politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Trump bans all travel to Europe for a month from tomorrow excl

eristdoof said:

nova said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Currently we're doing much better contact tracing, quarantines and isolation than the Italians ever did, which is why its growing much slower than in Italy.

Is it growing slower, or are we just a week or so behind? I'm sure the comparison graphs suggested a similar growth.

And while we may be doing some things well, the fact that last night we had 3000 people from Madrid - one of the biggest Covid hotspots in Europe - wandering around Liverpool, suggests we're not exactly being overly risk averse.

My back of an excel spreadsheet calculation suggests that the growth in UK cases this week has been a bit slower compared to when Italy was at the same stage but not by much. The UK on Sunday was "12 days behind Italy" and now you are "14 days behind Italy". I would not find this especially reassuring.

At this stage, Italy was now going at 50% a day. Last 3 days in the UK has been well below that (22% I think yesterday), but still...gulp.

Alistair said:

rottenborough said:

https://twitter.com/bponsot/status/1238069661901692931

Store of Value

It’s just storing rather less value than it was before?

FrancisUrquhart said:

noneoftheabove said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Scott_xP said:

Tim_B said:

Quick question - as a non-cook I eat out a lot, and am getting increasingly aware that public wifi in restaurants etc is insecure.

Which VPN would you recommend for me and family?

I don't know if it's any good, but HideMyAss is popular on our corporate network.

You can also get HideMyAssPro...

Don't use HideMyAss !!! It doesn't Hide your Ass....

PrivateInternetAccess has had a very good reputation for many many years, although there is concern that an Israeli company recently purchased them*. I have used them for ~10 years and never had any outage, always good speeds, and the software is now very solid on all platforms.

* The concern is that because Israel likes to provide the US intell, obviously it could be that Uncle Sam gets a look at what your doing or access to do so.

Is this for mobiles? If I dont do banking etc on public wifi, and dont have bluetooth on do I really need anything beyond normal Apple protection?

Private Internet Acesss (and most major VPNs) have PC / IoS / Android apps. These days it is just a good idea in general to use a VPN at the very least when out in public for a whole variety of reasons, both security and privacy.

How do I know the VPN wont be worse than nothing? Not concerned about US govt or Apple having all my data, half expecting that already, but a small-medium tech firm seems far riskier?

Spain’s health ministry said the number of confirmed cases of the virus in the country had risen to 2,968, and that 84 people had died.

FrancisUrquhart said:

GideonWise said:

The Italians let it explode and had a pandemic accident.

We want to diffuse the bomb. We want a pandemic by design. We think we can do that.

It's brave Minister.

I imagine this is going to be a very challenging few weeks for our government and its experts.

Everyone will be screaming for them to start doing something but they are like the commanding officers in Zulu, hold steady boys. Wait wait wait, FIRE!

If the numbers today show a big leap there is going to be even more pressure. We are surely starting to reach daily increases were the wider public start to think that sounds like quite a lot.

Until there are pictures of people dying in corridors, nothing will change the attitude of the public. As ever, PB is detached from how normal people view the world.

eristdoof said:

nova said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Currently we're doing much better contact tracing, quarantines and isolation than the Italians ever did, which is why its growing much slower than in Italy.

Is it growing slower, or are we just a week or so behind? I'm sure the comparison graphs suggested a similar growth.

And while we may be doing some things well, the fact that last night we had 3000 people from Madrid - one of the biggest Covid hotspots in Europe - wandering around Liverpool, suggests we're not exactly being overly risk averse.

My back of an excel spreadsheet calculation suggests that the growth in UK cases this week has been a bit slower compared to when Italy was at the same stage but not by much. The UK on Sunday was "12 days behind Italy" and now you are "14 days behind Italy". I would not find this especially reassuring.

I would. In 4 days those numbers have diverged by 2 days, that's impressive!

What we want as time goes by is for those numbers to continue to diverge even further.

noneoftheabove said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

noneoftheabove said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Scott_xP said:

Tim_B said:

Quick question - as a non-cook I eat out a lot, and am getting increasingly aware that public wifi in restaurants etc is insecure.

Which VPN would you recommend for me and family?

I don't know if it's any good, but HideMyAss is popular on our corporate network.

You can also get HideMyAssPro...

