A woman whose mother has become Northern Ireland’s fourth victim of Covid-19 has lambasted the “selfishness” of people who continue to gather in groups.
Doherty said:
To those of you who out there are being so selfish in gathering in packs - wise up. How selfish can you be?
f you value life you will stay home to do as we have been asked. My mum may be the fourth person [in Northern Ireland] to pass of Covid-19 but the sad reality is she probably won’t be the last.
I'm concerned that the effect of these shutdowns around the world might eventually turn out to have caused more damage to society than the virus itself.
I'm concerned that the effect of these shutdowns around the world might eventually turn out to have caused more damage to society than the virus itself.
You are Donald Trump and I claim my £5.
I guess it's lucky that the exchange rates are more or less in line then...
I've just been sent the video from Tim Martin to the staff, it's not as bad as the letter makes out. However, the end result is that the staff are getting sacked and they don't know when they will get paid for March.
Martin actually even said Wetherspoons would take the wage subsidy but given potential delays in payment and the fact it only paid 80% of wages all he said was workers could get a job at Tescos instead in the meantime and still be prioritised for rehiring once Wetherspoons reopened
You missed the part where he sacked them all, despite the fact he could have kept them on at zero cost with the government subsidy.
He didn't, he said he would understand if they 'did not want to wait around' for the subsidy to come and got a temporary job at Tesco
Journalists constantly sniping at the prime minister are going to become very unpopular very quickly.
We’re in a war. Boris is a war time leader. They are nearly always popular.
The psychology is obvious. You are a fearful citizen and you want to believe you are led by someone clever and resourceful, so that becomes your perception of him. In addition, criticisms start to feel like disloyalty, even treachery.
I've just been sent the video from Tim Martin to the staff, it's not as bad as the letter makes out. However, the end result is that the staff are getting sacked and they don't know when they will get paid for March.
Martin actually even said Wetherspoons would take the wage subsidy but given potential delays in payment and the fact it only paid 80% of wages all he said was workers could get a job at Tescos instead in the meantime and still be prioritised for rehiring once Wetherspoons reopened
You missed the part where he sacked them all, despite the fact he could have kept them on at zero cost with the government subsidy.
I accept the gist of your point - but does he not have to fund 20% ?
You can read this two ways. On the one hand, it's good that the measures have such strong support. On the other hand, this shows that the measures could probably have been introduced before now, if the government had been willing to accept some criticism for its actions. It needs to get a thicker skin and fast. Its unwillingness to be disliked is costing lives.
They've been caught out by the speed of the spread in London in particular. Here in Scotland we have 14 people dead so far. Individual tragedies no doubt but not much of a reason to bring the whole nation to a halt. 3-4 weeks from our peak whilst London looks more like 1-2. If anything we are locking down too soon. We are probably but it would just be too complicated to have different rules for different parts of the country. I've no complaints if some confusion about how this is supposed to work.
The government could have done a lot more with communication. It hasn't made use, for example, of free Facebook advertising that has been offered.
I'm not going to be super-critical. While these are life and death decisions, any of us would struggle with the immense and rapid calls that are being required of the government right now. Being right slowly is as lethal as being wrong quickly.
To be fair, they have been all over Smooth Radio, so it may be a target audience thing?
I've just been sent the video from Tim Martin to the staff, it's not as bad as the letter makes out. However, the end result is that the staff are getting sacked and they don't know when they will get paid for March.
Martin actually even said Wetherspoons would take the wage subsidy but given potential delays in payment and the fact it only paid 80% of wages all he said was workers could get a job at Tescos instead in the meantime and still be prioritised for rehiring once Wetherspoons reopened
You missed the part where he sacked them all, despite the fact he could have kept them on at zero cost with the government subsidy.
That's and spoons should front the cash and then claim it back from the government. There's no need to sack them all.
Well that was an interesting trip. A man jogged down the lane one way and a woman walked the other way. One neighbour's kids are playing in the garden while another has a decorator working in their house. I assume they are keeping to separate rooms.
I'm about to walk down to the gate and back. That's my limit.
I'll go again later to shut the gate.
Then tomorrow I'll go again to put the bin out.
The weather is so shit here I’m passing on my trip to the supermarket some people down on the Mar Menor are having to deal with flooding yet again on top of everything else.
