Westminstenders: All bets are off

[RedToothBrush]

We are seeking an extension. Apparently. No prizes for guessing why.

There is no news but COVID news. And that's all there will be for a long time.

Enjoy your stockpile and your sunny uplands it brought.

Keep safe.

"irreparable harm is being done to society to slow down deaths which would have largely happened anyway"

No
They were mostly NOT going to die within the next few months, or even the next couple of years;
most were not terminally ill.

e.g. total deaths from ALL causes - including traffic accident, suicide, cancer etc - have risen significantly in Italy
They have risen in Lombardy by 80%

Most of the younger - and middle-aged & elderly - victims with "underlying health conditions" would have had decades of life expectancy in normal times

T2, raised blood pressure, asthma, BMI over 40 ....
people can normally expect to live to a ripe old age with these

and there are a sizeable % of the population who have been living a normal life with these conditions
and planning their future like anyone else.

People can also often live many years with more serious conditions like CVD; cancer, transplants etc

Unless the country decides to go for "passive eugenics"
i.e. allowing the removal / extermination of the less healthy,
those who could live for many more years but cost more than average

However, there is a sizeable minority of the under-60s with some vulnerability due to health condition like T2, high BP, asthma, CVD, reduced lung function etc and / or BMI

If you add the 60+ age group, then that would probably mean a majority of voters needing to give consent to their premature elimination

It will be very interesting in counries that have a general election this year or early 2021,
e.g. USA

to see whether this will be a completely new political divide
along which the old parties will have to choose their side:

an economy for the healthy vs allowing the less healthy to die

Of course, that would be the less healthy among low-middle incomes being thrown overboard

The mobile wealthy would soon protect themselves - the market will offer protection to those that can pay the price

Many of the super-wealthy have quietly already done so, retreating with their medical staff to private islands or sealed enclaves, to wait out the storm

an economy for the healthy vs allowing the less healthy to die

The USA already has this political divide up and running.

Looks like I was right when I described it as a field experiment...

SImilar to what other countries are doing to increase critical care capacity - desperate times

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/23/nhs-plans-to-turn-excel-centre-into-coronavirus-hospital

London’s ExCeL centre will be turned into a makeshift 4,000-bed “field hospital” under NHSS^ plans to cope when the peak of the coronavirus epidemic leaves thousands fighting for their lives.

In a complex operation, the conference centre will be turned into a massive critical care unit far bigger than any such facility already in existence in any NHS hospital.

Staff will help those who are struggling to breathe, many of whom will be anaesthetised, intubated and put on a ventilator because their lungs have failed.

It will be staffed by a combination of military medical personnel and NHS staff.

NHS planners think they will need to press it into service in around a month’s time,
when on current trends all the critical care beds in Londonn^ hospitals are likely to be full, mainly with patients with Covid-19.

Will there also be new regional centres ?
because although London has a large population, it normally has the most hospitals and beds

Will there also be new regional centres ?

The politics of the government might necessitate it. It's not even 5 months since the election ...

I guess we're all emotionally fragile right now, but I found this story affecting beyond belief ..

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52015969

An Italian priest who gave a respirator to a younger coronavirus patient he did not know has died of the disease.

Father Giuseppe Berardelli, 72, died in hospital in Lovere, Bergamo - one of the worst-hit cities in Italy.

(contd)

If old people's lungs have failed, what is the point intubating them?
It will not save them.
It will just cause them pain and distress and take up huge amounts of resources.
www.nytimes.com/2018/06/22/health/breathing-tubes-intubation-older-patients.html

There is a strong case for doctors to start looking at the patient as a person rather than a series of diseases and work out what is best for their wellbeing.

The Laura Davies case taught paediatric doctors that more was not always better.
That lesson seems to have been forgotten.

If old people's lungs have failed, what is the point intubating them?

Practice ?

There is a strong case for doctors to start looking at the patient as a person rather than a series of diseases and work out what is best for their wellbeing.

You could have written that a year ago, a decade ago, or indeed 40 years ago. The "holistic" approach. The problem with that is it doesn't really sell pill potions or prescriptions. And we all know that medicine is a business nothing more.

Why on earth would GSK spend a small fortune trying to develop drugs to deal with heart conditions, if some hippy lovebeads wearing "doctor" can achieve the same by advising a balanced diet, regular exercise and low stress occupations ???

I'm not going to go full Big Pharma anti-vaxx on y'all. But you have to admit that when you make businesses out of medicine and health, you are also making consumers out of patients.

Incidentally, the holistic approach works for everything. One working definition of Toryism is that it's dedicated to the ideal that nothing is connected, so you can squeeze capital from one place in total isolation from another. Which a few seconds work with a brain cell would immediately show is bollocks. The old example of saving money by turning off streetlamps only to wonder why you are then spending twice as much on RTAs being the first step.

