What if…. it continues to mutate until we are all killed to death?
A permanent ban of football should cure it.
You miss the point I was making - disconnect between UK and other affected countries in terms of analysis and approach.
If you're a UK resident, you have no choice other than to comply with UK gov/PHE; personal views are now irrelevant.
Few, if any, posters to this thread have 'expert' knowledge of public health or epidemiology or virology so we're just blathering about something we don't really understand.
Who knows who is right - public health specialists in UK or US or France or Italy etc?
One thing is for certain, any of those experts know so much more than anyone posting here.
Hmmm... Interesting chart there.
If you’re a UK resident, you have no choice other than to comply with UK gov/PHE; personal views are now irrelevant.
Utter rubbish. It seems clear the UK is following the US in a passive approach when the rest of the world are taking massive proactive action. We can ignore that though and take our own action. With the absence of leadership there's no other option.
Ok..... I had my wobble yesterday - the realization of quite how serious this was. Not panic, just legitimate worry about what was to come.
It's inevitable that more serious containment measures are coming in the next week (or sooner)...... very much following the model of other EU countries. This has been on the cards for weeks - having watched responses from the asian countries.
I get why BJ hasn't implemented these steps already - but I can't understand why old-people's homes haven't been locked-down etc, and more serious steps for those with underlying health issues haven't been introduced. As somebody has said previously - there are a great number of intermediate steps between "stay at home if you are experiencing symptoms" and complete lockdown of the entire population. I thought he was going to go there: "elderly or sick people shouldn't...." but ended with a wierdly specific (and IMO completely insufficient) ".... go on cruise ships".
My primary concern is for elderly (70+) relatives - one set are broadly healthy, the other are not. I've looked at the data regarding the relative impact of comorbidities - and it's provided some answers, but I'm no less worried - I'm just worried, but now somewhat informed.
The country is being played.
Boris knows how serious this is.
They are not in anyway trying to mitigate the virus because ill people cant riot.
They are trying to contain the panic for as long as they can to give them time to put measures in place to contain us.
Even Jeremy Hunt has gone on record saying he is concerned about how the government is handling this "national emergency"...
I don't like the guy one bit but still.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51865915
On a side note I bet Dom Cum is absolutely loving this epidemic. I doubt he can sleep for the excitement he's feeling. Want to bet he's been reading various journals (and is now a self proclaimed medical expert) and is no doubt gaming various scenarios of deaths vs eventual costs etc.
He must believe he has been delivered into government almost by divine intervention for just this crisis.😳
Spoke to my father yesterday, he’s 76, high BP and he and my wicked stepmother are jetting off to Egypt for 2 weeks of sun tomorrow. Apparently Egypt are not to affected by corona virus! I did point out they are a second/third world country with a similar medical system and being run by a military dictatorship would you trust any official figures?
But he’s insisting on going so I’m hoping his holiday won’t get extended for viral reasons☹️ Or become permanent ☹️☹️☹️
The people in my town got it in Egypt. 4 cases so far in a town of 26k and all same family.
Verdicts of the experts on the UK Government’s coronavirus measures:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/12/verdicts-of-experts-on-governments-new-coronavirus-measuresWorth a read.
To summarise,
Spoke to my mum on the phone and she is typically carrying on as normal. We'll, I'm not going to change what I do and not go out anywhere, she proclaimed
86 years old and is still living n the blitz
I won't touch anything... Till I pointed out she touched the trolly in the supermarket, everything she bought was handled multiple times by n m w staff, and the keypad on the cc machine would have been crawling with bugs
To top it off she said my sister popped round for coffee, lovely, she works in a South London school with 900 jeuvinille diliquents. Brilliant. Good work sis.
Mums off to church for a nice group lunch today, I can't not go she stated.
At least the roads are noticeably quite already.
My bet is 1 more week of schools open then shut down for an extended Easter break, we shall see.
If you’re a UK resident, you have no choice other than to comply with UK gov/PHE; personal views are now irrelevant.
