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

another_richard said:

MaxPB said:

Malmesbury 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.

Absolutely, but these are the people making the lists at the moment.

HYUFD said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Oh dear,

New deaths in England, 778

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

We had over 900 new deaths a week ago

When Scotland, Wales and NI added in, I don't think we are going to be far sort.

https://twitter.com/DarrenEuronews/status/1252583717194870786?s=20

https://twitter.com/DarrenEuronews/status/1252584701132447744?s=20

So questions for the press conference today...

PPE
Why isn't lockdown working
PPE
PPE
Testing
Why isn't lockdown working
Why isn't lockdown working
Why isn't lockdown working
Why isn't lockdown working
Why isn't lockdown working
Why isn't lockdown working
Why isn't lockdown working
Why isn't lockdown working
...

MarqueeMark said:

kamski said:

MarqueeMark said:

kamski said:

MarqueeMark said:

kamski said:

RobD said:

HYUFD said:

https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg/status/1252562461804433409?s=20

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?

I neither said I was prepared to take the risk, nor said you should have to.

You linked to an article that you thought would surprise me (that a lot of infections were indeed happening from people passing each other in the street), which was interesting as far as it went (which was some way from showing that a lot of infections were actually happening that way). I quoted from a study quoted in the same article that seems to suggest outdoor transmission is quite rare, which means I will still be surprised if a lot of infections are happening that way.

You then just insulted me for no reason whatsoever that I can see. Or have I misunderstood something?

Nigelb said:

another_richard said:

MaxPB said:

Malmesbury 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.

This is pretty well what lies at the root of my concern over mass testing being up and running before the lockdown ends.
Given a disease which, uncontrolled, can double the number of its hosts in two or three days, inflexibility and hesitation are exceptionally costly.

There are days when I agree with Air Marshall Sir Arthur Harris - he wanted to apply the methods of Stalin and shoot some people. Primarily those who kept him from cancelling all the obsolete junk on the grounds of "policy".

A self-published article on Covid-19 that is today's second must-read:

https://www.kalzumeus.com/2020/04/21/japan-coronavirus/

If you want to understand what's going wrong in Japan, this is the best place to start.

The spread on Italian and German debt just went over 2.5%, I'm honestly not sure how Italy will fund itself this time next year. They need help.

DavidL said:

eadric said:

Nigelb said:

kamski said:

MarqueeMark said:

kamski said:

MarqueeMark said:

kamski said:

RobD said:

HYUFD said:

https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg/status/1252562461804433409?s=20

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.

The people who should be told, first, to wear masks, are the joggers and cyclists busily huffing and panting their way around Britain’s parks

When I am running (I use the term loosely) I need every single molecule of oxygen I can trap. I can't imagine being able to run in a mask.

Well people shouldnt run then at present, and spare the rest of us having to give extra wide berths to huffing and puffing joggers (and cyclists).

Selfish bastards the lot.

AlastairMeeks said:

A self-published article on Covid-19 that is today's second must-read:

https://www.kalzumeus.com/2020/04/21/japan-coronavirus/

If you want to understand what's going wrong in Japan, this is the best place to start.

Amazing how fast they have fallen from the Gold Standard club.

43 deaths in today's figures from March. Would love to know what takes 3 and in some cases 4 weeks to be able to register. These numbers were in the ONS data already and only being caught by the daily announcement now.

Nigelb said:

Malmesbury said:

Nigelb said:

another_richard said:

MaxPB said:

Malmesbury 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.

This is pretty well what lies at the root of my concern over mass testing being up and running before the lockdown ends.
Given a disease which, uncontrolled, can double the number of its hosts in two or three days, inflexibility and hesitation are exceptionally costly.

There are days when I agree with Air Marshall Sir Arthur Harris - he wanted to apply the methods of Stalin and shoot some people. Primarily those who kept him from cancelling all the obsolete junk on the grounds of "policy".

I have the impression that the management of Public Health England might fall into that category.

Indeed. I think our civil service has once again proven it isn't fit for purpose. These people clearly care more about the process than the result.

Note that the ONS death figures are even more of a lagging indicator than the reported numbers for hospital deaths:

https://blog.ons.gov.uk/2019/03/07/beware-the-ides-of-march-ons-data-reveals-which-month-we-are-really-most-likely-to-die-in/
...Although March is the second most common month for a death to be registered, it is the third most common month of death, according to our death occurrence data. During the most recent five-year period that this data is available (2012-16) 232,591 people died in March.