Don't use HideMyAss !!! It doesn't Hide your Ass....

PrivateInternetAccess has had a very good reputation for many many years, although there is concern that an Israeli company recently purchased them*. I have used them for ~10 years and never had any outage, always good speeds, and the software is now very solid on all platforms.

* The concern is that because Israel likes to provide the US intell, obviously it could be that Uncle Sam gets a look at what your doing or access to do so.

Is this for mobiles? If I dont do banking etc on public wifi, and dont have bluetooth on do I really need anything beyond normal Apple protection?

Private Internet Acesss (and most major VPNs) have PC / IoS / Android apps. These days it is just a good idea in general to use a VPN at the very least when out in public for a whole variety of reasons, both security and privacy.

How do I know the VPN wont be worse than nothing? Not concerned about US govt or Apple having all my data, half expecting that already, but a small-medium tech firm seems far riskier?

PIA have been proved not to store or track your activity. When you connect you get mixed in with a load of other connections, and they have had legal proceeding against them to reveal who was behind particular usage and shown in court on several occasions they aren't able to do so.

numbertwelve said:

GideonWise said:

Do you think politically it might prove challenging if we take quite a different ('do-nothing') strategy to others?

The Irish decision is interesting as I thought we might be more in step with each other.

It’s a brave strategy if that’s what they’re going for.

“But but but we want everyone to get herd immunity” is going to ring a bit hollow if the number of deaths jump and people start to panic.

I don’t believe the government have any easy options because I do understand the argument that locking the country down too soon may prolong or defer the thing. But then I thought the idea was that we should be trying to prolong it until we understand how to cope with it better, so the message is a tad confused...

Reinforcements are a 100 miles away. We are going to have fight this battle now.

What we need now is George Osborne in his power pose shouting: "We are all in this together".

Because for once, we are.

Philip_Thompson said:

eristdoof said:

nova said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Currently we're doing much better contact tracing, quarantines and isolation than the Italians ever did, which is why its growing much slower than in Italy.

Is it growing slower, or are we just a week or so behind? I'm sure the comparison graphs suggested a similar growth.

And while we may be doing some things well, the fact that last night we had 3000 people from Madrid - one of the biggest Covid hotspots in Europe - wandering around Liverpool, suggests we're not exactly being overly risk averse.

My back of an excel spreadsheet calculation suggests that the growth in UK cases this week has been a bit slower compared to when Italy was at the same stage but not by much. The UK on Sunday was "12 days behind Italy" and now you are "14 days behind Italy". I would not find this especially reassuring.

I would. In 4 days those numbers have diverged by 2 days, that's impressive!

What we want as time goes by is for those numbers to continue to diverge even further.

As always it is the testing. As the increased capacity referred to yesterday goes on line it is possible that there will be an acceleration of reported cases in the UK signifying...not very much.

eristdoof said:

Philip_Thompson said:

nova said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Currently we're doing much better contact tracing, quarantines and isolation than the Italians ever did, which is why its growing much slower than in Italy.

Is it growing slower, or are we just a week or so behind? I'm sure the comparison graphs suggested a similar growth.

And while we may be doing some things well, the fact that last night we had 3000 people from Madrid - one of the biggest Covid hotspots in Europe - wandering around Liverpool, suggests we're not exactly being overly risk averse.

Its growing slower here. Some people have tried to overlay a cherrypicked few days of graphs to show similar growth but then a few days later those are out of date and it shows divergence. Any long period graph now shows us clearly diverging with Italy.

How many Spaniards do you think are currently in the UK? Do you think they're all in Liverpool?

You can still have exponential growth and diverge from Italy, it just means that the exponential rate is a little lower. Having two fingers cut off is significantly better than having three fingers cut off.

Indeed and that's the whole point of the tried and tested "flatten the curve" strategy we are following.

DavidL said:

Philip_Thompson said:

eristdoof said:

nova said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Currently we're doing much better contact tracing, quarantines and isolation than the Italians ever did, which is why its growing much slower than in Italy.

Is it growing slower, or are we just a week or so behind? I'm sure the comparison graphs suggested a similar growth.

And while we may be doing some things well, the fact that last night we had 3000 people from Madrid - one of the biggest Covid hotspots in Europe - wandering around Liverpool, suggests we're not exactly being overly risk averse.

