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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The Index Case. Dealing with Covid-19 inside our care homes

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  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited April 2020
    eadric said:

    Yesterday HYUFD posted this truly bizarre story about Coronavirus turning faces and bodies dark brown

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8237475/Chinese-doctors-critically-ill-COVID-19-wake-darkened-skin.html

    Most odd. I see the Chinese doctors blame it on a medicine.

    I don’t think they’re right - because last night I came across this passage in the book Viral Modernism, which focuses on the Spanish flu, and its impact on the arts. Here, the author is talking about the Swiss novelist Blaise Cendrars and the surrealist poet Guillaume Apollinaire:

    “Cendrars’ sense of spreading danger and the pandemic’s encroachment on the war quickly intensified. A few days after their lunch, Apollinaire lay dying of the flu. Like Cendrars, Apollinaire had been seriously wounded in the war, surviving terrible injuries and even the trepanning of his skull. Despite making it through the battles, Apollinaire succumbed quickly to the virus. When Cendrars visited him on November 8, he was shocked to discover the poet’s body had turned dark as Apollinaire struggled through the final stages of the flu-induced pneumonia.”

    — Viral Modernism: The Influenza Pandemic and Interwar Literature (Modernist Latitudes) by Elizabeth Outka
    https://amzn.eu/f6Ctns9

    I wouldn't put it past the Chinese to have tried to some untested drugs on them. I mean they were already on ECMO machines for 39 days, so they are clearly throwing everything at saving them.

    Those machines cost $5-10k a day.
  • AlastairMeeksAlastairMeeks Posts: 30,340
    kle4 said:

    There’s so many workers impacted by the lockdown that we haven’t considered. These poor women.

    Cam Girls Can Barely Keep Up with Quarantine Demand.


    "I can't just spend the whole month dildo-ing myself."


    https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/epg9xp/cam-girls-quarantine-demand

    Sounds like a lack of ambition to me. Millenials, eh?
    I can't get behind this no cam do, dildon't attitude.
  • BannedinnParisBannedinnParis Posts: 1,884
    eadric said:

    Yesterday HYUFD posted this truly bizarre story about Coronavirus turning faces and bodies dark brown

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8237475/Chinese-doctors-critically-ill-COVID-19-wake-darkened-skin.html

    Most odd. I see the Chinese doctors blame it on a medicine.

    I don’t think they’re right - because last night I came across this passage in the book Viral Modernism, which focuses on the Spanish flu, and its impact on the arts. Here, the author is talking about the Swiss novelist Blaise Cendrars and the surrealist poet Guillaume Apollinaire:

    “Cendrars’ sense of spreading danger and the pandemic’s encroachment on the war quickly intensified. A few days after their lunch, Apollinaire lay dying of the flu. Like Cendrars, Apollinaire had been seriously wounded in the war, surviving terrible injuries and even the trepanning of his skull. Despite making it through the battles, Apollinaire succumbed quickly to the virus. When Cendrars visited him on November 8, he was shocked to discover the poet’s body had turned dark as Apollinaire struggled through the final stages of the flu-induced pneumonia.”

    — Viral Modernism: The Influenza Pandemic and Interwar Literature (Modernist Latitudes) by Elizabeth Outka
    https://amzn.eu/f6Ctns9

    yeah, there's many reports of Spanish flu turning people blue/black. Symptom of a lack of oxygen in the blood.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,087
    edited April 2020

    OllyT said:

    Re how cautious people will be after lockdown is lifted, I suspect many, like myself, will go out more to shop and have a walk round town, grab a coffee etc but will be shunning restaurants/ pubs/ theatres/ sports venues/ cinemas for the forseeable.

    Even when lockdown is eased (and ours was never that tight in the first place) a lot of things will still not be possible for most of this year. Like the gun-toting Trumpton loonies in America we will have a small minority screaming about their inalienable right to go to the pub but until such times as they become the majority common sense should prevail.

    On another topic, our attempts at securing the PPE, testing material, drugs etc are descending into farce. In the aftermath I hope we take a long hard look at why we seem to have totally lost the ability (under successive governments) to manufacture essential supplies for ourselves any more. A re-engineerring of our economy is required methinks.

    Here's a question that some business owners might want to think carefully about. Would they rather be kept closed by the government and given some financial support for longer, or allowed to reopen but in conditions which make it unlikely that they will achieve anything like the same revenues as before and with far less government support?

    Because that's what I expect pubs, restaurants, cinemas, theatres, gyms and clubs are looking at.
    That's what we're looking at (gym), but it's different for every business. We are a smallish membership Crossfit gym with a large premises (<150 members, 7000sqft). Our return plan may involve outside workouts in the car park, maybe a large gazebo or two, prebooked open gym as an interim, or care with spacing out inside (normal class size is under 20).

    But we get about 50-60% of our members in every day, and 90% are continuing to pay full fees despite being offered a 75% reduction while we can only offer an online programme.

    We will then get on to upgrade projects put on hold at present.

    That is a totally different ball game to the Globo gyms where the business model is that 80-90% never come but keep on paying, or the pack 'em in cheap-as-you-go warehouses like Pure, where communication is far more difficult as the membership is so disparate.
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818
    Not only will debt be enormously larger, but the economies that are servicing that debt will be markedly smaller.

    Something will have to give. Living standards, health, taxation, public services. And not just for a few months.

    For decades.

    The number of lives that will cost across Europe is probably going to be numbered in the millions.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958
    kamski said:

    RobD said:

    HYUFD said:
    Surely you want people to be isolated from each other inside cars, not mingling?
    Only isolated if just 1 person per car. And 1 person per car is hopelessly inefficient.

    I would be surprised if there was much infection happening from pedestrians or cyclists passing each other in the street.
    It was reported on here that joggers create a 6m trail of potential slipstream infection behind them, cyclists a 20m tail.

    So prepare to be surprised.

    The only people who have put me at any potential risk in the past five weeks are joggers and cyclists. Thankfuly, I am in Devon where the risk of them actually giving me Covid-19 as part of their exercise regime are slight. City centres? W-A-Y higher
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    HYUFD said:
    Going to be interesting to see where everybody gets all these masks.
  • Gabs3Gabs3 Posts: 836
    eek said:

    Does Tim not understand the options you have with fiat currencies? It's almost like his Economics and Geography degree missed out the economics bit.
    Fiat currencies allow you to print money to reduce debt, but there is an upper limit to that. You can do a big amount without inflation, but eventually it kicks in.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,620
    Sandpit said:

    RobCL said:

    Sandpit said:

    RobCL said:

    Sandpit said:

    isam said:

    Alistair said:

    Would it be fair to say a consensus is building that the way COVID spreads is a highly complex matter and that lockdown is helping only marginally if at all and with enormous drawbacks?

    The data seems to show that the harder the lockdown, the worse the death toll is in terms of deaths per million citizens. Spain, Italy and Belgium are all faring very badly.

    Forcing people to live together in cramped spaces could in some cases be counterproductive, it seems.

    Boris & co weren't to know this, but the time to realise it and start the economy going again is now. Actually it was days ago. It may be too late.

    But by acting now we may not cause the permanent damage the treasury is predicting today.

    Look at Norway and Denmark on that chart of deaths per million. They are a fraction of Sweden's.
    And Denmark is in a worse starting point than Sweden in terms of both population density, areas of high density, and land border with the rest of the Continent.
    Care homes and lack of PPE are the problems, say Swedes

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/19/anger-in-sweden-as-elderly-pay-price-for-coronavirus-strategy
    Care homes and a lack of PPE are the problems, say absolutely everyone!
    This morning I have tried to donate a few cases of PPE (full barrier gowns, face shields, masks and gloves) to local care homes and the ambulance station across the road from work (we are a vet practice with some spare in date hospital grade stock). They have all turned me down as they ‘have plenty of supplies and their normal supply chains are working fine’.

    Will end up sending it in via the main procurement route into the local hospital trust but wanted it to be as local as possible.
    Interesting. It seems that the shortages are quite localised, but no-one who does have stock wants to give it away as they never know when they'll be caught short.
    Good effort from yourself and other industries that have surplus stocks :+1:
    It makes it a problem for PHE if there is enough stock around that extra supplies are being turned down but others are still short. It’s a massive logistics nightmare for sure.

    There will always be localised shortages due to managerial issues and poor planning. I guess it makes good copy for the press about the scandal of PPE supplies but I don’t think the blame game is doing any good at present.

    I have been impressed at the logistics for the nightingales. We have loaned monitors that were picked up promptly and hopefully are at work and although we have 24 drip and string pumps on standby we have been told that there are not yet required so someone appears to be on top of this side of it.
    ISTR most of the logistics for the Nightingales was done by the military, so none of the usual bureaucracy (although no doubt they also bring some of their own). Well done to everyone involved.

    Most of the "PPE Scandal" stories appear to originate from middleman speculators without confirmed stocks, moaning to the press that government/NHS aren't taking them seriously.
    Back to WWII comparisons - there was a stock in trade story in the early part of the war. Chap X has a brilliant invention Y that the military won't take up. Guess what... Yup - always a con/stupid idea that had been dropped for good reason.

    Ironically, that covered over the stuff ups over tank design - everyone in the press assumed the complaints were the same kind of bullshit.
  • brokenwheelbrokenwheel Posts: 3,352

    HYUFD said:
    Going to be interesting to see where everybody gets all these masks.
    And to think before all this peole on here would have taken the piss out of preppers...
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709

    HYUFD said:
    Going to be interesting to see where everybody gets all these masks.
    You can make your own cloth mask at home
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited April 2020

    HYUFD said:
    Going to be interesting to see where everybody gets all these masks.
    And to think before all this peole on here would have taken the piss out of preppers...
    All those Silicon Valley billionaires now in their NZ bunkers certainly look like they made wise investments.

    Interesting that San Francisco hasn't been anywhere near as hard hit as other densely populated areas of the US. All the techies very early on sent everybody home and the local government had shelter in place very early.
  • OllyTOllyT Posts: 4,911
    eadric said:

    OllyT said:

    tlg86 said:

    Alistair said:

    Would it be fair to say a consensus is building that the way COVID spreads is a highly complex matter and that lockdown is helping only marginally if at all and with enormous drawbacks?

    The data seems to show that the harder the lockdown, the worse the death toll is in terms of deaths per million citizens. Spain, Italy and Belgium are all faring very badly.

    Forcing people to live together in cramped spaces could in some cases be counterproductive, it seems.

    Boris & co weren't to know this, but the time to realise it and start the economy going again is now. Actually it was days ago. It may be too late.

    But by acting now we may not cause the permanent damage the treasury is predicting today.

    Look at Norway and Denmark on that chart of deaths per million. They are a fraction of Sweden's.
    Maybe but Sweden's are a fraction of Belgium's Italy's and Spain's. There is just far too much uncertainty here to decide to destroy the world's fifth biggest economy.
    And Devon/Cornwall is a fraction of London. Population density is clearly part of the equation. And that really isn't much of a surprise.
    That is also completely inaccurate I am afraid. Japan has one of the lowest death rates despite having 130m people crammed into a a few mostly mountainous islands.

    The lock downers are running out of excuses.
    Like the Trumpton loonies in America the anti-lockdowners make fa lot of noise. The same half-dozen of you post dozens of a time a day all backing each other up. The evidence nevertheless suggests that most people don't agree with you.
    But, Sweden.

