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...

DG That team of biologists found a whole witches' brew of unknown SARS viruses in the "Bat Caves" and that's just one wild animal, in 1 small area that they could study

That's the good news ... what about viruses we have never seen before (and therefore wouldn't recognise) ?

As a species. humans can't keep expanding indefinitely (see point about endless "growth") and not expect to encounter some really weird shit in nature. No need for a 5-year mission.

Maybe part of C-19s evolutionary strategy is to shift human behaviour to make it more amenable to spreading C-19 even further ? After all ...

www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/11/how-the-zombie-fungus-takes-over-ants-bodies-to-control-their-minds/545864/

Have all those people who have "recovered" from C-19 really recovered ? Or (as DM would exclaim watching Dr. Who) have they been "got at" ?

And this is just the viruses.

There's also the bugs with antibiotic resistance, coming to a civil contingency near you.

Bloody hell, DG
Scifi horror .... reality

Rowland Manthorpe @rowlsmanthorpe
NEW: the government is preparing to release a contact tracking app which alerts people if they come too close to someone who tests positive for COIVD-19

The plan is to put it out as the lockdown ends
news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-govt-set-to-release-contact-tracking-app-which-detects-nearby-virus-carriers-11966243
Coronavirus: Govt set to release 'contact tracking' app which detects nearby virus carriers
The app, which will operate on an opt-in basis, will be released either just before or just after the lockdown is lifted.

This concerns me.

NHSX plans to appoint an Ethics Board to oversee the project, with board members to be identified over the coming weeks.

However, privacy campaigners and data protection advocates questioned whether any board of this kind would be independent, and raised concerns about the app's safeguards.

And

One source who witnessed work on the app during this period described it as a "hot mess" run by "a hodge-podge of suppliers and contractors" with "no clear voices in the room speaking to the privacy implications of the technology they were using."

Robert Peston
@Peston

Michael Gov said just now that the difficulty in increasing number of #COVID19 tests was due to a shortage of the relevant "chemcial reagents". Well I've just talked to the Chemical Industries Association, which represents the UK's very substantial chemicals industry. It...

has contacted its members, and they've said there is no shortage of the relevant reagents. So the Association has now been in touch with
@michaelgove's office to find out what he means, because it is stumped. The Association also points out there was an industry chat with...

a business minister today, who made no attempt to find out if there was a supply problem for the vital ingredients of Covid19 testing kits. So this question of why there aren't enough tests for the virus is an even bigger mystery. Also, if it turns out there is a shortage...

these manufacturers are more than happy to increase their production. But they need to be asked, which has not happened. PS It was Labour MP @Bill_Esterson who initially spotted this gap between what Gove said and what the industry believes to be true.

Another juicy NHS contract for a US tech firm

If someone tests positive, aren't they supposed to be at home....
Or do they wear a tag now

Oh hang on, someone from NHS on another thread told me that even infected people in the UK can take exercise outside ?

That would bring a serious fine and even jail in Germany
Once confirmed positive you cannot leave the house until the specified period has elapsed

Maybe another difference Germany vs UK ?

Read the Buzzfeed article on testing and how the UK are going for herd immunity still....

www.buzzfeed.com/amphtml/alexwickham/uk-coronavirus-testing-explainer
Even The US Is Doing More Coronavirus Tests Than The UK. Here Are The Reasons Why.
The British government keeps saying it's "ramping up testing", but it now lacks both testing kits and dedicated lab capacity thanks to its original strategy to tackle the pandemic

The one thing in life I really can't abide is lying ..... and this government just CONSTANTLY lie to cover up there incompetence....... there have been so many examples in just this crisis

Can't fucking stand Gove

I'm baffled if the large & highly competent UK pharmaceutical firms have not been given official purchase orders

The govt seem to expect that private industry will jump in and organise all this without being asked
It doesn't work that way.

In Germany, instructions from the Federal govt have to go through 16 states which each have their own Parliament etc
In theory, the UK should be able to act far more quickly & nationally in a crisis

However, the Uk has still not managed 10,000 tests in a day, while Germany has been doing 500,000 per week

V early on, German research labs were first tasked to produce a reliable test (which so far has not produced one false positive)
then the vast network of test labs around Germany was called into action
and the large German pharmaceutical industry was given orders to produce all the reagents etc needed

And of course, Merkel early on ordered 10,000 ventilators from the main German manufacturer and lesser amounts from the smaller ones
(all specialists in the field, not random firms that support her party)
plus ordered millions of extra PPE to be manufactured

That's not particularly brilliant of her, just the basic competence a leader is supposed to have

• ask the experts what is needed and make sure they get it

Ridiculous
The UK is still a highly advanced industrialised country with top quality uni researchers and a major pharmaceutical industry

Merging the small labs decades ago may have hampered efficiency & flexibility

BUT
a major problem appears to be that those who give the orders in the UK are very poor decision-makers

Twelve-year-old girl dies from coronavirus in Belgium

https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-03-31-20/h_543e257025f60fc74e3e188de77d7428

A 12-year-old girl has died from the coronavirus in Belgium, a spokeswoman for the Belgian Health ministry told CNN.

