2. Obviously it was working out cheaper for them, but as it became more ubiquitous I assumed there would eventually be a push back as employees demanded more recompense for heating or electricity they would not other use, spatial requirements required more checks by the employer, the requirement to check ergonomic set ups (we're required to undergo display screen equipment and other set up training at the office, but at home it's ok for me to work with incorrect angles, back support etc?), more compensation for internet costs, and ultimately I assumed it would become cheaper once more to bring people in to the office.
That may still be so, but it'll be some time.
Personally I just resent having to work from the place I live and relax in. It's my space, for my own time, but now it isn't. By necessity of course, but still. And like you I have limits on how much I can reasonably be expected to turn my home into an office.
Should the onus switch back from care in the residential home sector to care within the family with proper Government financial help to expedite it?
I see no prospect of a large scale adoption of inter-generational households. In order for that to work you need, first and most obviously, houses big enough to accommodate everyone comfortably - a luxury for the wealthy in and of itself - and then the whole family need to be willing to give up their individual space and live on top of one another for the rest of the elders' lives. After that, there are the enormous problems of care for the frail. An arrangement that might work perfectly satisfactorily when Granny is reasonably mobile and has all her marbles will quickly turn into a total nightmare when she becomes demented (and many dementia patients are violent with it,) or is incapacitated by a stroke, and then requires 24-hour care.
Families working on their own are very likely to lack the skills and the personnel to cope. And so what if the state pays for a carer to come in a couple of times a day? They're still stuck with the crippled relative for the remaining 22 hours of every day, in a home that may not be adapted to their needs and would be ruinously expensive to convert even if it were possible to do so. And, of course, we know what happens as soon as a killer disease goes into circulation. Carers moving between homes are going to spread it everywhere.
You're describing a model which is commonplace in Eastern and Southern Europe and much of Asia - yes, it's unusual in Britain, though a lot of families knock themselves out looking after elderly relatives. It's a good model in many ways if properly applied - the oldest generation get a new lease of life looking after the youngest while the ones in bewtween work. It's why China has a low retirement age - they don't do many care homes, because the family expects to do the job. Personally I find your concept of the elderly as a bunch of decaying dementia cases rather horrific; I lived with my parents and looked after them till they died - my father with dementia, my mother bedridden. It never occurred to me to do anything else - it was simply part of the deal...
Agreed.
I’d note, though, that in Asian societies, it is often the exclusively the wife who is expected to do the looking after ageing parents thing. One of the reason for South Korea’s exceptionally low birthrate is that many women are simply avoiding marriage, as they are expected to look after the husband’s parents, even if they have professional careers of their own.
Obviously we would rather than half or more of the population had had it asymptomatically because the end would then be in sight; however, if the true proportion of the population that have had it is as high as 8% then that is actually quite encouraging in some respects - both in terms of the Government's efforts to coax people out of hiding and for the general population outside of the medically vulnerable and the elderly.
35,000 Covid deaths out of 5.3m cases would put the mortality rate at comfortably under 1%; it's not that far from the value published by the ONS for England and Wales for April, which is available here:
These data suggest that, for anyone under the age of about 60, the probability of kicking the bucket from this thing (even if you catch it in the first place, which it seems most people haven't even during the peak of the epidemic) is below this average, and it's below one in a thousand cases when you get under the age of 50. Allowing for the fact that a large chunk of the cases in younger cohorts will be those with significant pre-existing medical conditions, then reasonably fit people under 50 would have to be extremely unlucky to succumb to the virus. The risk to children and twentysomethings is astronomically low.
Perhaps instead of droning on about relatively unrevealing transport statistics at every daily briefing, the Government and its boffins should start offering people of working age a realistic appraisal of the risks that they face if they go outside and try to resume some semblance of a normal life? A comparison with other everyday activities that we take for granted, yet are actually more hazardous to most of the population, might also help to provide a sense of perspective?
Lockdown can't go on forever. People require a crash course in the principles of risk management, in an effort to try to get at least a fair proportion of them to stop wetting themselves in fear.
As an at risk elderly man I suspect that many of my ilk are not obsessive about wringing out the last years of life if it is to be spent in self imposed imprisonment watching callow youth wringing their hands over risk 😉
Mostly places where people shout, sing and otherwise exhale hard in confined spaces. Would make sense.
We may find a few months down the line that most businesses can be allowed to reopen and trade as normal with little consequence, but that pubs (unless they're gastropubs and effectively convert themselves fully into restaurants,) nightclubs, rowdy spectator sports and gyms have all had their chips. Oh, and no hymn singing in churches.
Relative to the dire circumstances in which we presently find ourselves that would be something of a result. I'm filing it in my "too good to be true" drawer.
Why can’t pubs with beer gardens open? Seems unlikely you are going to be shouting at strangers from the next table.
Should the onus switch back from care in the residential home sector to care within the family with proper Government financial help to expedite it?
I see no prospect of a large scale adoption of inter-generational households. In order for that to work you need, first and most obviously, houses big enough to accommodate everyone comfortably - a luxury for the wealthy in and of itself -
Multi-generational familes would free up housing space as you would no longer have Granny in a house she's always lived in and doesn't want to move from... plus kids' houses.