My back of an excel spreadsheet calculation suggests that the growth in UK cases this week has been a bit slower compared to when Italy was at the same stage but not by much. The UK on Sunday was "12 days behind Italy" and now you are "14 days behind Italy". I would not find this especially reassuring.

I would. In 4 days those numbers have diverged by 2 days, that's impressive!

What we want as time goes by is for those numbers to continue to diverge even further.

As always it is the testing. As the increased capacity referred to yesterday goes on line it is possible that there will be an acceleration of reported cases in the UK signifying...not very much.

Absolutely! Far superior to identify cases sooner, have higher numbers sooner, but then quarantine and isolate those - rather than have it uncontrolled and wild.

IanB2 said:

eristdoof said:

nova said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Currently we're doing much better contact tracing, quarantines and isolation than the Italians ever did, which is why its growing much slower than in Italy.

Is it growing slower, or are we just a week or so behind? I'm sure the comparison graphs suggested a similar growth.

And while we may be doing some things well, the fact that last night we had 3000 people from Madrid - one of the biggest Covid hotspots in Europe - wandering around Liverpool, suggests we're not exactly being overly risk averse.

My back of an excel spreadsheet calculation suggests that the growth in UK cases this week has been a bit slower compared to when Italy was at the same stage but not by much. The UK on Sunday was "12 days behind Italy" and now you are "14 days behind Italy". I would not find this especially reassuring.

But there are really two “Italy”s - Lombardy, which is overwhelmed, and should have locked down much earlier, and the rest of the country, which is pretty much where we are, and may have locked down (insofar as they have) too soon?

Unlike Italy, we don’t (yet?) have one region in which the large majority of cases are concentrated.

There's also the evidence from Italy's high death rate that they probably have a higher proportion of undetected cases, and the evidence that the virus was circulating unknown in northern Italy for a quite a while before the first case in Lombardy was confirmed. Both of which make comparisons a bit difficult.

Philip_Thompson said:

Indeed and that's the whole point of the tried and tested "flatten the curve" strategy we are following.

The issue is we don't appear to be following it

"Nothing has changed"

https://japantoday.com/category/politics/update1-olympics-who-pandemic-declaration-won't-change-tokyo-games-plan-suga

My Hermes delivery from Uniqlo has been sitting at the depot for days. I’m raging.

Gallowgate said:

My Hermes delivery from Uniqlo has been sitting at the depot for days. I’m raging.

I think that has more to do with Hermes than Coronavirus...

JM1 said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

kamski said:

IanB2 said:

eristdoof said:

nova said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Currently we're doing much better contact tracing, quarantines and isolation than the Italians ever did, which is why its growing much slower than in Italy.

Is it growing slower, or are we just a week or so behind? I'm sure the comparison graphs suggested a similar growth.

And while we may be doing some things well, the fact that last night we had 3000 people from Madrid - one of the biggest Covid hotspots in Europe - wandering around Liverpool, suggests we're not exactly being overly risk averse.

My back of an excel spreadsheet calculation suggests that the growth in UK cases this week has been a bit slower compared to when Italy was at the same stage but not by much. The UK on Sunday was "12 days behind Italy" and now you are "14 days behind Italy". I would not find this especially reassuring.

But there are really two “Italy”s - Lombardy, which is overwhelmed, and should have locked down much earlier, and the rest of the country, which is pretty much where we are, and may have locked down (insofar as they have) too soon?

Unlike Italy, we don’t (yet?) have one region in which the large majority of cases are concentrated.

There's also the evidence from Italy's high death rate that they probably have a higher proportion of undetected cases, and the evidence that the virus was circulating unknown in northern Italy for a quite a while before the first case in Lombardy was confirmed. Both of which make comparisons a bit difficult.

I think it has to be nailed on, giving just how many cases they exported around the world from those who went skiing.

Agreed. The denominator in Italy is almost surely substantially under-estimated (same as Spain). Of course, this does not help the straining of the health system since there are still very many seriously ill people to contend with, but does help put the numbers in some perspective.

I think the US must have it widely, especially on the West Coast. I said 3 weeks ago, I didn't understand given the demographics and time of year that this broke out, how there wasn't many cases there.