The spokeswoman said the unnamed girl died on Monday; she refused to provide any further details in order to respect the privacy of the family.

Emmanuel André, the Belgian government's spokesperson for the fight against coronavirus, was visibly moved when he spoke to Belgian TV about the case.

UK's youngest coronavirus victim announced as boy, 13, with no underlying health conditions

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/breaking-uks-youngest-coronavirus-victim-21789319

Teenager, 19, with no underlying health conditions among 393 killed by coronavirus

metro.co.uk/2020/03/31/teenager-19-no-underlying-health-conditions-among-393-killed-coronavirus-12484546/

So Mebbe Old Auntie Gaia is yawing and stretching and awaking from her slumbers to put paid to the human stain on her brow.

I'm sure Adam Curtis will be along with a documentary series about it.

^and I have this massive feeling that a lot of what is being done under the auspices of Covid - particularly the loss of civil rights
is a variant of oh, look, a squirrel! that we will look back upon with great regret in ten years time^

@ListeningQuietly I agree with you. We have no reliable numbers yet about the severity of this virus. This explains the variation bewteen the different experts on how many detahs we can expect in the coming weeks/months.
We have no idea of what afctors will make thinsg better or worse. We know about age, pollution, smoking. But there are many more variables (eg the flu vaccine, the BCG that could be protective to mention a few).
Thisis what is making things hard. Hard to decide but also b** hard to actually check on what our politicians are doing.

I too am worried about the future but NOT about the deaths.
Im worried about an exponential inflation
Im worried about an exponential number of unemployed
Im worried about people being hungry
And Im worried about the current government slowly but surely putting things in place to keep track of people, reduce civil liberties etc...

And I have to say I propery dislike all the newspaper titles about a yung person who died of the virus (and had no other comorbidities).
Because Yes it is a real shame and it is sad.
But young people die of the flu too, even with no other comorbidities. Its crap but it happens.

On the others side, insistng so much that sme young people WILL die jus creates more fear, more panic (see totally healthy people in their 30s screaming they dont want to go out in case they DIE).
Its not good for people their MH.
More importantly, it stops any constructive discussion on how to deal with the epidemy, whether about how to deal with it NOW or in the new few months once things start to settle down.

I posted about children dying to counter the repeated assertion that we are ruining the economy to save the old

www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-03-29/coronavirus-choir-outbreak

I also think these COVID threads are a useful indicator to which posters are self-employed or company owners
and hence desperate to restart the economy and save their businesses

BigChoc
Young people die of undiagnosed heart conditions every week.
Young people are killed by cars every day.
Do we ban exercise or cars
or do we accept that 10,000 people in Britain die every week
from one cause or another

If this pandemic had a death rate anything like Nipah I'd be more accepting
but once the data comes in I suspect it will look more and more like flu

Those who want to end the lockdown need to come up with proper numbers for costs,
so we can examine costs per life saved in various scenarios

This could lead to the public debate we should have had early on, well before lockdown

Instead, however, those opposed to any significant measures keep denying the virus is serious,
which is a bad mistake

It is perfectly reasonable to say we can't afford to pay ¼ or ½ million or whatever per life
for each of 500,000 lives or 250,000 lives or 100,000 lives

That we can debate

but anyone who wants to be taken seriously needs to accept expert opinions from around the world about the seriousness of the crisis

China didn't shut down a major part of its economy for shits & giggles
Neither did so many countries in Europe, Asia, Middle East, NZ etc

This is not the UK having a brain fart

In the UK it is estimated that at least 12 young people (aged under 35) die every week from an undiagnosed heart condition.

From the British Heart Foundation.

www.bhf.org.uk/-/media/files/research/heart-statistics/bhf-cvd-statistics-uk-factsheet.pdf?

Fascinating to read the massive underestimate of resource tackling the UKs historic weather data

www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-52040825

Maybe there's more good to be done, if anyone has any ideas ?

The unpleasant truth us countries are rather co-dependent when it comes to lockdown now.

Any country perceived to be recklessly loosening controls is going to be shunned ....

listening Sorry, but I won't even conside your "I suspect"
when weighed against the combined opinions of nearly every epidemiologist and virologist of note in the world

Telling us other people die in the Uk or around the world
does not convince me that suddenly adding a very large number to all these is so unimportant compared to you all being able to resume earning money as before