I played golf (badly) in Mar Menor a few years back. Do you live on that big golf resort?
EDIT - ha, sorry! I just realised that Mar Menor is a sea as well as a golf resort. Doh!
One thing for sure is that the NHS is in no danger of privatisation. In the aftermath of this, it will be elevated to pseudo-religious status, even more than it was before.
Or we could move to the German public health insurance system
Never going to happen. Especially not after this. Can you imagine a war in the media of the government against NHS staff? How will that go?
Questions must be asked in the cold light of day after this, if it emerges that all things being equal, Germany has simply kept more of its sufferers alive than we have. This will be the first time the NHS will be publicly compared with 'competing' forms of health provision.
I've just been sent the video from Tim Martin to the staff, it's not as bad as the letter makes out. However, the end result is that the staff are getting sacked and they don't know when they will get paid for March.
Martin actually even said Wetherspoons would take the wage subsidy but given potential delays in payment and the fact it only paid 80% of wages all he said was workers could get a job at Tescos instead in the meantime and still be prioritised for rehiring once Wetherspoons reopened
You missed the part where he sacked them all, despite the fact he could have kept them on at zero cost with the government subsidy.
Journalists constantly sniping at the prime minister are going to become very unpopular very quickly.
We’re in a war. Boris is a war time leader. They are nearly always popular.
The psychology is obvious. You are a fearful citizen and you want to believe you are led by someone clever and resourceful, so that becomes your perception of him. In addition, criticisms start to feel like disloyalty, even treachery.
The only approval ratings that will matter will be those if and when this is all over, I’m not aware of any European leader getting poor ratings at the moment.
I've just been sent the video from Tim Martin to the staff, it's not as bad as the letter makes out. However, the end result is that the staff are getting sacked and they don't know when they will get paid for March.
Martin actually even said Wetherspoons would take the wage subsidy but given potential delays in payment and the fact it only paid 80% of wages all he said was workers could get a job at Tescos instead in the meantime and still be prioritised for rehiring once Wetherspoons reopened
You missed the part where he sacked them all, despite the fact he could have kept them on at zero cost with the government subsidy.
I accept the gist of your point - but does he not have to fund 20% ?
TfL disabled the online form to get a refund on travel cards - previously you could login in to your account, request a refund via online form. They replaced this with a phone line. This either doesn't work due to overload or makes you wait for multiple hours in a queue.
It seems quite clear that they are trying to slow down/stop people getting refunds on season tickets.
In the grand scheme of things priority ranking 7,034,642,456
One above the people complaining about when they are going to get their cruise refund and two above the handful of people still asking about their holiday plans in April
My mate was bloody ill from covid19 on his cruise.. there is no escaping people on a cruise.. def OFF the bucket list
There are still a dozen or so cruise ships out there on the high seas desperately looking for a port willing to take their passengers.
One thing for sure is that the NHS is in no danger of privatisation. In the aftermath of this, it will be elevated to pseudo-religious status, even more than it was before.
Or we could move to the German public health insurance system
So you at suggesting we massively increase funding for the NHS?
I've just been sent the video from Tim Martin to the staff, it's not as bad as the letter makes out. However, the end result is that the staff are getting sacked and they don't know when they will get paid for March.
Martin actually even said Wetherspoons would take the wage subsidy but given potential delays in payment and the fact it only paid 80% of wages all he said was workers could get a job at Tescos instead in the meantime and still be prioritised for rehiring once Wetherspoons reopened
You missed the part where he sacked them all, despite the fact he could have kept them on at zero cost with the government subsidy.
I accept the gist of your point - but does he not have to fund 20% ?
I ask as I have a son in a similar predicament
No, the company doesn't need to pay the 20%.
Well for my son that is personally good news as makes it more likely the employer will do it
The interesting bit is not what happens now, but what happens afterwards. It’s hard to see how we go back to where we were domestically and internationally. How the aftermath is handled is what will truly define this government. We are all going to be paying more tax - but who will pay and how much, will services be cut at the same time? What role will the state have in controlling our infrastructure? Internationally, can we still do business with an increasingly crazed Trump presiding over an increasingly divided US, is China a country we can ever trust, will the EU and UK find common cause as they deal with these two challenges, could that see both sides become more realistic as they negotiate an FTA? And so on and so on. Currently, the government has very few choices. It is doing what has to be done. Looking at Trump and the other populists, we should be grateful for that, of course. However, once the crisis has past there are going to be huge calls to make where there are plenty of choices. That’s when we’ll find out more.
