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...

April Fool:
Boris Johson is PM !

Nope didn't fool me; it'd never happen

Re Toby Young and only a few old people with a couple of years to live shit

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/coronavirus-pregnant-women-birth-hospital-nhs-parents-advice-a9439391.html
Pregnant women forced to give birth without support in hospital amid coronavirus outbreak
Exclusive: ‘The consequences and potential trauma of women giving birth alone go far beyond coronavirus,’ says spokesperson for maternity care charity

Frontline service providers warn pregnancy services are struggling under the pressure of the coronavirus outbreak, with some maternity units 30 or 40 per cent down on staff and substantial numbers of birth centres being turned into coronavirus units.

And

Maria Booker, of Birthrights, a maternity care charity, said some women are being asked to have inductions rather than caesarean sections so anaesthetists can be freed up to help on the frontline of the crisis

And

Ms Booker, who noted women are less likely to have C-sections or forceps deliveries when going into labour at home or in birth centres, raised concerns trusts were not properly “thinking through” decisions to close birth centres and argued the UK should follow the lead of the Netherlands, where hotels are being turned into birth centres.

And

The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) has called for NHS leaders to ring-fence maternity services to safeguard pregnant women’s safety in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The warning comes as research by the RCM revealed that while almost one in 10 midwife posts were absent prior to the coronavirus pandemic, the shortage has now skyrocketed, with one in five midwife roles currently vacant

And

Around eight out of 10 staff reported that routine face-to-face antenatal and postnatal appointments were no longer being carried out.

I note that coronavirus itself is having a very hard effect on older males. This risks younger women and babies. And we already knew there were massive safety issues within maternity.

"We don’t know how Germany has been able to ramp up testing so quickly, maybe they already had the lab facilities set up"

Germany already had a vast network of labs across the country
These were repurposed

The UK used to have far more labs too, but these were shut down or merged over several decades, cost-cutting.

Germany is manufacturing what it needs for the tests,
BUT
the UK also has a huge pharmaceutical industry who could have done likewise

So it seems the only difference there is that Merkel ordered this - and PPE and ramping up hospital beds etc - as soon as COVID was recognised as a problem,
whereas noone in the UK has been giving orders until recently

Do those running the UK have a great belief in the Fridge Fairy ?

They seem to feel that having vague wishes or advice is the same as giving specific instructions to do things

So the UK fridge just had mildewy cheese and a shrivelled up apple

I've been musing to dh that if aliens were watching us from outer space, they would be bemused by the humans' strange behaviours patterns, eg crossing the road to avoid being close to another person Especially if they'd been watching us beforehand when they'd have seen lots of physical contact but hadn't yet translated Earth languages, so can't understand the explanations that are no doubt being transmitted into space

A cousin of mine recently delivered a healthy baby in an Irish maternity unit, with her husband outside in the car park waiting for news and hoping for a wave from a window. Mother and baby were sent home as soon as possible. Cousin and her DH walked with the baby to my aunt's house less than half a mile away to show her her new grandchild through her living room window as my aunt is numbered among the vulnerable, and my cousin and her toddler and baby are self isolating for the 14 days Ireland requires. A nurse did a follow up visit at my cousin's home.

@prettybird

A few weeks ago it was Boris Johnson and Donald Trump who were bemused by the strange behaviour patterns of humans in neighbouring countries. Now it's just Trump.

That is how maternity care used to be. Back in 1959 all DH and his sister saw of their new brother was his mother holding him up to the window.

But we then had a lot of smaller maternity units, so it would be a lot less risky if you were the only one in that week. We also had national coverage of District Midwives employed by the local authority. So we have gone forward in some ways, and backwards in others.

Like everything else about the UK Government, there needs to be proper consultation and coordinated policy - instead of it all being done on the hoof.

This Guardian link shows some very worrying behaviour by the powers that be. Apologies if it's already been linked to - it's difficult to keep up.

This was very much how that poor Chinese doctor who spoke out was treated, who subsequently died.

I watched the tail end of the White House press conference: the lady expert was good at explaining the additional measures and why (so kudos to her). But then Mike Pence stood up and said that (I paraphrase) that it was great that the rest of the USA was now finally following Trump's lead as he'd shown leadership from the start in highlighting how serious the problem was and that it was only now that the individual states and governors were following his lead and taking action

I had to stop watching at that point....

Royal College of Physicians :

25% of doctors in NHS are ill or in isolation.

Turkmenistan banned the media from using the word “coronavirus”. An international media freedom watchdog says the autocratic ex-Soviet nation of Turkmenistan has banned the media from using the word “coronavirus”, AP reports. Guardian news 05:10. That will solve the problem then ...

