Westministenders: Crisis, which crisis ?

[BigChocFrenzy]

Main crises facing the government:

. Negotiating a Brexit deal with the EU
. Coronoavirus
. Floods
. Allegations of some ministers - and Cummings - bullying civil servants
. More trouble threatened from Turkey / Syria

Unfortunately with all these parallel crises, we have a workshy lying arse as PM
and the worst collection yet of incompetents in Cabinet
who seem to have decided on a strategy of bullying their civil servants to avoid hearing any facts that don't fit with current Tory party ideology

So why the need to bring out the Army?

Dress rehearsal ?

Self-employed and micro-businesses may try to work even with symptoms if not compensated

However, in all European countries, employees are the majority of people earning, so we at least need them to stay at home if they are at risk of passing on the virus

Threads on here are full of people saying they can't afford to stay home without their full pay

• imo they are more likely the ones to be claiming it's "just flu" in defence of their decision

Yes, COVID is serious for the elderly who are already ill
but for most young people and the healthy its will go past without being noticed.

The problem is that if a lot of elderly people get infected by young people with mild illness, you get a Wuhan style collapse of local health services and people with other health problems struggle to get treatment.

BigChoc
If my or my husbands clients cancel bookings because of COVID we are financially screwed.
Our work is seasonal and once cancelled will hold over till next year.

Listening The govt have a worst case scenarios of 50% getting the virus
With an overall 1% death rate, that is about 650,000 EXTRA deaths in a year

If the NHS is overwhelned because the time can't be spread out by mitigation, then that 1% could be higher

It's not a disaster atm, but hiding our heads in the sand could turn it into one

We still have time to stop this infecting too many people
we have to, because it is about 20x as lethal as flu
and a significant % of the population are 60+ and / or with relevant comorbidities

I figured you might be one of those who would be screwed if work iis lost for a few weeks or months

All of this "self isolating" guff rather avoids the issue of what the other people in a household are suppose to do ? DS (for example) shares a house with 2 other lads. So one of them might be "self isolating" but the overall effect is not far off - if not exactly - fuck all.

It's 90% theatre, 10% efficacy.

According to the ONS, 1 in , 5 adults are over the age of 60 in the UK. That's a massive group to treat and protect, even before you think about younger people with chronic health problems.

I can't understand why Carole Cadwalladr is so clueless about why people voted to leave the EU in Ebbw Vale if she grew up in South Wales - plenty of reasons given here - Wales online;

“A couple of months before that [EU funded] dragon went up, they closed every toilet in Blaenau Gwent to save money."

“They said [the funding] had to be spent on a work of art.I asked: 'Can’t we have an artistic toilet?' But we couldn’t, it appeared.

www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/wales-most-pro-brexit-town-15767233

Does anyone know why the UK gvmt's worst case scenario is 50% of the population getting COVID-19, while the Scottish gvmt has said they think 60-80% of the country's population could catch it?
Other than the cynical reasons that spring to my mind, that is...

The zero-hours and gig economy are a big concern. If you can't afford not to work and don't feel too bad, of course you are tempted to go in. Worst case scenario is an agency nurse, filling in for a sick colleague who thinks s/he just has a cold...

Does anyone know why the UK gvmt's worst case scenario is 50% of the population getting COVID-19, while the Scottish gvmt has said they think 60-80% of the country's population could catch it?

I'm guessing the models are complex, if not outright chaotic, and a tiny change in a parameter somewhere causes a huge swing in results.

Bottom line is no one can be sure ... well, I'm sure the hype now exceeds the risk. Beyond that .... ?

On the up side, its great for reducing the carbon footprint of countries

BigChoc
I do remain cynical.
Winter flu kills up to 10,000 every year in the UK
this year, because its been mild, that number is less than 1,000
The NHS is on its knees because of austerity and Brexit, not Covid.
Ditto the adult social care that leaves so many older people chronically ill.

Flu and corona viruses drop away significantly as the days lengthen (to do with UV and air temperatures)
so the estimates are still finger in the air stuff

while threatening to bring the army onto the streets to cover up Brexit chaos is very real

On the up side, its great for reducing the carbon footprint of countries

Well NASA are watching ....

of course there could be a paradoxical rebound, as people realised the horrors of a carbon neutral world, and decide it's too painful to even contemplate and redouble their efforts to barbecue the planet.

Does anyone know why the UK gvmt's worst case scenario is 50% of the population getting COVID-19

It is 80% as a worst case scenario (not 50%).

On C4 News now, Health Sec. Handcock dodging questions about the army, turning Hyde Park into a mass grave and, well, everything really.

People talk of those on the gig economy struggling in, but quite honestly, if you have ever had flu, you can't struggle anywhere. It completely knocks you out for at least a couple of weeks and probably longer.

So the problem of people on the gig economy not being able to work and not getting paid, is very real.

So the problem of people on the gig economy not being able to work and not getting paid, is very real.
Not just the gig economy.
ALL self employed people (15% of the UK workforce, 4.8 million people)

• builders
• cleaners
• carers
• parcel delivery
• consultants
• decorators
• programmers
• maintenance engineers

If we struggle on we expose more people If we curl up in bed we have no money. We do not get sick pay (OK, £60 a week in arrears), we lose reputation so lose business long term. Its not pretty.

Geekfest
graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-HEALTH-SOUTHKOREA-CLUSTERS/0100B5G33SB/index.html

@RedToothBrush

^Matt Hancock @MattHancock
NEWS: Today we’ve launched our Coronavirus Action Plan - setting out our clear battle plan to research, contain, delay, and mitigate against #coronavirus in the UK.^

See, I read it at Dither, Delay, Panic and Run Away or maybe that's just BJ

Listening If this were just the UK, I would be cynical too

However, the WHO is treating this as a global crisis
China crashed their economy to try to stop it
Other European countries rate it a crisis

BJ - and Trump - are seriously UNDER-reacting
I'd trust the judgement of the other European leaders more than him

Our best chance to save lives, avoid the NHS being swamped - and minimise economic effects - is to slow down the spread,
hope we can keep the numbers small until a vaccine is available

There is no course without pain & cost - It is a matter of deciding the less painful course

Of course BJ will use this Coronavirus as an excuse for any economic damage caused by Brexit, this year and next
and probably until he resumes his career as a celebrity after this interlude as PM.

Listening
Patient 31
That is amazing.

BigChoc
I agree that its potentially a very serious disease.
If the serious infection and death rates are at the upper limits we have a worldwide health crisis on our hands
BUT
China's heavy handedness is because they can not because they should

the USA are indeed in la la land - but their decision makers will do nothing to save the poor

and Boris does not have an honest bone in his body

BJ was ridiculous not to discourage handshakes - that is one public health measure that costs nothing and does help a bit.

China's heavy handedness is because they can not because they should

Not excusing the human rights breaches or the early health crisis management errors, but China was caught out by an epidemic already well under way and only drastic action prevented a complete collapse of the local healthcare system in Hubei. Elsewhere in China measures were much less heavy handed. Because both companies and individuals were cooperative, these measures have been extraordinarily effective (though waiting to see what infection rates look like as life returns somewhat to normal).

China gave us a two month grace period to get ready - and we pissed it away.

We should be looking at how Singapore and South Korea have been managing this, with widespread testing and contact tracing. S Korea was unlucky (because of the way the virus spread through a religious sect) but their response has been impressive, far more so than in Europe tbh.