Our death occurrence data shows that January was the most common month of death with 249,250 deaths in 2012-16, followed by December with 244,293....

eadric said:

Nigelb said:

kamski said:

MarqueeMark said:

kamski said:

MarqueeMark said:

kamski said:

RobD said:

HYUFD said:

https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg/status/1252562461804433409?s=20

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.

The people who should be told, first, to wear masks, are the joggers and cyclists busily huffing and panting their way around Britain’s parks

I'd have thought it'd make more sense to hand out masks to people entering supermarkets. This, in my experience, is where it has been most difficult to keep at least 2m away from others, and people would definitely wear them if they were a condition of entering. Mind you, I did see one idiot pulling down his home-made mask to talk to the woman behind the chemist counter in Sainsbury's while stood less than a metre in front of her!

NerysHughes said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

So questions for the press conference today...

PPE
Why isn't lockdown working
PPE
PPE
Testing
Why isn't lockdown working
Why isn't lockdown working
Why isn't lockdown working
Why isn't lockdown working
Why isn't lockdown working
Why isn't lockdown working
Why isn't lockdown working
Why isn't lockdown working
...

I have been asking about the lockdown not working in Spain and Italy on this site for weeks and have been told that it is.

Without the counterfactual it is difficult to say. Deaths could be ten times higher without it.

Nigelb said:

kamski said:

MarqueeMark said:

kamski said:

MarqueeMark said:

kamski said:

RobD said:

HYUFD said:

https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg/status/1252562461804433409?s=20

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.

I agree with that. And also agree with Eadric that the first people who should be wearing masks outside in public are the joggers, cyclists, or anyone breathing through the mouth, shouting, talking, laughing, singing. People coughing or sneezing should really stay home. But it's quite difficult to wear a mask while exercising so.... get rid of the cars and jog in the middle of the road

FeersumEnjineeya said:

eadric said:

Nigelb said:

kamski said:

MarqueeMark said:

kamski said:

MarqueeMark said:

kamski said:

RobD said:

HYUFD said:

https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg/status/1252562461804433409?s=20

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.

The people who should be told, first, to wear masks, are the joggers and cyclists busily huffing and panting their way around Britain’s parks

I'd have thought it'd make more sense to hand out masks to people entering supermarkets. This, in my experience, is where it has been most difficult to keep at least 2m away from others, and people would definitely wear them if they were a condition of entering. Mind you, I did see one idiot pulling down his home-made mask to talk to the woman behind the chemist counter in Sainsbury's while stood less than a metre in front of her!

Perhaps we should issue shop workers with tasers?

eadric said:

Nigelb said:

kamski said:

MarqueeMark said:

kamski said:

MarqueeMark said:

kamski said:

RobD said:

HYUFD said:

https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg/status/1252562461804433409?s=20

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.

The people who should be told, first, to wear masks, are the joggers and cyclists busily huffing and panting their way around Britain’s parks

You need some evidence of increased risk to justify that.

In Singapore, they say take it off for vigorous exercise then put it back on afterwards.

MattW said:

eadric said:

MattW said:

HYUFD said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

HYUFD said:

https://twitter.com/BBCkatyaadler/status/1252571886367670272?s=20

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.

Interesting reaction, Sean. Not sure what you are flapping at. Drink taken?

There are risks associated with onning and offing masks if not done appropriately, and transfer risks from rubbing eyes etc.

Which is why groups such as the Singapore Government put out information about how to use one.

https://www.hsa.gov.sg/consumer-safety/articles/guide-to-masks-and-respirators

If YOU are infected and you wear a mask to prevent you infecting others, then what are the risks associated with taking your mask on and off or rubbing your eyes - you are already infected?
(not shouting, just don't know how to use bold)

TOPPING said:

Dura_Ace said:

The prices of shit bikes on FB Marketplace have gone crazy. Everybody must be trying to buy them. The prices on proper weapons grade kit seems to be edging down which I guess reflects economic uncertainty as less people want to drop 5+ grand on a bike.