FrancisUrquhart said:

JM1 said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

kamski said:

IanB2 said:

eristdoof said:

nova said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Currently we're doing much better contact tracing, quarantines and isolation than the Italians ever did, which is why its growing much slower than in Italy.

Is it growing slower, or are we just a week or so behind? I'm sure the comparison graphs suggested a similar growth.

And while we may be doing some things well, the fact that last night we had 3000 people from Madrid - one of the biggest Covid hotspots in Europe - wandering around Liverpool, suggests we're not exactly being overly risk averse.

My back of an excel spreadsheet calculation suggests that the growth in UK cases this week has been a bit slower compared to when Italy was at the same stage but not by much. The UK on Sunday was "12 days behind Italy" and now you are "14 days behind Italy". I would not find this especially reassuring.

But there are really two “Italy”s - Lombardy, which is overwhelmed, and should have locked down much earlier, and the rest of the country, which is pretty much where we are, and may have locked down (insofar as they have) too soon?

Unlike Italy, we don’t (yet?) have one region in which the large majority of cases are concentrated.

There's also the evidence from Italy's high death rate that they probably have a higher proportion of undetected cases, and the evidence that the virus was circulating unknown in northern Italy for a quite a while before the first case in Lombardy was confirmed. Both of which make comparisons a bit difficult.

I think it has to be nailed on, giving just how many cases they exported around the world from those who went skiing.

Agreed. The denominator in Italy is almost surely substantially under-estimated (same as Spain). Of course, this does not help the straining of the health system since there are still very many seriously ill people to contend with, but does help put the numbers in some perspective.

I think the US must have it widely, especially on the West Coast. I said 3 weeks ago, I didn't understand given the demographics and time of year that this broke out, how there wasn't many cases there.

America seems to be following the "deny there's a problem, forbid testing, let people die, tell people to move on" model.

Philip_Thompson said:

To the scientists and experts who are following the Chief Medical Officers advice we are doing so.

BoZo fanbois are neither scientists nor experts

When he finally does announce the shutdown far too late you will still be cheering him on

edmundintokyo said:

"Nothing has changed"

https://japantoday.com/category/politics/update1-olympics-who-pandemic-declaration-won't-change-tokyo-games-plan-suga

They shouldnt make a call on the Olympics at the moment anyway, it could all look very different in 4.5 months time.

Obviously it wont go ahead if the situation is at current or worse levels.

Philip_Thompson said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

JM1 said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

kamski said:

IanB2 said:

eristdoof said:

nova said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Currently we're doing much better contact tracing, quarantines and isolation than the Italians ever did, which is why its growing much slower than in Italy.

Is it growing slower, or are we just a week or so behind? I'm sure the comparison graphs suggested a similar growth.

And while we may be doing some things well, the fact that last night we had 3000 people from Madrid - one of the biggest Covid hotspots in Europe - wandering around Liverpool, suggests we're not exactly being overly risk averse.

My back of an excel spreadsheet calculation suggests that the growth in UK cases this week has been a bit slower compared to when Italy was at the same stage but not by much. The UK on Sunday was "12 days behind Italy" and now you are "14 days behind Italy". I would not find this especially reassuring.

But there are really two “Italy”s - Lombardy, which is overwhelmed, and should have locked down much earlier, and the rest of the country, which is pretty much where we are, and may have locked down (insofar as they have) too soon?

Unlike Italy, we don’t (yet?) have one region in which the large majority of cases are concentrated.

There's also the evidence from Italy's high death rate that they probably have a higher proportion of undetected cases, and the evidence that the virus was circulating unknown in northern Italy for a quite a while before the first case in Lombardy was confirmed. Both of which make comparisons a bit difficult.

I think it has to be nailed on, giving just how many cases they exported around the world from those who went skiing.

Agreed. The denominator in Italy is almost surely substantially under-estimated (same as Spain). Of course, this does not help the straining of the health system since there are still very many seriously ill people to contend with, but does help put the numbers in some perspective.

I think the US must have it widely, especially on the West Coast. I said 3 weeks ago, I didn't understand given the demographics and time of year that this broke out, how there wasn't many cases there.

America seems to be following the "deny there's a problem, forbid testing, let people die, tell people to move on" model.

2 weeks until the CDC gets enough reagents apparently. It's gonna get awful over there.