Only 400,000 more deaths until we reach herd immunity?
At a fatality level of 0.5% (possibly less) it is five times worse than influenza. That is what we are trashing the economy for. Even worse, there seems to be a gap in the statistics between actual deaths and "official" COVID deaths. That gap is explainable by one of two things
1) "Unofficial" COVID deaths - ones that happened outside hospital or were counted as something else, or
2) The withdrawal of medical treatments from out-patients has let nature re-assert herself by killing off those who would normally die if not medically treated.
There is going to be one heck of a reckoning in the latter half of the year.
Should the onus switch back from care in the residential home sector to care within the family with proper Government financial help to expedite it?
I see no prospect of a large scale adoption of inter-generational households. In order for that to work you need, first and most obviously, houses big enough to accommodate everyone comfortably - a luxury for the wealthy in and of itself - and then the whole family need to be willing to give up their individual space and live on top of one another for the rest of the elders' lives. After that, there are the enormous problems of care for the frail. An arrangement that might work perfectly satisfactorily when Granny is reasonably mobile and has all her marbles will quickly turn into a total nightmare when she becomes demented (and many dementia patients are violent with it,) or is incapacitated by a stroke, and then requires 24-hour care.
Families working on their own are very likely to lack the skills and the personnel to cope. And so what if the state pays for a carer to come in a couple of times a day? They're still stuck with the crippled relative for the remaining 22 hours of every day, in a home that may not be adapted to their needs and would be ruinously expensive to convert even if it were possible to do so. And, of course, we know what happens as soon as a killer disease goes into circulation. Carers moving between homes are going to spread it everywhere.
You're describing a model which is commonplace in Eastern and Southern Europe and much of Asia - yes, it's unusual in Britain, though a lot of families knock themselves out looking after elderly relatives. It's a good model in many ways if properly applied - the oldest generation get a new lease of life looking after the youngest while the ones in bewtween work. It's why China has a low retirement age - they don't do many care homes, because the family expects to do the job. Personally I find your concept of the elderly as a bunch of decaying dementia cases rather horrific; I lived with my parents and looked after them till they died - my father with dementia, my mother bedridden. It never occurred to me to do anything else - it was simply part of the deal.
Might Britain change? Maybe - I don't think we can predict how society will evolve now.
I think there is far less familial responsibility assumed now than used to be the case. I consider that a dilution of values.
Mostly places where people shout, sing and otherwise exhale hard in confined spaces. Would make sense.
We may find a few months down the line that most businesses can be allowed to reopen and trade as normal with little consequence, but that pubs (unless they're gastropubs and effectively convert themselves fully into restaurants,) nightclubs, rowdy spectator sports and gyms have all had their chips. Oh, and no hymn singing in churches.
Relative to the dire circumstances in which we presently find ourselves that would be something of a result. I'm filing it in my "too good to be true" drawer.
Buddhists and Quakers Will be eyeing up the new markets.
Great post. That would be a sensible way forward. Sadly, anyone who suggests a risk-based approach to policy is immediately damned as a ruthless, reckless pariah. Infantile? Certainly, but there it is.
Should the onus switch back from care in the residential home sector to care within the family with proper Government financial help to expedite it?
I see no prospect of a large scale adoption of inter-generational households. In order for that to work you need, first and most obviously, houses big enough to accommodate everyone comfortably - a luxury for the wealthy in and of itself - and then the whole family need to be willing to give up their individual space and live on top of one another for the rest of the elders' lives. After that, there are the enormous problems of care for the frail. An arrangement that might work perfectly satisfactorily when Granny is reasonably mobile and has all her marbles will quickly turn into a total nightmare when she becomes demented (and many dementia patients are violent with it,) or is incapacitated by a stroke, and then requires 24-hour care.
Families working on their own are very likely to lack the skills and the personnel to cope. And so what if the state pays for a carer to come in a couple of times a day? They're still stuck with the crippled relative for the remaining 22 hours of every day, in a home that may not be adapted to their needs and would be ruinously expensive to convert even if it were possible to do so. And, of course, we know what happens as soon as a killer disease goes into circulation. Carers moving between homes are going to spread it everywhere.
You're describing a model which is commonplace in Eastern and Southern Europe and much of Asia - yes, it's unusual in Britain, though a lot of families knock themselves out looking after elderly relatives. It's a good model in many ways if properly applied - the oldest generation get a new lease of life looking after the youngest while the ones in bewtween work. It's why China has a low retirement age - they don't do many care homes, because the family expects to do the job. Personally I find your concept of the elderly as a bunch of decaying dementia cases rather horrific; I lived with my parents and looked after them till they died - my father with dementia, my mother bedridden. It never occurred to me to do anything else - it was simply part of the deal.
Might Britain change? Maybe - I don't think we can predict how society will evolve now.
Most older people may get a bit rickety over time, but will live long, fulfilling and largely independent lives until they pass on, but there's no point in glossing over the fact that a significant fraction will end up in a right state towards the end. And not nearly everyone amongst their immediate family members will have the living space (where are you meant to put Dad if you live in a one bedroom flat?) and the financial, physical and emotional resources to cope. Quite apart from anything else, so many older people who end up with dementia and other complex care needs would, in this scenario, end up being looked after by children who are in their 60s or 70s themselves.