    It’s reasonable outcome (so far) becomes evermore anomalous

    I have this heated debate with my brother in Peru, regularly (via WhatsApp). He’s passionately anti-lockdown and I am conflicted, but tending to be pro-lockdown if anything. However I confess his arguments are starting to sway me. Especially when I read stories like Nigel’s in the header.

    We are lockdowning to protect the vulnerable, yet we aren’t protecting the vulnerable, so what’s the point of the lockdown?
    The lockdown will be eased before too long. There will still be plenty of restrictions. It's not a binary choice, lockdown or no-lockdown. In Sweden it appears that most people are voluntarily doing what we are being made to do so people trying to infer that Sweden is carrying on as it did before are very wide of the mark.

    Until we get a vaccine it is going to come down to how much risk each individual is prepared to take.
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818
    Gabs3 said:

    eek said:

    Does Tim not understand the options you have with fiat currencies? It's almost like his Economics and Geography degree missed out the economics bit.
    Fiat currencies allow you to print money to reduce debt, but there is an upper limit to that. You can do a big amount without inflation, but eventually it kicks in.
    There is also the risk the currency you are printing plunges dramatically in value on the international markets.

    The NHS might have to go without many expensive treatments in that case ,making corona look like a tea party.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,087
    edited April 2020
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:
    Going to be interesting to see where everybody gets all these masks.
    You can make your own cloth mask at home
    I think that if there is a diktat to use them, then a small number will be supplied.

    Giving masks to people who have had zero training in their use is a waste of time and risks making it worse.

    I have a few N95 masks around for if I need eg to attend hospital, but nothing else at present.
  • Having a debate about online selling with ex colleagues WhatsApp group. We use Amazon and do D2C. Have seen a big spike in both, a lot of new and returning customers. So we've ramped up stock and time spent picking for both, and colleagues debating the whys and wherefores of both routes.

    As if by magic an email arrives. From do-not-reply Amazon, inviting us to review our new terms as we didn't do so last time they emailed. I did review them, they are shit, we took up the invitation for them to call us at a set time to discuss. They didn't call as booked. There is no-one at Amazon to speak to. They do not reply to emails even if you find a working alternative to do-not-reply email addresses unless its an issue they want to raise.

    Amazon. Brilliant at customer service if you are buying from them. Abysmally bad at customer service if you sell through them.
  • TOPPING said:

    Secondly, on WFH/weight loss. As with most things, routine is key. Once the novelty of wfh has worn off then routines are life savers (literally if it means avoiding snacking all day = putting on the pounds).

    As to weight loss in general, I could write several books on it (my "proudest" moment was when putting up 17lbs overweight for an amateurs race once, and yes it was my horse so the owner was ok with it).

    Of course usually by far the biggest contributor to weight gain is alcohol. Sadly. A bottle of wine is 1,000 calories right there on top of anything else you are ingesting. Fizzy or "health" drinks are likewise toxic. Also snacking as has been mentioned.

    Then there is, as has been mentioned, the snacking. Most diets work not because of some magic formula (food combining, protein, etc), but because they regulate eating which people who are overweight generally don't do. Just having three meals a day and no more is often a big reduction in calories.

    Next of course exercise. My diet book would be one page - eat less and exercise more.

    Finally, the key is routine but this time with what and when you eat. Take any thought out of the process because the more you think about losing weight the more you think about food and the more you think about food.

    So top tips to lose weight: 1. cut out alcohol 2. set out menus (out of preference the same thing same time every day, say toast and butter in the morning and some combination of salads - lots of cabbage and cottage cheese and tomatoes and perhaps some chicken breast - for lunch and supper 3. Don't eat between meals or if you do, have something (tomatoes, celery, carrots) to chew on with very or relatively few calories which is important psychologically. 4. Do more aerobic exercise if possible to get to the point whereby you get the natural "high". It will make you happier and more motivated.

    Having lost most of the weight, it is really a simple input and output formula - but one complicated by many other psychological and behavioral factors that you allude to. Overcome them and the motivation and benefits become more accessible.

    Something like MyFitnessPal for calorie counting was useful for me. Even over a few weeks then you quickly pick up the new habits.

    At the risk of sparking the controversy saying something like this inevitably does, eating less meat and animal products can clearly help some people too [hides under table]. Getting the biggest nutritional bang for your calorific buck while still having a heaping plate of food for dinner is not a bad place to be (exactly as you say, having something to chew on matters and makes you feel less deprived).

    Either way this is a cracking time to start.
    Surely you increase the nutritional density of meals by leaving out the bulk carbs. Plenty of meat and veg is what you need. Lose the potatoes.
    I agree. There is no science behind giving up animal products being an aid to weight loss - the opposite is usually true.
    No cream cakes, no crap chocolate, no cheese, no chocolate hobnobs. Yeah, that won't help lose weight at all.
  • OllyTOllyT Posts: 4,911
    eadric said:

    OllyT said:

    OllyT said:

    Re how cautious people will be after lockdown is lifted, I suspect many, like myself, will go out more to shop and have a walk round town, grab a coffee etc but will be shunning restaurants/ pubs/ theatres/ sports venues/ cinemas for the forseeable.

    Even when lockdown is eased (and ours was never that tight in the first place) a lot of things will still not be possible for most of this year. Like the gun-toting Trumpton loonies in America we will have a small minority screaming about their inalienable right to go to the pub but until such times as they become the majority common sense should prevail.

    On another topic, our attempts at securing the PPE, testing material, drugs etc are descending into farce. In the aftermath I hope we take a long hard look at why we seem to have totally lost the ability (under successive governments) to manufacture essential supplies for ourselves any more. A re-engineerring of our economy is required methinks.

    Here's a question that some business owners might want to think carefully about. Would they rather be kept closed by the government and given some financial support for longer, or allowed to reopen but in conditions which make it unlikely that they will achieve anything like the same revenues as before and with far less government support?

    Because that's what I expect pubs, restaurants, cinemas, theatres, gyms and clubs are looking at.

    Sadly I am not expecting too many of the restaurants in our town/small city to reopen at all. We used to have lunch in a restaurant about 3 times a week and the lunchtime demographic was 80% retired and I don't see many of them rushing back before a vaccine. 5 years from now our economy will look very different to how it looked at the beginning of 2020. I don't honestly expect the travel and leisure industries to go back to providing anything like the number of jobs that they did for a very long time indeed.
    I went to a nice seafood restaurant in Maldon, Essex, at the beginning of March.

    The place was empty, it was a weekday lunch, so when I finished my oysters I got chatting to the owner, a very nice Italian guy. He didn’t mind the lack of custom, as he said he had excellent business in the evenings. Then he told me about his plans for expansion. A second restaurant. And so on.

    He was barely aware of the virus, but I was very aware of it. I knew what was coming down the line for him and his staff. I doubt if he will reopen, they will all lose their jobs.

    It was a poignant moment. I didn’t mention my foreboding.

    In big cities I think quite a few restaurants will recover quickly. Where we are the restaurant owners and managers where we are lunchtime regulars tell me that they are most lunchtimes are busier than they are in evenings.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958

    Just returned from taking a relative to Queen Charlotte Hospital in West London for some tests.

    - PPE hasn't run out there. Supplies are "tight" apparently, but no re-use or not using PPE.
    - The COVID wards (other side of the campus) are apparently busy but functional.
    - The non-COVID side is very quiet.
    - Tons of hand gel about, everyone wearing surgical masks, gowns for some procedures.
    - They have an issue with people cancelling/not appearing for planned appointments. People are not coming despite being told that they have medical conditions that require treatment, that the hospital isn't a death zone etc etc

    Good intel. Thanks for posting.

    We have to start getting non-Covid treatment back up and running as a priority.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    Boris Johnson will speak to President Trump later today, in a sign that he is starting to resume some of his duties as prime minister. He is also due to have a telephone audience with the Queen later this week.

    I bet liz is thrilled...
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Australian government refusing to bail out Branson and other international shareholders - Virgin Australia enters voluntary administration.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/04/21/virgin-australia-goes-voluntary-administration-failing-get-bailout/
  • kamskikamski Posts: 4,199

    kamski said:

    RobD said:

    HYUFD said:
    Surely you want people to be isolated from each other inside cars, not mingling?
    Only isolated if just 1 person per car. And 1 person per car is hopelessly inefficient.

    I would be surprised if there was much infection happening from pedestrians or cyclists passing each other in the street.
    It was reported on here that joggers create a 6m trail of potential slipstream infection behind them, cyclists a 20m tail.

    So prepare to be surprised.

    The only people who have put me at any potential risk in the past five weeks are joggers and cyclists. Thankfuly, I am in Devon where the risk of them actually giving me Covid-19 as part of their exercise regime are slight. City centres? W-A-Y higher
    I'm prepared to be surprised but I'm interested do you have a source for that?

    Getting rid of the cars would certainly give the rest of us much more space to keep distance from each other.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    The spokesman said the government wanted to open 50 drive-through testing centres open by the end of the month. There are 27 open now, he said.

    The spokesman confirmed that Sage, the scientific advisory group for emergencies, is meeting today to discuss its advice on face masks. Sage is holding another meeting on Thursday.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709

    HYUFD said:
    Going to be interesting to see where everybody gets all these masks.
    And to think before all this peole on here would have taken the piss out of preppers...
    All those Silicon Valley billionaires now in their NZ bunkers certainly look like they made wise investments.

    Interesting that San Francisco hasn't been anywhere near as hard hit as other densely populated areas of the US. All the techies very early on sent everybody home and the local government had shelter in place very early.
    And ample ice cream supplies

    https://twitter.com/SpeakerPelosi/status/1250080704446238725?s=19
  • OllyTOllyT Posts: 4,911

    eadric said:

    OllyT said:

    OllyT said:

    Re how cautious people will be after lockdown is lifted, I suspect many, like myself, will go out more to shop and have a walk round town, grab a coffee etc but will be shunning restaurants/ pubs/ theatres/ sports venues/ cinemas for the forseeable.

    Even when lockdown is eased (and ours was never that tight in the first place) a lot of things will still not be possible for most of this year. Like the gun-toting Trumpton loonies in America we will have a small minority screaming about their inalienable right to go to the pub but until such times as they become the majority common sense should prevail.

    On another topic, our attempts at securing the PPE, testing material, drugs etc are descending into farce. In the aftermath I hope we take a long hard look at why we seem to have totally lost the ability (under successive governments) to manufacture essential supplies for ourselves any more. A re-engineerring of our economy is required methinks.

    Here's a question that some business owners might want to think carefully about. Would they rather be kept closed by the government and given some financial support for longer, or allowed to reopen but in conditions which make it unlikely that they will achieve anything like the same revenues as before and with far less government support?

    Because that's what I expect pubs, restaurants, cinemas, theatres, gyms and clubs are looking at.

    Sadly I am not expecting too many of the restaurants in our town/small city to reopen at all. We used to have lunch in a restaurant about 3 times a week and the lunchtime demographic was 80% retired and I don't see many of them rushing back before a vaccine. 5 years from now our economy will look very different to how it looked at the beginning of 2020. I don't honestly expect the travel and leisure industries to go back to providing anything like the number of jobs that they did for a very long time indeed.
    I went to a nice seafood restaurant in Maldon, Essex, at the beginning of March.

    The place was empty, it was a weekday lunch, so when I finished my oysters I got chatting to the owner, a very nice Italian guy. He didn’t mind the lack of custom, as he said he had excellent business in the evenings. Then he told me about his plans for expansion. A second restaurant. And so on.

    He was barely aware of the virus, but I was very aware of it. I knew what was coming down the line for him and his staff. I doubt if he will reopen, they will all lose their jobs.