China must be made to change. Their domestic environmental, sanitary and hygiene regulation is appalling.
That isn't about revenge; it's about avoiding a future repetition.
SARS, Bird Flu/H5N1.. Covid-19. There's far too much of a pattern there.
Enough. I won't be buying anything Made in China unless they change.
Money will be the only language they understand.
China is integral to so many supply chains in so many industries. Huawei is going to be central to our 5G infrastructure. It’s going to be impossible to avoid. But we need to see it for what it is. No-one should think The Chinese government has any interest in mind but its own.
Given your last sentence maybe we urgently need to rethink making Huawei “central to our 5G infrastructure”.
Any private company would have only its own interests in mind
One thing for sure is that the NHS is in no danger of privatisation. In the aftermath of this, it will be elevated to pseudo-religious status, even more than it was before.
Which is probably a bad thing. What will it end up like if you can't criticise it?
It depends really. If everyone is on the same page that we must have a national health service, and there’s no underlying distrust that privatization is just around the corner, maybe we can have some grown up conversations?
It will be a cold day in hell when, going into an election, the Labour party doesn't use the "24 hours to save the NHS" slogan.
Who knows, Boris might use it against the Labour Party. He will have given the NHS zillions...
No, you are the one who is failing to see beyond the politics of this. Other people are rising above it. Including Jones. That's the whole point. But you just saw a comment by someone whose politics you disagreed with, didn't bother to read it, and called him a tosser.
Mmm. Indeed so. Rather out of character for @TOPPING to be fair. Suspect an attempted wind up but if not - well it's not an optimal approach.
No, you are the one who is failing to see beyond the politics of this. Other people are rising above it. Including Jones. That's the whole point. But you just saw a comment by someone whose politics you disagreed with, didn't bother to read it, and called him a tosser.
Mmm. Indeed so. Rather out of character for @TOPPING to be fair. Suspect an attempted wind up but if not - well it's not an optimal approach.
Questions must be asked in the cold light of day after this, if it emerges that all things being equal, Germany has simply kept more of its sufferers alive than we have. This will be the first time the NHS will be publicly compared with 'competing' forms of health provision.
The results must be adjusted for spend per capita to be a useful comparison.
I'm about to walk down to the gate and back. That's my limit.
I'll go again later to shut the gate.
Then tomorrow I'll go again to put the bin out.
The weather is so shit here I’m passing on my trip to the supermarket some people down on the Mar Menor are having to deal with flooding yet again on top of everything else.
I played golf (badly) in Mar Menor a few years back. Do you live on that big golf resort?
EDIT - ha, sorry! I just realised that Mar Menor is a sea as well as a golf resort. Doh!
I live a few miles north just in Alicante province, the best know Mar Menor resort is La Manga, the flooding is in a town called Los Alcazeres. The weather in the Mar Menor has not recovered from the last batch of floods with the silt and chemicals washed off the fields has destroyed the eco system.
No, you are the one who is failing to see beyond the politics of this. Other people are rising above it. Including Jones. That's the whole point. But you just saw a comment by someone whose politics you disagreed with, didn't bother to read it, and called him a tosser.
Mmm. Indeed so. Rather out of character for @TOPPING to be fair. Suspect an attempted wind up but if not - well it's not an optimal approach.
I don't trust Boris at least half the time, but imagine the opportunity this would be for the likes of McDonnell and Milne to create a permanent socialist state.
Now that Johnson has had a sniff of being Britain Pinochet he is not easily going to relinquish those powers.
Since we're going full totalitär, BJ should get our lads kitted out like the Chilean army.
The spirit of the times demands something a little more... imperial.
On one occasion I was taking my morning coffee in Place Des Allemand in Trujillo, Peru.
I heard a crunch-crunch... turned my head to see the School marching practise...
They teach marching in the schools - and being inspired by Fredrick the Great, it's all goose step.
So I sat there as the girls and boys (separate formations) crunched past. Deeply weird - kept expecting someone to start singing the Panzerlied.