Some families with big houses who get on really well will be able to make this kind of living work and, indeed, welcome it - some people do it already, of course - but I don't envisage it becoming a widely adopted solution. We will need plenty of care home capacity long into the future.
Mostly places where people shout, sing and otherwise exhale hard in confined spaces. Would make sense.
We may find a few months down the line that most businesses can be allowed to reopen and trade as normal with little consequence, but that pubs (unless they're gastropubs and effectively convert themselves fully into restaurants,) nightclubs, rowdy spectator sports and gyms have all had their chips. Oh, and no hymn singing in churches.
Relative to the dire circumstances in which we presently find ourselves that would be something of a result. I'm filing it in my "too good to be true" drawer.
Why can’t pubs with beer gardens open? Seems unlikely you are going to be shouting at strangers from the next table.
Should the onus switch back from care in the residential home sector to care within the family with proper Government financial help to expedite it?
I see no prospect of a large scale adoption of inter-generational households. In order for that to work you need, first and most obviously, houses big enough to accommodate everyone comfortably - a luxury for the wealthy in and of itself -
Multi-generational familes would free up housing space as you would no longer have Granny in a house she's always lived in and doesn't want to move from... plus kids' houses.
To all manage under one roof then at least one of you has to have a house big enough for you all to move into it together, or you need a few hundred grand stuffed down the back of the sofa to buy one, or alternatively the ability to suddenly take on a substantial mortgage to afford the luxury of the extra room. As I said, a luxury for the wealthy.
Most older people may get a bit rickety over time, but will live long, fulfilling and largely independent lives until they pass on, but there's no point in glossing over the fact that a significant fraction will end up in a right state towards the end. And not nearly everyone amongst their immediate family members will have the living space (where are you meant to put Dad if you live in a one bedroom flat?) and the financial, physical and emotional resources to cope. Quite apart from anything else, so many older people who end up with dementia and other complex care needs would, in this scenario, end up being looked after by children who are in their 60s or 70s themselves.
Some families with big houses who get on really well will be able to make this kind of living work and, indeed, welcome it - some people do it already, of course - but I don't envisage it becoming a widely adopted solution. We will need plenty of care home capacity long into the future.
Yes, I think you're right. Thank you for your mild response to my rather intemperate comment.
Should the onus switch back from care in the residential home sector to care within the family with proper Government financial help to expedite it?
I see no prospect of a large scale adoption of inter-generational households. In order for that to work you need, first and most obviously, houses big enough to accommodate everyone comfortably - a luxury for the wealthy in and of itself -
Multi-generational familes would free up housing space as you would no longer have Granny in a house she's always lived in and doesn't want to move from... plus kids' houses.
To all manage under one roof then at least one of you has to have a house big enough for you all to move into it together, or you need a few hundred grand stuffed down the back of the sofa to buy one, or alternatively the ability to suddenly take on a substantial mortgage to afford the luxury of the extra room. As I said, a luxury for the wealthy.
The total amount of space needed, though, would be less. And the money from selling granny's old house could surely be used to help recompense the kids.
Should the onus switch back from care in the residential home sector to care within the family with proper Government financial help to expedite it?
I see no prospect of a large scale adoption of inter-generational households. In order for that to work you need, first and most obviously, houses big enough to accommodate everyone comfortably - a luxury for the wealthy in and of itself -
Multi-generational familes would free up housing space as you would no longer have Granny in a house she's always lived in and doesn't want to move from... plus kids' houses.
To all manage under one roof then at least one of you has to have a house big enough for you all to move into it together, or you need a few hundred grand stuffed down the back of the sofa to buy one, or alternatively the ability to suddenly take on a substantial mortgage to afford the luxury of the extra room. As I said, a luxury for the wealthy.
pooling wealth over generations would cover much of this but not amongst the poorest. CV19 is green in this respect?
Mostly places where people shout, sing and otherwise exhale hard in confined spaces. Would make sense.
We may find a few months down the line that most businesses can be allowed to reopen and trade as normal with little consequence, but that pubs (unless they're gastropubs and effectively convert themselves fully into restaurants,) nightclubs, rowdy spectator sports and gyms have all had their chips. Oh, and no hymn singing in churches.
Relative to the dire circumstances in which we presently find ourselves that would be something of a result. I'm filing it in my "too good to be true" drawer.
Why can’t pubs with beer gardens open? Seems unlikely you are going to be shouting at strangers from the next table.
We obviously don't frequent the same establishments. Edit Beaten by alter ego. I'll shee you outside...
So people other than the Nike employees got infected at the super spreader event in Scotland. And..A total of 20 Lloyds employees were in the same hotel on the same day but were not told about the outbreak and were not offered testing.
I’ve now lost track as to whether it’s better to get the virus or “keep safe” from it. In the absence of a consistent view, maybe it’s best to have had it, and have not had it, simultaneously. So have a test, don’t read the result.
