I've got tickets for Spain in April, Armenia and Georgia in August. I don't think we'll be going to either.
Farage is out of his box saying that we should ‘shut the country down’. Ground all flights and close the borders
*sigh*
I’m sure all the gammons will be praising his ‘common sense’ approach, with a view to it becoming permanent
That really is Farage in a nutshell isn't it, problems are always foreign and just dying to attack us. That ship has sailed, there was no political will to close boarders when it was exploding in China, or even when there was an outbreak in Italy. It would have looked bad and it would have hurt our economy just before we do it for ourselves at the end of the year. Coronavirus is already in the UK and isn't contained.
Extending the easter break for schools by a week or two, seems a very sensible policy. Whether that extension should be starting it early, or finishing it late, depends on when the experts determine it most useful. It’s a measured action, not a panic measure, even if the Express tries to puff it up to look like one.
Farage is out of his box saying that we should ‘shut the country down’.
He’s right, but for the wrong reasons.
Are you going to expand on yours and Nigels collective solution.....?
How do you shut a country down then in this globalised world? And why would you?
And why would you?
Restrictions on travel, or testing all new arrivals, may well seem draconian, but at the same time may well be necessary in the short term when faced with an international pandemic. But I fully expect people to voluntarily reduce travel without any firm government measures anyway, especially if advised to. It would be good if those still travelling were offered tests as well. Coercion and control can easily be avoided… people are more cooperative in difficult circumstances than many fear.
Only holiday I have booked is 4 days in Scotland around Inners at the end of April. My girlfriend and her mum were due to go to Morocco at the end of this month but they have cancelled. With her dad having COPD amongst other things, it's definitely for the best.
Assuming that, having been infected the virus and subsequently recovered, that this then leaves you with an immunity to reinfection, shouldn't we be deliberately exposing* a proportion of the young,healthy,healthcare workers to the virus and giving them two weeks off now so that, four weeks from now, we have a load of immune doctors and nurses for when the shit really hits the fan?
*Not really, obviously, but an intersting thought experiment nonetheless
Are you going to expand on yours and Nigels collective solution…..?
How do you shut a country down then in this globalised world? And why would you?
Have you seen what's happened / happening in China? They're down to just a few new cases per day because they've done exactly that. Wouldn't be easy to do here, sure, but it's not at all crazy to suggest it.
Plenty of actual experts are saying that we're all acting way too little too late. It's all a matter of predicting and balancing complicatedly connected factors, and crystal balls are in even shorter supply than loo roll.
And why would you?
Have you been watching the news at all? Farage, just like Trump is disgracefully looking to blame foriegners and stoke xenophobia. We should absolutely be shutting down though. What is happening in Italy is coming here. Within a couple of weeks doctors will be making life or death decisions, and people will be dying because the NHS can't cope.
Makes for interesting listening:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3csyx14
Oh God! I've got the misfortune of working with a few tabloid readers at the moment, who believe everything they read on social meedya. Its been an eye-opener. You start to understand Brexit, in context
According to them, the government are definitely about to shut all the schools for the next two months, at least. They're all very angry about it and having big debates about what they're going to do about childcare.
I despair
We should absolutely be shutting down though. What is happening in Italy is coming here.
Surely it's a tad late for that.
Its behiiiiiiiiiind yooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!!!
Flying to Lanzarote in 7 days time. What a quandary. Would rather cancel right now, but I'll take a real hit financially. Or hold tight for an official shutdown and should recoup most of it. I know if I go I'll end up stuck somewhere. And also aware that we may not be welcomed to the little village with open arms. Zero cases on the island and imagine they're keen to keep it that way
The Governments solution to this is to let it burn through the population so we get herd immunity.
https://www.itv.com/news/2020-03-12/british-government-wants-uk-to-acquire-coronavirus-herd-immunity-writes-robert-peston/
I made a fag packet calculation, can someone please show me where I have gone wrong as it looks like millions will die based on these numbers.
60% of population - 40M people getting it in the next 12 months
8M needing O2 or ventilation (WHO data, 20% needing hosp. 15% needing o2, 5% ventilators in ICU)
154K a week
Assume 2 weeks hospitalisation required (likely more for severe/acute)
Need approx. 300K beds to manage
75K ICU beds with ventilators
225K general beds with O2
We have 102K general and acute beds in the UK at 92% occupancy = 8260 free
We have 4K ICU beds at 75% occupancy = 1000 free
I.e. We can only treat 1/75 = 1.3% of patients requiring ventilation
We can only treat 8.26/225 = 3.7% of patients requiring O2
i.e. Most of the 8M people needing hospital o2/ventilation won't get it and likely die
The government really needs to be honest about this. Millions are going to die if we stick with this strategy
Is there evidence to suggest that it won't just return to locked down areas once we all crawl out of our caves after a month, starving and shit encrusted, with our health at it's lowest?
