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?

God, yes.

Even without that help, they put lives before livelihoods, as we all fear millions will die if this is not brought under control quickly

Lives before livelihoods is exactly how it should be. Don't expect it from the UK govt though.

Lives before livelihoods is exactly how it should be. Don't expect it from the UK govt though.

The statement from the new BoE chief speaks volumes about what a shit country the UK is. Admitted the bank can do fuck all about any grants going towards director/shareholder bonuses and having to trust companies to do the right thing.

I was also less than impressed by his "how to short the market" advice dressed up as a "warning".

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51943095

Whatever job him the job, it sure as hell wasn't competence.

The "God, yes" was in response to the query, but I saw the same as prettybird.
I've also learnt not to contradict arrant shite systematically, on the assumption that someone else might do it first.
Working quite well.

The UK attitude to CV, as reflected by many on MN, is still bloody terrifying even after all the evidence presented by Brexit supporters that predictions are hard to accept.
The concept of incubation during which you are asymptomatic seems particularly hard to grasp for many.

As for the idea that if the elderly wander around in shops, cafes, parks, etc., they are merely exercising their legitimate human right to die as they wish...

As for the idea that if the elderly wander around in shops, cafes, parks, etc., they are merely exercising their legitimate human right to die as they wish...

Given the UKs official stance on euthanasia, it seems rather hypocritical. Like so much else.

English schools to close on Friday, except to children of key workers.

BCF on another thread someone mentioned that in Gy people over a certain age (or the PP's parents, anyway...) get regular pneumonia boosters and wonder whether that might account for the apparently lower mortality rate.
Any views?

Oh god, the "I'm not buying it" posters have popped up.

The soft softy advice is too much for me, there will be more idiots

Maybe they need volunteers at this stage to get it with bad outcomes

Behind the Virus Report That Jarred the U.S. and the U.K. to Action

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/world/europe/coronavirus-imperial-college-johnson.html

It wasn’t so much the numbers themselves, frightening though they were, as who reported them: Imperial College London.
....
The report, which warned that an uncontrolled spread of the disease could cause as many as 510,000 deaths in Britain,
triggered a sudden shift in the government’s comparatively relaxed response to the virus.

American officials said the report, which projected up to 2.2 million deaths in the United States from such a spread, also influenced the White House to strengthen its measures to isolate members of the public.

Imperial College has advised the government on its response to previous epidemics, including SARS, avian flu and swine flu.
With ties to the World Health Organization and a team of 50 scientists,
led by a prominent epidemiologist, Neil Ferguson,
Imperial is treated as a sort of gold standard,
its mathematical models feeding directly into government policies.

But outside experts pointed out that the report’s alarming conclusions

• that the virus would overwhelm hospitals and that governments had no choice but to impose radical lockdown policies -

had been made in previous reports on coronavirus or on social media sites devoted to the outbreak.

“A lot of it is not what they say, but who says it,”
said Devi Sridhar, director of the global health governance program at Edinburgh University.
“Neil Ferguson has a huge amount of influence.”
....
Dr. Ferguson has been candid that the report reached new conclusions because of the latest data from Italy,
which has seen a spiraling rate of infections, swamping hospitals
and forcing doctors to make agonizing decisions about who to treat.^
....
“I can’t help but feel angry that it has taken almost two months for politicians and even ‘experts’ to understand the scale of the danger from SARS-CoV-2,”
said Richard Horton, the editor-in-chief of Lancet, on Twitter.
“Those dangers were clear from the very beginning.”
...
Britain lags behind other European nations in its supply of ventilators.
Plans are underway to ramp up their numbers from over 8,000 to 12,000, though officials are reluctant to promise that even this is sufficient.

AuldAlliance The automatic vaccinations are probably one of many factors,
which are all part of having a very well-funded health system,
with far more doctors, hospital beds, ICU, modern equipment, capacity etc than the UK

Our taxes at work; all grateful for that now

DGR, also, euthanasia doesn't usually involve you passing on a potentially lethal virus to 1 or 2 other people as you wander over to Dignitas.

My neighbours mostly want even tougher measures:
2 weeks complete shutdown except for emergency services and letting 1 person per household get food a couple of times per week
i.e. much like China

Isn't it time we went all in for this model? Surely you could sell two weeks of full on isolation if you pointed out that then it could lead to much faster improvements afterwards.

Surely you could sell two weeks of full on isolation if you pointed out that then it could lead to much faster improvements afterwards
Sadly not
because that level of forward thought is well beyond a significant part of the population
the same people who are stockpiling loo roll and hoarding food that they will bin when it goes off in a week

Why are they being so soft?

...I might put the xmas tree up and just pretend its xmas...2 weeks of crap tv and chocolate?

Was it Whitty had radio on - He was firmer but Boris undid it all

I think a lockdown is expected shortly for London at least. Some workplaces are already telling staff that it's happening. The people moaning that the teenagers will now be roaming the streets are also moaning that they may be locked down. I really don't think you can win with some people.

Define Lockdown
As the versions I've seen are pretty much what sensible people are already doing
and without Chinese style policing
will still be ignored by the hard of thinking

I have to say, despite being a veteran of the Brexit threads, in these unprecedented and horrific times I am genuinely distressed by the number of incredibly proudly-hard-of-thinking people out there.

Well exactly. Though I suspect more Spanish style than Chinese if they do anything to enforce it

Eurovision Song Contest cancelled

Ny nephew is year 11.
He's worked so hard :(
Sigh.
What struck me was BJs total lsck of prep for the questions. When he couldn't pass them into the medical professionals it was just bluster.
I think he might find people are less and less accepting of his bumbling eton posho shit as the death toll grows.....

I do feel that amongst all the ineviatable negative feelings and impacts of CV and Bx that I can't be alone in thinking that at least The Planet Is Having A Rest. Which is a Positive.

Many here, and humans all over the world do consider having 'a break/holiday' as a necessary part of life. Even just a little 'celebration' here and there amongst humanity's poorest - never mind a City Break/SkiTrip/1-2 weeks Sunny/Elsewhere that the 1st World Humaity takes as its Normal.

And this Planet we all live on isn't considered worthy enough of a Break (ever) too?

I don't want to sound too cheerful about CV, but every cloud and all that :)

"Define Lockdown
As the versions I've seen are pretty much what sensible people are already doing "

Listening Lockdown includes closing down schools, gyms, pools and everything not essential
So just food shops, pharmacies, essential services

There are clearly a lot of people who are not being sensible about entertainment - pubs, cinemas, concerts etc - and all the other optional spending

Laws are not made just for the sensible, but for the selfish and the thick

Many people on MN threads are justifying all their outings with the kids because schools are open
and justify going to the pubs etc because the govt wouldn't leav them open if people weren't supposed to go

When everything is closed, it massively reduces the numbers leaving their home for non-essential reasons