I’ve now lost track as to whether it’s better to get the virus or “keep safe” from it. In the absence of a consistent view, maybe it’s best to have had it, and have not had it, simultaneously. So have a test, don’t read the result.
Why people would chose commuting into an office in preference to work from home is a mystery to me.
Another all-or-nothing fallacy? I reckon most people would choose a mixture given a choice. At least I would, and I dare say so would many others.
I think some would some wouldn't some a mixture. There is an interesting access issue here. Many disabled people have been asking to work from home for years.. It is going to be a little bit harder to fob them off. And also for those who actively want to. It will be enough to make a significant difference.
Most older people may get a bit rickety over time, but will live long, fulfilling and largely independent lives until they pass on, but there's no point in glossing over the fact that a significant fraction will end up in a right state towards the end. And not nearly everyone amongst their immediate family members will have the living space (where are you meant to put Dad if you live in a one bedroom flat?) and the financial, physical and emotional resources to cope. Quite apart from anything else, so many older people who end up with dementia and other complex care needs would, in this scenario, end up being looked after by children who are in their 60s or 70s themselves.
Some families with big houses who get on really well will be able to make this kind of living work and, indeed, welcome it - some people do it already, of course - but I don't envisage it becoming a widely adopted solution. We will need plenty of care home capacity long into the future.
Yes, I think you're right. Thank you for your mild response to my rather intemperate comment.
It's OK. It's a very sensitive subject. It tore my Mum up something terrible having to put Gran into a care home after she was incapacitated by a stroke, but it was the only realistic option. Trying to care for her at home would almost certainly have entailed employing at least one live-in carer at astronomical expense, Mum still would've run herself ragged and probably ended up doing her back in or something in the process, and of course care homes are set up with the trained staff and the facilities to deal properly with people who are seriously disabled. Gran could be wheeled into the lift and taken downstairs to the day room, the library, the dining room, to go outside and on day trips in the home. If she'd ended up staying with Mum chances are she'd have spent most of the rest of her life confined to her room. Lord alone knows how we'd even have got her down the stairs.
Ultimately the way that we approach looking after elderly relatives is constrained by how functional they still are and the resources that we have available to look after them. A wealthy family with a great big house may still struggle to cope with a very disabled or demented relative; a single person with a two bedroom flat may adapt very well to living with a parent who has mild cognitive impairment or has trouble getting around but can manage with a frame. Every family is different.
BERLIN — Coronavirus has claimed a new victim: German frugality.
Berlin dropped its longstanding resistance to common European bonds, as Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron agreed to a blueprint for a €500 billion recovery fund to help the countries hardest hit by the pandemic get back on their feet.
Under the plan, the recovery fund would be fully financed by debt issued by the EU and backed by all 27 members. The money would be distributed by the European Commission in the form of grants as part of the bloc’s normal budget and repaid over the long term by the EU.
Most older people may get a bit rickety over time, but will live long, fulfilling and largely independent lives until they pass on, but there's no point in glossing over the fact that a significant fraction will end up in a right state towards the end. And not nearly everyone amongst their immediate family members will have the living space (where are you meant to put Dad if you live in a one bedroom flat?) and the financial, physical and emotional resources to cope. Quite apart from anything else, so many older people who end up with dementia and other complex care needs would, in this scenario, end up being looked after by children who are in their 60s or 70s themselves.
Some families with big houses who get on really well will be able to make this kind of living work and, indeed, welcome it - some people do it already, of course - but I don't envisage it becoming a widely adopted solution. We will need plenty of care home capacity long into the future.
Yes, I think you're right. Thank you for your mild response to my rather intemperate comment.
It's OK. It's a very sensitive subject. It tore my Mum up something terrible having to put Gran into a care home after she was incapacitated by a stroke, but it was the only realistic option. Trying to care for her at home would almost certainly have entailed employing at least one live-in carer at astronomical expense, Mum still would've run herself ragged and probably ended up doing her back in or something in the process, and of course care homes are set up with the trained staff and the facilities to deal properly with people who are seriously disabled. Gran could be wheeled into the lift and taken downstairs to the day room, the library, the dining room, to go outside and on day trips in the home. If she'd ended up staying with Mum chances are she'd have spent most of the rest of her life confined to her room. Lord alone knows how we'd even have got her down the stairs.
Ultimately the way that we approach looking after elderly relatives is constrained by how functional they still are and the resources that we have available to look after them. A wealthy family with a great big house may still struggle to cope with a very disabled or demented relative; a single person with a two bedroom flat may adapt very well to living with a parent who has mild cognitive impairment or has trouble getting around but can manage with a frame. Every family is different.
Later stage dementia is beyond most people, however saintly. Some do manage it, amazingly, but no one should feel bad if they can't. There's a time and place for the professionals.
BERLIN — Coronavirus has claimed a new victim: German frugality.
Berlin dropped its longstanding resistance to common European bonds, as Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron agreed to a blueprint for a €500 billion recovery fund to help the countries hardest hit by the pandemic get back on their feet.
Under the plan, the recovery fund would be fully financed by debt issued by the EU and backed by all 27 members. The money would be distributed by the European Commission in the form of grants as part of the bloc’s normal budget and repaid over the long term by the EU.