They teach marching in British schools too, though only the posh ones that most of the government and half the opposition attended. CCF or OTC or whatever it is called now.
CCF. I was worried when grandson 2 joined in his 2nd or 3rd year. However he only lasted about a year, then he got interested in golf.
You know something is a bit odd about your school if your reaction to seeing a student with a (functional) rifle is to tell them off for holding it incorrectly...
On 25 July 1953 the school's Combined Cadet Force armoury was raided by the Irish Republican Army (1922–69), making off with 8 Bren guns, 12 Sten guns, an anti-tank gun, a mortar and 109 rifles. Their van was stopped by a police patrol and Cathal Goulding, Sean Stephenson, later known as Seán Mac Stíofáin and Manus Canning each received 8 years in prison
Jesus, an anti-tank gun.
In If, a favourite of my adolescent years, the finale depends on the rebels finding a secret stash of arms in the school cellar. Looks like all they had to do was turn up for OTC.
My CCF armoury had a Boyes 0.55 anti-tank rifle in it. Complete with ammo. The master in charge politely explained that every year someone asked too fire it. And every year he didn't let them.
For those who don't know - it's basically a normal rifle that has got magnified by 3x. Quite good for hunting mammoths, railway trains and..... small, light tanks.
What a softy, everyone knows smashed collar bones are character forming.
One wonders about the efficacy of those weapons, though the Germans & Soviets also had their own versions also so I guess they had their uses.
You'd want to check out the Forgotten Weapons youtube channel. He fires a lot of these oddball weapons. The answer is generally they perform better than you might expect but the practicality of actually using one makes them pretty wank.
I broke 25 mins for 5k yesterday for the first time in ages, inspired completely by @Pulpstar.
I'm a 3k in 15 man. As in I can do that but not another step. And even then only on one of my "going days". Few and far between right now, which is just as well with lockdown on. A "going day" is the last thing you want at the moment.
I I try and run 2k as fast as possible on the machin at the end of my training at the gym. Got it down to under 8mins by the Autumn when the missus was expecting and I thought it would go better the faster I ran! Used to be able to do 5 in 21, but I’ve been slacking and now it’s about 25
I've just been sent the video from Tim Martin to the staff, it's not as bad as the letter makes out. However, the end result is that the staff are getting sacked and they don't know when they will get paid for March.
Martin actually even said Wetherspoons would take the wage subsidy but given potential delays in payment and the fact it only paid 80% of wages all he said was workers could get a job at Tescos instead in the meantime and still be prioritised for rehiring once Wetherspoons reopened
You missed the part where he sacked them all, despite the fact he could have kept them on at zero cost with the government subsidy.
I accept the gist of your point - but does he not have to fund 20% ?
I've just been sent the video from Tim Martin to the staff, it's not as bad as the letter makes out. However, the end result is that the staff are getting sacked and they don't know when they will get paid for March.
Martin actually even said Wetherspoons would take the wage subsidy but given potential delays in payment and the fact it only paid 80% of wages all he said was workers could get a job at Tescos instead in the meantime and still be prioritised for rehiring once Wetherspoons reopened
You missed the part where he sacked them all, despite the fact he could have kept them on at zero cost with the government subsidy.
One thing for sure is that the NHS is in no danger of privatisation. In the aftermath of this, it will be elevated to pseudo-religious status, even more than it was before.
Or we could move to the German public health insurance system
Never going to happen. Especially not after this. Can you imagine a war in the media of the government against NHS staff? How will that go?
Questions must be asked in the cold light of day after this, if it emerges that all things being equal, Germany has simply kept more of its sufferers alive than we have. This will be the first time the NHS will be publicly compared with 'competing' forms of health provision.
Whatever differences there are between the quality of health care between Germany and the UK, the funding model would come a long way down the list of likely causes.
In the case of coronavirus, my guess is that the final deaths/cases ratio will be determined primarily by (1) the success of the country at protecting vulnerable groups; (2) the speed of detection of cases.
No, you are the one who is failing to see beyond the politics of this. Other people are rising above it. Including Jones. That's the whole point. But you just saw a comment by someone whose politics you disagreed with, didn't bother to read it, and called him a tosser.
Mmm. Indeed so. Rather out of character for @TOPPING to be fair. Suspect an attempted wind up but if not - well it's not an optimal approach.