As a volunteer with access to a Food Bank warehouse restocked by Christmas bonhomie, I know where I'm holing up.
Closing schools will mean grandparents (60+, underlying health problems) stuck looking after kids while parents have to go to work. Isolate and care for those at greatest risk and the rest of us follow the medical establishments advice - that is who provides the advice that Boris etc follow and I'd like to think any other party in power would do the same. Farage is irrelevant.
Is there evidence to suggest that it won’t just return to locked down areas once we all crawl out of our caves after a month, starving and shit encrusted, with our health at it’s lowest?
It will surely return, but if it does so when there's capacity to deal with it, fewer people will die.
Is there evidence to suggest that it won’t just return to locked down areas once we all crawl out of our caves after a month
No but there is plenty of evidence that if we do nothing then thousands of people will die and the health system will collapse. At the moment government policy seems to be exactly that. It's unbelievable.
https://twitter.com/lisaocarroll/status/1238065052881768449?s=21
Schools in Ireland closed. I fully expect us to do the same at some point, anchored around the Easter break. Doing it sooner looks like the right move, but I suspect that delaying any decision for a week or so more, maybe for good reasons around the predictions about spread in the UK, will be the action here, given the UK gov actions so far.
On the subject of people requiring ventilation/ITU beds; it’s not just a case of those who are made ill enough to require it by Coronavirus.
Those who are infected/carriers who have other health needs that are met/treated by either nebuliser or high flow oxygen may need to be ventilated as the former allow a large amount of excess flow out into the atmosphere (hospital ward, or treatment area) which means potential to spread the virus by using this treatment route.
Ventilation/intubation is a ‘closed’ system so it reduces this risk significantly.
So in order to prevent the potential spread of the virus, more patients will require ventilation than those who’s sole reason for its need is down to the virus itself.
(source, my wife who is an ED ACP.)
The Governments solution to this is to [s]let it burn [/s] try and control the rate at which it burns through the population so we get herd immunity and are best able to utilise the limited health resources available
FTFY
There's not really any practical way to stop it infecting the general population in the modern world. It's about slowing that spread to have the resources to treat as many people as possible
According to them, the government are definitely about to shut all the schools for the next two months, at least. They’re all very angry about it and having big debates about what they’re going to do about childcare
all Irish schools and colleges shut until end March.....so it's not out of the question
Trump blaming all this on the EU. Very pleased our government haven’t taken the same populist approach.
Very interesting @mattbee. Thanks.
No but there is plenty of evidence that if we do nothing then thousands of people will die and the health system will collapse
Obviously we're not doing nothing but, that aside, I'm with you on the first bit, what evidence have you got for the second, actual evidence, not "look at the most extreme global case, ignore every other one, that's absolutely us in two weeks".
No but there is plenty of evidence that if we do nothing then thousands of people will die and the health system will collapse. At the moment government policy seems to be exactly that. It’s unbelievable.
It is unbelievable as well it’s not true.
Re the kid selling sanitiser shots
He plans to use the £9 he made to buy a kebab, she added.
Wouldn't he be better off selling kebabs?
Schools in Ireland closed. I fully expect us to do the same at some point, anchored around the Easter break. Doing it sooner looks like the right move, but I suspect that delaying any decision for a week or so more, maybe for good reasons around the predictions about spread in the UK, will be the action here, given the UK gov actions so far.
There will be an announcement later today, everyone in work has heard from their Nans's Sisters, hairdresser that they're going to close from next Friday the 20th not tomorrow. I don't really know why other than it's 'neat' I suppose to run them straight into Easter?
Well that and to stop every screaming Karen from panic buying everything in sight I suppose.
Childcare? That'll be me then, 2 bored kids of incompatible ages annoying me because they're bored. Still I'm going to take my work PC home, they said I was mad speccing a Work PC with a gaming GPU, I'm going to play through GTA again I think.
Landed in Norway this morning and the PM just announced school closures
They are currently No 3 with most infection rate per capita!
OSLO — Norway will announce the closure of all kindergartens and schools to curb the spread of the coronavirus, following a similar step by neighboring Denmark, news agency NTB reported on Thursday, citing unnamed sources.