Utter rubbish. It seems clear the UK is following the US in a passive approach when the rest of the world are taking massive proactive action. We can ignore that though and take our own action. With the absence of leadership there’s no other option.
Guy on Newsnight last night was saying that there is a theory that leaving the implementation of these measures as late as possible is a valid tactic. The risk as he sees is it that unless it works, then the Gov will be criticised for not doing it sooner / learning the lessons of the other countries. If we do that same as everyone else then it's easy to pass off whatever happens as 'the inevitable outcome' rather than the result of our action / inaction.
It's a gamble, and it's brave in that sense. Of course if it does turn out to be right then the credit will be taken by Boris and co, rather than the massed ranks of virologists, medics and epidemiologists in the background (who the public have had enough of anyway)
That's my most charitable position. I can easily be swayed to 'clueless, shitting themselves, ineffective......etc.'
That’s my most charitable position. I can easily be swayed to ‘clueless, shitting themselves, ineffective……etc.’
I think it's a mix of both. They know it'll be bad. What they want to avoid is having any cracks appear that can be linked back to a decade of Tory austerity. If they go into lockdown now, nothing will cope.
If a virus breaks out big time, nothing will cope bit it can all be blamed on exceptional circumstances.
They're treading a very fine line of trying to show the Government in control, working for the country's interests while not showing how much they've wrecked the place in the last decade.
To top it off she said my sister popped round for coffee, lovely, she works in a South London school with 900 jeuvinille diliquents. Brilliant. Good work sis.
At work (with a couple of potential cases after return from travel and various others who they had contact with in self-isolation pending results)
We're being told that transmission is close contact, ie: breathing in exhaled virus particles from breath, sneezes, etc. That includes potential of course for someone to get it on their hands, put it on a surface, someone else pick it up and then put their hands in their nose or mouth....
But we're being told not to panic about this because if we are all not touching our faces and washing hands regularly then that transmission route is effectively closed.
So while I'm not planning to visit my elderly mum as a precaution, if I needed to then I'd keep a distance, wash hands properly when I get there, etc. and minimise contact and feel relatively happy with that.
A behavioural science approach does have a trade mark Dom Cum hallmark to it.
Disturbing but not unexpected satellite images of Iran today.
No one expects the corvid isolation!
Find the 5,000 to 10,000 undiagnosed cases interesting. This would mean there are clusters of people with virus like symptoms who may not have been tested.
For people who have gone through the isolation, without a test, the question is then manflu or virus. You're just not going to know if you're going to go back into it again. Atleast it incentivises keeping up the biosecurity.
I think we are ten to fourteen days too late in getting the biosecurity right. Updated the OAP biosecurity for the zombie apocalypse plan - Nail the Basics, Step it Up and now Knuckle Down.
My bet is 1 more week of schools open then shut down for an extended Easter break, we shall see.
That certainly seems to be the pragmatic view of the (admittedly non medical expert) education community in my area at least.
The Trust I work for deffo seems to be preparing for that given the tasks we have been asked to do as of yesterday.
It’s a gamble, and it’s brave in that sense.
Easy to be brave with other people's lives.
That’s my most charitable position. I can easily be swayed to ‘clueless, shitting themselves, ineffective……etc.’
I'm already there. Joris lurches from hour to hour wondering how best he can put on a veneer of competence. Government by "let's just get to the weekend then we can have a few beers".
The bloke in charge of the Cheltenham Festival just popped the ball neatly into Joris's lap when asked repeatedly whether he personally found it surprising they were allowed to hold an event with 60,000 people standing shoulder to shoulder.
He went as far as to say that it is 'what the government want to happen'.
Bluster and bullshit can't contain pandemics.