I'm about to walk down to the gate and back. That's my limit.
I'll go again later to shut the gate.
Then tomorrow I'll go again to put the bin out.
The weather is so shit here I’m passing on my trip to the supermarket some people down on the Mar Menor are having to deal with flooding yet again on top of everything else.
I played golf (badly) in Mar Menor a few years back. Do you live on that big golf resort?
EDIT - ha, sorry! I just realised that Mar Menor is a sea as well as a golf resort. Doh!
I live a few miles north just in Alicante province, the best know Mar Menor resort is La Manga, the flooding is in a town called Los Alcazeres. The weather in the Mar Menor has not recovered from the last batch of floods with the silt and chemicals washed off the fields has destroyed the eco system.
Ah sorry to hear that. When I went there a couple of years back we played three inland golf courses and they were all lovely. It was a fab little trip!
I'm about to walk down to the gate and back. That's my limit.
I'll go again later to shut the gate.
Then tomorrow I'll go again to put the bin out.
I'm going to pop for a walk round the cemetery. hopefully with a return ticket.
I’m about to do my own hoovering. For the first time in maybe fifteen years.
Apart from with cocaine.
On the cocaine front, I saw on a whatsapp group last night that the cost of a gram has gone up from £100 to £150.
One of the more violent side effects of this virus will be the effect it has on organised crime. County lines won't be able to function. Getting the drugs into the country and moving them will be tough.
One thing for sure is that the NHS is in no danger of privatisation. In the aftermath of this, it will be elevated to pseudo-religious status, even more than it was before.
Or we could move to the German public health insurance system
Never going to happen. Especially not after this. Can you imagine a war in the media of the government against NHS staff? How will that go?
Questions must be asked in the cold light of day after this, if it emerges that all things being equal, Germany has simply kept more of its sufferers alive than we have. This will be the first time the NHS will be publicly compared with 'competing' forms of health provision.
Whatever differences there are between the quality of health care between Germany and the UK, the funding model would come a long way down the list of likely causes.
In the case of coronavirus, my guess is that the final deaths/cases ratio will be determined primarily by (1) the success of the country at protecting vulnerable groups; (2) the speed of detection of cases.
Switzerland has 9000 cases and 90 deaths (I think) are there similarities with Germany?
I I try and run 2k as fast as possible on the machin at the end of my training at the gym. Got it down to under 8mins by the Autumn when the missus was expecting and I thought it would go better the faster I ran! Used to be able to do 5 in 21, but I’ve been slacking and now it’s about 25
Sprint 2k at the END of your training? Gosh. That would BE my training.
The public aren't required to keep their preferences pickled in aspic. If they prefer Wetherspoons to traditional pubs, so be it. The beer is cheap enough and you can get a decent pint there. Survival of the fittest, innit.
The public aren't required to keep their preferences pickled in aspic. If they prefer Wetherspoons to traditional pubs, so be it. The beer is cheap enough and you can get a decent pint there. Survival of the fittest, innit.
One thing for sure is that the NHS is in no danger of privatisation. In the aftermath of this, it will be elevated to pseudo-religious status, even more than it was before.
Or we could move to the German public health insurance system
Never going to happen. Especially not after this. Can you imagine a war in the media of the government against NHS staff? How will that go?
Questions must be asked in the cold light of day after this, if it emerges that all things being equal, Germany has simply kept more of its sufferers alive than we have. This will be the first time the NHS will be publicly compared with 'competing' forms of health provision.
Whatever differences there are between the quality of health care between Germany and the UK, the funding model would come a long way down the list of likely causes.
In the case of coronavirus, my guess is that the final deaths/cases ratio will be determined primarily by (1) the success of the country at protecting vulnerable groups; (2) the speed of detection of cases.
The funding side of the German health system is a nightmare. It is the provision of heath services they do very well.
Oh pleeeease tell me James O'Brien read that out on air, complete with "her majesty"!!!
I wouldn't say he is a stupid man but he has a strange weakness for spotting things that fall into his worldview and treating them uncritically due to his own biases (see also: the Exaro files) bearing in mind he absolutely hammers people he dislikes if he notices (as he's very sharp at) they're falling for the same flaw of human nature...