This is the biggest news of tomorrow, but no doubt will be drowned out by endless BBC news vox pops.
There's quite a lot wrong with that headline.
Firstly, the EU has borrowed money in the past. You can go our and purchase European Union 2028 bonds today if you so desire. The yields are rubbish, so I wouldn't bother personally.
Why people would chose commuting into an office in preference to work from home is a mystery to me.
Another all-or-nothing fallacy? I reckon most people would choose a mixture given a choice. At least I would, and I dare say so would many others.
I think some would some wouldn't some a mixture. There is an interesting access issue here. Many disabled people have been asking to work from home for years.. It is going to be a little bit harder to fob them off. And also for those who actively want to. It will be enough to make a significant difference.
There will also be other adjustments needed. For instance, it is already apparent that in mixed local and remote meetings, those calling in are at a disadvantage.
What about access to confidential information? Do you want your accountant's student activist son to see your tax returns, or your doctor's cleaner knowing you've picked up a social disease or are struggling to get pregnant? My company has already sent reminders not to take or circulate screenshots.
There is more but I do not want to give the impression I'm opposed. I've been WFH for years, but things do become a bit more complicated.
I’ve now lost track as to whether it’s better to get the virus or “keep safe” from it. In the absence of a consistent view, maybe it’s best to have had it, and have not had it, simultaneously. So have a test, don’t read the result.
That is because there is a third, worse option: to have it right now. You do not want that, so it is better to have already had it and recovered, or not to get it at all.
Why people would chose commuting into an office in preference to work from home is a mystery to me.
Another all-or-nothing fallacy? I reckon most people would choose a mixture given a choice. At least I would, and I dare say so would many others.
I think some would some wouldn't some a mixture. There is an interesting access issue here. Many disabled people have been asking to work from home for years.. It is going to be a little bit harder to fob them off. And also for those who actively want to. It will be enough to make a significant difference.
There will also be other adjustments needed. For instance, it is already apparent that in mixed local and remote meetings, those calling in are at a disadvantage.
What about access to confidential information? Do you want your accountant's student activist son to see your tax returns, or your doctor's cleaner knowing you've picked up a social disease or are struggling to get pregnant? My company has already sent reminders not to take or circulate screenshots.
There is more but I do not want to give the impression I'm opposed. I've been WFH for years, but things do become a bit more complicated.
Indeed they do. However, many of these issues are surmountable with investment, thought, training and effort. Too often managers have knee-jerk said no cos they couldn't be bothered with them. Edit. There are plenty of purely Online businesses that manage information securely and confidentially within the Law. But office based equivalents simply aren't used to thinking that way.
Keep an eye on PMQs. Last week, Boris seemed to struggle to keep up with SKS. If this goes on, he might step down sooner rather than later. For betting purposes, though, remember the summer recess starts soon and there is also paternity leave to come.
Should the onus switch back from care in the residential home sector to care within the family with proper Government financial help to expedite it?
I see no prospect of a large scale adoption of inter-generational households. In order for that to work you need, first and most obviously, houses big enough to accommodate everyone comfortably - a luxury for the wealthy in and of itself -
Multi-generational familes would free up housing space as you would no longer have Granny in a house she's always lived in and doesn't want to move from... plus kids' houses.
To all manage under one roof then at least one of you has to have a house big enough for you all to move into it together, or you need a few hundred grand stuffed down the back of the sofa to buy one, or alternatively the ability to suddenly take on a substantial mortgage to afford the luxury of the extra room. As I said, a luxury for the wealthy.
Extended households don't have to be in a single house.
Next street or nearby can provide a lot of support within the family.
BERLIN — Coronavirus has claimed a new victim: German frugality.
Berlin dropped its longstanding resistance to common European bonds, as Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron agreed to a blueprint for a €500 billion recovery fund to help the countries hardest hit by the pandemic get back on their feet.
Under the plan, the recovery fund would be fully financed by debt issued by the EU and backed by all 27 members. The money would be distributed by the European Commission in the form of grants as part of the bloc’s normal budget and repaid over the long term by the EU.
Warren represents Massachusetts, an ultra safe Democratic state and brings little to the ticket, a Midwesterner like Klobuchar or Whitmer would be better
She brings the Bernie progressives.....
Does she though? It's possible to see her as the person whoi hung on long enough to stop Bernie wrappinmg up the nomination.
I'm with Nick on this. A lot of the Sanders die-hards don't like Warren after her accusations about Sanders and the view that she blocked a progressive winning the nomination.
In any event, I don't think Biden will go with a white woman, he needs minority turnout.
Warren also has a lot of policy ideas that are different from Biden's own. I expect she will get a top job like Obama gave Hillary Clinton, but it is risky giving the VP slot to anyone where the GOP adverts can just be extracts from Dem debates of Biden and VP-nominee knocking seven bells out of each other.
Keep an eye on PMQs. Last week, Boris seemed to struggle to keep up with SKS. If this goes on, he might step down sooner rather than later. For betting purposes, though, remember the summer recess starts soon and there is also paternity leave to come.
I think it may be too early for that. I did hear an ICU doctor say you needed a month complete rest for every day spent there. Although others on here have argued it can be less. However, he does not look well. And I think he would have benefited from a much longer convalescence. But then again this government's bench in terms of public appeal and trust isn't deep.