    It was a poignant moment. I didn’t mention my foreboding.
    "lunchtime demographic was 80% retired and I don't see many of them rushing back before a vaccine."

    That's not the attitude I've heard from 70+ year olds in last few days. The idea that they will stay in their houses for a year or more is for the birds. Twelve weeks - yeh, we'll do it. Longer? No way. Anecdotal of course.
    They won't be staying in their homes I agree but from what I am hearing they won't be rushing back to restaurants and pubs either. That has been pretty much the response from across the board from those I talk to and I'm in that demographic (just!). Most are expecting a strong second wave shortly after restrictions are lifted as we are seeing in Japan and Singapore.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958
    kamski said:

    kamski said:

    RobD said:

    HYUFD said:
    Surely you want people to be isolated from each other inside cars, not mingling?
    Only isolated if just 1 person per car. And 1 person per car is hopelessly inefficient.

    I would be surprised if there was much infection happening from pedestrians or cyclists passing each other in the street.
    It was reported on here that joggers create a 6m trail of potential slipstream infection behind them, cyclists a 20m tail.

    So prepare to be surprised.

    The only people who have put me at any potential risk in the past five weeks are joggers and cyclists. Thankfuly, I am in Devon where the risk of them actually giving me Covid-19 as part of their exercise regime are slight. City centres? W-A-Y higher
    I'm prepared to be surprised but I'm interested do you have a source for that?

    Getting rid of the cars would certainly give the rest of us much more space to keep distance from each other.
    "His team concluded that cyclists and runners have to stay much farther than 6 feet from a runner or rider in front of them to avoid inhaling droplets or having them land on their bodies. He calculated safe distances for each sport: That 65 feet is needed when riding a bike at 18 miles per hour, 33 feet while running at a 6:44 minutes-per-mile pace, or 16 feet while walking at a normal pace. “By that time, the droplets will have moved down to the ground and you won’t get them in your face,” says Blocken. What about riding or jogging side by side? “It’s no problem unless you turn your head and cough in their direction,” Blocken added."

    https://www.wired.com/story/are-running-or-cycling-actually-risks-for-spreading-covid-19/
  • NerysHughesNerysHughes Posts: 3,346

    Just returned from taking a relative to Queen Charlotte Hospital in West London for some tests.

    - PPE hasn't run out there. Supplies are "tight" apparently, but no re-use or not using PPE.
    - The COVID wards (other side of the campus) are apparently busy but functional.
    - The non-COVID side is very quiet.
    - Tons of hand gel about, everyone wearing surgical masks, gowns for some procedures.
    - They have an issue with people cancelling/not appearing for planned appointments. People are not coming despite being told that they have medical conditions that require treatment, that the hospital isn't a death zone etc etc

    Good intel. Thanks for posting.

    We have to start getting non-Covid treatment back up and running as a priority.
    If a West London hospital is quiet you can imagine that those in more rural areas are going to be empty.
  • OllyTOllyT Posts: 4,911
    Andy_JS said:

    OllyT said:

    OllyT said:

    Re how cautious people will be after lockdown is lifted, I suspect many, like myself, will go out more to shop and have a walk round town, grab a coffee etc but will be shunning restaurants/ pubs/ theatres/ sports venues/ cinemas for the forseeable.

    Even when lockdown is eased (and ours was never that tight in the first place) a lot of things will still not be possible for most of this year. Like the gun-toting Trumpton loonies in America we will have a small minority screaming about their inalienable right to go to the pub but until such times as they become the majority common sense should prevail.

    On another topic, our attempts at securing the PPE, testing material, drugs etc are descending into farce. In the aftermath I hope we take a long hard look at why we seem to have totally lost the ability (under successive governments) to manufacture essential supplies for ourselves any more. A re-engineerring of our economy is required methinks.

    Here's a question that some business owners might want to think carefully about. Would they rather be kept closed by the government and given some financial support for longer, or allowed to reopen but in conditions which make it unlikely that they will achieve anything like the same revenues as before and with far less government support?

    Because that's what I expect pubs, restaurants, cinemas, theatres, gyms and clubs are looking at.

    Sadly I am not expecting too many of the restaurants in our town/small city to reopen at all. We used to have lunch in a restaurant about 3 times a week and the lunchtime demographic was 80% retired and I don't see many of them rushing back before a vaccine. 5 years from now our economy will look very different to how it looked at the beginning of 2020. I don't honestly expect the travel and leisure industries to go back to providing anything like the number of jobs that they did for a very long time indeed.
    I'm hoping a relatively short shutdown of a few weeks won't make as much difference as you seem to think it might.

    You might be right but I don't seen restaurants opening up before September to be honest.
  • OllyTOllyT Posts: 4,911

    If the little rocket man from North Korea does kick the bucket, what nut job have they got lined up to replace him?


    The sister apparently, though I know nothing about her.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,618
    isam said:

    Pulpstar said:



    Not everyone can afford or has the space for gym equipment.

    Most people have a floor for push ups though.
    I'm doing supersets of 35 press-ups and 40 bodyweight squats while I'm waiting for my gym equipment to arrive (next week, I've been told). It's not ideal but it's at least keeping me active and making me do something that gets me out of breath.
    Go for a run?
    Well exactly, or a bike ride.

    WTF would anyone exercise indoors in this glorious spring weather? I've just done a seven mile lunchtime blast on the mountain bike, birds singing in the trees, fresh breeze, sun blazing down.
  • NerysHughesNerysHughes Posts: 3,346

    HYUFD said:
    Going to be interesting to see where everybody gets all these masks.
    And how you eat food in a restaurant wearing a mask
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,618
    Not much. We really don't have any choice but to borrow the fuck of our way out of it, if we insist on closing down the economy for six weeks plus.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    Boris Johnson will speak to President Trump later today, in a sign that he is starting to resume some of his duties as prime minister. He is also due to have a telephone audience with the Queen later this week.

    I bet liz is thrilled...

    Well she might not get many other phone calls. Harry's not calling, and I'd think she is screening Andrew's calls at present.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    isam said:

    Pulpstar said:



    Not everyone can afford or has the space for gym equipment.

    Most people have a floor for push ups though.
    I'm doing supersets of 35 press-ups and 40 bodyweight squats while I'm waiting for my gym equipment to arrive (next week, I've been told). It's not ideal but it's at least keeping me active and making me do something that gets me out of breath.
    Go for a run?
    Well exactly, or a bike ride.

    WTF would anyone exercise indoors in this glorious spring weather? I've just done a seven mile lunchtime blast on the mountain bike, birds singing in the trees, fresh breeze, sun blazing down.
    Protects the public from sight of my pale, flabby body.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    kle4 said:

    Boris Johnson will speak to President Trump later today, in a sign that he is starting to resume some of his duties as prime minister. He is also due to have a telephone audience with the Queen later this week.

    I bet liz is thrilled...

    Well she might not get many other phone calls. Harry's not calling, and I'd think she is screening Andrew's calls at present.
    Yes, but the scruffy oik that told her a load of porkies about closing parliament, probably isn't top of her Christmas Card list.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    HYUFD said:
    Going to be interesting to see where everybody gets all these masks.
    And how you eat food in a restaurant wearing a mask
    Suppository?
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818
    eadric said:

    MattW said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:
    Going to be interesting to see where everybody gets all these masks.
    You can make your own cloth mask at home
    I think that if there is a diktat to use them, then a small number will be supplied.

    Giving masks to people who have had zero training in their use is a waste of time and risks making it worse.

    I have a few N95 masks around for if I need eg to attend hospital, but nothing else at present.
    This is bollocks. Any face covering which forms a barrier to YOUR sneezes and coughs protects people around you. Similarly, if they have a face covering they are protecting YOU

    It’s crude but effective. It’s what happened in the Spanish flu in 1918, whose lessons we have to learn all over again, it seems

    ‘Obey the laws and wear the gauze’

    https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/03/americas/flu-america-1918-masks-intl-hnk/index.html

    Well worth reading.
    So that Burka ban is firmly on the back burner.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited April 2020

    Not much. We really don't have any choice but to borrow the fuck of our way out of it, if we insist on closing down the economy for six weeks plus.
    There will be a huge number of crucial decisions going forward. It can't be business as usual, but what will change. Mistakes made could serious affect every Western country for 10s of years to come.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926

    Boris Johnson will speak to President Trump later today, in a sign that he is starting to resume some of his duties as prime minister. He is also due to have a telephone audience with the Queen later this week.

    I bet liz is thrilled...

    Good. I was just about to post that Boris has been MIA since moving from Downing Street to Chequers.
  • kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:
    Going to be interesting to see where everybody gets all these masks.
    And how you eat food in a restaurant wearing a mask
    Suppository?
    Would make KFC taste better
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited April 2020
    According to the UW model, today is peak deaths day...anywhere between 185 and 4173....
  • BannedinnParisBannedinnParis Posts: 1,884
    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:
    Going to be interesting to see where everybody gets all these masks.
    And how you eat food in a restaurant wearing a mask
    Suppository?
    For all the good that will do me, I may as well shove it up my
  • OllyTOllyT Posts: 4,911

    Gabs3 said:

    eek said:

    Does Tim not understand the options you have with fiat currencies? It's almost like his Economics and Geography degree missed out the economics bit.
    Fiat currencies allow you to print money to reduce debt, but there is an upper limit to that. You can do a big amount without inflation, but eventually it kicks in.
    There is also the risk the currency you are printing plunges dramatically in value on the international markets.

    The NHS might have to go without many expensive treatments in that case ,making corona look like a tea party.
    Give it up, nobody's biting
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958

    HYUFD said:
    Going to be interesting to see where everybody gets all these masks.
    And how you eat food in a restaurant wearing a mask
    Blender Bars and straws?
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,618
    kle4 said:

    isam said:

    Pulpstar said:



    Not everyone can afford or has the space for gym equipment.

    Most people have a floor for push ups though.
    I'm doing supersets of 35 press-ups and 40 bodyweight squats while I'm waiting for my gym equipment to arrive (next week, I've been told). It's not ideal but it's at least keeping me active and making me do something that gets me out of breath.
    Go for a run?
    Well exactly, or a bike ride.

    WTF would anyone exercise indoors in this glorious spring weather? I've just done a seven mile lunchtime blast on the mountain bike, birds singing in the trees, fresh breeze, sun blazing down.
    Protects the public from sight of my pale, flabby body.
    Believe me, nobody is looking. Get out there and enjoy the lovely fresh, scented air.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274

    HYUFD said:
    Going to be interesting to see where everybody gets all these masks.
    And how you eat food in a restaurant wearing a mask
    Blender Bars and straws?
    Do those milkshake places still exist that basically blend a load of candy bars infront of you into a shake with about 3,000 calories in one cup?
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941

    According to the UW model, today is peak deaths day...anywhere between 185 and 4173....

    They really should update their random number generator seed.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited April 2020
    RobD said:

    According to the UW model, today is peak deaths day...anywhere between 185 and 4173....

    They really should update their random number generator seed.
    The projected bed usage is even more laughable, anywhere between ~8,000 and 130,000...
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:
    Going to be interesting to see where everybody gets all these masks.
    And how you eat food in a restaurant wearing a mask
    Suppository?
    For all the good that will do me, I may as well shove it up my
    Mark Renton, one of the great Scottish philosophers of the late 20th century.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,620
    Annnnnnd. As predicted, the Pound Shop Napoleons have gone to work...