I am spanking my Apollo Highway and the extremely nice bloke at my local bike shop (average price for bikes £X,000 - he makes them) doesn't mind fixing it for me and every other happy clappy biker every so often now as he can't get the parts for the ones he usually deals in and no one as you say is asking for a five grand bike right now. If I were to win the lottery I would commission him to build me my next bike as a thank you.

2 points:

1) There is some good evidence that skipping breakfast is an important part of dieting. An interview in this journal explains why:

https://www.marieclaire.co.uk/life/health-fitness/breakfast-is-a-dangerous-meal-462112-462112

2) If ones objective in cycling is to get fitter, surely a heavy, non aerodynamic, one gear bike takes a lot more effort, therefore gets you fit more quickly?

A devils advocate writes...

HYUFD said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Oh dear,

New deaths in England, 778

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

We had over 900 new deaths a week ago

we never made it to 900 England deaths as far as I can tell.

However, today's number includes >10 deaths from, for example, 6, 7 and 8 of April.

Andy_JS said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

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.

Andy_JS said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

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.

Yep, these delayed figures are meaningless guff.

MarqueeMark said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

MarqueeMark said:

NerysHughes said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

HYUFD said:

https://twitter.com/BBCkatyaadler/status/1252571886367670272?s=20

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.....

What is a candy bar? It sounds revolting.

eadric said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Oh dear,

New deaths in England, 778

Damn. Not good.

That said, Site Pessimist Endillion was confidently expecting a UK total over 1000. Wont be anywhere near that.

It's not as bad as I thought it might be, true (which is good news). Wales/Scotland/NI to come - I'm not sure to what extent the weekend delay is a factor to them.

Slight caveat that two weeks ago the reporting delay took two days to unwind fully, so (assuming we're on the same path) tomorrow's figures might also look bad. If it's in line with today's or better then we've probably got enough to be confident that we're on a downward trajectory. Day 2 is usually when the highest proportion of cases are reported (around half) so fingers crossed this is as bad as it gets from hereon out.

''Quite incredible that deaths from 2+ weeks ago are just being released as Covid deaths now.''

What is far more incredible is that this totally unreliable number will have an enormous impact on our lives for the next decade.

Insane

Andy_JS said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

https://twitter.com/cricketwyvern/status/1252590300893249537?s=20

Wouldn't it be better if the government just reported the final figures for each day? A lot of people must be confused by having two sets of numbers for each day.

The daily reported figures are frankly in danger of being less than useless. Today for example the big jump seems to be caused by a large increase in extremely delayed reporting, not just weekend catch-up, and the most recent 2 days which normally make up well over half the figure are actually very low.

If you plot the actual day of death trend vs the trend of daily announcement, it's pretty clear the daily announcement really isn't a good signal of much at all.

contrarian said:

''Quite incredible that deaths from 2+ weeks ago are just being released as Covid deaths now.''

What is far more incredible is that this totally unreliable number will have an enormous impact on our lives for the next decade.

Insane

I'm sure the government, and its advisers, will look at all the detailed data they have available, rather than the simple headline daily deaths announced figure.

You're being rather silly.

Andy_JS said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

https://twitter.com/cricketwyvern/status/1252590300893249537?s=20

Wouldn't it be better if the government just reported the final figures for each day? A lot of people must be confused by having two sets of numbers for each day. Every Tuesday they probably think things are getting worse compared to the weekend.

I know, the poor journalists must be so confused having to deal with two numbers.

TGOHF666 said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

https://twitter.com/cricketwyvern/status/1252590300893249537?s=20

Quite incredible that deaths from 2+ weeks ago are just being released as Covid deaths now.

Why? Medicine isn't like in House - you don't get answers from the lab in 20 minutes. Then there is the issue of clinical judgement as to causes of death where multiple factors are involved... Autopsies, informing relatives etc etc...

kamski said:

Nigelb said:

kamski said:

MarqueeMark said:

kamski said:

MarqueeMark said:

kamski said:

RobD said:

HYUFD said:

https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg/status/1252562461804433409?s=20

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.