This death total for doctors in Italy was 12 days ago.
I don't know current figure
[[https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-outbreak-03-30-20-intl-hnk/h_d385acb67991afbdcf4c87aed856f0e6
edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-outbreak-03-30-20-intl-hnk/h_d385acb67991afbdcf4c87aed856f0e6]]

In Italy, 61 doctors who caught the coronavirus have died,
the Italian Association of Doctors said Monday < 20.03 >

In all, 8,358 health workers have tested positive for coronavirus, according to the Italian National Institute of Health.

Out of the 61 deceased doctors, 40 were working in Lombardy,
the Italian region worst-hit by coronavirus.

That would be the Turkmenistan where the previous President closed all the hospitals outside the capital city (in a country the size of the EU) and spent the money instead on fifty foot high golden statues of himself.

His sucessor was reputed to be 'more liberal.'

Personally AirBnB disappearing sounds like a wonderful idea.

Like uBer they have corrupted the market but acting as a shim that does fuck all - take the money, leave the responsibility.

They are a parasitical symptom of the failure of capitalism. As is the current crisis.

I've been musing to dh that if aliens were watching us from outer space, they would be bemused by the humans' strange behaviours patterns, eg crossing the road to avoid being close to another person confused Especially if they'd been watching us beforehand when they'd have seen lots of physical contact but hadn't yet translated Earth languages, so can't understand the explanations that are no doubt being transmitted into space

Xkcd cartoon...

... We have pasta

Mathanxiety you mean the Toby Young who made derogatory comments about disabled and working class people, who said wheelchair ramps were part of "ghastly" inclusivity in schools? Who wrote about eugenics for a laugh and to get a reaction? And then was appointed by May to head the Office for Students... What a shock to hear that he's Pulling a Scrooge. "If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."

This pandemic is showing up people's true character in sharp relief. Have to say that I had no idea just how much our current political elite hold dear the concept of eugenics. This topic, implicitly or explicitly, is bubbling up to the surface. Disturbing.

www.theguardian.com/education/2018/jan/10/ucl-to-investigate-secret-eugenics-conference-held-on-campus

theconversation.com/toby-young-what-is-progressive-eugenics-and-what-does-it-have-to-do-with-meritocracy-89671

I had an AirBnB booked in Spain for 2 weeks in March. Much better than a hotel, with full facilities to allow self catering, at vastly cheaper rates.
When I cancelled I got full refund, already paid, minus service charge.
I for one really cannot fault them 😎

This pandemic is showing up people's true character in sharp relief.

It's also revealing how dim a lot of people are - the 50% below average intelligence.

I had an AirBnB booked in Spain for 2 weeks in March.

No you didn't.

you had a private residence booked in Spain etc etc. AirBnB are just the pimp. They take their x% and then simultaneously teleport as far away as possible from any fallout.

Like uBer. You don't "book an uBer". You book a private car through uBer. Which they have aggressively been denying all responsibility of since.

uBer and AirBnB have cracked the magic formula of charging for adding value to a service without actually adding value to a service.

(And AirBnBs lack of equality policy tells me all I need to know about them anyway)

"I had no idea just how much our current political elite hold dear the concept of eugenics"

I had no idea eugenics would be so popular on Mumsnet

• after they had to stay in a week and lost some money

Also, it seems to be more the mc professionals saying it's better the vulnerable should die, furious about using their savings,
rather than those who have always been poor and have no savings to soften the lockdown

• possibly because the poor have been aware for years that the rich regard them as totally expendable, so it would be them next.

I had an AirBnB booked, because I booked through AirBnB.
They didn't teleport away, they honoured their conditions of service and have already refunded me.
I would happily use their services again.
You are being deliberately obtuse.

If you'd booked a hotel room, or rental house through booking.com, would you say you had a booking.com lined up? I wouldn't. Why is that different from AirBnB?

Wow, I can see some of us are getting really bored with the lockdown.

Sometimes hotels are best, but on this occasion a AirBnB were best.

I can't be bothered to argue the semantics

You are being deliberately obtuse.

I agree. I’m not sure how you think KonTikki would have found this accommodation without a central organisation such as AirBnB, DGR. Same with your hypothetical hire car. These companies provide a service whereby they connect the user with the supplier. I’m not sure what the problem is with this model?

R4 World At One now on Gove's reagent 'shortage.'

And More Or Less last night on the Imperial College dodgy modelling which was done by a couple of bored electrical engineers.