    An aquaintance, who works for the government and was involved in the build for one of the Nightingale hospitals has been given a rocket. Apparently her career is damaged.

    Her crime was "going native" with the contractors - instead of stopping the build when materials were required, she authorised them to do what they do on any commercial site. Find a store that sells what they need and expense it to the project. Apparently she should have halted the project each time to get supplies
    from the authorised suppliers.

    Doing what she did "failed to engage with the goals and longer term interests" (a re-written paraphrase to protect anonymity) of her organisation.

    I knew this would happen. But not until the crisis was over...
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,618
    eadric said:

    OllyT said:

    eadric said:

    OllyT said:

    OllyT said:

    Re how cautious people will be after lockdown is lifted, I suspect many, like myself, will go out more to shop and have a walk round town, grab a coffee etc but will be shunning restaurants/ pubs/ theatres/ sports venues/ cinemas for the forseeable.

    Even when lockdown is eased (and ours was never that tight in the first place) a lot of things will still not be possible for most of this year. Like the gun-toting Trumpton loonies in America we will have a small minority screaming about their inalienable right to go to the pub but until such times as they become the majority common sense should prevail.

    On another topic, our attempts at securing the PPE, testing material, drugs etc are descending into farce. In the aftermath I hope we take a long hard look at why we seem to have totally lost the ability (under successive governments) to manufacture essential supplies for ourselves any more. A re-engineerring of our economy is required methinks.

    Here's a question that some business owners might want to think carefully about. Would they rather be kept closed by the government and given some financial support for longer, or allowed to reopen but in conditions which make it unlikely that they will achieve anything like the same revenues as before and with far less government support?

    Because that's what I expect pubs, restaurants, cinemas, theatres, gyms and clubs are looking at.

    Sadly I am not expecting too many of the restaurants in our town/small city to reopen at all. We used to have lunch in a restaurant about 3 times a week and the lunchtime demographic was 80% retired and I don't see many of them rushing back before a vaccine. 5 years from now our economy will look very different to how it looked at the beginning of 2020. I don't honestly expect the travel and leisure industries to go back to providing anything like the number of jobs that they did for a very long time indeed.
    I went to a nice seafood restaurant in Maldon, Essex, at the beginning of March.

    The place was empty, it was a weekday lunch, so when I finished my oysters I got chatting to the owner, a very nice Italian guy. He didn’t mind the lack of custom, as he said he had excellent business in the evenings. Then he told me about his plans for expansion. A second restaurant. And so on.

    He was barely aware of the virus, but I was very aware of it. I knew what was coming down the line for him and his staff. I doubt if he will reopen, they will all lose their jobs.

    It was a poignant moment. I didn’t mention my foreboding.
    "lunchtime demographic was 80% retired and I don't see many of them rushing back before a vaccine."

    That's not the attitude I've heard from 70+ year olds in last few days. The idea that they will stay in their houses for a year or more is for the birds. Twelve weeks - yeh, we'll do it. Longer? No way. Anecdotal of course.
    They won't be staying in their homes I agree but from what I am hearing they won't be rushing back to restaurants and pubs either. That has been pretty much the response from across the board from those I talk to and I'm in that demographic (just!). Most are expecting a strong second wave shortly after restrictions are lifted as we are seeing in Japan and Singapore.
    Also, sadly, many people will be broke and those that aren’t will be feeling very cautious about money.

    Restaurants and foreign travel might return to the days when they were the exclusive domain of the rich.
    Bollocks. I reckon most of the pubs around here will be full, assuming they have beer gardens and this lovely weather continues.

    There will be paper or plastic disposable pint 'glasses' for a while I guess – hopefully of the recyclable variety.

    There are more people than you think that value their liberty and don't want to live their lives in a state of accelerated fear.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941

    RobD said:

    According to the UW model, today is peak deaths day...anywhere between 185 and 4173....

    They really should update their random number generator seed.
    The projected bed usage is even more laughable, anywhere between ~8,000 and 130,000...
    LOL
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    MattW said:

    OllyT said:

    Re how cautious people will be after lockdown is lifted, I suspect many, like myself, will go out more to shop and have a walk round town, grab a coffee etc but will be shunning restaurants/ pubs/ theatres/ sports venues/ cinemas for the forseeable.

    Even when lockdown is eased (and ours was never that tight in the first place) a lot of things will still not be possible for most of this year. Like the gun-toting Trumpton loonies in America we will have a small minority screaming about their inalienable right to go to the pub but until such times as they become the majority common sense should prevail.

    On another topic, our attempts at securing the PPE, testing material, drugs etc are descending into farce. In the aftermath I hope we take a long hard look at why we seem to have totally lost the ability (under successive governments) to manufacture essential supplies for ourselves any more. A re-engineerring of our economy is required methinks.

    Here's a question that some business owners might want to think carefully about. Would they rather be kept closed by the government and given some financial support for longer, or allowed to reopen but in conditions which make it unlikely that they will achieve anything like the same revenues as before and with far less government support?

    Because that's what I expect pubs, restaurants, cinemas, theatres, gyms and clubs are looking at.
    That's what we're looking at (gym), but it's different for every business. We are a smallish membership Crossfit gym with a large premises (
    I bet/hope/fear/expect your gym to be 90% full when you reopen. Look at the profile of people who go to gyms - overwhelmingly young, fit, immortal (or think they are), arrogant (often).

    This has got to be the least at risk demographic and the one most likely to want to take their chances.
  • kamskikamski Posts: 4,199

    kamski said:

    kamski said:

    RobD said:

    HYUFD said:
    Surely you want people to be isolated from each other inside cars, not mingling?
    Only isolated if just 1 person per car. And 1 person per car is hopelessly inefficient.

    I would be surprised if there was much infection happening from pedestrians or cyclists passing each other in the street.
    It was reported on here that joggers create a 6m trail of potential slipstream infection behind them, cyclists a 20m tail.

    So prepare to be surprised.

    The only people who have put me at any potential risk in the past five weeks are joggers and cyclists. Thankfuly, I am in Devon where the risk of them actually giving me Covid-19 as part of their exercise regime are slight. City centres? W-A-Y higher
    I'm prepared to be surprised but I'm interested do you have a source for that?

    Getting rid of the cars would certainly give the rest of us much more space to keep distance from each other.
    "His team concluded that cyclists and runners have to stay much farther than 6 feet from a runner or rider in front of them to avoid inhaling droplets or having them land on their bodies. He calculated safe distances for each sport: That 65 feet is needed when riding a bike at 18 miles per hour, 33 feet while running at a 6:44 minutes-per-mile pace, or 16 feet while walking at a normal pace. “By that time, the droplets will have moved down to the ground and you won’t get them in your face,” says Blocken. What about riding or jogging side by side? “It’s no problem unless you turn your head and cough in their direction,” Blocken added."

    https://www.wired.com/story/are-running-or-cycling-actually-risks-for-spreading-covid-19/
    That article also links to another pre-print study which says:

    "Our study does not rule out outdoor transmission of the virus. However, among our 7,324 identified cases in China with sufficient descriptions, only one outdoor outbreak involving two cases occurred in a village in Shangqiu, Henan. A 27-year-old man had a conversation outdoors with an individual who had returned from Wuhan on 25 January and had the onset of symptoms on 1 February. "

    https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.04.20053058v1.full.pdf+html

    So I'm still prepared to be surprised about "much infection happening from pedestrians or cyclists passing each other in the street".
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    According to the UW model, today is peak deaths day...anywhere between 185 and 4173....

    They really should update their random number generator seed.
    The projected bed usage is even more laughable, anywhere between ~8,000 and 130,000...
    LOL
    I just hope the UK government aren't taking any notice of this model.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    edited April 2020

    Annnnnnd. As predicted, the Pound Shop Napoleons have gone to work...

    An aquaintance, who works for the government and was involved in the build for one of the Nightingale hospitals has been given a rocket. Apparently her career is damaged.

    Her crime was "going native" with the contractors - instead of stopping the build when materials were required, she authorised them to do what they do on any commercial site. Find a store that sells what they need and expense it to the project. Apparently she should have halted the project each time to get supplies
    from the authorised suppliers.

    Doing what she did "failed to engage with the goals and longer term interests" (a re-written paraphrase to protect anonymity) of her organisation.

    I knew this would happen. But not until the crisis was over...

    That’s the sort of story the media needs to pick up on. Projects like the Nightingales should be the perfect example of doing whatever is required, and asking for forgiveness rather than permission.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958

    HYUFD said:
    Going to be interesting to see where everybody gets all these masks.
    And how you eat food in a restaurant wearing a mask
    Blender Bars and straws?
    Do those milkshake places still exist that basically blend a load of candy bars infront of you into a shake with about 3,000 calories in one cup?
    Ooh, I hope so.....
  • welshowlwelshowl Posts: 4,460
    eadric said:

    OllyT said:

    eadric said:

    OllyT said:

    OllyT said:

    Re how cautious people will be after lockdown is lifted, I suspect many, like myself, will go out more to shop and have a walk round town, grab a coffee etc but will be shunning restaurants/ pubs/ theatres/ sports venues/ cinemas for the forseeable.

    Even when lockdown is eased (and ours was never that tight in the first place) a lot of things will still not be possible for most of this year. Like the gun-toting Trumpton loonies in America we will have a small minority screaming about their inalienable right to go to the pub but until such times as they become the majority common sense should prevail.

    On another topic, our attempts at securing the PPE, testing material, drugs etc are descending into farce. In the aftermath I hope we take a long hard look at why we seem to have totally lost the ability (under successive governments) to manufacture essential supplies for ourselves any more. A re-engineerring of our economy is required methinks.

    Here's a question that some business owners might want to think carefully about. Would they rather be kept closed by the government and given some financial support for longer, or allowed to reopen but in conditions which make it unlikely that they will achieve anything like the same revenues as before and with far less government support?

    Because that's what I expect pubs, restaurants, cinemas, theatres, gyms and clubs are looking at.

    Sadly I am not expecting too many of the restaurants in our town/small city to reopen at all. We used to have lunch in a restaurant about 3 times a week and the lunchtime demographic was 80% retired and I don't see many of them rushing back before a vaccine. 5 years from now our economy will look very different to how it looked at the beginning of 2020. I don't honestly expect the travel and leisure industries to go back to providing anything like the number of jobs that they did for a very long time indeed.
    I went to a nice seafood restaurant in Maldon, Essex, at the beginning of March.

    The place was empty, it was a weekday lunch, so when I finished my oysters I got chatting to the owner, a very nice Italian guy. He didn’t mind the lack of custom, as he said he had excellent business in the evenings. Then he told me about his plans for expansion. A second restaurant. And so on.

    He was barely aware of the virus, but I was very aware of it. I knew what was coming down the line for him and his staff. I doubt if he will reopen, they will all lose their jobs.

    It was a poignant moment. I didn’t mention my foreboding.
    "lunchtime demographic was 80% retired and I don't see many of them rushing back before a vaccine."

    That's not the attitude I've heard from 70+ year olds in last few days. The idea that they will stay in their houses for a year or more is for the birds. Twelve weeks - yeh, we'll do it. Longer? No way. Anecdotal of course.

    They won't be staying in their homes I agree but from what I am hearing they won't be rushing back to restaurants and pubs either. That has been pretty much the response from across the board from those I talk to and I'm in that demographic (just!). Most are expecting a strong second wave shortly after restrictions are lifted as we are seeing in Japan and Singapore.
    Also, sadly, many people will be broke and those that aren’t will be feeling very cautious about money.