As much as I think they're a bunch of self-serving ****ers I actually think the government is being smart here. Not only that but they're also doing it in the knowledge it could backfire badly. If in the next 2-4 weeks we have a mass outbreak and lots of deaths and they shut the country down anyway they'll get absolutely savaged by the media for not taking action sooner. If it turns out they're right and the big peak is several months away I'm not actually sure they'll be able to claim a victory. The economy will still be badly damaged and they won't be able to prove it is less damaged than it would have been if they'd enforced more stringent measures earlier so I don't think they'll make much political capital from this decision.
So I'm mostly just surprised by it really, they could have just gone all out with very stringent measures, safe in the knowledge they're never going to get blamed for over-reacting as long as people are dying and other countries are taking stringent measures as well. They would also have a free pass for any economic downturn as a result (whether it's Covid or actually more Brexit related).
I feel I'm missing the underlying self-serving angle here. I also don't see it is incompetence causing them to fail to act - it would be much simpler/mindless to just follow suit with what other countries are doing and they're not doing that.
The big concern is them giving up on testing suspect cases in the community.
How do we (and they) know their strategy is working.
We do live on an island. As long as other countries close their borders, we get the effect without the bother of having a policy.
Closing schools seems valid; as long as parents are still working, Grandparents may get the childcare burden, and they are surely a higher risk group.
I do find it odd that a bad cold can cause so much bother. It's not the zombie apocalypse, most will shrug it off with lemsip.
On a side note I bet Dom Cum is absolutely loving this epidemic. I doubt he can sleep for the excitement he’s feeling. Want to bet he’s been reading various journals (and is now a self proclaimed medical expert) and is no doubt gaming various scenarios of deaths vs eventual costs etc.
I'm less charitable. If he is gaming scenarios I wouldn't mind betting some involve how the public response shows willingness to knuckle under to draconian measures given a big enough crisis and how this could be manipulated in future.
He is such a machiavellian, scheming little turd that I cannot credit him with anything other than the advancement of himself and his masters' agendas.
I do find it odd that a bad cold can cause so much bother. It’s not the zombie apocalypse, most will shrug it off with lemsip.
Ok boomer
Holy mother. Some of you guys have gone full fat conspiracy nutters.
Despite BoJo and Doms obvious shortcomings not everything they think, say or do are evil. Have you read Aesops fable about the boy, the donkey and the father? He had you in mind.
It's very, very complicated. All the choices are shit. You shut everything down yet by June it's still rife AND perhaps you have a collapsed economy and societal meltdown. The chart above over greatly simplifies each countries response as well.
Anyone else with offspring whose anxiety levels are going through the roof due to this virus?
The big concern is them giving up on testing suspect cases in the community.
How do we (and they) know their strategy is working.
And it is also a good way for them to hide the death rate when the nhs is overwhelmed
Despite BoJo and Doms obvious shortcomings not everything they think, say or do are evil. Have you read Aesops fable about the boy, the donkey and the father? He had you in mind.
Lie repeatedly, manipulate, cynically game and disdainfully weaponise people's worst instincts for your own gain?
Then expect trust?
There are many fables that back that position too. Fables schmables, picking one that backs up your particular point at a specific point in time is a piece of piss. So what?
Anyone else with offspring whose anxiety levels are going through the roof due to this virus?
Yes. My 11 year old daughter is not hugely affected, but my 8 year old son is very anxious. He has started turning off media that mention it and leaving rooms where it is mentioned. I can calm him down fairly easily in the moment, but it just comes back again later. Talking him through the numbers and the likelihood of it affecting healthy kids only works to a certain extent.
Cinnamon girl - yes, 1 15yo girl with a sniffly cold and very emotional.
But also an 11yo boy who knows better than all the scientists and doesn’t give a sh#t about using tissues/washing his hands.
They are both cold/sneezy rather than a cough, and absolutely no temperature, so I’m fairly comfortable with them.
The bloke in charge of the Cheltenham Festival just popped the ball neatly into Joris’s lap when asked repeatedly whether he personally found it surprising they were allowed to hold an event with 60,000 people standing shoulder to shoulder
And can you tell me in what way this is different to a normal day on the high street, tube, railway station, bus station, shopping centre, etc?
