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.

Pigheaded and smallminded.

President Macron thanked Germany Switzerland Luxembourg for taking French patients.
'This solidarity is real Europe'

Meanwhile UK:
-withdrew from EU Medicines Agency
-pulling out of EU Pandemic System
-Doesn't take part in daily Euro Health ministers conference call

mobile.twitter.com/paul__johnson/status/1242897612082208768

BCF I think the constant reference to underlying health conditions is more of a kind of reassurance rather than criticising individuals for their poor health. The result, I agree, is definitely othering. Maybe not blame per se, but more like saying a prayer or making an offering to the gods, such statements are made to allay fears that we're the next headline.

Admittedly, as someone now with the cough, fever, and breathless, that I search for the reassurance of the 'underlying health conditions' mentioned in the press to hold off my fears as best I can. Not helpful, but human.

DrBlackbird The intention of the authorities is very likely to reassure
BUT

too many people with an agenda - including throughout MN - are twisting this to write off the deaths as "people who would have died anyway"

• especially those who have always opposed measures that harm the economy

and want them to stop.

The right in the US have mostly decided that gettign Trump re-elected and making more money makes (other) lives unimportant
(drink from the fishtank)

but there seems to be a battle within the right in the UK - well, in England really:

The right of centre and the government - who are mostly hard right - are currently prioritising lives - after multiple bad current and historic decisions & wasting a month -

whereas the Libertarian / Breitbart types are piling on pressure to abandon the measures - especially the more "socialist" / collectivist ones - and restart the economy

.

Yes, I'd have to agree that there is an unpleasant tone to some of the discourse around who's dying and likely to die that is tinged by a ruthless eugenics type of argument. After all, Andrew Sabisky had been greeted into no 10 with open arms just recently.

I have friends and family in retirement who finally feel they can fully enjoy life after decades of slogging it out in difficult and not well paid work whilst raising families. Pretty harsh to throw them under the wheels of the economic bus. Though the uk has always been fairly ageist.

DGR

The Coronavirus bill has received Royal Assent.
Sunset clauses May 2021

I'm very please with the bit that affects my work.

@Jaichangecentfoisdenom
I love your name.

As well as flying patients to Germany, etc., France has fitted out a medicalised train to transport patients from to less overwhelmed regions. Maybe the UK could do that now that it's pretty much renationalised railways? Get Shapps onto it, perhaps?

The French are also positioning naval vessels with some medical beds on board in the Indian Ocean and Caribbean. Things are likely to be v bad in Réunion (where they recently discovered that their stock of masks had all gone mouldy in the damp heat) and,esp. in Mayotte. I don't know Martinique/Guadeloupe so well but can imagine it will be grim, there, too, once cases start increasing and there's no option of shipping people to neighbouring countries.

3 more deaths in Scotland - but at least not as many as the 6 yesterday.

Difference with the Scottish press conferences is not just the clarity of the message but also that as a matter of routine, they have someone in shot the whole time who is signing.

A lot of our regulars are missing. Hope everyone is OK

Russian Warships in the English Channel our baby shadowing them!

Navy not baby!

Love the typo/Autocarrot

Sky News Long Report: The Red Zone (Italy)

Do NOT read if you are feeling fragile

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-inside-the-red-zone-the-desperate-fight-italy-hasnt-seen-since-the-plague-11963915

Good to see you are back again, in fine fettle, Grinchly 🙂

where they recently discovered that their stock of masks had all gone mouldy in the damp heat

A lot of companies that swerved testing their BCP/DR plans as being "too costly" are going to find out how much more costly it was to have

In good news, the Scottish NHS has tested (some of?) the "expired" stockpiled PPE and it was ok, so is now being issued as it is for for purpose.

But there again, we're not going to have problems with mould from damp heat up here

v belated pmk'ing, (signing in as sometime-StripeyChina)

My two kids with ASD are finding all the uncertainty hard.
My exH was crowing about being an 'essential worker' - he's a bus driver in Edinburgh, whilst I am 'not essential in any way' (he's a git)

I am a single parent Carer to my two kids with DLA and am myself disabled. I will be interested to see whether 'Society's' attitudes to those who are not 'economically productive units' changes, either temporarily or permanently (even a little bit) as more of us experience uncertainty and poverty. I wouldnt wish it on anyone, but i hope that it might make us all a little less 'othering' of folk in different positions?

There are some spectacularly good things being done - the registering of so many 'NHS Helpers' as well as lots of ordinary folk like me who cannot perform essential work (though its essential to my kids, and if i didn't then 'society' would have to pay another Carer) but are still quietly helping their neighbours where they can whilst keeping to the current Social Distancing Rules, & shopping modestly.

I note exH was somewhat grumpy to find this morning that he will become a 'retained' worker from Monday. He was crowing that he was glad he'd voted for Boris and Brexit as he will still get 80% of his pay. I am surprised and glad that the Govt is propping up wages (and s/e earnings by now, hopefully?) but I am concerned how long they will do this for? I dont think exH will learn compassion, anyway.

Sorry for somewhat personal input, will read back as far as poss

Re NYC ICE workers are rumored to have been hanging around low income hospitals and a couple of stories about arrests surfaced in the press.
That puts off a significant portion of vulnerable people from seeking medical support until it is very late.

I would also mention that obesity is an underlying risk factor and asthma, the treatments which's often limited because of cost.

In addition living conditions are often very poor. A family I know had a roach infestation and the only response from authorities when was this was raised professionally was to stop health workers accessing the house. The children, who are in the care of the state were were just left with no effort given to the infestation.

In addition living conditions are often very poor.

Stress is probably the biggest single depressor on the immune system. Any farmer knows stressed animals are unhealthy animals.

Waves at BCF

I look forward to Tim Martins long awaited "re imagining" of Dale Carnegies How to win friends and influence people that he announced he was devoting his self isolation to writing.

But until then, I guess we'll just have to read drivel like this.

www.theguardian.com/business/2020/mar/25/jd-wetherspoon-refuses-pay-suppliers-until-uk-coronavirus-lockdown-ends

JD Wetherspoon has told its suppliers it will not pay them until pubs reopen after the coronavirus lockdown, but promised staff will get their wages beyond Friday provided the government agrees a reimbursement scheme fast enough.

(contd)

In the "Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy", Arthur Dent briefly laments that he has no daughter he could forbid from marrying a Vogon. In a similar vein, I regret being unable to boycott Wetherspoons on the basis I already am. I might be reduced to having to walk past, and then turn around and walk past again, just to feel like I have boycotted them twice.

DG I 's considering that once the epidemic is over that we should organise mass protests of mooning in the Spoons windows ?

We could write "mean" and "fuck" on each cheek, with "as" on the lower spine ?