    Restaurants and foreign travel might return to the days when they were the exclusive domain of the rich.
    Spoke to a couple of hardened business travellers this morning, they scoffed at the idea of getting on any sort of plane until 2021ish and dissolved into derisory laughter at the “it’s ok if we don’t use the middle seat” offering.

    I cannot see a V shaped bounce back at all because many people are going to change their behaviour substantially until further notice, so even if activities are gradually permitted, people won’t do them like they used to.
  • PeterMannionPeterMannion Posts: 712
    edited April 2020
    eek said:

    Does Tim not understand the options you have with fiat currencies? It's almost like his Economics and Geography degree missed out the economics bit.
    English too.

    He should ask his university to be 'repayed'...
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,618
    eadric said:

    eadric said:

    OllyT said:

    eadric said:

    OllyT said:

    OllyT said:

    Re how cautious people will be after lockdown is lifted, I suspect many, like myself, will go out more to shop and have a walk round town, grab a coffee etc but will be shunning restaurants/ pubs/ theatres/ sports venues/ cinemas for the forseeable.

    Even when lockdown is eased (and ours was never that tight in the first place) a lot of things will still not be possible for most of this year. Like the gun-toting Trumpton loonies in America we will have a small minority screaming about their inalienable right to go to the pub but until such times as they become the majority common sense should prevail.

    On another topic, our attempts at securing the PPE, testing material, drugs etc are descending into farce. In the aftermath I hope we take a long hard look at why we seem to have totally lost the ability (under successive governments) to manufacture essential supplies for ourselves any more. A re-engineerring of our economy is required methinks.

    Here's a question that some business owners might want to think carefully about. Would they rather be kept closed by the government and given some financial support for longer, or allowed to reopen but in conditions which make it unlikely that they will achieve anything like the same revenues as before and with far less government support?

    Because that's what I expect pubs, restaurants, cinemas, theatres, gyms and clubs are looking at.

    Sadly I am not expecting too many of the restaurants in our town/small city to reopen at all. We used to have lunch in a restaurant about 3 times a week and the lunchtime demographic was 80% retired and I don't see many of them rushing back before a vaccine. 5 years from now our economy will look very different to how it looked at the beginning of 2020. I don't honestly expect the travel and leisure industries to go back to providing anything like the number of jobs that they did for a very long time indeed.
    I went to a nice seafood restaurant in Maldon, Essex, at the beginning of March.

    The place was empty, it was a weekday lunch, so when I finished my oysters I got chatting to the owner, a very nice Italian guy. He didn’t mind the lack of custom, as he said he had excellent business in the evenings. Then he told me about his plans for expansion. A second restaurant. And so on.

    He was barely aware of the virus, but I was very aware of it. I knew what was coming down the line for him and his staff. I doubt if he will reopen, they will all lose their jobs.

    It was a poignant moment. I didn’t mention my foreboding.
    "lunchtime demographic was 80% retired and I don't see many of them rushing back before a vaccine."

    That's not the attitude I've heard from 70+ year olds in last few days. The idea that they will stay in their houses for a year or more is for the birds. Twelve weeks - yeh, we'll do it. Longer? No way. Anecdotal of course.
    They won't be staying in their homes I agree but from what I am hearing they won't be rushing back to restaurants and pubs either. That has been pretty much the response from across the board from those I talk to and I'm in that demographic (just!). Most are expecting a strong second wave shortly after restrictions are lifted as we are seeing in Japan and Singapore.
    Also, sadly, many people will be broke and those that aren’t will be feeling very cautious about money.

    Restaurants and foreign travel might return to the days when they were the exclusive domain of the rich.
    Bollocks. I reckon most of the pubs around here will be full, assuming they have beer gardens and this lovely weather continues.

    There will be paper or plastic disposable pint 'glasses' for a while I guess – hopefully of the recyclable variety.

    There are more people than you think that value their liberty and don't want to live their lives in a state of accelerated fear.
    Oh, the pubs will be full. I’ll be in one. Especially if it has a beer garden.

    But fancy restaurants and pricey foreign holidays? Not so much. Which is what I said, if you look closely (assuming you can read)
    Yes, I can read and you didn't write fancy and pricey in your OP, did you? You added those qualifiers afterwards. Der.
  • ABZABZ Posts: 441
    First, an extremely thought provoking article - thank you @Nigelb

    Second, Northern Ireland has released a new dashboard, which is definitely the most informative of all the nations of the UK. It also shows (as well as bed occupancy and availability) how many patients have been discharged: https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiMWFhZDgzZDYtMTE4Yi00MTBjLWIzYmQtMTZhYzc1MGEyMTk1IiwidCI6IjljOWEzMGRlLWQ4ZDctNGFhNC05NjAwLTRiZTc2MjVmZjZjNSIsImMiOjh9

    I found this somewhat interesting since it suggests ~80% of all positive patients have been discharged to date.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    Annnnnnd. As predicted, the Pound Shop Napoleons have gone to work...

    An aquaintance, who works for the government and was involved in the build for one of the Nightingale hospitals has been given a rocket. Apparently her career is damaged.

    Her crime was "going native" with the contractors - instead of stopping the build when materials were required, she authorised them to do what they do on any commercial site. Find a store that sells what they need and expense it to the project. Apparently she should have halted the project each time to get supplies
    from the authorised suppliers.

    Doing what she did "failed to engage with the goals and longer term interests" (a re-written paraphrase to protect anonymity) of her organisation.

    I knew this would happen. But not until the crisis was over...

    She'll go and get work in the private sector fairly easily.

    Though I did speak to someone who said something similar. Somewhere in the NHS a list of productive staff is being compiled for eventually sidelining.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,620
    Sandpit said:

    Annnnnnd. As predicted, the Pound Shop Napoleons have gone to work...

    An aquaintance, who works for the government and was involved in the build for one of the Nightingale hospitals has been given a rocket. Apparently her career is damaged.

    Her crime was "going native" with the contractors - instead of stopping the build when materials were required, she authorised them to do what they do on any commercial site. Find a store that sells what they need and expense it to the project. Apparently she should have halted the project each time to get supplies
    from the authorised suppliers.

    Doing what she did "failed to engage with the goals and longer term interests" (a re-written paraphrase to protect anonymity) of her organisation.

    I knew this would happen. But not until the crisis was over...

    That’s the sort of story the media needs to pick up on. Projects like the Nightingales are the perfect example of doing whatever is required, and asking for forgiveness rather than permission.
    But she embarrassed an organisation, by getting a job done.

    Can't you see that lives are far less important than that?
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527

    OllyT said:

    Re how cautious people will be after lockdown is lifted, I suspect many, like myself, will go out more to shop and have a walk round town, grab a coffee etc but will be shunning restaurants/ pubs/ theatres/ sports venues/ cinemas for the forseeable.

    Even when lockdown is eased (and ours was never that tight in the first place) a lot of things will still not be possible for most of this year. Like the gun-toting Trumpton loonies in America we will have a small minority screaming about their inalienable right to go to the pub but until such times as they become the majority common sense should prevail.

    On another topic, our attempts at securing the PPE, testing material, drugs etc are descending into farce. In the aftermath I hope we take a long hard look at why we seem to have totally lost the ability (under successive governments) to manufacture essential supplies for ourselves any more. A re-engineerring of our economy is required methinks.

    Here's a question that some business owners might want to think carefully about. Would they rather be kept closed by the government and given some financial support for longer, or allowed to reopen but in conditions which make it unlikely that they will achieve anything like the same revenues as before and with far less government support?

    Because that's what I expect pubs, restaurants, cinemas, theatres, gyms and clubs are looking at.
    That is quite a dilemma for them. On the whole, I suspect that pubs might benefit from reopening earlier by tapping into the goodwill received from loyal regulars during the short period they remained open prior to the compulsory lockdown.Over time that initial base would expand as other customers gradually return - particularly if some pubs remain closed- though it is certainly unlikely to be an easy period for them.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    eadric said:

    OllyT said:

    eadric said:

    OllyT said:

    OllyT said:

    Re how cautious people will be after lockdown is lifted, I suspect many, like myself, will go out more to shop and have a walk round town, grab a coffee etc but will be shunning restaurants/ pubs/ theatres/ sports venues/ cinemas for the forseeable.

    Even when lockdown is eased (and ours was never that tight in the first place) a lot of things will still not be possible for most of this year. Like the gun-toting Trumpton loonies in America we will have a small minority screaming about their inalienable right to go to the pub but until such times as they become the majority common sense should prevail.

    On another topic, our attempts at securing the PPE, testing material, drugs etc are descending into farce. In the aftermath I hope we take a long hard look at why we seem to have totally lost the ability (under successive governments) to manufacture essential supplies for ourselves any more. A re-engineerring of our economy is required methinks.

    Here's a question that some business owners might want to think carefully about. Would they rather be kept closed by the government and given some financial support for longer, or allowed to reopen but in conditions which make it unlikely that they will achieve anything like the same revenues as before and with far less government support?

    Because that's what I expect pubs, restaurants, cinemas, theatres, gyms and clubs are looking at.

    Sadly I am not expecting too many of the restaurants in our town/small city to reopen at all. We used to have lunch in a restaurant about 3 times a week and the lunchtime demographic was 80% retired and I don't see many of them rushing back before a vaccine. 5 years from now our economy will look very different to how it looked at the beginning of 2020. I don't honestly expect the travel and leisure industries to go back to providing anything like the number of jobs that they did for a very long time indeed.
    I went to a nice seafood restaurant in Maldon, Essex, at the beginning of March.

    The place was empty, it was a weekday lunch, so when I finished my oysters I got chatting to the owner, a very nice Italian guy. He didn’t mind the lack of custom, as he said he had excellent business in the evenings. Then he told me about his plans for expansion. A second restaurant. And so on.

    He was barely aware of the virus, but I was very aware of it. I knew what was coming down the line for him and his staff. I doubt if he will reopen, they will all lose their jobs.

    It was a poignant moment. I didn’t mention my foreboding.
    "lunchtime demographic was 80% retired and I don't see many of them rushing back before a vaccine."

    That's not the attitude I've heard from 70+ year olds in last few days. The idea that they will stay in their houses for a year or more is for the birds. Twelve weeks - yeh, we'll do it. Longer? No way. Anecdotal of course.
    They won't be staying in their homes I agree but from what I am hearing they won't be rushing back to restaurants and pubs either. That has been pretty much the response from across the board from those I talk to and I'm in that demographic (just!). Most are expecting a strong second wave shortly after restrictions are lifted as we are seeing in Japan and Singapore.
    Also, sadly, many people will be broke and those that aren’t will be feeling very cautious about money.

    Restaurants and foreign travel might return to the days when they were the exclusive domain of the rich.
    Michelin starred restaurants and long haul travel to the Caribbean etc have always been the exclusive domain of the rich anyway.

    I cannot see the local pub restaurant being much affected post lockdown and as long as Ryanair and Easyjet don't go bust nor will trips to Benidorm etc.

    Cruises might be hit longer term going given their older than average customer base will want to keep social distancing given they are most at risk from Covid
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958

    Annnnnnd. As predicted, the Pound Shop Napoleons have gone to work...

    An aquaintance, who works for the government and was involved in the build for one of the Nightingale hospitals has been given a rocket. Apparently her career is damaged.

    Her crime was "going native" with the contractors - instead of stopping the build when materials were required, she authorised them to do what they do on any commercial site. Find a store that sells what they need and expense it to the project. Apparently she should have halted the project each time to get supplies
    from the authorised suppliers.