He gets so much wrong, yet wrote a book called How to be Right! You describe him very well, he demands exacting standards of rigour for opponents but is very easy on himself when he errs. Exactly the wrong way round
One thing for sure is that the NHS is in no danger of privatisation. In the aftermath of this, it will be elevated to pseudo-religious status, even more than it was before.
Or we could move to the German public health insurance system
So you at suggesting we massively increase funding for the NHS?
We follow the German model of public insurance funded healthcare paid into by employer and employee
If people wanted to go to their small "community" (WTF?) pubs they would go there and Spoons wouldn't get a look in.
I used to see a friend in Dereham Nortfolk....the opening of the Spoons consigned a number of nice town pubs to ruin
Not that nice, evidently, if people deserted them for the newly-opened Spoons.
They might have been nice, but as a big chain Weatherspoons may have been able to undercut the other pubs. Not saying that's a bad thing, just saying it doesn't necessarily follow that the other pubs were crap.
I broke 25 mins for 5k yesterday for the first time in ages, inspired completely by @Pulpstar.
I'm a 3k in 15 man. As in I can do that but not another step. And even then only on one of my "going days". Few and far between right now, which is just as well with lockdown on. A "going day" is the last thing you want at the moment.
I I try and run 2k as fast as possible on the machin at the end of my training at the gym. Got it down to under 8mins by the Autumn when the missus was expecting and I thought it would go better the faster I ran! Used to be able to do 5 in 21, but I’ve been slacking and now it’s about 25
I used to watch marathons occasionally and would wonder why, when they came round the last corner, no one apart from the leading bunch seemed to be sprinting to the finish line a few hundred metres away. When I did my first marathon and came round that corner I could not go one metre/per hour faster!
I I try and run 2k as fast as possible on the machin at the end of my training at the gym. Got it down to under 8mins by the Autumn when the missus was expecting and I thought it would go better the faster I ran! Used to be able to do 5 in 21, but I’ve been slacking and now it’s about 25
Sprint 2k at the END of your training? Gosh. That would BE my training.
Got to keep up with the pups in the Greene King over 35s Essex football league!
In all seriousness, the issue is if lockdown goes on too long it could cause more deaths than the actual virus. At what point is it not worth pursuing and we just have to do the best we can to minimise infection?
The public aren't required to keep their preferences pickled in aspic. If they prefer Wetherspoons to traditional pubs, so be it. The beer is cheap enough and you can get a decent pint there. Survival of the fittest, innit.
Fittest but not necessarily the best or even the one with most customers or most profit.
You run the only pub in the village. I come along, open a rival pub, take only a fifth of your customers which wipes out your profit but then I go bust and shut down when my redundancy money runs out.
But BigPubCorp won't shut the new pub with hardly any customers because it can sustain losses far longer than you can, if necessary indefinitely. It can run expensive promotions. It can also offer to buy you out. The net result is that BigPubCorp now has all the customers and makes a huge profit. To the outside observer, it looks like a triumph of capitalism and free enterprise.
From a peak at some of the early data (regional), we might see a bit of a rise in cases in Italy today, but driven mainly by more testing, so something to bear in mind when the figures come later.
If people wanted to go to their small "community" (WTF?) pubs they would go there and Spoons wouldn't get a look in.
I used to see a friend in Dereham Nortfolk....the opening of the Spoons consigned a number of nice town pubs to ruin
Not that nice, evidently, if people deserted them for the newly-opened Spoons.
They might have been nice, but as a big chain Weatherspoons may have been able to undercut the other pubs. Not saying that's a bad thing, just saying it doesn't necessarily follow that the other pubs were crap.
It's not just that. Wetherspoons business model is, or was, to buy up short runs of beers, or ends of runs, which the breweries want to unload, so sell cheaply.
Round here it would be more or less the definition of a proper job that you can't do it from home. Manufacturing industry and agriculture, and the services ancillary to it, is about all there is outside of the public sector.
So wondering what the impact of the lockdown would be... most of the graphs I've seen seem to start from n=10 cases, or a certain number of deaths.
In Italy, 7 days before lockdown they had a growth rate of 64% confirmed total cases/day. 7 days after, that was 44%. 7 days after that, 33%.
In France, 7 days before lockdown they had a growth rate of 67%, and then 43% in the following 7 days. In Spain, it was 135% (!) 7 days before lockdown, and then 50% after.