Philip_Thompson said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

JM1 said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

kamski said:

IanB2 said:

eristdoof said:

nova said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Currently we're doing much better contact tracing, quarantines and isolation than the Italians ever did, which is why its growing much slower than in Italy.

Is it growing slower, or are we just a week or so behind? I'm sure the comparison graphs suggested a similar growth.

And while we may be doing some things well, the fact that last night we had 3000 people from Madrid - one of the biggest Covid hotspots in Europe - wandering around Liverpool, suggests we're not exactly being overly risk averse.

My back of an excel spreadsheet calculation suggests that the growth in UK cases this week has been a bit slower compared to when Italy was at the same stage but not by much. The UK on Sunday was "12 days behind Italy" and now you are "14 days behind Italy". I would not find this especially reassuring.

But there are really two “Italy”s - Lombardy, which is overwhelmed, and should have locked down much earlier, and the rest of the country, which is pretty much where we are, and may have locked down (insofar as they have) too soon?

Unlike Italy, we don’t (yet?) have one region in which the large majority of cases are concentrated.

There's also the evidence from Italy's high death rate that they probably have a higher proportion of undetected cases, and the evidence that the virus was circulating unknown in northern Italy for a quite a while before the first case in Lombardy was confirmed. Both of which make comparisons a bit difficult.

I think it has to be nailed on, giving just how many cases they exported around the world from those who went skiing.

Agreed. The denominator in Italy is almost surely substantially under-estimated (same as Spain). Of course, this does not help the straining of the health system since there are still very many seriously ill people to contend with, but does help put the numbers in some perspective.

I think the US must have it widely, especially on the West Coast. I said 3 weeks ago, I didn't understand given the demographics and time of year that this broke out, how there wasn't many cases there.

America seems to be following the "deny there's a problem, forbid testing, let people die, tell people to move on" model.

Orange man looked genuinely shaken last night. I think they probably told him just how many people the model says will die.

Gallowgate said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Gallowgate said:

My Hermes delivery from Uniqlo has been sitting at the depot for days. I’m raging.

I think that has more to do with Hermes than Coronavirus...

Maybe, but if I’m going to be quarantined, I want to be quarantined with some new jeans.

I assumed it was bog rolls, you seemed so agitated about it.

Chameleon said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

JM1 said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

kamski said:

IanB2 said:

eristdoof said:

nova said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Currently we're doing much better contact tracing, quarantines and isolation than the Italians ever did, which is why its growing much slower than in Italy.

Is it growing slower, or are we just a week or so behind? I'm sure the comparison graphs suggested a similar growth.

And while we may be doing some things well, the fact that last night we had 3000 people from Madrid - one of the biggest Covid hotspots in Europe - wandering around Liverpool, suggests we're not exactly being overly risk averse.

My back of an excel spreadsheet calculation suggests that the growth in UK cases this week has been a bit slower compared to when Italy was at the same stage but not by much. The UK on Sunday was "12 days behind Italy" and now you are "14 days behind Italy". I would not find this especially reassuring.

But there are really two “Italy”s - Lombardy, which is overwhelmed, and should have locked down much earlier, and the rest of the country, which is pretty much where we are, and may have locked down (insofar as they have) too soon?

Unlike Italy, we don’t (yet?) have one region in which the large majority of cases are concentrated.

There's also the evidence from Italy's high death rate that they probably have a higher proportion of undetected cases, and the evidence that the virus was circulating unknown in northern Italy for a quite a while before the first case in Lombardy was confirmed. Both of which make comparisons a bit difficult.

I think it has to be nailed on, giving just how many cases they exported around the world from those who went skiing.

Agreed. The denominator in Italy is almost surely substantially under-estimated (same as Spain). Of course, this does not help the straining of the health system since there are still very many seriously ill people to contend with, but does help put the numbers in some perspective.

I think the US must have it widely, especially on the West Coast. I said 3 weeks ago, I didn't understand given the demographics and time of year that this broke out, how there wasn't many cases there.

America seems to be following the "deny there's a problem, forbid testing, let people die, tell people to move on" model.

2 weeks until the CDC gets enough reagents apparently. It's gonna get awful over there.

Even with Orange Man in charge, I am genuinely shocked how poor the US reaction is. My feeling is with the US, there have loads of faults, but the past has shown that when they need to pull their finger out they do it and why they have been the world super power.

