Westministenders: The Virus

[RedToothBrush]

Its like living in a Bad Disaster B Movie.

If you thought Brexit on your TV every day was Bad, The Virus is a whole new level.

The 5pm broadcast with Johnson and friends, and the public infomation video with the unblicking Chris Witty (who has such unfortunate mannerism he makes me think he's me a Dr Who alien akin to the Slitheen).

Who knows what will happen. Just that everything has changed and our entire economy is now on life support whilst we figure out how to deal with the crisis and what on earth our exit strategy is.

Johnson has however refused to join a joint EU purchase scheme designed to assist countries through the crisis.

Meanwhile the US is about to go nuts... so what does that do to a trade deal?

More money for the NHS? More hospitals?

Well its possible that might just happen...

We were watching that game in disbelief here in Italy Yoikes - that and the Stereophonics concert pictures.

Mathanxiety.
Your link to TheAtlantic article was most interesting.
Thanks for posting it.

Jesus, yes...the concert..
I forgot about that :(
And of course we had the Cheltenham gold cup here too....300,000 people in a confined area.
Cosmic!

Thanks for the link math

Well its a weekend of cleaning/spring cleaning for me...
With all the boys at home its impossible to do in the week. They are filth wizards!
I may have found a way to get food for foodbank!..
I'll let you know if it works out!
bananagio stay safe x

I am hoping a cross stitch kit I ordered arrives today.

Other than that, I shall go for my socially distanced walk.

There may be boardgames later.

There will certainly be vodka later.

I signed up to the UK gvmt's daily emails about Brexit ages ago. They plop into my inbox each day telling me about some new aspect of the process.
Today's is about delays in dealing with applications for settlement. From my reading of it, it looks as though people with limited tech are going to be screwed, even if they already sent paper applications...

There will be delays in processing your application due to coronavirus (COVID-19).
We are not accepting documents by post.
If you’ve already started or submitted your application, please do not post any documents to us. If you post a document to us after
25 March 2020, there may be a delay in it being returned to you.
If you posted a document to us on or before 25 March 2020, we will return this to you as soon as possible.

"A CHILD in the US with COVID died because of no health insurance"

tbh, a country than allows that to happen
and where it isn't headline news that the President has to answer every day

...probably deserves whatever it gets

That can only happen in a country when most people, Democrats and Republicans, don't really care if poor children die

www.bbc.com/news/amp/uk-52074862?__twitter_impression=true
Coronavirus: UK wary of international market for ventilators

But the UK has so far tried to avoid purchasing from some of the intermediaries offering equipment.

The market price for one particular type of ventilator increased in a week from $27,000 (£21,700) to $96,000 (£77,100) - a sign of just how intense the demand is.

The British CEO of one company based in the Middle East has been repeatedly offering to sell equipment to the UK government since March 17.

And

A British-based contact of the supplier got in touch with Cabinet Office ministers and other officials through multiple channels, including MPs and other ministers, but the offer has not been taken up in London, leading to frustration that potentially life-saving kit which the NHS is in urgent need of, is being passed over. The contact said he was not seeking to profit from making the connection.

And

A number of companies have been asked to make ventilators in the UK but it is unclear when they will be ready. The government has also said a mix-up meant it missed the deadline to join an EU scheme to obtain extra ventilators.

Sources deny that red tape is holding up international procurement and say they are trying to procure directly from suppliers rather than through middlemen.

It is thought there have been cases where offers have been made of equipment which turn out not to exist, or where multiple agents were offering the same items. There is also the concern that items might not meet the correct standards.

Some testing kits purchased by countries, including Spain, have shown low levels of accuracy, making them unusable.

The government has also said a mix-up meant it missed the deadline to join an EU scheme to obtain extra ventilators.

This was no "mix up". Johnson was full of Brexit bollocks, "We don't need the EU", and then realised that he had misjudged the public mood, so had to start backtracking/lying his way out of it.

Neighbours have their grandparents visiting for the day recognise the car

DH dared to grumble at me when half of his company was furlonged yesterday, but he was designated as "essential" and therefore still working (at home). I am now playing the world's smallest violin at him and encouraging the kids to do the same.

@DGRossetti, thank you for those graphs. Whilst I don't subscribe to apocalyptic thinking, it looks like America has a big fight on it's hands to get this under control and it could shift the global power balance towards China.

I am also wondering why there are so few cases/deaths in Russia. Lack of reporting?

I am also wondering why there are so few cases/deaths in Russia. Lack of reporting?
No testing, no reporting ...... and possibly the German approach of recording deaths as due to the other health issues rather than Covid.
If people have not been tested for it when they die, it did not kill them.

I’m concerned about the number of posts/messages I’m seeing from people/pubs etc saying ‘we’re going to have the best/biggest party/festival/celebration when this is over’.

A completely natural reaction.

But ‘over’ is not really over.

Surely when we start unlocking ourselves again when the virus seems to have abated, that’ll be the time for a flare-up/recurrence.

It’ll have to be handled so carefully.