In the UK, it seems to be 62% before lockdown (using yesterday's figure).
Obviously, confirmed total cases depends on how many people you test. There is more testing over time, but on the other hand there are far more cases, so they could be easily be testing a smaller proportion of true cases in those later time periods.
The exercise is fundamentally flawed and very crude, but does seem to suggest that lockdown can have a significant impact.
Hope that the action from Johnson last night will be enough to turn the corner on this thing? You often see temporary relief rallies like this, before reality reasserts and the selling resumes.
I think that 5000 is proving to be a powerful resistance level. I`ve been investing for nearly 40 years and I don`t recall a time when at one point in the day I`m convinced that the market is heading sharply in one direction only to change my opinion completely within the same day.
At the moment I`m feeling that we could be at the low point. My guess is that sufficient people agree with this view (at least today) and that is why the market is rising today.
If we get through this crisis with companies able to maintain their dividends (or only moderately cutting them) this could prove to be the best buying opportunity of my investing career. I saw a report that Buffet is buying now. As always DYOR and I`d suggest dripping in rather than all in one go.
I left all mine in so hoping it goes backup in reasonable timescale. Good so far today but still down a fortune.
Taking garden rubbish to the rubbish tip... is it a no no? The green bin men aren’t coming anymore
My other half did that yesterday. Apparently it was mobbed.
Ours is closed... do I still have to mow the lawn?! 🤔
No. Say you are conducting an ecological experiment in encouraging the natural development of certain grasses in an effort to find the optimum habitat for native insects to thrive in.
Yes yes OK. I give in. Because I do sense that people would rather be reading one of your other type of posts. You know, the ones where you make some points - often reasonably solid - about an important issue.
If people wanted to go to their small "community" (WTF?) pubs they would go there and Spoons wouldn't get a look in.
I used to see a friend in Dereham Nortfolk....the opening of the Spoons consigned a number of nice town pubs to ruin
Not that nice, evidently, if people deserted them for the newly-opened Spoons.
They might have been nice, but as a big chain Weatherspoons may have been able to undercut the other pubs. Not saying that's a bad thing, just saying it doesn't necessarily follow that the other pubs were crap.
It tells us what value they placed on the other pubs.
Yes yes OK. I give in. Because I do sense that people would rather be reading one of your other type of posts. You know, the ones where you make some points - often reasonably solid - about an important issue.
The Conservative party has always been much less about ideology than its opponents can handle. That is why they win so often. Adaptability is the key feature. All the creeps piling in on him here and elsewhere shows a real failure to understand both him and the party. Ordinary people get him - the chattering classes hate him. He won London and the country and they will not let something like the greatest national crisis since the war deflect them from their attacks.
I'm getting a bit sick of being ordered to rally round. I'm doing my bit, and have been for quite a while. I suggest we all keep our eyes on the civil liberties ball going through this serious situation and out the other side. Everything needs to be taken with a respectful grain of salt. Even the fairest and hardest-working politicians deserve no more than grudging toleration.
And Johnson does not come into that category by a mile. A lazy, narcissistic, over-privileged liar who epitomises about 75% of what's wrong with this country.
But I'll keep my powder dry. There will be plenty to attack later on.
In all seriousness, the issue is if lockdown goes on too long it could cause more deaths than the actual virus. At what point is it not worth pursuing and we just have to do the best we can to minimise infection?
The problem would still remain that the number of people needing hospitalization or even ICU would suddenly spike, meaning both coronavirus patients and others with severe health needs that might have survived with treatment will die.
It seems to me that what we need is at least one of a vaccine, some effective treatment or treatments, or a test that shows who has had it with mild or no symptoms and is no longer infectious.
A vaccine obviously should end the crisis, but is a long way off. Effective treatment(s) should reduce the impact on health services enough that some relaxation may become possible, and hopefully we may have some soon.
A test of those who've had it should mean those that have had it can, for some values of normal, return to normal activity subject to precautions to not passively spread the virus through contact. (I'm not a virologist or epidemiologist obviously, but it seems logical to me that passive spread through post-infected people carrying it on their skin say due to not washing hands is going to be orders of magnitude less risky than a- or pre-symptomatic people spreading it, happy to be corrected by one of our medical members). It seems such tests may be available soon, but who knows how scalable they'll be.