I genuinely expected a China style response. Part of the problem is clearly they have exported loads of key things to be made in China, but there seems a total paralysis.

FrancisUrquhart said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

JM1 said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

kamski said:

IanB2 said:

eristdoof said:

nova said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Currently we're doing much better contact tracing, quarantines and isolation than the Italians ever did, which is why its growing much slower than in Italy.

Is it growing slower, or are we just a week or so behind? I'm sure the comparison graphs suggested a similar growth.

And while we may be doing some things well, the fact that last night we had 3000 people from Madrid - one of the biggest Covid hotspots in Europe - wandering around Liverpool, suggests we're not exactly being overly risk averse.

My back of an excel spreadsheet calculation suggests that the growth in UK cases this week has been a bit slower compared to when Italy was at the same stage but not by much. The UK on Sunday was "12 days behind Italy" and now you are "14 days behind Italy". I would not find this especially reassuring.

But there are really two “Italy”s - Lombardy, which is overwhelmed, and should have locked down much earlier, and the rest of the country, which is pretty much where we are, and may have locked down (insofar as they have) too soon?

Unlike Italy, we don’t (yet?) have one region in which the large majority of cases are concentrated.

There's also the evidence from Italy's high death rate that they probably have a higher proportion of undetected cases, and the evidence that the virus was circulating unknown in northern Italy for a quite a while before the first case in Lombardy was confirmed. Both of which make comparisons a bit difficult.

I think it has to be nailed on, giving just how many cases they exported around the world from those who went skiing.

Agreed. The denominator in Italy is almost surely substantially under-estimated (same as Spain). Of course, this does not help the straining of the health system since there are still very many seriously ill people to contend with, but does help put the numbers in some perspective.

I think the US must have it widely, especially on the West Coast. I said 3 weeks ago, I didn't understand given the demographics and time of year that this broke out, how there wasn't many cases there.

America seems to be following the "deny there's a problem, forbid testing, let people die, tell people to move on" model.

Orange man looked genuinely shaken last night. I think they probably told him just how many people the model says will die.

He's a narcissist. The only thing that will change is mind is telling him how likely it is that he will die.

IshmaelZ said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

IshmaelZ said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

IshmaelZ said:

noneoftheabove said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

noneoftheabove said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Scott_xP said:

Tim_B said:

Quick question - as a non-cook I eat out a lot, and am getting increasingly aware that public wifi in restaurants etc is insecure.

Which VPN would you recommend for me and family?

I don't know if it's any good, but HideMyAss is popular on our corporate network.

You can also get HideMyAssPro...

Don't use HideMyAss !!! It doesn't Hide your Ass....

PrivateInternetAccess has had a very good reputation for many many years, although there is concern that an Israeli company recently purchased them*. I have used them for ~10 years and never had any outage, always good speeds, and the software is now very solid on all platforms.

* The concern is that because Israel likes to provide the US intell, obviously it could be that Uncle Sam gets a look at what your doing or access to do so.

Is this for mobiles? If I dont do banking etc on public wifi, and dont have bluetooth on do I really need anything beyond normal Apple protection?

Private Internet Acesss (and most major VPNs) have PC / IoS / Android apps. These days it is just a good idea in general to use a VPN at the very least when out in public for a whole variety of reasons, both security and privacy.

How do I know the VPN wont be worse than nothing? Not concerned about US govt or Apple having all my data, half expecting that already, but a small-medium tech firm seems far riskier?

There is a free VPN in Opera for ios/android. It only protects Opera, not the whole device, and it's a fiddle to make sure it is turned on, but it is less of a faff than a separate app and i trust it a bit more than, as you say, a small tech firm i know nothing else about.

I would read the small print very very carefully of any free VPN, for 99% their business model is to sell your activity data. In comparison the likes of PIA, their business model is to guaranteed they do the opposite.

Sure. Opera are basically a browser, though, and they promise they are not logging, never mind selling, what you are up to. Not saying that guarantees anything, of course.

I would then trust Opera on that. How are the speeds? Because that is normally the other downside of a free VPN.

Not terrible, I think, but then the places I use it tend to be places with patchy wifi speeds anyway, so hard to tell.

Can I ask a possibly naive question - why should I be worried about using cafe wifi, e.g. for accessing https sites like mobile banking?

