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...

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-52067559

Post-Brexit talks between the EU and UK will go ahead as planned next week, despite the chief negotiator on each side being diagnosed with coronavirus.

dgr that article says "Brexit happened on 31st January".

Depends how you define Brexit, but if it's already happened, there can't be much to discuss. Just as well, in the circumstances...

(sniffs)

I'll stop posting then ...

(sniffs again ...)

Trevor Noah interviewing Fauci is quite interesting, following on the discussions about the US:

< innocent face >

Angela Raynerr@AngelaRayner*

So me and Boris Johnson having the virus is pure coincidence- honest

Good article on the "meaning" of Boris Johnson contracting the virus by Tom McTague in The Atlantic. McTague's coverage of Brexit has been quite open to Johnson's vision, so he can hardly be fobbed off as a hater:

www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/03/boris-johnson-coronavirus-britain/608899/

France extends lockdown by 2 weeks

French Westministenders - still support there for Macron over this ?

Merkel has warned it will likely be after Easter before we see a downward trend, so I expect our lockdown will be extended past the provisional April 6.
Schools here have been closed since 16 March and will stay closed until at least 20 April

In Germany, 95% support the lockdown & social distancing measures;
3% do not
So, much like UK public opinion

https://www.domradio.de/themen/corona/2020-03-24/mehrheit-ist-zufrieden-95-prozent-der-deutschen-befuerworten-kontaktsperre

BCF
Everyone I've spoken to here realises that the 2 weeks announced is just the next stage and assumes that the lockdown will go on longer.
But we all live in a bubble and they have grown even smaller since we've been housebound for almost 2 weeks, so I don't know how others are taking it.
Figures from Italy today are chilling.

There is a furious article in Libération about cuts to health budgets, for those who read French:
www.liberation.fr/debats/2020/03/24/j-ai-la-rage_1782912

And one about the follow-up to the mouldy masks issue.
www.liberation.fr/france/2020/03/27/a-la-reunion-des-mesures-renforcees-apres-la-polemique-des-masques-moisis_1783315
Picture of the airport in Réunion on March 20th shows zero social distancing. Those people were then asked to sign a document promising to self-quarantine for 2 weeks .

Also, it was always going to require govt planning to redistribute the food that restaurants & fast food places no longer need

Lots of local wholesalers here are now doing home delivery.

Lots of local wholesalers here are now doing home delivery.

Will they stop when this is over ? Or are we seeing a shift in behaviour like licensing hours ?

I'd seen lots of stuff about more restrictions coming today. I wonder if the rumours are too soon or if Johnson's diagnosis shelved it for today.

I live rural/coastal. The idea that we will be policed, whether by bobbies on the beat or drones or whatever is absolutely laughable.

The only time we ever see an actual policeman is when they race through, Sweeney style, to the towns 8 miles either side.

The plus side, of course, is that it is very easy to walk the dog, at least at this time of year - no chance to meeting anyone, if you do we're all at least 4m apart and exchange a cheery wave.

BCF, my parents are in france and they dont see an issue with it. Mainly becuse theyve been told that the oeak of infection is NOW, it will calm down in the next two weeks with a possible increase again when people who have been infected from the current ill people will get symptoms themselves.

They are, just like me, thinking this will go on for about 3 months.

Simon Stevens (CEO NHS England) says that more than 6,200 confirmed positive CV patients are in hospitals in England

The NHS / military are completing the new NHS Nightingale hospital in east London for CV paients
and will build more NHS Nightingales in Birmingham NEC and the Manchester CCC, with further such hospitals to follow.

So, another reason to flatten the curve is to gain enough time for all this new capacity to come on line,
including new equipment, staffing and training in critical care

"The idea that we will be policed, whether by bobbies on the beat or drones or whatever is absolutely laughable"

That's what they thought in Italy and Spain
.... coming to a village near you ....

From the Trump thread, but too good not to post here
www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/new-evidence-indicates-intelligence-not-contagious

Life changes fast.
Our new self-certification papers are more detailed than the last lot and you have to write the time you left the house.

DS2 and I went out onto the square in front of our house yesterday.
I jog for as long as my dodgy joints allow. He scoots.
There were gendarmes checking papers. A patrol car drove by, parked suddenly and 4 gendarmes got out. They stopped a guy and 10 mins later took him to the police station. He may have been a hardened criminal, but he looked more like someone pushing the rules, who'd been checked before and was on his 3rd warning.
This is a tiny rural town where the local gendarmerie was merged with others.

Bigchoc
The idea that we will be policed, whether by bobbies on the beat or drones or whatever is absolutely laughable
I live on the edge of a city in a high crime area.
Pre austerity we had a police car down my road every day.
Not had one in weeks.

The UK police are so stretched they can hardly patrol their own bedrooms let alone the burbs.
Derbyshire were silly arses with that drone.

The key point is that the focus has to be on risk
If an employer is forcing their staff to ignore distancing whump them.
If a mosque or gudawara or evangelical church is still allowing groups to gather whump them
If gym bods are running PT sessions 2m apart but coordinated whump them

But if Elsie and her son and her carer drive to somewhere quiet and pretty for a walk
should that be anybody else's business ?

It's been extended to the 13 April here. general sense of it being acceptable and rational to extend until more tests are available. I imagine it will be extended again except maybe in a few circumstances, like children taking exams.

Auld
The UK does not have enough officers to do anything like that in cities like mine part of work I review officer cover

France didn't seem to have many police either: the merging of gendarmeries meant that one station covered a huge perimeter including several towns and myriad villages, part of which is over the other side of a big massif.
Now that it matters, they are everywhere.

i'm not saying that will happen in the UK, but it's a surprise here.

born that link is hilarious! But also worrying.

Just reading on Twitter that 260,000 people have been fined in France in the last 10 days.

" if Elsie and her son and her carer drive to somewhere quiet and pretty for a walk
should that be anybody else's business ?"

Listening There is a fundamental misunderstanding among some - including you - about the form of "social distancing" that the PHE and the govt have chosen:

"Stay home unless it is essential to go out"
not
"go out if you think it is not harmful"

So basically having to prove your trip outside is essential,
rather than the police having to prove it is harmful

This is much easier for the police to enforce over a large population, with limited resources,
rather than having to judge each case individually

Rather like, as I posted, Germany banning every outside activity that made encroaching on the 1.5 m distance likely:
picnics, barbecues etc