Westminstenders: Events...

[RedToothBrush]

Events have taken over. EU / UK negotiation have been put on ice due to covid-19.

The US has banned all travel from Europe - apart from to the uk and Ireland - in a manner which is highly political to drive wedges.

The effects of leaving the European Medicines Agency may be much more serious than anyone could have anticipated.

There's a oil price war going on between Saudi Arabia and Russia which has further driven market fears led by covid-19.

There the crisis in Turkey with Syrian refugees which is also distracting the EU.

We are facing lockdown and economic turmoil over the next weeks and months.

Johnson is having his leadership moment with deaths projected to possibly exceed UK WW2 deaths.

We are desperately trying to recruit negotiators as it's suddenly become apparent we don't have enough to carry out all the trade deals we want.

The civil service will be stretched to its limited by covid-19. Yet we also have Brexit to consider.

Where next? How bad are things going to get?

Another consequence of leaving the EMA - bloody hell, we had its HQ in London 🤯

Depends on how generous the EU will be on interpreting transition terms

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/why-brexit-will-delay-uk-getting-vaccine-and-cost-more

The UK now lies outside the EMA’s rapid authorisation mechanism for pandemic vaccines and medicines for treatment.

Consequently, the UK could have to wait longer for these than EU member states.

To make matters worse, the UK has also withdrawn from the EU’s emergency bulk buying mechanism for vaccines and medicines,
which allows EU member states to increase their market power and speed up access to vaccines and medicines during a crisis.

Its exclusion could mean the UK will have to pay more to acquire these pandemic countermeasures.

This virus can linger a long time in the body and fool the tests into thinking someone is cured

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/japan-coronavirus-test-positive-recover-a9404056.html

"A Japanese man who appeared to have recovered from coronavirus tested positive again less than three weeks after he left a medical facility where he was being treated.

The man, in his seventies, was a passenger on the Diamond Princess cruise ship and first tested positive for the virus on 14 February while onboard the then-quarantined vessel.

He was put in further quarantine and treated at the medical facility in Tokyo
and tested negative on 2 March, reported Japanese news agency NHK.

But after returning to his home in the Mie Prefecture, within the Kansai region,
he began exhibiting symptoms of the virus again and developed a fever of 39C on Thursday."

Why is testing being reduced? I know the government made the decision to only test hospital cases. But is it due to lack of testing kits or reagents? Or is it purely a political decision?

Macron speaking again.

Different to BJ yet again.
No punches pulled.
"We are at war."

Not lockdown yet, but limited movements. Only for work, food and to go and exercise far from others. ( hard to police, bit of a open door...)

Pensions reform suspended. 2nd round of municipal elections suspended.
Army brought in to take patients out of overwhelmed hospitals to others.
Support for nurses and doctors in areas hardest hit now.
Help for the isolated and vulnerable, for companies and workers. Financial measures to help (taxes postponed,/suspended for smallest companies and all utilities provided for free if needed.
...
Transparency, regular communications and updates.

Handcock on his feet now in HoC inspiring as much confidence as a cheese fireguard.

Best question so far: When the PM comes on the TV and changes the advice, 111 operators are required to keep reading the old advice until the new advice is posted.

Handcock says he will look at this.

from the frontline...

quietest monday morning "since princess diana's funeral" said one of the nurses
but also surges and yesterday was bad
everyone (patietns and staff) looks a bit scared. some doctors doing the bravado thing "do you remember swine flu that wasn't so bad" etc#
We are low on masks already
WE ran out of masks and swabs overnight
10 nurses short today as self isolating for 1 week withmild cold symptoms, huge staffing implications
We got a 1pm update that we were downgrading the masks we were using for suspected covid cases - this is not a clinical decision but to conserve the proper masks we have
Saw a couple of cases I think were covid. no travel history, no contact history
there is a lot of capacity to increase ITU by cancelling all operations, which will help in the crisis but in the long term...
saw more than one patient come to harm today by change in processes
all doctor study leave is cancelled. my friend has been recalled from mat leave
junior doctors rotating is cancelled so people know what they're doing
all our annual leave might be cancelled indefinitely
final year medical students have been told to work instead of going to uni - - final exams cancelled - unpaid - they will need a lot of supervising
feel quite a lot like cannon fodder
no testing whatsoever for NHS staff even if you have symptoms / a confirmed contact at work. Only if admitted to hospital yourself
there are some amazing people in A&E and I love my mates and colleagues, all pulling together, would much rather be at work helping than at home feeling helpless, I feel priviledged

WE'll get through and the world won't be the same afterwards, but maybe also things will change for the better in some ways

More from Handcock:

Q: Places of worship want to know how big is a large gathering?

A: We do include places of worship in our advice.

the US where at least the federal structure gives substantial autonomy to the states.

Yes, we had one weekend of voluntarily not visiting bars, too many still got drunk at St Patrick's day pub crawls and that was the end of that.
Thankfully we haven't had to wait for Trump before cracking on with things.

Am I being stupid?

Did they actually say that everyone in a vulnerable category have to self isolate for twelve weeks? I'm sure I heard that they just have to take particular care re the measures and it was only the ones with major risk factors that would be asked to self isolate?