What can go wrong and how likely is it to happen?

https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1238094613359050752

Why are their experts offering different advice to the ones we are "following" ?

Philip_Thompson said:

Benpointer said:

Gallowgate said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Gallowgate said:

My Hermes delivery from Uniqlo has been sitting at the depot for days. I’m raging.

I think that has more to do with Hermes than Coronavirus...

Maybe, but if I’m going to be quarantined, I want to be quarantined with some new jeans.

Made in China?

Imports from China will be perfectly safe now, especially if its been in the depot for a few days.

Its the delivery driver you need to worry about more.

I actually think the government need to be really be making people aware of this. Which individuals do you interact with that widely circulate, one of the top of that list, delivery drivers.

I am having them drop parcels outside, then I anti-bac it all down and wash hands immediately.

https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1238088717937639426?s=20

https://twitter.com/RoryStewartUK/status/1238056786294460416?s=20

https://twitter.com/RoryStewartUK/status/1238070452607737857?s=20

https://twitter.com/RoryStewartUK/status/1238073284983500800?s=20

https://twitter.com/RoryStewartUK/status/1238095037973610503?s=20

https://twitter.com/pkelso/status/1238095280123400194

Philip_Thompson said:

Benpointer said:

Gallowgate said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Gallowgate said:

My Hermes delivery from Uniqlo has been sitting at the depot for days. I’m raging.

I think that has more to do with Hermes than Coronavirus...

Maybe, but if I’m going to be quarantined, I want to be quarantined with some new jeans.

Made in China?

Imports from China will be perfectly safe now, especially if its been in the depot for a few days.

Its the delivery driver you need to worry about more.

Yes I was being tongue-in-cheek but actually you raise a good point - it might be safer for @Gallowgate's package to stay at the depot.

Then again, if we all take that attitude the economy's really f*cked!

Scott_xP said:

https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1238094613359050752

Why are their experts offering different advice to the ones we are "following" ?

I presume they haven't got a plan they made up ten years ago for a completely different situation. Unlike us.

Chameleon said:

Haha, instant Dow Jones suspension. I wonder if we'll get the second.

Below 22,000 now. Wow!

AlastairMeeks said:

Polling factoid for the day. With reference to the London Assembly election:

https://twitter.com/philipjcowley/status/1238093683527835648

https://twitter.com/philipjcowley/status/1238092846386667524?s=20

Scott_xP said:

https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1238094613359050752

Why are their experts offering different advice to the ones we are "following" ?

Different health service, demographics, current situation, borders, economy, social interactions etc. Who knew experts had to look at so many factors and come up with something more complicated than the first thought that entered their head?

Benpointer said:

Can I ask a possibly naive question - why should I be worried about using cafe wifi, e.g. for accessing https sites like mobile banking?

What can go wrong and how likely is it to happen?

If you've got an HTTPS conection (the little padlock in the address bar that every site except pb has nowadays) then in theory you shouldn't have to trust the network. If you're very careful to connect to the bank's site, and not some other one, you should generally be OK.

However, any time you connect to a website without using HTTPS, the admin of the wifi, or whoever hacked it, because they're often badly secured, can switch the website you think you're looking at for another one. They can also interfere with the page as you download it, like these old tricks for turning images upside-down, replacing them with kittens or making them go mysteriously blurry.

They may be able to use that to trick you into connecting to a different website and entering your bank password, or they might send some hacker code in another tab, and exploit some other bug in the browser.

So you reduce your risk by using a network you trust (assuming your *home* router hasn't been hacked) and it's better to do that if possible. If you do have to connect on a public network, you might want to use a different browser to the one you use for everything else just for internet banking, as this closes off some of the ways the network could be used to screw with you.

edmundintokyo said:

Benpointer said:

Can I ask a possibly naive question - why should I be worried about using cafe wifi, e.g. for accessing https sites like mobile banking?

What can go wrong and how likely is it to happen?

If you've got an HTTPS conection (the little padlock in the address bar that every site except pb has nowadays) then in theory you shouldn't have to trust the network. If you're very careful to connect to the bank's site, and not some other one, you should generally be OK.

However, any time you connect to a website without using HTTPS, the admin of the wifi, or whoever hacked it, because they're often badly secured, can switch the website you think you're looking at for another one. They may be able to use that to trick you into connecting to a different website and entering your bank password, or they might send some hacker code in another tab, and exploit some other bug in the browser.