I agree with that. And also agree with Eadric that the first people who should be wearing masks outside in public are the joggers, cyclists, or anyone breathing through the mouth, shouting, talking, laughing, singing. People coughing or sneezing should really stay home. But it's quite difficult to wear a mask while exercising so.... get rid of the cars and jog in the middle of the road

I was tempted to suggest that, better still, the runners and cyclists should ignore the cars and go in the middle of the road - problem solved. But that would be unkind (and without any personally specific intent toward any PBer). Howevere, this reflects the way in which I utterly loathe the runners and cyclists for circumscribing my daily walk by hogging the road space in this way. The very last day before lockdown, one runner almost knocked me over in a wide open rural road!

I'd take the aerodynamics work very seriously as it fits my own gut feeling about the relative disturbance to the air caused by walking, running and cycling - especially if wake becomes turbulent at higher speeds (can't remember the details ofr Reynolds Number transition offhand).

As for the negative findings, can this not be down to simply not knowing that one has had a contact at all? It's one thing to remember a chat with a neighbour but another to know that a cyclist was coughing as he passed you.

eadric said:

Anabobazina said:

eadric said:

OllyT said:

rottenborough said:

eadric said:

OllyT said:

AlastairMeeks 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)

You took the fairly extreme route of legging it from London to Wales quite early on but now say you will be down the pub the first chance you get. Bit of an inconsistency or has your attitude changed?

AlastairMeeks said:

A self-published article on Covid-19 that is today's second must-read:

https://www.kalzumeus.com/2020/04/21/japan-coronavirus/

If you want to understand what's going wrong in Japan, this is the best place to start.

That is a very good article - of relevance not only to what's going on in Japan.

FrancisUrquhart said:

Andrew said:

Government doubling down on the 100k tests, which seems a little foolhardy. They must be really close on the new facilities opening.

I doubt they will get 100k capacity in 10 days. But my understanding is there is at least one (maybe more) labs that have said in next couple of weeks they will be able to do 30k tests on their own.

So I presume the government are going to try and ride it out for those extra days and then say, look we got there.

They'll probably reach the capacity quite a lot sooner than actual tests. Seems to me it's becoming a logistical problem rather than lack of labs.

kamski said:

Nigelb said:

kamski said:

MarqueeMark said:

kamski said:

MarqueeMark said:

kamski said:

RobD said:

HYUFD said:

https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg/status/1252562461804433409?s=20

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.

I agree with that. And also agree with Eadric that the first people who should be wearing masks outside in public are the joggers, cyclists, or anyone breathing through the mouth, shouting, talking, laughing, singing. People coughing or sneezing should really stay home. But it's quite difficult to wear a mask while exercising so.... get rid of the cars and jog in the middle of the road

The other point, givcen the distances observed in the engineering work, is that with any sort of sidewind the runners and even mor so the cyclists are potentially polluting a long strip of one pavement as they go along.

AlastairMeeks said:

I'm somewhat bemused what some pbers expect from daily statistics. The problem is not with the data but with how it is used and the expectations of those who scrutinise it.

Simple. I expect the complete, full statistics yesterday for the deaths today.

Carnyx said:

kamski said:

Nigelb said:

kamski said:

MarqueeMark said:

kamski said:

MarqueeMark said:

kamski said:

RobD said:

HYUFD said:

https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg/status/1252562461804433409?s=20

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.

I agree with that. And also agree with Eadric that the first people who should be wearing masks outside in public are the joggers, cyclists, or anyone breathing through the mouth, shouting, talking, laughing, singing. People coughing or sneezing should really stay home. But it's quite difficult to wear a mask while exercising so.... get rid of the cars and jog in the middle of the road

I was tempted to suggest that, better still, the runners and cyclists should ignore the cars and go in the middle of the road - problem solved. But that would be unkind (and without any personally specific intent toward any PBer). Howevere, this reflects the way in which I utterly loathe the runners and cyclists for circumscribing my daily walk by hogging the road space in this way. The very last day before lockdown, one runner almost knocked me over in a wide open rural road!

I'd take the aerodynamics work very seriously as it fits my own gut feeling about the relative disturbance to the air caused by walking, running and cycling - especially if wake becomes turbulent at higher speeds (can't remember the details ofr Reynolds Number transition offhand).

As for the negative findings, can this not be down to simply not knowing that one has had a contact at all? It's one thing to remember a chat with a neighbour but another to know that a cyclist was coughing as he passed you.

