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?

Germany appears to be testing everyone who wants one, is that right? Family member got temperature and cough got test for all family and sent them off. Am green that they can just know.

Generational living, kissy / hugging customs and so many early cases starting in elderly care homes all contributed to Italy's high death rate

I admit I was more thinking of comparisons to the UK, even though discussing Italy too !

However, Germany does have significantly more doctors, hospital beds, ICU beds than even Italy
which imo plays a role in still being within capacity,
staff not too overworked and being able to throw everything at each patient who needs it.

Testing is very backlogged in France. A friend who runs a small care home for children with serious psychiatric problems had four cases (herself, two of her kids and a foster kid) last week & they were tested but as of yesterday no results.

The French clinical biology system works very well in normal times - it's essentially based on a network of small private and cooperative labs that perform tests on prescription (you drop in to get bloods taken in the morning and you can usually pick up the results the same day). Of course the big hospitals have their own labs but because a lot of testing is done privately they don't have as much capacity. I think this is unfortunately the reason for the logjam in testing here.

It should be much simpler to scale up testing in the U.K. and I don't know what the problem is really.

Marsha People who suspect they may have CV phone either their own GP or a central number

They are then evaluated by phone and if it is thought feasible they might have it,
a public health official is sent to the house to take a sample

With 100,000 tests weekly now, obviously not too stringent requirements to get a test

The family have to stay home a few days for results,
then if positive they have to stay home with ohone monitoring & advice, with serious penalties for leaving the house

They are immediately questioned in detail about all their contacts;
these contacts will be traced by public health teams - and soon students too - and these contacts will also be tested.

Of course, hospital staff and GPs etc are tested too

All of it is obviously expensive and resource-intensive, but well worth it.

GPs do a lot of testing in Germany, about 35,000 a week; the other 65,000 is done by hospitals
I've heard that drive-thru testing may be available in a few places, but don't know where

I suspect the Uk has no spare capacity for additional work like testing
They would need to prioritise and drop other things - which may also be very important tests

So, resources and capacity have been reduced for at least 10 years, probably longer.

The NHS is like someone on v low income always living from week to week, no spare,
so a disaster if the washing machine or car suddenly conks out

BigChoc incredible. I wish we had all that.

Well, all main political parties here agree on a good level of public services

• and the taxes to fund them

Germans accept and voted for this and we get the benefit now of a health system better able to cope

You get what you vote to pay for.

The NHS is like someone on v low income always living from week to week, no spare, so a disaster if the washing machine or car suddenly conks out

I think that analogy goes further than the NHS. It's just the English way.

Funnily enough (given the forum) I thought it was Brexit that would expose the problems with trying to achieve 100% "efficiency" everywhere. Just goes to show ...

Speaking of bailouts, seems the fishing industry is next in line to ask ...

Now where are all those chirpy Brexiteers telling us about "project fear" ?

Maybe all the cap in hand industries could line up alphabetically ? Might help the less literate media outlets ...

Is BJ building any of those new hospitals he promised ?
Can the army do this ?

German army is currently building a 1,000-bed hospital specifically for Corona victims in Berlin
They are being pretty quick about it

I have siblings around the world the difference is so noticeable. I despair. Really

True Tory colours, eh ? If you want to think the best of people, I strongly advise not researching any more of Ms. Lathams pearls of wisdom. She's not a nice person at all.

A Tory MP has apologised after telling a constituent to “get a life” when asking about statutory sick pay. Pauline Latham, the MP for Mid Derbyshire, said she had been “in a state of distress” when she made the comment on Twitter on Saturday. Latham claimed she thought the person asking her about whether £94 a week in statutory sick pay was a “keyboard warrior”. Her original comment, which prompted more than 3,000 outraged responses, has not been deleted.

The reliably excellent journalist Peter Foster is now reporting that discussions about extending transition have begun.

The logjam in testing appears to be partly about getting hold of reagents. There is a new test that doesn't require them, which may help.

Completely random fact: there is a manufacturer of coronavirus tests just down the road from me.

The reliably excellent journalist Peter Foster is now reporting that discussions about extending transition have begun.

I wonder who said to Boris "ask for an extension, or we'll find a PM who will ..."

Poor Nigel - so close. If (as current reporting suggests) we are looking at Covid lasting until mid 2021 at the earliest, then trying to resurrect Brexit in it's wake is going to be a mammoth task.

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/03/17/uk-prepares-seek-eu-trade-talks-extension-coronavirus-crisis/

UK 'prepares to seek EU Brexit trade talks extension' as coronavirus crisis grows
By Peter Foster, Europe Editor and James Crisp, Brussels Correspondent
1 minute

Detailed Brexit trade negotiations planned for this week were cancelled on Monday, with Government sources indicating that the UK is preparing the ground to seek a mutually agreed extension to the talks in the coming weeks.

As the coronavirus crisis deepened, senior Whitehall sources also confirmed that civil servants who had been working on Brexit "no deal" preparations were being actively redeployed into virus crisis management.

EU sources said hopes of conducting a full negotiation round via videolink had been crushed by the Covid-19 outbreak, which has put large swathes of Europe into effective lockdown and limited the ability of EU diplomats and officials to prepare for the talks.

Although a final decision has yet to be...

Nazanin has apparently been temporarily released from prison in Iran, wearing an ankle tag.

twitter.com/SejalKaria/status/1239956383421915136

Posting and running. WFH with 2 kids is...interesting.
This is interesting on why Whitty is wrong. Don't think anyone else has posted it.
twitter.com/DanielFalush/status/1239049733974433798

Interesting Aud
The fact that most people in China actually have never got the virus is something to think about. I remember WHO officials saying that when people were coming to be tested because they thought they had he virus, only 0.5% I think actually had it.... This seems to be along the same lines.
And also similar to some comments I’ve read about the fact the difference between Europe and Singapore, S Korea etc..l is that they actually know how to deal with an épidémie. Whereas we don’t (and mess up)

The fact that most people in China actually have never got the virus is something to think about.

Very big, China.

Let's see what hapens as China progessively lifts its restrictions

Public health officials around the world must be biting their nails over this,
as China has had such a long lockdown, which Western countries probably can't manage
and then if it flares up again anyway ....

They may get a 2nd wave, but if so, hopefully tiny and not requiring another lockdown

China is progressively lifting restrictions and most cases now are imported - no new cases at all in Wuhan now. However they now have all the testing and tracing infrastructure in place (a lot of the latter is mobile phone based).

My Chinese colleagues are either still working from home or going into work 2 days a week and doing 3 days at home.

Most people in China didn't get the virus because they got on top of the spread very quickly in all except Hubei province and Wuhan in particular.

There was massive social distancing & high compliance even in places where cases were rare - none of this wait and see stuff that we've been doing in Europe.

Tbh people in Europe seem to have got the message now, my town is deserted and we haven't had any cases here as far as I know.

BJ says British Industry is going to build 'literally thousands' of ventilators in the next few weeks.

(I think maybe he's thinking of extractor fans.)