Westministenders: Lockdown continues

[BigChocFrenzy]

The UK has been on lockdown since 23 March,
with no end in sight.

The deaths peak is predicted to be around 17 April,
with the controversial IHME prediction that the UK will have considerably more total deaths - 66,000 - by summer than other European countries.

Supermarkets are struggling to satisfy demand for online slots for the vulnerable
and to keep shelves supplied for other customers

Like all countries, the UK economy is being hammered and heading for a deep recession.
Estimates are for UK GDP to fall 15% this year.

A million people have applied for Universal Credit
The self-employed and small - and some large - businesses are struggling to stay solvent.

They don't know how long to plan for.

The PM is in ICU and Raab has taken over as stand-in, but needs Cabinet approval for decisions.
Probably BJ will be unfit to resume his duties as PM for several weeks, if ever.

WIll he stand down soon and let the Cabinet choose a new PM,
or will the UK continue for weeks with a stand-in leader during the worst crisis since WW2

What's the plan, anybody?

Are you illiterate? Quote me exactly where I said that Carrie infected Boris. I’ll wait, and it’ll be a bloody long wait because I never said that

Maybe read what I said again Cendrillon?
Slowly, carefully.

Well, writing 1.5 million letters to the correct people was always going to be tough

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/12/uk-government-giving-incorrect-information-on-self-isolation-say-gps

GP:
“Unfortunately a number of people I know did not receive letters despite fitting in the shielding category,
some only received letters in the past few days,
and others have received letters even though they don’t actually need to shield.”

mathanxiety

Just like I said - a long wait for nothing!

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/12/us-global-reputation-rock-bottom-donald-trump-coronavirus

thanks largely to Trump, a parallel disaster is unfolding across the world:
the ruination of America’s reputation as a safe, trustworthy, competent international leader and partner.
....
Trump’s ineptitude and dishonesty in handling the pandemic, which has left foreign observers as well as Americans gasping in disbelief, is proving a bridge too far.

Erratic behaviour, tolerated in the past, is now seen as downright dangerous.
It’s long been plain, at least to many in Europe, that Trump could not be trusted.

Now he is seen as a threat.
It is not just about failed leadership.
It’s about openly hostile, reckless actions.
....
Do Americans realise how far their country’s moral as well as financial stock has fallen?
Perhaps at this time of extreme stress, it seems not to matter.
But it will matter later on – for them and for the future international balance of power.

The quicker America gets rid of Trump the better.

As far as the long term effects on global polictics and economics go....

ALL bets are off.

Goings cummings and his "freaks" didn't model this, did they?

According to reports Moscow is now suffering badly...brazil will suffer badly, the US deaths will be horrific.
Our death rate will be the worst in europe.

And why?

Because all the ^ above countries are led by right wing/mad motherfuckers who refused to act until it was too late.

I suppose a lot will depend on the economic depression thats coming....I've seen modelling of 15% drop in gdp for the UK.

The US election will be fascinating in a car crash sort of way...

Great series of Tweets from Elaine Doyle comparing UK with Ireland. Significantly different death rates. She looks at how the two countries responded and wonders why the UK media isn't asking more questions.

What could possibly be learned from the Irish, or the Portuguese? www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-portugal/as-contagion-slows-prudent-portugal-wont-ease-lockdown-idUSKCN21R2ZH

What might such comparisons tell the public about the UK government?

It's almost as if some countries did in fact appreciate the seriousness of the virus, and cobbled plans together fast.

It suits certain ra-ra sections of opinion to believe that most European countries were equally unprepared for a once-in-a-century pandemic, and are dealing with it as best they can? (CendrillonSings)

It’s long been plain, at least to many in Europe, that Trump could not be trusted.

After he banned the export of N95 mask to Canada, I hoped the Canadians had already factored the capriciousness of Trump into their planning and had contingencies lined up.

The Tolkien school of project management goes:

It does not do to leave a dragon out of your calculations if you live next to one ..

Will countries around the world continue gently decoupling from the US behemoth ? And if so, what could that lead to ?

CS
It was one paragraph - it shouldn't have taken that long...

DGR what is your source for those "allegations" from St. T's?

The US hijacking of equipment that Canada, France and Germany had already bought

should have finally made it clear that the current US President is as much of a crook abroad as in his own fiefdom of the USA.

If the St Thomas's staff are telling the truth, what a fool to go into a hospital when a pandemic has hit. Oh the irony if he falls sick in a week or two...herd immunity? Reeeally...

Yes, I'm interested in the source for that tidbit, too.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/12/fauci-trump-rebuffed-social-distancing-advice-coronavirus

Prominent US public health adviser Dr Anthony Fauci appeared on Sunday to confirm a bombshell New York Times report which said

he and other Trump administration officials recommended the implementation of physical distancing to combat the coronavirus in February,
but were rebuffed for almost a month.
....
"“It’s very difficult to go back and say that .....
I mean, obviously, you could logically say, that if you had a process that was ongoing,
and you started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives.
Obviously, no one is going to deny that.

“But what goes into those kinds of decisions is complicated.
But you’re right. I mean, obviously, if we had, right from the very beginning, shut everything down, it may have been a little bit different.
But there was a lot of pushback about shutting things down back then.”

If the infections went dormant and then flared up again, how long in total can a person infect others ?
Or if the negative tests were wrong, how often do we have to test to be say 99% sure ?

(I'm assuming / hoping that people can't actually become reinfected after having COVID, or it's Goodnight Vienna )

http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20200410000686

A total of 91 patients who recovered from novel coronavirus in South Korea have tested positive again,
health authorities said Friday, raising fears that the virus can be reactivated.

The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director General Jeong Eun-kyeong said health authorities are conducting epidemiological and clinical studies into the cases
to find out whether those who tested positive for the virus could infect others again.

Relevant testing of cultivating and isolating the virus could take about two weeks, she said.

The authorities have said that the virus might have remained dormant at undetectable levels in human cells and became reactivated,
rather than patients becoming reinfected from someone else.

There is also a possibility of wrong test results.

Mother The Berlin Senate debated the hijacking by the USA of PPE they had bought fo the Berlin police force

That was not fake news

The Senate called it "hijacking" and "piracy" and it has caused more anger here than anything even Trump has done before

(yes, he has made more internationally important decisions & screwups, but this has hit emotions even among the most pro-American)

No, not actual armed hijacking, afaik

but Berlin had bought that PPE and then while it was being flown to Germany,
Trump ordered 3M to divert the shipment at an interim stop

There have been objections by 3M because Trump has been ordering them to divert PPE from factories abroad that had already been bought and paid for by foreign customers,
in several other cases too.
However, Trump has US emergency law on his side, carte blanche

3M said this could cause other countries to retaliate against the USA if they wanted kit in future
and went totally against the normal cooperation between countries when it comes to medical equipment
It could also hit the 3M customer base, of course, if foregin customers think their goods can be nicked by a pirate POTUS.

@DGRossetti where is the source of the two doctors talking about boris' cough?

Mother Sorry, but I believe the Berlin Senate

The insults they were hurling against Trump just wouldn't happen if they weren't sure
It is an almighty political row here

This was an extra supply, hence not from normal suppliers

We have since been told however, that Germany has no proof it was Trump
or rather some dirty tricks branch of the US military of intelligence on his orders

So the matter has had to be dropped
But noone here believes Trump

Considering that individual states within the US are trying to outbid each other for precious PPE, I would strongly suspect that Trump and his administration are applying the same principle to securing of PPE overseas for the US (for Jared Kushner's 'Federal stockpile', that is) even if it already bought and paid for.