So you reduce your risk by using a network you trust (assuming your *home* router hasn't been hacked) and it's better to do that if possible. If you do have to connect on a public network, you might want to use a different browser to the one you use for everything else just for internet banking, as this closes off some of the ways the network could be used to screw with you.

What about apps? Are they ok?

AlastairMeeks said:

Polling factoid for the day. With reference to the London Assembly election:

https://twitter.com/philipjcowley/status/1238093683527835648

If you are in your early 20s and renting in London and not voting Labour, when are you ever going to vote Labour? If you get to retirement and own your own home in the Home Counties and are still voting Labour then the Tories might have a problem

Must be the wrong kind of expert

https://twitter.com/TheUKDemocrat/status/1238097072278077447

JM1 said:

- ~0.3-1% CFR overall seems the best estimate so far...

I think this will turn out to be the right range, perhaps even the lower end of this range, once we get serological data for whole populations.

Scott_xP said:

Must be the wrong kind of expert

https://twitter.com/TheUKDemocrat/status/1238097072278077447

He clearly is, given the ludicrous simile he uses.

Scott_xP said:

Must be the wrong kind of expert

https://twitter.com/TheUKDemocrat/status/1238097072278077447

he has access to all the same information as the government?

edmundintokyo said:

noneoftheabove said:

edmundintokyo said:

Benpointer said:

Can I ask a possibly naive question - why should I be worried about using cafe wifi, e.g. for accessing https sites like mobile banking?

What can go wrong and how likely is it to happen?

If you've got an HTTPS conection (the little padlock in the address bar that every site except pb has nowadays) then in theory you shouldn't have to trust the network. If you're very careful to connect to the bank's site, and not some other one, you should generally be OK.

However, any time you connect to a website without using HTTPS, the admin of the wifi, or whoever hacked it, because they're often badly secured, can switch the website you think you're looking at for another one. They may be able to use that to trick you into connecting to a different website and entering your bank password, or they might send some hacker code in another tab, and exploit some other bug in the browser.

So you reduce your risk by using a network you trust (assuming your *home* router hasn't been hacked) and it's better to do that if possible. If you do have to connect on a public network, you might want to use a different browser to the one you use for everything else just for internet banking, as this closes off some of the ways the network could be used to screw with you.

What about apps? Are they ok?

It's a similar situation: In general apps, especially banking ones, should be designed to work safely over an insecure network, and if they don't then somebody screwed up. But sometimes people screw up, so a secure network is better.

Probably the luddite in me but not heard enough to convince me to use a vpn for a phone, but I will re-enforce my efforts to make sure I dont use public wifi for anything important. Thanks to all for the advice and explanations.

FTSE down 9.5%

Benpointer said:

Chameleon said:

Haha, instant Dow Jones suspension. I wonder if we'll get the second.

Below 22,000 now. Wow!

Odds on this driving a second suspension today?

edmundintokyo said:

noneoftheabove said:

edmundintokyo said:

Benpointer said:

Can I ask a possibly naive question - why should I be worried about using cafe wifi, e.g. for accessing https sites like mobile banking?

What can go wrong and how likely is it to happen?

If you've got an HTTPS conection (the little padlock in the address bar that every site except pb has nowadays) then in theory you shouldn't have to trust the network. If you're very careful to connect to the bank's site, and not some other one, you should generally be OK.

However, any time you connect to a website without using HTTPS, the admin of the wifi, or whoever hacked it, because they're often badly secured, can switch the website you think you're looking at for another one. They may be able to use that to trick you into connecting to a different website and entering your bank password, or they might send some hacker code in another tab, and exploit some other bug in the browser.

So you reduce your risk by using a network you trust (assuming your *home* router hasn't been hacked) and it's better to do that if possible. If you do have to connect on a public network, you might want to use a different browser to the one you use for everything else just for internet banking, as this closes off some of the ways the network could be used to screw with you.

What about apps? Are they ok?

It's a similar situation: In general apps, especially banking ones, should be designed to work safely over an insecure network, and if they don't then somebody screwed up. But sometimes people screw up, so a secure network is better.

Thanks - interesting and useful. What about a 4G connection?