@ListeningQuietly, fair enough. We are back to the old problem of lies and statistics.

"the German approach of recording deaths as due to the other health issues rather than Covid."

Deaths in the UK are reportedly only counted from CV if they occur in hospital,
which is why some deaths e.g. of that woman in her 30s, didn't appear in the UK stats

In the end, for all countries, the really reliable data analysis will be in the future,
when we can only look at the total deaths from all causes for the same period last year - and compare

However, I'd expect the German death rate to be the lowest for (non-tiny) European countries for several reasons:

WHO says testing, testing, tracking & monitoring ....
Germany is simply following best practice and has truly massive resources available to ramp up
Will have v different results to a country that wastes a full month ignoring WHO and has a health system that can't cope even under normal conditions

Public service chief says every death of someone with CV is being classed as caused by CV

It is always possible hospitals are not following those rules,
but normally a v compliant officialdom and v open to reporters etc, so heads would roll -
especially as Merkel is basing her decisions on those figures

A major reason death rates in Germany look good is because they are currently testing 500,000 per week
This is enabled by the vast network of laboratories across the country
together with the capacity of the large pharmaceutical industry to create huge amounts ot testing kit.

Every positive test gets a daily phone call to monitor how they are doing

• any deterioration in symptoms is treated immediately, to minimise the number that get serious

And of course, the biggy:
having far more doctors, hospital beds, equipment, the ability to manufacture so much extra kit.

Hospitals here are still not at capacity, as taking in critically ill patients from France, Italy, Spain.
Still plenty of equipment too, as sending tonnes to several other EU countries

BUT if we keep getting 7,000 new cases and it keeps increasing to - god knows, 50,000 ? - per day
then of course even the German system can't cope
and then deaths will ROCKET - like Italy

Interestingly I read an article about India this morning
because they get outbreaks of Nipah virus (50% to 75% death rate)
parts of the country have highly effective containment procedures (Kerala in particular)
that could be rolled out across the subcontinent.

I do wonder what is happening in Pakistan as it has 600 mile border with Iran ....

😂 Even the kinks (medical fetishists !!) are helping the NHS:

MedFetUK@MedFet_UK

Today we donated our entire stock of disposable scrubs to an NHS hospital.

It was just a few sets, because we don't carry large stocks, but they were desperate, so we sent them free of charge.

We don't usually do politics on Twitter, but here's a short thread. [1/5]

When you see someone from the government saying the NHS is getting what it needs, that is a LIE.

We have been contacted this week by representatives of NHS procurement all over the country, trying to source basic protective equipment and clothing. [2/5]

When we, a tiny company set up to serve a small section of the kink community,

find ourselves being sought out as a last-resort supplier to our National Health Service in a time of crisis, something is seriously wrong.

In fact, it's scandalous. [3/5]

< yep, comedy aside, it is scandalous >

Temporary mortuary being built at Birmingham airport

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/mar/27/temporary-mortuary-being-built-at-birmingham-airport

Hangar facility could have space for 12,000 bodies as West Midlands sees sharp rise in Covid-19 deaths

Photos of German airforce transporting critically ill patients from Bergamo to Cologne, for treatment in German hospitals

If anyone has been wondering why this wasn't done much earlier,
the EU Commission President had to remind / shame member countries into offering this

• so it probably would never have happened without the EU -

but also look at how the planes had to be equipped;
a very complicated undertaking to safely transport such ill patients for hours:

To be fair, with patients staying on ventilators for sometimes 20-30 days,
even countries with spare capacity must have feared that they wouldn't have those critical care beds for their own people a few weeks later

So having missed out on the EU procurement scheme, by accident , the government have now quietly cancelled an order for 30,000 ventilators from a UK company with no explanation.
Ventilators they will still make and now ship abroad. So they're loudly and publicly placing orders for more but then cancelling the orders when they think nobody is looking. They're playing us for fools. Again.

www.worcesternews.co.uk/news/18339699.worcesters-gtech-told-not-produce-much-needed-ventilators-government-chief-executive-says/

Alister Jack self-isolating.
Going down like ninepins...

BCF I've a friend who's a doctor in Bavaria and he told me at the start of the week there are several Italian and French patients in his nearest hospital.
Not being mentioned much in the UK media...

Given the two men involved, and previous posts about the UK's purchase or not of ventilators , I don't know what to make of this:

www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-news-live-uk-cases-death-toll-tests-nhs-boris-johnson-update-a9431251.html

Sorry, this is the bit of the link to which I was referring:
"PM 'revealed ventilator shortage fears to Trump'

Donald Trump has claimed Boris Johnson revealed his fears about a lack of ventilators in a telephone call just hours after the prime minister was diagnosed with coronavirus, Rob Merrick reports.

The two leaders spoke as Mr Johnson faced fierce criticism of his failure to take up the EU’s offer to jointly obtain the life-saving equipment.

Revealing the contents of the phone conversation, Mr Trump said: “I say ‘how are you feeling’ and the first thing Boris said to me is ‘we need ventilators'.”

The US president said he was willing to “help the UK”.