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...

ClashCity
Love it !

In Indonesia – the world’s 4th most populous country – the government has performed a policy U-turn and
will impose lockdowns to control the coronavirus

• after the biggest one-day surge in confirmed cases.

I was informed by two different shopkeepers this afternoon - one of whom is very up to date - that much, much tighter restrictions are due in the UK at 5pm
because people of all ages and ethnicities are still taking the piss and gathering in large groups in and around cities

The supermarket queue and the food bank queue were next to each other

At the supermarket they were counting people in and out of the shop and checking trollies to stop people buying more than they could reasonably need for a week
and in front of all the deli counters were pallets and pallets of multipack beer

Johnson and Hancock have covid-19...

Sam Coates Sky @samcoatessky
Sir Mark Sedwill, cabinet secretary, is well and working and not displaying any symptoms of Covid 19. He’s chairing at meeting at the moment on the crisis, I’m told.

Cummings won't get it.
He does not have a heart.

Interesting article in Wired on data indicating that the "people taking the piss" on social distancing weren't disproportionately in large cities (though of course it's harder for people to get away from there), but rather in more rural areas:

www.wired.co.uk/article/uk-shopping-travel-data-coronavirus

death rate jumping now. So so sad so many have passed away and so sad for their families. ☹️

re the MN threads on e.g. brothers playing football

We'll only know if the social distancing was taken sufficiently seriously by the trend in daily deaths after a couple of weeks
(not enough testing to take new cases as a measure, but the % positive may be a useful indicator)

If the trend isn't sufficiently downwards, then I expect the govt would extend and tighten lockdown,
e.g. exclude outside exercise, dog walks must be just 20m for loo, police question anyone out ...

We need to cooperate and not look for loopholes, or - apart from the tragedy of deaths - the economy will be going even further down the toilet

yep, most threads on MN from special people seem to be from those who live rurally, by big parks or beaches

and don't see why they can't play football / picnic / do yoga etc in groups, so long as each person is 2m apart

I suspect it is because they think there are unlikely to be the police around to stop them

• police have been stopping some activities already in urban parks

Clear rules required, so at least people know they would be breaking them

• a few will still disobey, but it is about stopping as many as you can

German authorities wised up to this early on and made legal regulations to excude potentially risky activities that don't actually break the 1.5m rule
e.g.
"When meeting other people, a minimum distance of 1.5 meters must be maintained.

Public behavior that is likely to jeopardize the distance requirement of sentence 2, such as partying, barbecuing or picnicking, is prohibited regardless of the number of people"

"I was just reading about people volunteering to be fruit pickers, although not enough of them apparently."

WouIdn't the fruit pickers be paid by the farms - just like any other work (though not highly paid, obviously)? I thought fruit picking jobs were being advertised, or about to be advertised. Best to keep as many in employment as possible, I think.

Though it does raise the question of whether you can keep the 6' distance - I don't know, but would there be issues there about the accommodation and whether distancing is possible?

that much, much tighter restrictions are due in the UK at 5pm

I wondered if this was coming, because on a flight back home yesterday, they were making much of how they had got us back. We both thought, does that mean the airports will be closing and they have advance knowledge?

I’d be sad if a daily walk was no longer permitted, although if it was believed to help, I’d obviously comply.
Where I live, people are smilingly taking great pains to skirt round you at distance when out and about. Waiting in corners till someone’s passed, crossing the road etc. Virtually everyone understands. It’s amazing how quickly we’ve got used to it.

DD works for a large company which (this week) is Canadian-owned. Staff have been asked to "consider" a voluntary pay cut.

Thank you Red & all other contributors sincerely hoping everyone is managing to stay well & can get all that is needed.

At times like these we need steadfast men and women who will remain at their posts and do their duty for Queen and Country:

metro.co.uk/2020/03/27/dominic-cummings-runs-downing-street-boris-gets-coronavirus-12467131/

Chris Whitty now self isolating after experiencing symptoms per various reports.

Seriously if these three 'being led by the science' cannot invoke enough protocols to stop all three of them likely picking it up within a day of each other how can they be trusted to keep a country as safe as possible?

Unless it's a con to show us how it's easy for three middle aged men to get over and we should just embrace the virus by embracing each other.

people volunteering to be fruit pickers

May be surprised when they discover it isn't Pick Your Own.

It's a bit of an object lesson in how little regard viruses have for status. If you've picked it up, you'll pass it on to the people you're spending time with, regardless of how important you are or what reassuring messages you've been giving your children/workforce/citizens.

@Singasonga quite. But when you tell the country to wfh and stand 2 metres apart to visibly not do so yourself and regularly stand in front of a packed room of journalists until just a couple of days ago smacks totally of not following your own advice.

It's a bit of an object lesson in how little regard viruses have for status.

... and how little we really know about them ...

Anxiously waiting for today's announcement here.

Me too. DS1 has just gone out to ride his bike for his daily exercise. I've told him to take his phone just in case it becomes a forbidden activity while he's still out there.

Italy had 919 new deaths, its biggest one-day rise

• over 200 more than previous day.

Sadly, if their current lockdown is working - new cases possibly slowing - they may be having a backlog of deaths, as people who have been kept alive for weeks finally pass away.

Sadly, if their current lockdown is working - new cases possibly slowing - they may be having a backlog of deaths, as people who have been kept alive for weeks finally pass away.

Or the virus is capable of switching between innocuous and nasty depending on infection level and distancing ? It remains nice and mild when in a large population, but as soon as you start isolating people, those that already have get the super-size version ...

Watching Gove right now. He just blatantly sidestepped that sharp question about the wisdom of running down the NHS so it has no capacity to meet this crisis, didn't he? Incredible. Apparently we should all just be grateful that supermarkets are stepping up to be helpful and ignore how few ICU bed and clinical staff we have.