Squid I find it particularly outrageous that student doctors & nurses whose final training has been cut shut are expected to work without pay

The final insult
Anyone doing the job should get the pay

That injustice could continue indefinitely, because they haven't formally completed training and it saves on budget ....

Clash Last I heard was that everyone aged 70+ should self-isolate for 4 months, from a date to be specified by the govt

Didn't hear about younger people with risk factors having to do that

Whether the govt will just leave this as advice or try to enforce it ....

"exercise far from others"

Auld That seems an attempt to balance risk of infection vs risk of a more unfit population
Having a good lung capacity helps survival rates

The only advice for people with high BP etc that I've seen wrt CV is that they should strengthen heart & lungs via exercise

SImilarly, Germany has also closed off all organised sports and events, including gyms, pools, clubs etc
but has not restricted individuals from exercising on their own or with a couple of chums

news.yahoo.com/former-chinese-property-executive-criticized-045009254.html

BEIJING (Reuters) -
An influential former Chinese property executive who called President Xi Jinping a "clown" over a speech he made last month about the government's efforts to battle the coronavirus has gone missing,

< what a surprise >

BCF: I can totally see the logic of the exercise rule on all levels. Living in a rural area, though, and having witnessed how little heed was paid to the instructions given on Friday, I can imagine people might drive out to visit family, claiming they are off for a walk in the woods. Or combine the two. Or think no one will notice if they meet up with friends in the countryside.
I wonder how much the political goggles thing affects this, too. I'm not a huge fan of Macron usually, but can see the sense in all he is doing and am impressed by how much effort is going into reassuring business, predicting anxieties and problems and offering solutions, etc.

Lots of people think Macron's nothing but a pompous arse who's full of himself.
Might they just think he's grandstanding and being over-important? I don't know and can't ask anyone...

Alex Wickham @alexwickham
NEW: The UK only realised "in the last few days" that attempts to "mitigate" the coronavirus pandemic would not work, and that it needed to shift to a strategy to "suppress", according to a report by a team of experts who have been advising the government

<a class="break-all" href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/amphtml/alexwickham/coronavirus-uk-strategy-deaths#click=t.co/Kd7tHb443y" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.buzzfeed.com/amphtml/alexwickham/coronavirus-uk-strategy-deaths#click=t.co/Kd7tHb443y
The UK Only Realised "In The Last Few Days" That Its Coronavirus Strategy Would "Likely Result In Hundreds of Thousands of Deaths"
Scientists advising the government say an aggressive new approach adopted to attempt to "suppress" the virus may have to be in place for 18 months.

The Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team has been advising SAGE

It found from new data that mitigation would "likely result in hundreds of thousands of deaths and health systems (most notably intensive care units) being overwhelmed many times over"

Revised modelling from new NHS data and Italy showed a mitigation strategy would surpass NHS emergency surge capacity by as much as eight times, leading to 250,000 deaths in Britain

"In the UK, this conclusion has only been reached in the last few days"

"We were expecting herd immunity to build. We now realise it’s not possible to cope with that," said Professor Azra Ghani, chair of infectious diseases epidemiology at Imperial (h/t @whippletom)

As a result, the report — which its authors said had "informed policymaking in the UK and other countries in the last weeks" — said: "We therefore conclude that epidemic suppression is the only viable strategy at the current time."

A suppression strategy requires "a combination of social distancing of the entire population, home isolation of cases and household quarantine of their family members", and "may need to be supplemented by school and university closures"

An "intensive intervention package" will have "maintained until a vaccine becomes available (potentially 18 months or more)", the report said, painting an extraordinary picture of what life could be like in the UK for the next year and a half

Here is the UK government response to this story:

Dear God. Anyone who has used the NHS in the last couple of years could have worked this out if they've been paying attention to the news. I'm gobsmacked they got this far and then suddenly realised "oh fuck".

We are doomed.

What did they think WHO was advising certain things for? Their own entertainment?

Jogging club were out in force tonight. I suspect many of those people have jogged before.
Italian restaurant seemed surprised that we wanted to wash hands (all english staff)Schools firmly open but certain strains of parents removing their kids and taking them to the beach

its just surreal

"The UK only realised "in the last few days" that attempts to "mitigate" the coronavirus pandemic would not work,"

Jesus. Wept 🤦🏻‍♀️ 🤯

If you were only scared before, time to be fucking terrified

The lunatics have taken over the asylum

squid again, I thank you and your colleagues - I think on behalf of all of us - for every thing you do. You are being asked too much off, due to years of under investment and current incumbent fuckwits who don't care xxx

So, a frantic U-turn to follow WHO advice, hopefully not too late,
while their apologists all over the media & social media - including MN -
explain it all away as yet more brilliance

I'm reminded of the statement during Watergate by Ronald Ziegler, President Nixon's Press Secretary,
when he was being badgered by reporters after another Nixon climbdown

"All previous statements are inoperable"

Yes, thank you squid and all your colleagues throughout the NHS

Frantic u-turn after they realised that they were literally killing people with a modelling error.

What the actual fuck.

@squid4 You and your colleagues are the true heroes.