Keep an eye on PMQs. Last week, Boris seemed to struggle to keep up with SKS. If this goes on, he might step down sooner rather than later. For betting purposes, though, remember the summer recess starts soon and there is also paternity leave to come.
Keep an eye on PMQs. Last week, Boris seemed to struggle to keep up with SKS. If this goes on, he might step down sooner rather than later. For betting purposes, though, remember the summer recess starts soon and there is also paternity leave to come.
I think it may be too early for that. I did hear an ICU doctor say you needed a month complete rest for every day spent there. Although others on here have argued it can be less. However, he does not look well. And I think he would have benefited from a much longer convalescence. But then again this government's bench in terms of public appeal and trust isn't deep.
The only people who want to get rid of Boris are leftwingers as they fear him, with good reason as he is the best election winner the Tories have had since Thatcher
Should the onus switch back from care in the residential home sector to care within the family with proper Government financial help to expedite it?
I see no prospect of a large scale adoption of inter-generational households. In order for that to work you need, first and most obviously, houses big enough to accommodate everyone comfortably - a luxury for the wealthy in and of itself -
Multi-generational familes would free up housing space as you would no longer have Granny in a house she's always lived in and doesn't want to move from... plus kids' houses.
To all manage under one roof then at least one of you has to have a house big enough for you all to move into it together, or you need a few hundred grand stuffed down the back of the sofa to buy one, or alternatively the ability to suddenly take on a substantial mortgage to afford the luxury of the extra room. As I said, a luxury for the wealthy.
Extended households don't have to be in a single house.
Next street or nearby can provide a lot of support within the family.
Keep an eye on PMQs. Last week, Boris seemed to struggle to keep up with SKS. If this goes on, he might step down sooner rather than later. For betting purposes, though, remember the summer recess starts soon and there is also paternity leave to come.
Hague was brilliant at PMQs.
But has the worst election record of any Tory leader since the Duke of Wellington
Keep an eye on PMQs. Last week, Boris seemed to struggle to keep up with SKS. If this goes on, he might step down sooner rather than later. For betting purposes, though, remember the summer recess starts soon and there is also paternity leave to come.
Hague was brilliant at PMQs.
But has the worst election record of any Tory leader since the Duke of Wellington
Keep an eye on PMQs. Last week, Boris seemed to struggle to keep up with SKS. If this goes on, he might step down sooner rather than later. For betting purposes, though, remember the summer recess starts soon and there is also paternity leave to come.
I think it may be too early for that. I did hear an ICU doctor say you needed a month complete rest for every day spent there. Although others on here have argued it can be less. However, he does not look well. And I think he would have benefited from a much longer convalescence. But then again this government's bench in terms of public appeal and trust isn't deep.
The only people who want to get rid of Boris are leftwingers as they fear him, with good reason as he is the best election winner the Tories have had since Thatcher
I do think a trick was missed. And you were right and I was wrong. He was a great vote winner. However, for the benefit of the man himself he should have convalesced at least up until the birth. Then taken the paternity leave straight away. And come back in better form. It would have helped if his deputy weren't Raab of course.
I’ve now lost track as to whether it’s better to get the virus or “keep safe” from it. In the absence of a consistent view, maybe it’s best to have had it, and have not had it, simultaneously. So have a test, don’t read the result.
The dream is to have been asymptomatic, produced antibodies and not even realise you had it.
I’ve now lost track as to whether it’s better to get the virus or “keep safe” from it. In the absence of a consistent view, maybe it’s best to have had it, and have not had it, simultaneously. So have a test, don’t read the result.
The dream is to have been asymptomatic, produced antibodies and not even realise you had it.
Indeed. That is everyone's dream. Thus blithely, and entirely innocently infecting your elderly family, colleagues and friends outside of a lockdown.
Keep an eye on PMQs. Last week, Boris seemed to struggle to keep up with SKS. If this goes on, he might step down sooner rather than later. For betting purposes, though, remember the summer recess starts soon and there is also paternity leave to come.
Hague was brilliant at PMQs.
You are missing the point, which was that Boris missed the point. It is nothing to so with Starmer.
IDS, or whoever else complained anonymously about PMQs preparation got it wrong. Of course Number 10 will have expected SKS's question about excess deaths in care homes; of course Boris will have been briefed, and answers added to his folder. The point is he did not even realise what SKS asked. It sailed straight over the Prime Minister's head. Hence the inference he has not fully recovered from his illness.
Time is a great healer but if not, there is always retirement.
Keep an eye on PMQs. Last week, Boris seemed to struggle to keep up with SKS. If this goes on, he might step down sooner rather than later. For betting purposes, though, remember the summer recess starts soon and there is also paternity leave to come.
Hague was brilliant at PMQs.
You are missing the point, which was that Boris missed the point. It is nothing to so with Starmer.
IDS, or whoever else complained anonymously about PMQs preparation got it wrong. Of course Number 10 will have expected SKS's question about excess deaths in care homes; of course Boris will have been briefed, and answers added to his folder. The point is he did not even realise what SKS asked. It sailed straight over the Prime Minister's head. Hence the inference he has not fully recovered from his illness.
