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?

Thank you for the post Squid - I still think no one would call anyone risking their lives for others (regardless of the fact you have PPE) a fraud.

What I am a little concerned about is how, if people die at home with COVID and are not tested, relatives etc know not to go to the funeral? Surely this will just be another source of infection due to lack of testing?

relatives etc know not to go to the funeral
ALL funerals are restricted to 10 people
including that of a friend who died in his 40's on the first day of lockdown from entirely unrelated illness

Squid We appreciate your service 💐

Yes, I know there are restrictions, but if the person was tested for and had COVID no one is allowed. Seeing as so many die out of hospital and before testing, this should surely be a concern?

Poulet
How are people still contagious when they are in a coffin ?
Undertakers will be at risk but attendees at a funeral should be fine ?

Thanks squid for your post. DH and several of my best friends are doctors, it’s shit basically. Shit with scant kit.

Listening I presume there is a reason or else the COVID victims' families would be allowed to be at their funerals. I suspect it may be to do with risk of infection from friends/family if the person did in fact have it?

Poulet
I can see nothing in the UK stopping Covid victims having funerals with family present ....

It might be about the ban on mixing households ?

Even if legal, some funeral directors may not wish to take the increased risk of infection themselves,
as it's their daily work,
not a one-off as for the family

squid thank you for all that you do.

Squid, you're absolutely not a fraud, but I can see why getting stuff from M&S now seems illogical when you work in such challenging conditions all the time to save lives and no one acknowledges it.

Is there any discussion in the UK media/by politicians about the collateral damage caused to those who have heart attacks/strokes/ are suffering from other illnesses and who are scared to go to hospital? Yesterday I heard a French doctor on the radio urging people to see their usual doctors, saying they are v careful to keep patients separate and that people with chronic conditions need ongoing care. I've seen posters in the chemists saying they give repeat prescriptions beyond the usual cutoff date. And Macron stressed today that people who need healthcare for other reasons must be able to carry on with their ongoing consultations.

A plan to buy thousands of medical ventilators from a group including the Renault and Red Bull Formula One teams has been cancelled amid signs that symptoms specific to Covid-19 could make building new devices more difficult than hoped.

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/13/uk-scraps-plans-to-buy-thousands-of-bluesky-ventilators-coronavirus

I know in Scotland, they have been emphasising at the daily press conference that only immediate - and they mean immediate - family can attend funerals. So mother, father, daughter, son, husband or wife. But definitely not cousins or friends. They were making the point today that people shouldn't delay funerals in the hope that lockdown would be over "soon" so that more people can attend as otherwise a massive backlog would result.

It's probably not helped that in Scotland, we're used to having funerals pretty soon after death (there seems to be none of the difficulty getting slots at crematoria that I read about in here/FB) which ironically would cause even more of a problem if people tried to put them off till "later".

If France isn't ending lockdown until May 11th and we are behind France, that makes it very difficult politically for the UK to go with the Hawks plan of the first May Bank Holiday. That means the second bank holiday in May is much more realistic. I am relieved at this, but I'm still terrified. Personally I don't want DS to go back to school until September now. He's 5 he doesn't need to be there and the thought of it leaves me feeling sick.

I can empathise with your fear. At least it's pretty certain that Scottish schools almost definitely won't be going back this (academic) year, which was the expectation that Nicola set right at the start, as we usually break up late June anyway, so there would be littler pint I'm going back for such a short period.

We start back in mid to late August (mid August in Glasgow).

Ds tells me that Aberdeen Uni is going to start 2 weeks later than usual next semester - not sure if that is official yet. He says it's to allow time to develop systems for on-line classes if required. He's worried that the financial impact on the Uni is going to result in reduced options in his course.

squid

There have been urgings here in Ireland from the health service and government to attend medical services if you need to. The amount of heart attacks and strokes has fallen dramatically which means people just aren't going to A&E when they need to.

I don't understand how the death of 900 Italians was more tragic than 900 British people either. They look equally tragic from where I'm standing. In many ways I find the UK even more upsetting because it may have been possible to avoid so many deaths. More for you. I'm glad you've got PPE.

An elderly relative of mine has a chronic condition that has worsened quickly in the last few days. The consensus seems to be that s
he won't recieve treatment even if he sees his GP so there is no point in trying to access a doctor. I'm not sufficiently close (next of kin type etc) to the relative to be able to intervene. The poeple in charge of his care seem to have accepted that there is nothing to be done for him, even though without covid he most definitely would have accessed help by now. How many millions of these will there be 😢

Cynics may observe the stacks of unsold easter eggs piled to the roof in supermarkets and draw their own conculsions.

Meanwhile, Day Ten in the Big Labour House and all hell is breaking loose.

We probably need to get out of the old mindset about the school year,
adapt the school term timing - and adapt when businesses can resume - to the COVID schedule,
to reduce danger:

COVID is expected to behave like other Coronaviruses, so that cases will disappear to near-zero during summer,
then build up in colder weather to a high level again over the winter months.

So, a new summer term would be safest for children - and for working parents to return -
and then have a very long winter "holiday" and restrictions

Returning in September would be returning as cases will probably start to build again

Why am I not surprised about the Ventilators by various Government chums not being ready?

Why am I not surprised that the Oxfordshire firm Penlon which has been making that sort of equipment for more than 50 years, can produce the goods? Why did the Government not ask them back in December what it would take to ramp up production?

BTW I have no idea how the Directors of the firm vote, or even if it's still owned by local people as it was 50 years ago. I just know that it makes sense to tap into the expertise of specialists in the field. But then, we'd had enough of experts, hadn't we?

Cynics may observe the stacks of unsold easter eggs piled to the roof in supermarkets and draw their own conculsions.

I did think draw some, but then, rather than being chucked out, they might as well be distributed.

Govt also needs to change the law to make school attendance voluntary, up to age 11 say,

Schools need to reopen asap to get the economy going,
but many small children especially don't need to attend school if they have an SAHP

Parents should be allowed to choose, until there is a vaccine

oh, I should be more exact:
SARS-CoV-2 is the name of the actual virus, which will hopefully fuck off like other Coronaviruses^, for the powerful sunshine of the summer months

If not, then Goodnight Vienna

because no country will have an economy left if we lock down 18 months
So it'd be back to work & school anyway and a smaller herd afterwards

You are not a fraud for having a life which has normal stuff in it as well as the extreme stuff.

My son had an Easter egg because I bought it him before lockdown. Otherwise I would not have bothered.

At the end if the day supermarkets have t shift that stock. It will cost to have it binned. They might as well use NHS staff and the vulnerable for a good pr stunt if they are making a loss on eggs anyway.

Yes you aren't a fraud. You are being used for PR and marketing.

@squid4, I think your analysis is spot on and I fully agree with you.

All the worries you are mentioning have been with me for a few weeks now and one reason why I am questioning the lockdown. Because it IS causing people to die unnecessarily from other causes. And there will be more (think people not accessing cancer treatment because they won’t want to bother the GP etc....)

And YY about the fact the measures from the government are helping only a few. But they are helping very big businesses who have received help (but the government is refusing to say WHI they have helped and give a lost . As a guess, they are all tory donors?).
The lack of help is particularly obvious with SE and company directors. I think it is basically there to ensure that people won’t starve in those 3 months.