    Doing what she did "failed to engage with the goals and longer term interests" (a re-written paraphrase to protect anonymity) of her organisation.

    I knew this would happen. But not until the crisis was over...

    Go on Peston, ask whether this is Govt. policy - to bugger up construction of the Nightingale Hospitals by God knows how long to get it done on the cheap... And if not, are they going to give a damn good career-ending slap to those jobsworths who are insisting this is what should have happened?
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    eadric said:

    OllyT said:

    eadric said:

    OllyT said:

    OllyT said:

    Re how cautious people will be after lockdown is lifted, I suspect many, like myself, will go out more to shop and have a walk round town, grab a coffee etc but will be shunning restaurants/ pubs/ theatres/ sports venues/ cinemas for the forseeable.

    Even when lockdown is eased (and ours was never that tight in the first place) a lot of things will still not be possible for most of this year. Like the gun-toting Trumpton loonies in America we will have a small minority screaming about their inalienable right to go to the pub but until such times as they become the majority common sense should prevail.

    On another topic, our attempts at securing the PPE, testing material, drugs etc are descending into farce. In the aftermath I hope we take a long hard look at why we seem to have totally lost the ability (under successive governments) to manufacture essential supplies for ourselves any more. A re-engineerring of our economy is required methinks.

    Here's a question that some business owners might want to think carefully about. Would they rather be kept closed by the government and given some financial support for longer, or allowed to reopen but in conditions which make it unlikely that they will achieve anything like the same revenues as before and with far less government support?

    Because that's what I expect pubs, restaurants, cinemas, theatres, gyms and clubs are looking at.

    Sadly I am not expecting too many of the restaurants in our town/small city to reopen at all. We used to have lunch in a restaurant about 3 times a week and the lunchtime demographic was 80% retired and I don't see many of them rushing back before a vaccine. 5 years from now our economy will look very different to how it looked at the beginning of 2020. I don't honestly expect the travel and leisure industries to go back to providing anything like the number of jobs that they did for a very long time indeed.
    I went to a nice seafood restaurant in Maldon, Essex, at the beginning of March.

    The place was empty, it was a weekday lunch, so when I finished my oysters I got chatting to the owner, a very nice Italian guy. He didn’t mind the lack of custom, as he said he had excellent business in the evenings. Then he told me about his plans for expansion. A second restaurant. And so on.

    He was barely aware of the virus, but I was very aware of it. I knew what was coming down the line for him and his staff. I doubt if he will reopen, they will all lose their jobs.

    It was a poignant moment. I didn’t mention my foreboding.
    "lunchtime demographic was 80% retired and I don't see many of them rushing back before a vaccine."

    That's not the attitude I've heard from 70+ year olds in last few days. The idea that they will stay in their houses for a year or more is for the birds. Twelve weeks - yeh, we'll do it. Longer? No way. Anecdotal of course.
    They won't be staying in their homes I agree but from what I am hearing they won't be rushing back to restaurants and pubs either. That has been pretty much the response from across the board from those I talk to and I'm in that demographic (just!). Most are expecting a strong second wave shortly after restrictions are lifted as we are seeing in Japan and Singapore.
    Also, sadly, many people will be broke and those that aren’t will be feeling very cautious about money.

    Restaurants and foreign travel might return to the days when they were the exclusive domain of the rich.
    Bollocks. I reckon most of the pubs around here will be full, assuming they have beer gardens and this lovely weather continues.

    There will be paper or plastic disposable pint 'glasses' for a while I guess – hopefully of the recyclable variety.

    There are more people than you think that value their liberty and don't want to live their lives in a state of accelerated fear.
    I'm going straight to the pub when this is over. Got a big post lockdown piss up planned, three in fact.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,620
    eadric said:

    eadric said:

    OllyT said:

    eadric said:

    OllyT said:

    OllyT said:

    Re how cautious people will be after lockdown is lifted, I suspect many, like myself, will go out more to shop and have a walk round town, grab a coffee etc but will be shunning restaurants/ pubs/ theatres/ sports venues/ cinemas for the forseeable.

    Even when lockdown is eased (and ours was never that tight in the first place) a lot of things will still not be possible for most of this year. Like the gun-toting Trumpton loonies in America we will have a small minority screaming about their inalienable right to go to the pub but until such times as they become the majority common sense should prevail.

    On another topic, our attempts at securing the PPE, testing material, drugs etc are descending into farce. In the aftermath I hope we take a long hard look at why we seem to have totally lost the ability (under successive governments) to manufacture essential supplies for ourselves any more. A re-engineerring of our economy is required methinks.

    Here's a question that some business owners might want to think carefully about. Would they rather be kept closed by the government and given some financial support for longer, or allowed to reopen but in conditions which make it unlikely that they will achieve anything like the same revenues as before and with far less government support?

    Because that's what I expect pubs, restaurants, cinemas, theatres, gyms and clubs are looking at.

    Sadly I am not expecting too many of the restaurants in our town/small city to reopen at all. We used to have lunch in a restaurant about 3 times a week and the lunchtime demographic was 80% retired and I don't see many of them rushing back before a vaccine. 5 years from now our economy will look very different to how it looked at the beginning of 2020. I don't honestly expect the travel and leisure industries to go back to providing anything like the number of jobs that they did for a very long time indeed.
    I went to a nice seafood restaurant in Maldon, Essex, at the beginning of March.

    The place was empty, it was a weekday lunch, so when I finished my oysters I got chatting to the owner, a very nice Italian guy. He didn’t mind the lack of custom, as he said he had excellent business in the evenings. Then he told me about his plans for expansion. A second restaurant. And so on.

    He was barely aware of the virus, but I was very aware of it. I knew what was coming down the line for him and his staff. I doubt if he will reopen, they will all lose their jobs.

    It was a poignant moment. I didn’t mention my foreboding.
    "lunchtime demographic was 80% retired and I don't see many of them rushing back before a vaccine."

    That's not the attitude I've heard from 70+ year olds in last few days. The idea that they will stay in their houses for a year or more is for the birds. Twelve weeks - yeh, we'll do it. Longer? No way. Anecdotal of course.
    They won't be staying in their homes I agree but from what I am hearing they won't be rushing back to restaurants and pubs either. That has been pretty much the response from across the board from those I talk to and I'm in that demographic (just!). Most are expecting a strong second wave shortly after restrictions are lifted as we are seeing in Japan and Singapore.
    Also, sadly, many people will be broke and those that aren’t will be feeling very cautious about money.

    Restaurants and foreign travel might return to the days when they were the exclusive domain of the rich.
    Bollocks. I reckon most of the pubs around here will be full, assuming they have beer gardens and this lovely weather continues.

    There will be paper or plastic disposable pint 'glasses' for a while I guess – hopefully of the recyclable variety.

    There are more people than you think that value their liberty and don't want to live their lives in a state of accelerated fear.
    Oh, the pubs will be full. I’ll be in one. Especially if it has a beer garden.

    But fancy restaurants and pricey foreign holidays? Not so much. Which is what I said, if you look closely (assuming you can read)
    Glasses are not the problem - commercial glass washers are very effective at sterilising.
  • agingjb2agingjb2 Posts: 85
    FPT. Tried to donate with a VISA card (avoiding Paypal), but seemed to need Paypal account anyway. Pity.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    Boris Johnson will speak to President Trump later today, in a sign that he is starting to resume some of his duties as prime minister.

    Good call. Start with something intellectually undemanding.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited April 2020
    I think a big danger when the lockdown is lifted is everybody popping around to all their mates they haven't seen in person for 3 months. Going house to house, few drinks, bit of food off shared plates.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,620

    The same Simon Jenkins who boasted that, when he was involved in London transport, he had prevented maintenance closures being carried out?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,620
    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:
    Going to be interesting to see where everybody gets all these masks.
    And how you eat food in a restaurant wearing a mask
    Suppository?
    Gwyneth Paltrow opens a chain of restaurants.....
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958
    kamski said:

    kamski said:

    kamski said:

    RobD said:

    HYUFD said:
    Surely you want people to be isolated from each other inside cars, not mingling?
    Only isolated if just 1 person per car. And 1 person per car is hopelessly inefficient.

    I would be surprised if there was much infection happening from pedestrians or cyclists passing each other in the street.
    It was reported on here that joggers create a 6m trail of potential slipstream infection behind them, cyclists a 20m tail.

    So prepare to be surprised.

    The only people who have put me at any potential risk in the past five weeks are joggers and cyclists. Thankfuly, I am in Devon where the risk of them actually giving me Covid-19 as part of their exercise regime are slight. City centres? W-A-Y higher
    I'm prepared to be surprised but I'm interested do you have a source for that?

    Getting rid of the cars would certainly give the rest of us much more space to keep distance from each other.
    "His team concluded that cyclists and runners have to stay much farther than 6 feet from a runner or rider in front of them to avoid inhaling droplets or having them land on their bodies. He calculated safe distances for each sport: That 65 feet is needed when riding a bike at 18 miles per hour, 33 feet while running at a 6:44 minutes-per-mile pace, or 16 feet while walking at a normal pace. “By that time, the droplets will have moved down to the ground and you won’t get them in your face,” says Blocken. What about riding or jogging side by side? “It’s no problem unless you turn your head and cough in their direction,” Blocken added."

    https://www.wired.com/story/are-running-or-cycling-actually-risks-for-spreading-covid-19/
    That article also links to another pre-print study which says:

    "Our study does not rule out outdoor transmission of the virus. However, among our 7,324 identified cases in China with sufficient descriptions, only one outdoor outbreak involving two cases occurred in a village in Shangqiu, Henan. A 27-year-old man had a conversation outdoors with an individual who had returned from Wuhan on 25 January and had the onset of symptoms on 1 February. "

    https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.04.20053058v1.full.pdf+html

    So I'm still prepared to be surprised about "much infection happening from pedestrians or cyclists passing each other in the street".
    You are prepared to take the risk. Bully for you. Why should I have to?
  • NerysHughesNerysHughes Posts: 3,346
    MaxPB said:

    Annnnnnd. As predicted, the Pound Shop Napoleons have gone to work...

    An aquaintance, who works for the government and was involved in the build for one of the Nightingale hospitals has been given a rocket. Apparently her career is damaged.

    Her crime was "going native" with the contractors - instead of stopping the build when materials were required, she authorised them to do what they do on any commercial site. Find a store that sells what they need and expense it to the project. Apparently she should have halted the project each time to get supplies
    from the authorised suppliers.

    Doing what she did "failed to engage with the goals and longer term interests" (a re-written paraphrase to protect anonymity) of her organisation.

    I knew this would happen. But not until the crisis was over...

    She'll go and get work in the private sector fairly easily.

    Though I did speak to someone who said something similar. Somewhere in the NHS a list of productive staff is being compiled for eventually sidelining.
    We gave up doing M & E work for the NHS years ago. The managers there made it impossible. They did not care if the job got done.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,836
    welshowl said:

    eadric said:

    OllyT said:

    eadric said:

    OllyT said:

    OllyT said:

    Re how cautious people will be after lockdown is lifted, I suspect many, like myself, will go out more to shop and have a walk round town, grab a coffee etc but will be shunning restaurants/ pubs/ theatres/ sports venues/ cinemas for the forseeable.

    Even when lockdown is eased (and ours was never that tight in the first place) a lot of things will still not be possible for most of this year. Like the gun-toting Trumpton loonies in America we will have a small minority screaming about their inalienable right to go to the pub but until such times as they become the majority common sense should prevail.