"If old people's lungs have failed, what is the point intubating them?"

Maybe before claiming it's not worth saving people, ask them first
They might have been looking forward to several years more life

If you are advocating eugenics, why pick on the elderly,
who may have been productive all their lives and may have several years left ?

What is the point of looking after the severely disabled ?

What is the point of întubating those with severe LDs ?

This is such a dangerous path
I know most of us have suffered financially over this crisis, but let's NOT go there

Re BJ’s briefings. There are some good suggestions here for how the daily pressers should be handled. I’m impressed with how human yet authoritative Varadkar and Merkel come across. Haven’t seen Macron’s. (Scroll right down.)

20 things Boris Johnson needs to do at his next coronavirus update

www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/boris-johnson-coronavirus-leadership-tips-from-alastair-campbell-1-6576210

As we have to keep reminding pp,
the elderly may be dying earlier,
but up to half the people still in critical care beds are under 60

The big wave of deaths - and politically / economically the most serious - will be later if there are several young & middle-aged patients queued for each ventilator.

That may happen for several weeks at peak pandemic,
much worse if governments do not take serious measures to flatten the curve

• and it's probably the major consideration driving governments around the world

Have a think why almost every government - left, right, centre, religious, secular -
even grudgingly the batshit narcissist Trump,
have all chosen to sacrifice the economy

Some of them never hold elections
Some have a predominantly young population
All are terrified

Re BJ’s briefings. There are some good suggestions here for how the daily pressers should be handled.

BJ isn't a figure that commands respect - and he's made that his MO to be able to undermine any competent opponents he might have encountered on his way to the top. You really cannot make a silk purse out of a sows ear.

In such cases, BJ should be there, nodding gravely, radiating calm, and just leave it to his team to demonstrate the competence the nation needs to feel from the top.

If nothing else, Boris should get some really good make up artists to sort him out. If he looks like he's aged 10 years in 10 days, it's not really going to make us feel any better.

Idly muses to self that the adverse possession law was an artefact of post Black Death England, where it was impossible to know who had once owned land ...

Also, isn't there something about French inheritance law that resulted in estates being parcelled into ever smaller plots until the whole countryside was littered with weird holdings ? (I read it in a wine book ).

I think that's in Burgundy DGR - not sure how other wine regions have got around it.

If nothing else, Boris should get some really good make up artists to sort him out. If he looks like he's aged 10 years in 10 days, it's not really going to make us feel any better.

I am a bad person, I know this because I pointed out the aging of BJ to DH last night and said few things had made me happier recently.

I’m sorry but someone who is the Prime Minister undoubtedly does receive respect, even if you personally don’t respect them.

Do you really care about Johnson’s makeup or is it another excuse to have a pop? Honestly! I don’t like the guy, and I’d much rather he wasn’t PM, but he i is. Your suggestion would merely make him look like a fool (more!) which I conclude, sadly was your intention.

Yep, DG BJ has a problem with his history of being a lying toerag

A PM who is just a joker or a playboy can turn serious and have credibility in a crisis
Not a lifelong liar

Even if BJ has had a secret Damascene conversion - to follow the reported "Domorscene" one -
those of us who have followed his career still won't trust him to make the right decisions for the right reasons

The Tories - and Labour - have done many foolish things over the last 10 years, but electing someone as PM,
whom they themselves don't trust,
was always going to go badly if there were ever a crisis:

"you can always rely on Boris to let you down" as one MP said

Premature aging has happened to all PMs I can remember

• well, male ones, MrsT didn't seem affected until the end, although May soon looked shattered

Heath, Wilson, Major, Callaghan, Blair all aged rapidly
Leading nearly any country is constant stress

BJ may currently be finding that his lifelong ambition to be PM has turned to ashes in his mouth
He expected it too be a jolly jape, with others doing the actual work, as in his stint as London Mayor
A PM can't get away with that, with the terrible decisions and the sheer grinding work that go ith the job

"the buck stops here" for the leader of any country

I’m sorry but someone who is the Prime Minister undoubtedly does receive respect, even if you personally don’t respect them

So by your logic, Chancellor of Germany - regardless of who they are - deserves "respect" ?

Boris deserves the respect that people who have repeatedly lied - and been sacked for it deserve. And if it turns out that causes large numbers of people to treat him and his pronouncements as a joke, then that's the horrid marzipan we have to live with on an otherwise divine Christmas cake.

BJ won't deserve respect if his earlier decisions - indecision - are shown to have significantly increased the number of lives that will be lost

Or it may never be provable, so a shell-shocked country just goes with the known PM

Or Cummings is the sacrifice on whom all will be blamed.
Or Whitty