Do you think those should be shut down also?
(Tube, bus, trains all more dangerous as they are in a confined space)
Anyone else with offspring whose anxiety levels are going through the roof due to this virus?
Sorry this won't really be of any help.
I guess the advice that's coming out is all biosecurity rather than how to deal with the psychological side?
It's like what do you say when you have to go into isolation. Which looking at the figures on possible infection rates most of us are going to have to do at some point.
There is going to be a general need for national happy place? Trying to escape the coverage or just generally tune it out. Looks like all those cat videos might have a purpose! Might have to seek out the tractor trumps thread.
Holy mother. Some of you guys have gone full fat conspiracy nutters
Yep, it’s gone full on “**** Boris” and getting close to the infamous Brexit thread and is almost at the point of becoming no use to anybody wishing to discuss, learn or share Coronavirus details.
it amazes me that even in a full on pandemic where selfishness has been criticised within this very thread that people have use other peoples potential plight as a platform for their politics.
He has started turning off media that mention it and leaving rooms where it is mentioned
Smart lad, doesn't get that from you.
My 10yo has an intermittent but hacking cough, she asked to come home from school yesterday although she probably didn't need to tbh - and we kept her home today cos it's Friday and we can see where it goes over the weekend. Sure she doesn't have it tho but it's partly about perception than anything else, people might be concerned if she sits in school hacking away.
However, now she's in the house and I'm WFH as usual I cannot sneakily play PS4 for half the morning 🙁
Then expect trust?
Don’t worry, Dom Johnson is making concrete plans…
https://twitter.com/los_fisher/status/1238378441323487232?s=21
And can you tell me in what way this is different to a normal day on the high street, tube, railway station, bus station, shopping centre, etc?
It is entirely voluntary and a 'luxury'. Many people on public transport and/or the streets are going to and from work because they have to.
Does that answer the question?
Conspiracy theorists and political point scorers are really not helping.
The government - like all governments - is gambling that the advice they are following is the least worst option. All those saying we should be in lockdown or we'll be like Italy seem to forget that Italy tried that.
My kids are well informed and level headed. They have 4 grandparents and an uncle all at serious risk. They may not have at the end of the year. They are more concerned as to whether trips, awards and uni applications later in the year will be impacted.
One of my team is on a skiing holiday, staying in a chalet with a load of people from Italy who are all coughing. She’s due back to work on Monday so we’re going to have a vote this afternoon to decide if we get her to come in so we can all have a fortnight off.
The big concern is them giving up on testing suspect cases in the community.
How do we (and they) know their strategy is working.
And it is also a good way for them to hide the death rate when the nhs is overwhelmed
There's now no point testing because it is beyond control. Assume everyone has it, it's not important to know the exact number. What is now important is dealing with the more serious cases.
The company I work for on top of an absolute global travel ban has now asked all staff in the uk to work from home if they are able.
Smart lad, doesn’t get that from you.
Aha! Been waiting to have a pop for a while, have we?
I learned a long time ago not to be offended by what people who I don't respect say.
So consider yourself ignored.
Anxiety? Well I’m currently suffering from anxiety attacks, up until yesterday I wasn’t that bothered about Coronavirus as thinking that being fairly young and healthy that I’ll be ok.... That was until I caught the Q+A session with a WHO Dr on BBC news yesterday afternoon, she sat there smiling as she told us that even if you’re young and healthy you can still die from this.... So yeah feeling pretty anxious about this now
it amazes me that even in a full on pandemic where selfishness has been criticised within this very thread that people have use other peoples potential plight as a platform for their politics.
Well said..
But it’s not true. See the response to what Jeremy Hunt was saying yesterday. It’s not about party politics, it is about whether we should be acting in advance of official government advise rather than waiting for it to catch up with the broader medical advice. I think that is going to have to happen, businesses, organisations and individuals probably need to put social distancing measures in place themselves, as many are, not wait for UK government instructions to do so.