    On another topic, our attempts at securing the PPE, testing material, drugs etc are descending into farce. In the aftermath I hope we take a long hard look at why we seem to have totally lost the ability (under successive governments) to manufacture essential supplies for ourselves any more. A re-engineerring of our economy is required methinks.

    Here's a question that some business owners might want to think carefully about. Would they rather be kept closed by the government and given some financial support for longer, or allowed to reopen but in conditions which make it unlikely that they will achieve anything like the same revenues as before and with far less government support?

    Because that's what I expect pubs, restaurants, cinemas, theatres, gyms and clubs are looking at.

    Sadly I am not expecting too many of the restaurants in our town/small city to reopen at all. We used to have lunch in a restaurant about 3 times a week and the lunchtime demographic was 80% retired and I don't see many of them rushing back before a vaccine. 5 years from now our economy will look very different to how it looked at the beginning of 2020. I don't honestly expect the travel and leisure industries to go back to providing anything like the number of jobs that they did for a very long time indeed.
    I went to a nice seafood restaurant in Maldon, Essex, at the beginning of March.

    The place was empty, it was a weekday lunch, so when I finished my oysters I got chatting to the owner, a very nice Italian guy. He didn’t mind the lack of custom, as he said he had excellent business in the evenings. Then he told me about his plans for expansion. A second restaurant. And so on.

    He was barely aware of the virus, but I was very aware of it. I knew what was coming down the line for him and his staff. I doubt if he will reopen, they will all lose their jobs.

    It was a poignant moment. I didn’t mention my foreboding.
    "lunchtime demographic was 80% retired and I don't see many of them rushing back before a vaccine."

    That's not the attitude I've heard from 70+ year olds in last few days. The idea that they will stay in their houses for a year or more is for the birds. Twelve weeks - yeh, we'll do it. Longer? No way. Anecdotal of course.

    They won't be staying in their homes I agree but from what I am hearing they won't be rushing back to restaurants and pubs either. That has been pretty much the response from across the board from those I talk to and I'm in that demographic (just!). Most are expecting a strong second wave shortly after restrictions are lifted as we are seeing in Japan and Singapore.
    Also, sadly, many people will be broke and those that aren’t will be feeling very cautious about money.

    Restaurants and foreign travel might return to the days when they were the exclusive domain of the rich.
    Spoke to a couple of hardened business travellers this morning, they scoffed at the idea of getting on any sort of plane until 2021ish and dissolved into derisory laughter at the “it’s ok if we don’t use the middle seat” offering.

    I cannot see a V shaped bounce back at all because many people are going to change their behaviour substantially until further notice, so even if activities are gradually permitted, people won’t do them like they used to.
    Think we may be witnessing the extinction of hardened business travellers as a species.
  • FossFoss Posts: 694
    justin124 said:

    OllyT said:

    Re how cautious people will be after lockdown is lifted, I suspect many, like myself, will go out more to shop and have a walk round town, grab a coffee etc but will be shunning restaurants/ pubs/ theatres/ sports venues/ cinemas for the forseeable.

    Even when lockdown is eased (and ours was never that tight in the first place) a lot of things will still not be possible for most of this year. Like the gun-toting Trumpton loonies in America we will have a small minority screaming about their inalienable right to go to the pub but until such times as they become the majority common sense should prevail.

    On another topic, our attempts at securing the PPE, testing material, drugs etc are descending into farce. In the aftermath I hope we take a long hard look at why we seem to have totally lost the ability (under successive governments) to manufacture essential supplies for ourselves any more. A re-engineerring of our economy is required methinks.

    Here's a question that some business owners might want to think carefully about. Would they rather be kept closed by the government and given some financial support for longer, or allowed to reopen but in conditions which make it unlikely that they will achieve anything like the same revenues as before and with far less government support?

    Because that's what I expect pubs, restaurants, cinemas, theatres, gyms and clubs are looking at.
    That is quite a dilemma for them. On the whole, I suspect that pubs might benefit from reopening earlier by tapping into the goodwill received from loyal regulars during the short period they remained open prior to the compulsory lockdown.Over time that initial base would expand as other customers gradually return - particularly if some pubs remain closed- though it is certainly unlikely to be an easy period for them.
    I'm not sure they'll be anything interesting for us to drink. A good number of the smaller breweries have already gone into deep hibernation and we're reaching/have passed the end of the shelf life for a good chunk of cask ale.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797



    Bollocks. I reckon most of the pubs around here will be full, assuming they have beer gardens and this lovely weather continues.

    There will be paper or plastic disposable pint 'glasses' for a while I guess – hopefully of the recyclable variety.

    There are more people than you think that value their liberty and don't want to live their lives in a state of accelerated fear.

    I have a suspicion that like me a lot of people on here are in a position where cash wasn't much of a problem and either it's still coming in as before or they have good reason to expect things to return to normal rapidly.

    There are entire parts of the economy where that isn't the case.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772
    ABZ said:

    First, an extremely thought provoking article - thank you @Nigelb

    Second, Northern Ireland has released a new dashboard, which is definitely the most informative of all the nations of the UK. It also shows (as well as bed occupancy and availability) how many patients have been discharged: https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiMWFhZDgzZDYtMTE4Yi00MTBjLWIzYmQtMTZhYzc1MGEyMTk1IiwidCI6IjljOWEzMGRlLWQ4ZDctNGFhNC05NjAwLTRiZTc2MjVmZjZjNSIsImMiOjh9

    I found this somewhat interesting since it suggests ~80% of all positive patients have been discharged to date.

    That is excellent and really should be copied. I find it bewildering that the UK is just about the only country in the world which doesn't seem to be counting discharged and alive patients. Surely that is useful information for a whole host of reasons.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    edited April 2020

    kamski said:

    kamski said:

    RobD said:

    HYUFD said:
    Surely you want people to be isolated from each other inside cars, not mingling?
    Only isolated if just 1 person per car. And 1 person per car is hopelessly inefficient.

    I would be surprised if there was much infection happening from pedestrians or cyclists passing each other in the street.
    It was reported on here that joggers create a 6m trail of potential slipstream infection behind them, cyclists a 20m tail.

    So prepare to be surprised.

    The only people who have put me at any potential risk in the past five weeks are joggers and cyclists. Thankfuly, I am in Devon where the risk of them actually giving me Covid-19 as part of their exercise regime are slight. City centres? W-A-Y higher
    I'm prepared to be surprised but I'm interested do you have a source for that?

    Getting rid of the cars would certainly give the rest of us much more space to keep distance from each other.
    "His team concluded that cyclists and runners have to stay much farther than 6 feet from a runner or rider in front of them to avoid inhaling droplets or having them land on their bodies. He calculated safe distances for each sport: That 65 feet is needed when riding a bike at 18 miles per hour, 33 feet while running at a 6:44 minutes-per-mile pace, or 16 feet while walking at a normal pace. “By that time, the droplets will have moved down to the ground and you won’t get them in your face,” says Blocken. What about riding or jogging side by side? “It’s no problem unless you turn your head and cough in their direction,” Blocken added."

    https://www.wired.com/story/are-running-or-cycling-actually-risks-for-spreading-covid-19/
    Two and a half seconds.
    Following the same logic, you're better off being tall to not catch it, or short to not spread it.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    MaxPB said:

    eadric said:

    OllyT said:

    eadric said:

    OllyT said:

    OllyT said:

    Re how cautious people will be after lockdown is lifted, I suspect many, like myself, will go out more to shop and have a walk round town, grab a coffee etc but will be shunning restaurants/ pubs/ theatres/ sports venues/ cinemas for the forseeable.

    Even when lockdown is eased (and ours was never that tight in the first place) a lot of things will still not be possible for most of this year. Like the gun-toting Trumpton loonies in America we will have a small minority screaming about their inalienable right to go to the pub but until such times as they become the majority common sense should prevail.

    On another topic, our attempts at securing the PPE, testing material, drugs etc are descending into farce. In the aftermath I hope we take a long hard look at why we seem to have totally lost the ability (under successive governments) to manufacture essential supplies for ourselves any more. A re-engineerring of our economy is required methinks.

    Here's a question that some business owners might want to think carefully about. Would they rather be kept closed by the government and given some financial support for longer, or allowed to reopen but in conditions which make it unlikely that they will achieve anything like the same revenues as before and with far less government support?

    Because that's what I expect pubs, restaurants, cinemas, theatres, gyms and clubs are looking at.

    Sadly I am not expecting too many of the restaurants in our town/small city to reopen at all. We used to have lunch in a restaurant about 3 times a week and the lunchtime demographic was 80% retired and I don't see many of them rushing back before a vaccine. 5 years from now our economy will look very different to how it looked at the beginning of 2020. I don't honestly expect the travel and leisure industries to go back to providing anything like the number of jobs that they did for a very long time indeed.
    I went to a nice seafood restaurant in Maldon, Essex, at the beginning of March.

    The place was empty, it was a weekday lunch, so when I finished my oysters I got chatting to the owner, a very nice Italian guy. He didn’t mind the lack of custom, as he said he had excellent business in the evenings. Then he told me about his plans for expansion. A second restaurant. And so on.

    He was barely aware of the virus, but I was very aware of it. I knew what was coming down the line for him and his staff. I doubt if he will reopen, they will all lose their jobs.

    It was a poignant moment. I didn’t mention my foreboding.
    "lunchtime demographic was 80% retired and I don't see many of them rushing back before a vaccine."

    That's not the attitude I've heard from 70+ year olds in last few days. The idea that they will stay in their houses for a year or more is for the birds. Twelve weeks - yeh, we'll do it. Longer? No way. Anecdotal of course.
    They won't be staying in their homes I agree but from what I am hearing they won't be rushing back to restaurants and pubs either. That has been pretty much the response from across the board from those I talk to and I'm in that demographic (just!). Most are expecting a strong second wave shortly after restrictions are lifted as we are seeing in Japan and Singapore.
    Also, sadly, many people will be broke and those that aren’t will be feeling very cautious about money.

    Restaurants and foreign travel might return to the days when they were the exclusive domain of the rich.
    Bollocks. I reckon most of the pubs around here will be full, assuming they have beer gardens and this lovely weather continues.

    There will be paper or plastic disposable pint 'glasses' for a while I guess – hopefully of the recyclable variety.

    There are more people than you think that value their liberty and don't want to live their lives in a state of accelerated fear.
    I'm going straight to the pub when this is over. Got a big post lockdown piss up planned, three in fact.
    Long, long lunch for me. I can see it right now. Which might of course end up being dinner also.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited April 2020
    Oh dear,

    New deaths in England, 778

    I lot of it does appear to be delayed weekend deaths.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    DavidL said:

    ABZ said:

    First, an extremely thought provoking article - thank you @Nigelb

    Second, Northern Ireland has released a new dashboard, which is definitely the most informative of all the nations of the UK. It also shows (as well as bed occupancy and availability) how many patients have been discharged: https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiMWFhZDgzZDYtMTE4Yi00MTBjLWIzYmQtMTZhYzc1MGEyMTk1IiwidCI6IjljOWEzMGRlLWQ4ZDctNGFhNC05NjAwLTRiZTc2MjVmZjZjNSIsImMiOjh9

    I found this somewhat interesting since it suggests ~80% of all positive patients have been discharged to date.

    That is excellent and really should be copied. I find it bewildering that the UK is just about the only country in the world which doesn't seem to be counting discharged and alive patients. Surely that is useful information for a whole host of reasons.
    Hopefully it's a sign that the same stats will be coming for the other three nations as well. We've been waiting for this data for a while.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958
    eadric said:

    kamski said:

    kamski said:

    kamski said:

    RobD said:

    HYUFD said:
    Surely you want people to be isolated from each other inside cars, not mingling?
    Only isolated if just 1 person per car. And 1 person per car is hopelessly inefficient.

