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...

That noise you can now hear, is one involving the cleaning of a barrel

Two words:
Nadine Dorries.

🤦🏻‍♀️
but Barnier is blamed for successive UK govts looking like delusional idiots & amateurs during Brexit ....

Rhode Island Police to Hunt Down New Yorkers Seeking Refuge

Like a dystopic movie ...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-27/rhode-island-police-to-hunt-down-new-yorkers-seeking-refuge

Rhode Island police began stopping cars with New York plates Friday.

On Saturday, the National Guard will help them conduct house-to-house searches to find people who traveled from New York
and demand 14 days of self-quarantine.

“Right now we have a pinpointed risk,”
Governor Gina Raimondo said.
“That risk is called New York City.”

BigChocFrenzy Sat 28-Mar-20 11:46:45

Wrt medical fetishists donating their supplies to the NHS -
four teachers from different departments in my local high school entered the closed-up building, with the blessing of the board, the principal and the superintendent, and gathered all the nitrile gloves and masks in classrooms, labs and stores to donate to the local hospital, where two ER doctors have tested positive for Cv-19.

And also aprons.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe 'being considered for clemency' in Iran as leave from prison extended RTB

Let's all hope for the silver lining here.

Early epidemiology
Hippocrates - On Airs, Waters and Places
Love early morning Internet trawls
Also
www.cdc.gov/csels/dsepd/ss1978/lesson1/section2.html

Oops forgot first link
classics.mit.edu/Hippocrates/airwatpl.mb.txt

So Trump backpeddles on quarantine for New York saying not necessary. Words fail me utterly!😮😮😮

If you want a bit of light relief, then Mark ne-Francois-pas MP @MarkFrancois12 on Twitter is entertaining.

Apparently according to sky news and a Professor from Kingston University there are 2 strains of Covid the S form and L form . Virus seems to be pretty stable so hope for a vaccine early looking hopeful.

Vaccines still take a while to make, check, audit, stockpile. We won't have one for around 1.5 years of day

It shows how broken the system is when we have people desperately applying for UC and taking out crisis loans, yet the farmers still need to fly in Eastern Europeans for the fruit season.

On his show, Marr is pressing Gove on the subject of ventilators.
I don’t think Gove has answered a single question properly. A very slippery character.

They’ve clearly cocked up big time on getting more ventilators.

My late parents, getting married just after the war, had a utility sideboard which was soundly made and still going strong 60 years later.

Same for my grandparents. My grandmother gave me their double bedsheets when DH and I moved in together in the mid-90s, although one had been split lengthways and the edges sewed back together to deal with wear in the middle & to extend its life. They were very sturdy & we still use them as dust sheets.

Sides to middle on sheets - yes, very very common. Then dust sheets, or cut up for dusters/bike rags.......

From the Guardian

11:43
Two-thirds of people in UK want Brexit transition extension - poll

Polling commissioned by cross-party campaign group Best for Britain and anti-racism group HOPE not hate has suggested that almost two-thirds of people in the UK want the government to request an extension to the Brexit transition period in order to focus on the coronavirus outbreak.

The Focaldata poll of 2,022 people showed 64% of people agreed with the statement, “The government should request an extension to the transition period in order to focus properly on the Coronavirus’, while more than a third – 36% – agreed with the statement “The Brexit transition period must end on 31 December whether a deal has been fixed or not”.

Best for Britain’s call for an extension to the transition period has been echoed by numerous bodies and pressure groups, including the Scottish and Welsh Governments.

The same poll also found that 65% of people polled wished the government to seek membership of the EU early warning and response system for medical emergencies amid reported reluctance within No 10 to remain a member.

Best for Britain CEO Naomi Smith said:

It’s simply not reasonable to expect we will have tied up negotiations with the EU by the end of the year while dealing with a warlike emergency. Nor is it desirable.

Most people just want the government to get on with the job at hand so that lives can be saved and normality restored as quickly as possible. The country is simply not in a place to weather two storms at the moment.

HOPE not hate CEO Nick Lowles said:

EU schemes like the Early Warning and Response System and the ventilator procurement programme are critical tools for responding to this urgent public health crisis.