Time is a great healer but if not, there is always retirement.
PMQs is irrelevant, if it was decisive Hague and Howard and maybe even Ed Miliband would have been elected.
If the Tories lose Boris they face as long a period in the wilderness as they did once Thatcher went, genius leaders like Boris and Maggie and Blair only come around once a generation at best
Keep an eye on PMQs. Last week, Boris seemed to struggle to keep up with SKS. If this goes on, he might step down sooner rather than later. For betting purposes, though, remember the summer recess starts soon and there is also paternity leave to come.
I think it may be too early for that. I did hear an ICU doctor say you needed a month complete rest for every day spent there. Although others on here have argued it can be less. However, he does not look well. And I think he would have benefited from a much longer convalescence. But then again this government's bench in terms of public appeal and trust isn't deep.
The only people who want to get rid of Boris are leftwingers as they fear him, with good reason as he is the best election winner the Tories have had since Thatcher
I do think a trick was missed. And you were right and I was wrong. He was a great vote winner. However, for the benefit of the man himself he should have convalesced at least up until the birth. Then taken the paternity leave straight away. And come back in better form. It would have helped if his deputy weren't Raab of course.
Raab had to be deputy and if not Raab it would be someone equally powerless. Boris and his consigliere ruthlessly centralised power so their enforced absence was bound to leave a vacuum.
Boris can still take paternity leave to get him to the summer recess, followed by the recess itself, then the (presumably virtual) conference season. If he's not recovered by then, we could have a new Prime Minister by early 2021.
Keep an eye on PMQs. Last week, Boris seemed to struggle to keep up with SKS. If this goes on, he might step down sooner rather than later. For betting purposes, though, remember the summer recess starts soon and there is also paternity leave to come.
Hague was brilliant at PMQs.
You are missing the point, which was that Boris missed the point. It is nothing to so with Starmer.
IDS, or whoever else complained anonymously about PMQs preparation got it wrong. Of course Number 10 will have expected SKS's question about excess deaths in care homes; of course Boris will have been briefed, and answers added to his folder. The point is he did not even realise what SKS asked. It sailed straight over the Prime Minister's head. Hence the inference he has not fully recovered from his illness.
Time is a great healer but if not, there is always retirement.
PMQs is irrelevant, if it was decisive Hague and Howard and maybe even Ed Miliband would have been elected.
If the Tories lose Boris they face as long a period in the wilderness as they did once Thatcher went, genius leaders like Boris and Maggie and Blair only come around once a generation at best
Again, the point is not that SKS is brilliant but that Boris has been distinctly below par since his brush with mortality. That is why he may resign unless he recovers.
Comments
Absolute ghost town. No people, cars, taxis, planes, traffic or other moving objects.
How much of the airline industry can survive?
Donald Trump however...
When you factor in that some of the infections are from hospital discharges rather than staff, and that you have agency staff working across multiple care homes, etc, then it seems clear there's been some success in keeping the virus out of care homes.
"Don't take this drug because it can kill you.'
Choirs, churches, nightclubs, etc.
We may find a few months down the line that most businesses can be allowed to reopen and trade as normal with little consequence, but that pubs (unless they're gastropubs and effectively convert themselves fully into restaurants,) nightclubs, rowdy spectator sports and gyms have all had their chips. Oh, and no hymn singing in churches.
Relative to the dire circumstances in which we presently find ourselves that would be something of a result. I'm filing it in my "too good to be true" drawer.
My personal view is that if my employer wants to shut down its office and turn my home into one it can increase my wages to pay for the extra space I'll require.
Otherwise it is just outsourcing their cost onto me.
Hmmm. Housing Crisis?
Unis campus = people well travelled + bars / clubs + gyms + halls + wide mixing social circles all in a small area.
Re the tourists and students, yes that's a better point.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/08/what-if-donald-trump-is-just-blind.html
35,000 Covid deaths out of 5.3m cases would put the mortality rate at comfortably under 1%; it's not that far from the value published by the ONS for England and Wales for April, which is available here:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsinvolvingcovid19englandandwales/deathsoccurringinapril2020
These data suggest that, for anyone under the age of about 60, the probability of kicking the bucket from this thing (even if you catch it in the first place, which it seems most people haven't even during the peak of the epidemic) is below this average, and it's below one in a thousand cases when you get under the age of 50. Allowing for the fact that a large chunk of the cases in younger cohorts will be those with significant pre-existing medical conditions, then reasonably fit people under 50 would have to be extremely unlucky to succumb to the virus. The risk to children and twentysomethings is astronomically low.
Perhaps instead of droning on about relatively unrevealing transport statistics at every daily briefing, the Government and its boffins should start offering people of working age a realistic appraisal of the risks that they face if they go outside and try to resume some semblance of a normal life? A comparison with other everyday activities that we take for granted, yet are actually more hazardous to most of the population, might also help to provide a sense of perspective?
Lockdown can't go on forever. People require a crash course in the principles of risk management, in an effort to try to get at least a fair proportion of them to stop wetting themselves in fear.