Good lord, you've used the term runner ! My preferred method is to run on the right pavement and cross the road if I see a cyclist approaching. I think I've been passed by perhaps 3 on the same side of the road as me during the lockdown.
I'm crossing the road to avoid walkers too.

agingjb2 said:

FPT. Tried to donate with a VISA card (avoiding Paypal), but seemed to need Paypal account anyway. Pity.

I thought that initially but there is a second button to pay by card and it was easy. Didn't want a PayPal account either. Have another go.

RobD said:

AlastairMeeks said:

I'm somewhat bemused what some pbers expect from daily statistics. The problem is not with the data but with how it is used and the expectations of those who scrutinise it.

Simple. I expect the complete, full statistics yesterday for the deaths today.

I expect complete, perfectly accurate numbers for today. Delivered yesterday, so the press can meet the deadlines.

New seat decorations in the House of Commons showing where they can and cannot sit.

RobD said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Andrew said:

Government doubling down on the 100k tests, which seems a little foolhardy. They must be really close on the new facilities opening.

I doubt they will get 100k capacity in 10 days. But my understanding is there is at least one (maybe more) labs that have said in next couple of weeks they will be able to do 30k tests on their own.

So I presume the government are going to try and ride it out for those extra days and then say, look we got there.

They'll probably reach the capacity quite a lot sooner than actual tests. Seems to me it's becoming a logistical problem rather than lack of labs.

Total anecdote. I friend who works in the NHS contacted me this morning to say he thinks he might have caught the old plague and obviously came home form work yesterday.

They told their line manager and said I am eligible for a test, right? The response was, erhhh, I don't know, I think so, possibly. No I definitely am, they said. Hmm ok, let me go and check.

They come back, and said you are, but I don't have the paperwork I need to get you a test. Today they have come back and said, yes, I have the paperwork, you need to go to such and such location.

Now, if they hadn't been pushy and persisted, they might well have been fobbed off. And also they have to travel a fair distance to the testing centre.

I believe at the PM lobby briefing they hope to double the number of drive through centre by the end of the month, but that has to be hampering testing numbers.

MaxPB said:

Anabobazina said:

eadric said:

OllyT said:

rottenborough said:

eadric said:

OllyT said:

AlastairMeeks 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.

See you there.

Pulpstar said:

Carnyx said:

kamski said:

Nigelb said:

kamski said:

MarqueeMark said:

kamski said:

MarqueeMark said:

kamski said:

RobD said:

HYUFD said:

https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg/status/1252562461804433409?s=20

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.

I agree with that. And also agree with Eadric that the first people who should be wearing masks outside in public are the joggers, cyclists, or anyone breathing through the mouth, shouting, talking, laughing, singing. People coughing or sneezing should really stay home. But it's quite difficult to wear a mask while exercising so.... get rid of the cars and jog in the middle of the road

I was tempted to suggest that, better still, the runners and cyclists should ignore the cars and go in the middle of the road - problem solved. But that would be unkind (and without any personally specific intent toward any PBer). Howevere, this reflects the way in which I utterly loathe the runners and cyclists for circumscribing my daily walk by hogging the road space in this way. The very last day before lockdown, one runner almost knocked me over in a wide open rural road!

I'd take the aerodynamics work very seriously as it fits my own gut feeling about the relative disturbance to the air caused by walking, running and cycling - especially if wake becomes turbulent at higher speeds (can't remember the details ofr Reynolds Number transition offhand).

As for the negative findings, can this not be down to simply not knowing that one has had a contact at all? It's one thing to remember a chat with a neighbour but another to know that a cyclist was coughing as he passed you.

Good lord, you've used the term runner ! My preferred method is to run on the right pavement and cross the road if I see a cyclist approaching. I think I've been passed by perhaps 3 on the same side of the road as me during the lockdown.
I'm crossing the road to avoid walkers too.

PS What's wrong with 'runner'? Have I been unintentionally tactless in some modern way, out of interest?

FrancisUrquhart said:

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.

Do you reckon? I was going to do that this weekend!

Is 884 todays hospital only death figure?

Not good the weekend effect seems to fool people every week.

We are well over 20k including Care Homes by the look of it.

bigjohnowls said:

Is 884 todays hospital only death figure?

Not good the weekend effect seems to fool people every week.

We are well over 20k including Care Homes by the look of it.

It is actually more than the usual weekend effect. There are significant numbers from many many days ago.