    I would be surprised if there was much infection happening from pedestrians or cyclists passing each other in the street.
    It was reported on here that joggers create a 6m trail of potential slipstream infection behind them, cyclists a 20m tail.

    So prepare to be surprised.

    The only people who have put me at any potential risk in the past five weeks are joggers and cyclists. Thankfuly, I am in Devon where the risk of them actually giving me Covid-19 as part of their exercise regime are slight. City centres? W-A-Y higher
    I'm prepared to be surprised but I'm interested do you have a source for that?

    Getting rid of the cars would certainly give the rest of us much more space to keep distance from each other.
    "His team concluded that cyclists and runners have to stay much farther than 6 feet from a runner or rider in front of them to avoid inhaling droplets or having them land on their bodies. He calculated safe distances for each sport: That 65 feet is needed when riding a bike at 18 miles per hour, 33 feet while running at a 6:44 minutes-per-mile pace, or 16 feet while walking at a normal pace. “By that time, the droplets will have moved down to the ground and you won’t get them in your face,” says Blocken. What about riding or jogging side by side? “It’s no problem unless you turn your head and cough in their direction,” Blocken added."

    https://www.wired.com/story/are-running-or-cycling-actually-risks-for-spreading-covid-19/
    That article also links to another pre-print study which says:

    "Our study does not rule out outdoor transmission of the virus. However, among our 7,324 identified cases in China with sufficient descriptions, only one outdoor outbreak involving two cases occurred in a village in Shangqiu, Henan. A 27-year-old man had a conversation outdoors with an individual who had returned from Wuhan on 25 January and had the onset of symptoms on 1 February. "

    https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.04.20053058v1.full.pdf+html

    So I'm still prepared to be surprised about "much infection happening from pedestrians or cyclists passing each other in the street".
    You are prepared to take the risk. Bully for you. Why should I have to?
    Is Kamski forcing you onto the British pavement from his bunker in Germany?!
    Does "bunker in Germany" qualify as a Godwin's Law tangential?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,620

    Annnnnnd. As predicted, the Pound Shop Napoleons have gone to work...

    An aquaintance, who works for the government and was involved in the build for one of the Nightingale hospitals has been given a rocket. Apparently her career is damaged.

    Her crime was "going native" with the contractors - instead of stopping the build when materials were required, she authorised them to do what they do on any commercial site. Find a store that sells what they need and expense it to the project. Apparently she should have halted the project each time to get supplies
    from the authorised suppliers.

    Doing what she did "failed to engage with the goals and longer term interests" (a re-written paraphrase to protect anonymity) of her organisation.

    I knew this would happen. But not until the crisis was over...

    Go on Peston, ask whether this is Govt. policy - to bugger up construction of the Nightingale Hospitals by God knows how long to get it done on the cheap... And if not, are they going to give a damn good career-ending slap to those jobsworths who are insisting this is what should have happened?
    Halting a site is much more expensive than any possible local purchase. Hence on a commercial site, you tell Trev to get in the van, f^&k off round to B&Q and get a receipt.

    Don't worry - the actual write up to destroy her career will be nicely justified. Stuff about not being a team player, lax controls on money (27p mis-spent* or something).....

    *When I was growing up in Oxford, a mistake of literally pennies on expenses was used to dismiss a sergeant from the Police. At the time the City was full of re-treads from the West Midland Serious Crimes debacle. A local joke was that he was unfit for his duties because of his lack serious offences, personally undertaken.
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,967
    MaxPB said:

    Annnnnnd. As predicted, the Pound Shop Napoleons have gone to work...

    An aquaintance, who works for the government and was involved in the build for one of the Nightingale hospitals has been given a rocket. Apparently her career is damaged.

    Her crime was "going native" with the contractors - instead of stopping the build when materials were required, she authorised them to do what they do on any commercial site. Find a store that sells what they need and expense it to the project. Apparently she should have halted the project each time to get supplies
    from the authorised suppliers.

    Doing what she did "failed to engage with the goals and longer term interests" (a re-written paraphrase to protect anonymity) of her organisation.

    I knew this would happen. But not until the crisis was over...

    She'll go and get work in the private sector fairly easily.

    Though I did speak to someone who said something similar. Somewhere in the NHS a list of productive staff is being compiled for eventually sidelining.
    The failings re testing, PPE and care homes will tend to have one underlying cause - the great inertial mass of bureaucracy continuing to do things as their procedures state and opposing any attempts at original thinking and flexible practices.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,280

    Oh dear,

    New deaths in England, 778

    I lot of it does appear to be delayed weekend deaths.

    We need to see the actual daily figures rather than the "reported today" figures.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842

    I think a big danger when the lockdown is lifted is everybody popping around to all their mates they haven't seen in person for 3 months. Going house to house, few drinks, bit of food off shared plates.

    3 of our very best friends have had it though. I'd have thought a few beers at theirs would be low risk ?
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    I think a big danger when the lockdown is lifted is everybody popping around to all their mates they haven't seen in person for 3 months. Going house to house, few drinks, bit of food off shared plates.

    There are many people, including oldies, who are as we speak weighing up the costs and benefits of isolating themselves and I believe many will come to the conclusion that they prefer to run the risk of catching the virus.

    So yes, I expect that when the lockdown is lifted that's exactly what will happen.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    Oh dear,

    New deaths in England, 778

    I lot of it does appear to be delayed weekend deaths.

    There looks to be a lot additional deaths recorded from more than a week ago. I wonder why the reporting on those is so late.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,574
    kamski said:

    kamski said:

    kamski said:

    RobD said:

    HYUFD said:
    Surely you want people to be isolated from each other inside cars, not mingling?
    Only isolated if just 1 person per car. And 1 person per car is hopelessly inefficient.

    I would be surprised if there was much infection happening from pedestrians or cyclists passing each other in the street.
    It was reported on here that joggers create a 6m trail of potential slipstream infection behind them, cyclists a 20m tail.

    So prepare to be surprised.

    The only people who have put me at any potential risk in the past five weeks are joggers and cyclists. Thankfuly, I am in Devon where the risk of them actually giving me Covid-19 as part of their exercise regime are slight. City centres? W-A-Y higher
    I'm prepared to be surprised but I'm interested do you have a source for that?

    Getting rid of the cars would certainly give the rest of us much more space to keep distance from each other.
    "His team concluded that cyclists and runners have to stay much farther than 6 feet from a runner or rider in front of them to avoid inhaling droplets or having them land on their bodies. He calculated safe distances for each sport: That 65 feet is needed when riding a bike at 18 miles per hour, 33 feet while running at a 6:44 minutes-per-mile pace, or 16 feet while walking at a normal pace. “By that time, the droplets will have moved down to the ground and you won’t get them in your face,” says Blocken. What about riding or jogging side by side? “It’s no problem unless you turn your head and cough in their direction,” Blocken added."

    https://www.wired.com/story/are-running-or-cycling-actually-risks-for-spreading-covid-19/
    That article also links to another pre-print study which says:

    "Our study does not rule out outdoor transmission of the virus. However, among our 7,324 identified cases in China with sufficient descriptions, only one outdoor outbreak involving two cases occurred in a village in Shangqiu, Henan. A 27-year-old man had a conversation outdoors with an individual who had returned from Wuhan on 25 January and had the onset of symptoms on 1 February. "

    https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.04.20053058v1.full.pdf+html

    So I'm still prepared to be surprised about "much infection happening from pedestrians or cyclists passing each other in the street".
    Sounds about right to me.
    In any event, the point about the general public wearing masks is not that they provide infallible protection, but that even the flimsiest do something to reduce the likelihood of transmission, and that risk is much greater indoors.

    The more cautious of us will be more cautious - but what's more important is everyone being at least a bit more cautious.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,087
    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:
    Going to be interesting to see where everybody gets all these masks.
    And how you eat food in a restaurant wearing a mask
    Suppository?
    Sipping Cider ... through a stra..ha..haw !
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwVL_UNsAug
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772

    Annnnnnd. As predicted, the Pound Shop Napoleons have gone to work...

    An aquaintance, who works for the government and was involved in the build for one of the Nightingale hospitals has been given a rocket. Apparently her career is damaged.

    Her crime was "going native" with the contractors - instead of stopping the build when materials were required, she authorised them to do what they do on any commercial site. Find a store that sells what they need and expense it to the project. Apparently she should have halted the project each time to get supplies
    from the authorised suppliers.

    Doing what she did "failed to engage with the goals and longer term interests" (a re-written paraphrase to protect anonymity) of her organisation.

    I knew this would happen. But not until the crisis was over...

    Go on Peston, ask whether this is Govt. policy - to bugger up construction of the Nightingale Hospitals by God knows how long to get it done on the cheap... And if not, are they going to give a damn good career-ending slap to those jobsworths who are insisting this is what should have happened?
    It would take Peston the best part of 20 minutes to ask a question like that.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,280

    I think a big danger when the lockdown is lifted is everybody popping around to all their mates they haven't seen in person for 3 months. Going house to house, few drinks, bit of food off shared plates.

    We have to trust people to do the right thing. There's no other way, because most of us don't want to live in a Chinese-style surveillance society.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,919
    kamski said:

    kamski said:

    kamski said:

    RobD said:

    HYUFD said:
    Surely you want people to be isolated from each other inside cars, not mingling?
    Only isolated if just 1 person per car. And 1 person per car is hopelessly inefficient.

    I would be surprised if there was much infection happening from pedestrians or cyclists passing each other in the street.
    It was reported on here that joggers create a 6m trail of potential slipstream infection behind them, cyclists a 20m tail.

    So prepare to be surprised.

    The only people who have put me at any potential risk in the past five weeks are joggers and cyclists. Thankfuly, I am in Devon where the risk of them actually giving me Covid-19 as part of their exercise regime are slight. City centres? W-A-Y higher
    I'm prepared to be surprised but I'm interested do you have a source for that?

    Getting rid of the cars would certainly give the rest of us much more space to keep distance from each other.
    "His team concluded that cyclists and runners have to stay much farther than 6 feet from a runner or rider in front of them to avoid inhaling droplets or having them land on their bodies. He calculated safe distances for each sport: That 65 feet is needed when riding a bike at 18 miles per hour, 33 feet while running at a 6:44 minutes-per-mile pace, or 16 feet while walking at a normal pace. “By that time, the droplets will have moved down to the ground and you won’t get them in your face,” says Blocken. What about riding or jogging side by side? “It’s no problem unless you turn your head and cough in their direction,” Blocken added."

    https://www.wired.com/story/are-running-or-cycling-actually-risks-for-spreading-covid-19/
    That article also links to another pre-print study which says:

    "Our study does not rule out outdoor transmission of the virus. However, among our 7,324 identified cases in China with sufficient descriptions, only one outdoor outbreak involving two cases occurred in a village in Shangqiu, Henan. A 27-year-old man had a conversation outdoors with an individual who had returned from Wuhan on 25 January and had the onset of symptoms on 1 February. "

    https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.04.20053058v1.full.pdf+html

    So I'm still prepared to be surprised about "much infection happening from pedestrians or cyclists passing each other in the street".
    Can cigarette smoke spread the virus? While a smoker may be physically 6 feet or more away from you, the smoke doesn't obey social distancing.
This discussion has been closed.