Might Britain change? Maybe - I don't think we can predict how society will evolve now.
Though of course, if you're no longer having to commute then that will probably pay serve to cover the smaller costs inherent in working from home many times over, in any event.
That may still be so, but it'll be some time.
Personally I just resent having to work from the place I live and relax in. It's my space, for my own time, but now it isn't. By necessity of course, but still. And like you I have limits on how much I can reasonably be expected to turn my home into an office.
I’d note, though, that in Asian societies, it is often the exclusively the wife who is expected to do the looking after ageing parents thing.
One of the reason for South Korea’s exceptionally low birthrate is that many women are simply avoiding marriage, as they are expected to look after the husband’s parents, even if they have professional careers of their own.
1) "Unofficial" COVID deaths - ones that happened outside hospital or were counted as something else, or
2) The withdrawal of medical treatments from out-patients has let nature re-assert herself by killing off those who would normally die if not medically treated.
There is going to be one heck of a reckoning in the latter half of the year.
Great post. That would be a sensible way forward. Sadly, anyone who suggests a risk-based approach to policy is immediately damned as a ruthless, reckless pariah. Infantile? Certainly, but there it is.
Some families with big houses who get on really well will be able to make this kind of living work and, indeed, welcome it - some people do it already, of course - but I don't envisage it becoming a widely adopted solution. We will need plenty of care home capacity long into the future.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11653288/coronavirus-lockdown-hit-queen-finances/
Edit Beaten by alter ego. I'll shee you outside...
BBC News - Coronavirus: Sturgeon hits back at Nike conference 'cover up' claims
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-52711995
It is going to be a little bit harder to fob them off.
And also for those who actively want to. It will be enough to make a significant difference.
Ultimately the way that we approach looking after elderly relatives is constrained by how functional they still are and the resources that we have available to look after them. A wealthy family with a great big house may still struggle to cope with a very disabled or demented relative; a single person with a two bedroom flat may adapt very well to living with a parent who has mild cognitive impairment or has trouble getting around but can manage with a frame. Every family is different.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-safer-travel-guidance-for-passengers
Berlin dropped its longstanding resistance to common European bonds, as Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron agreed to a blueprint for a €500 billion recovery fund to help the countries hardest hit by the pandemic get back on their feet.
Under the plan, the recovery fund would be fully financed by debt issued by the EU and backed by all 27 members. The money would be distributed by the European Commission in the form of grants as part of the bloc’s normal budget and repaid over the long term by the EU.
https://www.politico.eu/article/berlin-buckles-on-bonds-in-e500b-franco-german-recovery-plan/
This is the biggest news of tomorrow, but no doubt will be drowned out by endless BBC news vox pops.
Firstly, the EU has borrowed money in the past. You can go our and purchase European Union 2028 bonds today if you so desire. The yields are rubbish, so I wouldn't bother personally.
Secondly, this is far from a done deal.
What about access to confidential information? Do you want your accountant's student activist son to see your tax returns, or your doctor's cleaner knowing you've picked up a social disease or are struggling to get pregnant? My company has already sent reminders not to take or circulate screenshots.
There is more but I do not want to give the impression I'm opposed. I've been WFH for years, but things do become a bit more complicated.
However, many of these issues are surmountable with investment, thought, training and effort.
Too often managers have knee-jerk said no cos they couldn't be bothered with them.
Edit. There are plenty of purely Online businesses that manage information securely and confidentially within the Law. But office based equivalents simply aren't used to thinking that way.
Keep an eye on PMQs. Last week, Boris seemed to struggle to keep up with SKS. If this goes on, he might step down sooner rather than later. For betting purposes, though, remember the summer recess starts soon and there is also paternity leave to come.
Next street or nearby can provide a lot of support within the family.
https://twitter.com/piersmorgan/status/1262459614278422529?s=20
However, he does not look well. And I think he would have benefited from a much longer convalescence.
But then again this government's bench in terms of public appeal and trust isn't deep.
https://vanyaland.com/2020/05/18/this-stream-is-today-peter-hook-the-lights-tribute-to-ian-curtis-and-joy-division/
Fucking brilliant
And RIP Ian...18/5/1980
Life without human interaction is hardly life at all.
Tom Slater"
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/17/social-distancing-corrodes-society/
Like a coffin lid creaking open..
And come back in better form.
It would have helped if his deputy weren't Raab of course.
Thus blithely, and entirely innocently infecting your elderly family, colleagues and friends outside of a lockdown.
IDS, or whoever else complained anonymously about PMQs preparation got it wrong. Of course Number 10 will have expected SKS's question about excess deaths in care homes; of course Boris will have been briefed, and answers added to his folder. The point is he did not even realise what SKS asked. It sailed straight over the Prime Minister's head. Hence the inference he has not fully recovered from his illness.
Time is a great healer but if not, there is always retirement.
If the Tories lose Boris they face as long a period in the wilderness as they did once Thatcher went, genius leaders like Boris and Maggie and Blair only come around once a generation at best
Boris can still take paternity leave to get him to the summer recess, followed by the recess itself, then the (presumably virtual) conference season. If he's not recovered by then, we could have a new Prime Minister by early 2021.