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?

I agree with your post too, QuestionMarkNow.

Totally agree

BJ was ill. He was ill when he said he wasn't, and he was still ill when he said he was. He lied about having only one symptom when he had at least two.

His carefully crafted description of how it might have been worse is not untrue.

And so we welcome his recovery, as we would anybody else.

Bodoni

Sorry CS, I’m not interested in playing debating games with you.

I wonder why that is? It couldn’t be because I have you dead to rights on your hypocrisy, could it?

Someone earlier commented that the Chief Nursing Officer had managed to get her hair cut.....maybe she'd resorted to doing it herself

Here's Nicola Sturgeon having a go at her own hair - and her husband complaining he's not getting a go at the scissors

Here's Nicola Sturgeon having a go at her own hair

I'm sure Eck would touch her up if she asked. Or if she didn't.

Sorry yours still struggling drb
DH took a long time to get over the cough and fatigue elements, though he's found now having to work at home has helped a lot. I was similar in that I started with a cough then a fever, cough disappeared quite quickly which is very unlike me, though temperature persisted for a few days. A week afterwards I started struggling to breathe with a fever peak again, inhalers weren't helping and I got a course of steroids that did improve things a bit. I'm a couple of weeks on from there and still can't do too much physically without struggling to breathe. I'm using my inhalers to an extent I haven't done since childhood. Every now and then I get just under 37.8 on the thermometer, which whilst under the thread hold for me is high (I'm normally around 36). It's horrible.
Hope you start properly getting over it soon

What I would now like to know is would Jenny from New Zealand and Luis from Portugal pass Priti Patels immigration tests?

....or be exempted from the charge to be allowed to use the NHS, even though they're paying tax and NI

When we get some serious answers we might begin know whether Johnson's experience will lead to genuine support for the NHS, or whether it's business as usual, privatise by stealth on the American model, when this is over.

The "American Model" is the important qualification, because the Tory apologists are very quick to jump in to tell us how France and Germany utilise private labs and clinics.

OhLookHe ...
I read your description of your symptoms and it really did bring home to me how I really want to avoid catching this virus.
I do hope that you start to feel better soon it sounds absolutely dreadful.
I had asthma as a child, and the struggling to breathe sounds truly horrific.

Questionmarknow
The problem for me is that the line between fake news and partial/distorted news can be quite thin.

Agreed Qmn. And the line between fake news and satire can be thin too. It seemed like satire to me.

It’s good that one person has recovered from being very ill. But on the day that 10,000 more are announced to have died, (plus many more in care homes) these are the headlines. So I sympathise with the bereaved families.

People who have lost love ones might well feel pretty angry seeing those headlines.

Dorset Eye is a scurrilous pro corbyn anti semitic site
NEVER trust anything is says without at least one other mainstream source

115,000 deaths around the world so far

• few countries include deaths at nursing homes or at home in this

Is anyone else ancient enough to remember HongKong flu in winter 1968 / 1969 ?
I vaguely do
It was referred to in conversation for a few years afterwards, then forgotten

It killed 1 million worldwide, but "only" about 80,000 in the UK

Is anyone else ancient enough to remember HongKong flu in winter 1968 / 1969 ?

Indeed so. I caught it and felt that I was dying. I was off school for about two weeks I think. I wasn't ill enough to go to hospital, but I certainly wasn't up to doing anything. Which is why I've got fed up with hearing about how Johnson was looking at Govt papers whilst on his sick bed. I know jolly well, that I couldn't do anything which required concentration, or even try to read a light magazine.

For those of us who survived, it did give us immunity to flu viruses for quite a number of years afterwards, until there was another major mutation.

If you are really old like me you can remember skipping In the playground to :
Sputnik One and Sputnik Two
Both went down with the Asian flu
One went pop and the other went bang
And that was the end of the Russian gang...

Then I caught it and it wasn't much fun.

I don't remember the rhyme, but certain concur that it wasn't much fun!

The Asian flu was 1957-58.

That would have been the earlier flu of the late 50s, I have just realised. Either that or the later sixties version, was no fun at all.

Lol I've just read the article. "Shirley knott" oh ffs DGR. Come on....

yeah, when I picked it up it had been sanitised of the names and source. Hence I couldn't post them. I just left it there to stand ... res ipsa loquitur, eh Boris sorry Cendrillion ?

Worth reminding ourselves (just in case anyone didn't know) that US law doesn't recognise that tricky area "the rest of the world". So when a law is passed it is taken to apply anywhere in the world. Up until now Presidents have been careful not to overstep the mark for obvious reasons. But if they did, there's nothing in US law to stop them. (We already know international law doesn't apply to the US anyway).

The US is more than capable of throwing it's weight around the globe, backed with military might. And of all the countries that don't get to complain, it's fair the UK is at the top of the list. However as a political force towards further integrating the EU, it's hard to imagine a better one. And if the world turns away from the US - where will it turn to ?

The Asian flu was 1957-58.

just post this again ...

....but as we are often reminded often by you , correlation does not equal causation

....but as we are often reminded often by you wink, correlation does not equal causation

And I don't say that now. Not being in possession of the resources to launch solar satellites.

However it is interesting and it suggests that the chatter about VitD could - incredibly - have an explanation or hint at deeper connections.

Bottom line is even if it were to emerge that sunspots did have some effect on human pandemics, it might allow for better planning and response.

Don't forget on another level, sunspots have been linked to climatic shifts.

When we get some serious answers we might begin know whether Johnson's experience will lead to genuine support for the NHS, or whether it's business as usual, privatise by stealth on the American model, when this is over.

It's the hope that kills you. Rest assured it will be business as usual as that is where the big money lies. Particularly as the memory of illness and gratitude fades quickly when it's expedient to do so.