Since Norway’s first case of the virus was confirmed on Feb. 26, the total number of infected people had risen to 621 as of Wednesday, including one at an offshore oilfield.
Obviously we’re not doing nothing
What are we doing? Asking people to wash their hands more. Great. We're not even testing people at high risk. If we're not testing, we have no information and we can't do anything else. Have a read of the following twitter thread and tell me you think we're doing enough.
https://twitter.com/michaeltinmouth/status/1237308267552034821?s=20
Herd immunity is the way forward.
No school closures. Let it spread slowly through the country.
That is the output of today's COBRA meeting.
Eh?
If we’re not testing, we have no information and we can’t do anything else.
At the moment, it's hard to tell if we're still on the same outbreak curve as Italy. Not sure why we wouldn't be, though. We are getting fewer new cases than you might expect if we were progressing at the same rate as Italy, but that might be an artefact of lack of testing rather than good news.
I found this a really good read about how the virus spreads, who is containing it well and what practical steps governments can take
Idle musing on the reported UK figures - officially the last time anyone recovered in the UK was when 10 new 'recovered' cases were announced on 5th March. That announcement came quite some time after the initial announcement of 8 recoveries (from the 9 confirmed cases at the time). I'm guessing that more people have actually recovered but they aren't actually recorded as recovered until they've had 2 clear tests (seems to be the benchmark elsewhere) so can only infer that recoveries are not being prioritised in the testing. That approach seems fair enough, but could lead to misinterpretation of the data by some, and wilful misrepresentation by others.
Had one of my colleagues turn up for work this morning with all the symptoms. Said it was just flu and nothing to worry about! Boss has just rung me and said they sent him home, all of us that were with him this morning should let them know if we feel unwell any time in the next few days. Just what I need on my last day before 12 days off.
If I have picked it up that means there's no chance of me visiting my ill parents for a while, if they get it they'll be stuffed! Dad's still going through chemo and mum's suffering from an autoimmune issue that means her body is attacking itself leaving loads of open wounds and scabs on her skin. My sister is off I'll with a gun infection from having a wisdom tooth out and I definitely don't want to pass it on to my niece or nephew.
Seeing as we get 9 week's full pay for illness if his idiotic actions have got me infected I'll gladly take the disciplinary for pinching him, repeatedly in the nuts.
Seeing as we get 9 week’s full pay for illness if his idiotic actions have got me infected I’ll gladly take the disciplinary for pinching him, repeatedly in the nuts.
You are Joe Marler and I claim my 5 rolls of bog roll!
Just what I need on my last day before 12 days off
If it makes you feel any better, I've got two weeks work left before a 20 week (unpaid) sabbatical which I intended to spend travelling around Europe & the Balkans.
You can read the different phase stages here.
Have a read of the following twitter thread
So just to be sure I'm reading this right. The anecdotal evidence of people who aren't aware enough of how this works to even realise how little they understand it is enough to prove the people who have the actual evidence, knowledge and experience born of dealing with things like foot and mouth, or the flapper-we're-all-gonna-DIE-favourite CJD, to acknowledge they don't really know what's going to happen and how they won't for months are wrong in their approach?
Out of interest how many world cups would England have won if you were manager?
Herd immunity is the way forward.
No school closures. Let it spread slowly through the country.
That is the output of today’s COBRA meeting.
Eh?
Well the figures I worked out were based on a perfectly controlled spread at a constant 154K/cases a week (which won't happen) - it will still totally overwhelm the heath service, so 95% of the 20% of severe/critical won't get the treatment they need. Expect Lombardy 8%+ death rates
60% of population – 40M people getting it in the next 12 months
8M needing O2 or ventilation (WHO data, 20% needing hosp. 15% needing o2, 5% ventilators in ICU)
154K a week
Assume 2 weeks hospitalisation required (likely more for severe/acute)
Need approx. 300K beds to manage
75K ICU beds with ventilators
225K general beds with O2
We have 102K general and acute beds in the UK at 92% occupancy = 8260 free
We have 4K ICU beds at 75% occupancy = 1000 free
I.e. We can only treat 1/75 = 1.3% of patients requiring ventilation
We can only treat 8.26/225 = 3.7% of patients requiring O2
i.e. Most of the 8M people needing hospital o2/ventilation won’t get it and likely die
just walked into town, I don't know if they know something we don't but the local conservative club is flying the english flag at half mast!
knowledge and experience born of dealing with things like foot and mouth,
Let's hope that those tactics aren't considered particularly transferable.
Let’s hope that those tactics aren’t considered particularly transferable.
I'd hope the lessons are though