The government must put politics aside and urgently seek participation in these schemes. It would be foolhardy for ideology to get in the way of practical measures to keep people safe.

It shows how broken the system is when we have people desperately applying for UC and taking out crisis loans, yet the farmers still need to fly in Eastern Europeans for the fruit season.

I am still questioning that story ... who is paying for the quarantine ? Or is it really the case that with the whole country in lockdown we are still able to fly in (presumably the hundreds needed to make a difference) and assorted and untested ragbag of potential C-19 superspreaders just to save a few farmers livelihoods ?

Has it actually happened ?
It it about to happen ?
Or did it happen weeks ago - thus consigning it to history rather than news.

I have it from a source that has leaked an email from NHS to hospitals ( but I cannot guarantee if genuine) that London will be on full lockdown by end of week with roadblocks and only keyworkers allowed to work and rest of country will follow week after. They are advised that people over 70 not to be ventilated nor people over 65 with serious conditions such as COPD diabetes etc. One hospital already diverting patients to other hospitals ( London) and 2 more already refusing certain patients ICU and administering palliative care. One hospital in London only had 4 ventilators left and two more heading same way. Also reported taking 70 yr old off ventilator to give to 30 yr old.( Lewisham and QEH) expected deaths absolutely catastrophic. As I said I cannot confirm whether this is true or false buy i do know the person works at a Berkshire hospital. I am in no doubt that decisions are being made that are just so awful for these people making them and for the people that die families. God bless them all😕

DGR, I thought the current aim is to recruit in the UK to pick the fruit/veg - I didn't know it had been decided that that was impossible? Has it? Particularly with large numbers of people having become unemployed in the UK and no hospitality/catering work currently available, there may well be a labour supply from within the UK.

I am still questioning that story ... who is paying for the quarantine ? Or is it really the case that with the whole country in lockdown we are still able to fly in (presumably the hundreds needed to make a difference) and assorted and untested ragbag of potential C-19 superspreaders just to save a few farmers livelihoods ?

Yes, I had some doubts about it too. It's tens of thousands btw ...

The problem with recruiting in the U.K. is (a) the picking jobs aren't where the people are (so you create the potential for virus spread regardless) and (b) universal credit makes taking casual work difficult especially (presumably) where you would have to keep paying your existing rent AND pay for additional accommodation.

BUT it's not just about farmers' livelihoods. There is a real potential risk of some food shortages due to simply chain disruptions, which will in turn mean countries focus on feeding their own populations. Getting fruit and veg picked in the U.K. matter of national security IMO, especially given that the U.K. already lacks self sufficiency.

Yes misti I've read that workers recruited in the UK may be asked to self-isolate on arrival for 7 days (14?) before starting to work. But i assume (I hope?) the same would then be applied to anyone entering from outside the UK to work as well.

Re universal credit problems, there will be people looking for work who aren't on universal credit - students in summer holidays who are dependent on summer employment to make the student finances work usually. And I think the accommodation is provided by the employers (maybe paid for out of wages)?

So yes, logistically complicated to recruit workers, but can be done? Given the impact of our measures on unemployment, particularly.

Author of study predicting only 5,700 UK deaths has now said UK deaths are already too high for this
and is predicting 20,000-30,000 deaths

It wasn't really a model, just a statistical projection - which should never have been taken seriously,
nor imo even posted during such febrile times

He is not an epidemiologist, just experienced with statistics in another scientific field
(I did highly complex maths / physics models for 40 years - I won 2 international prizes and I would never post an epidemiological prediction, never mind in the middle of said epidemic!).

He is not an epidemiologist, just experienced with statistics in another scientific field (I did highly complex maths / physics models for 40 years - I won 2 international prizes and I would never post an epidemiological prediction, never mind in the middle of said epidemic!).

Statistics are only as useful as the underlying assumptions. (I speak as someone who frequented introduced rooms of bemused managers to John Snow to close their chequebooks when the "big data boys" came a knocking).

There seems to be a few things we have still to bottom out about C-19 that make modelling prone to quite a wide swing of error ...

We know a lot about how other viruses "work". But since we don't really know how all viruses work there's a lot of unknown unknowns.

(Goes off to carry on boning up of quorum sensing).

Many a true word ...