I suspect that in a few weeks, as lockdowns across Europe take effect, we will see a progressive relaxation in measures.
The aim will be to keep the virus at a certain, manageable level. Assuming we have industrialised testing etc at that point, I feel optimistic we will find a way to do this, and perhaps sooner rather than later.
Air travel will be the last thing to recover. It’s not clear yet how much of a transmission vector air travel *really* is, but practically, we need a reliable way to test passengers before they get on a plane before we could expect a real recovery in global air travel volumes.
Comments
Doherty said:
To those of you who out there are being so selfish in gathering in packs - wise up. How selfish can you be?
f you value life you will stay home to do as we have been asked. My mum may be the fourth person [in Northern Ireland] to pass of Covid-19 but the sad reality is she probably won’t be the last.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52018360
I ask as I have a son in a similar predicament
EDIT - ha, sorry! I just realised that Mar Menor is a sea as well as a golf resort. Doh!
Even if Martin had been an arch remainer and leftie..I still would have hated what his business has done to small towns...
If people wanted to go to their small "community" (WTF?) pubs they would go there and Spoons wouldn't get a look in.
That is a harsh assumption.
In the case of coronavirus, my guess is that the final deaths/cases ratio will be determined primarily by (1) the success of the country at protecting vulnerable groups; (2) the speed of detection of cases.
One of the more violent side effects of this virus will be the effect it has on organised crime. County lines won't be able to function. Getting the drugs into the country and moving them will be tough.
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1242375695919190021?s=20
https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1242311451974553600?s=20
I love where I live!
EDIT
It’s closed anyway!
You run the only pub in the village. I come along, open a rival pub, take only a fifth of your customers which wipes out your profit but then I go bust and shut down when my redundancy money runs out.
But BigPubCorp won't shut the new pub with hardly any customers because it can sustain losses far longer than you can, if necessary indefinitely. It can run expensive promotions. It can also offer to buy you out. The net result is that BigPubCorp now has all the customers and makes a huge profit. To the outside observer, it looks like a triumph of capitalism and free enterprise.
https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1242443412458090499?s=20
https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1242443910623920128?s=20
In Italy, 7 days before lockdown they had a growth rate of 64% confirmed total cases/day. 7 days after, that was 44%. 7 days after that, 33%.
In France, 7 days before lockdown they had a growth rate of 67%, and then 43% in the following 7 days. In Spain, it was 135% (!) 7 days before lockdown, and then 50% after.
In the UK, it seems to be 62% before lockdown (using yesterday's figure).
Obviously, confirmed total cases depends on how many people you test. There is more testing over time, but on the other hand there are far more cases, so they could be easily be testing a smaller proportion of true cases in those later time periods.
The exercise is fundamentally flawed and very crude, but does seem to suggest that lockdown can have a significant impact.
https://twitter.com/LOS_Fisher/status/1242445291929903104?s=20
And Johnson does not come into that category by a mile. A lazy, narcissistic, over-privileged liar who epitomises about 75% of what's wrong with this country.
But I'll keep my powder dry. There will be plenty to attack later on.
It seems to me that what we need is at least one of a vaccine, some effective treatment or treatments, or a test that shows who has had it with mild or no symptoms and is no longer infectious.
A vaccine obviously should end the crisis, but is a long way off. Effective treatment(s) should reduce the impact on health services enough that some relaxation may become possible, and hopefully we may have some soon.
A test of those who've had it should mean those that have had it can, for some values of normal, return to normal activity subject to precautions to not passively spread the virus through contact. (I'm not a virologist or epidemiologist obviously, but it seems logical to me that passive spread through post-infected people carrying it on their skin say due to not washing hands is going to be orders of magnitude less risky than a- or pre-symptomatic people spreading it, happy to be corrected by one of our medical members). It seems such tests may be available soon, but who knows how scalable they'll be.
The aim will be to keep the virus at a certain, manageable level. Assuming we have industrialised testing etc at that point, I feel optimistic we will find a way to do this, and perhaps sooner rather than later.
Air travel will be the last thing to recover.
It’s not clear yet how much of a transmission vector air travel *really* is, but practically, we need a reliable way to test passengers before they get on a plane before we could expect a real recovery in global air travel volumes.