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'm evil:

I'd require either a vaccination certificate - or an official medical exemption certificate - before a child can attend school, or attend any regulated childcare

What about the adults who work with them BCF?

Have you:

1. • dreaded the inevitable eventuality that your child/ren's 'schooling' over the next few weeks will largely consist of sitting in front of a screen, starting in a week's time?
2. • despaired at the prospect of juggling your own daytime work with supervising their remote-learning (on top of cooking, cleaning and everything else) for as long as this lasts?
3. • spent numerous minutes/hours on some sort of class parents' WhatsApp group, endlessly and fruitlessly discussing how school fees for the coming term cannot possibly be justified without the children actually going to school?
4. • been through so much stress about your own work already, that the mere though of any of the above adds an infinite amount of further distress?
5. • (if you're a teacher) worried that, despite your best efforts, you are doubling your normal working hours only to engender endless dissatisfaction from all parents who care?

If you answer 'YES' to any of the above, please read the petition, sign (get your OTHER HALF to sign too - it's the number that counts!), and share with ANY OTHER PARENTS/TEACHERS you know. We're less than a week away from the planned return date to weeks of 'remote learning' - and this is our chance to do something collectively to make a real change that will affect each and every one of us in the most direct way.

www.change.org/MoveSummerTermDates

(the calculation of dates is based on independent schools' calendar, but with state schools it would only make a minor difference, and the basic concept remains the same.)

Also I assume the CDC study is based on US and possibly UK figures? I think we need to be cautious about suggesting a rate of infection until we can collate data from all countries rather than countries only testing in hospitals, as clearly those patients are more likely to die. Countries such as UK who only test in hospitals (is US doing it this way too?) don't catch prevalence at all. All you can tell is peak mortality and a general area of where the disease is hitting at any given time (after the point you could actually do with the information to give you a warning of where to put ventilators, for example).

Poulet The SKorean cases are thought to be flareups of an infection that had died down enough to give negative test results

Epidemiologists are debating "airborne vs droplets" to determine whether COVID ight be seasonal
That's not wishful thinking

If there is no immunity, then no vaccine etc, then OK the human race will die out
but I think that is Zombie Apocalypse territory

and anyway it's not something any government or individual can combat,
so the only useful planning is which cockroach you want to inherit your possessions.

piggy Same rule for all staff in schools and childcare

I think I must be very lucky, but I have no intention of sending dd back to school on the govt advice unless I consider it to be at least vaguely sensible her health and mine is more important than "feeling stressed", so no, I don't want to sign a petition to enable the govt to release more chaos and death by lifting the lockdown too soon.

BCF if we're all going to die anyway, then I may selfishly choose to catch it sooner rather than later, while there's a chance someone else is around to alleviate my pain at the end of life.

Is this really what's ahead?

I signed

The question is whether DC will be in more danger in September
WIll numbers start rising again soon after ?

Even if COVID is not seasonal, the body's immune system is generally lower over winter than summer
and hospitals have less spare capacity over winter

Of course, if you plan to homeschool for 18 months or however longer it takes for a vaccine, then school dates are irrelevant for you

The idea of discussing kids going back to school when we have unclear evidence for any of the reasoning doesn't sit well with me at all.

Contender I aim to avoid infection as long as possible,
because massive resources around the world are trying to develop vaccines and also treatments

At the very least, medical capacity is still being increased and processes improved,
knowledge about what treatment is better,
so the later you catch it over the next few years, the better your chances

Even over my lifetime, diseases that were an automatic death sentence are now merely chronic, with a good chance at decades of life, even normal life
e.g. Aids, leukemia

But herd immunity isn't happening - people in Korea being reinfected.

Highlighting serious questions over the validity of any testing regime ... maybe the one thing that could save the UK governments sorry ass over this ...

I'd require either a vaccination certificate - or an official medical exemption certificate - before a child can attend school, or attend any regulated childcare

Which is going to smash head on into the brick wall that is the UKs traditional "light touch" approach to such matters. After all, it's not like we're European (any more) are we ?

Poulet It's a necessity to at least discuss return to school, for those whose parents wish / need this

The economy is bleeding out
It's not "just money"

My late father grew up in the 1920s-1930s Depression, under the most horrendous deprivation that affected his education, later health and career possibilities

OK, good plan BCF.

I don't get a flu vaccine at the moment as an adult who works in a school but happy to be vaccinated up to my eyeballs!

DG My indulgence for fuckwittery ends when it becomes too dangerous for the rest of us

I'm not signing sorry.

Because the idea of the children going back to school should have no relation with the fact parents are struggling to teach or that you have to pay shool fees (which we do pay btw). The only valid reason for children to be back at school is because it is safe for them to do so.
That would also mean that it is safe for everyone to be back at work.

And that's despite the fact I am not convinced the idea of a lockdown is the right way to deal with the epidemy. ala I would massively favour a system like in sweden and iceland with massive testing camaign and proper tracking.

I can appreciate no long lasting vaccine providing long term immunity, but I don't see why one requiring regular boosters wouldn't help. People are recovering and as viruses aren't known for spontaneously killing themselves mid infection one can only assume an immune response is occuring. (Isn't it a cytokine storm causing death in some cases?) So an immune response surely means a vaccine, even if it's short term or provides only a less severe version of covid if infected. Better than nought.

Piggy I'm astonished if you weren't offered it

My various employers in Germany over the years have always provided it free and I work in R&D
They worked out that overall it improves the health of employees and reduces sick absences,
hence pays for itself

I'd have paid for the vaccine if not - it's pretty cheap, maybe subsidised here
Free for me now anyway, as I'm over 60

I genuinely can't see any teachers signing that petition....

Nope, state school teachers don't get flu vaccine. We are the herd in every way.

Re test.
Do you know that we are NOT testing for the virus? What we are doing is a genetic test of the virus, with no agreemnet on what is the tolerance to use. So basically with the same result, one lab/country might say infectious and the other not....
What we dont do is a proper viral test which requires culture on a petri dish. Because its too time consuming.

There are a lot of people actually querying whether the 'test' is a valid one or not.
And this could explain why some people still test positive even though they caught the virus 3+ weeks before and dont display any symptoms anymore. We actually have no idea if they are still infectious or not. Id gather that the same happens with 'reinfection'. Is that true reinfection or something else?

Children would obviously not return to school unless everyone also returns to work

Opening schools is a necessary enabler for this

The economy is bleeding out [] It's not "just money"

"The Economy" like religion is merely a man made construct. And as such can be constructed in pretty much any configuration needed. There is nothing intrinsic in the nature of money that it has to look like it used to ...

The Uni Bonn COVID study of that German town took blood samples from all subjects
Probably because other tests aren't sufficiently reliable for a detailled study
It was very resource-intensive though

There are reportedly a number of different tests used by different countries, some more reliable than others,
but all produce at least some false negatives

That's usual in tests for anything, though

I've read the standard CV test in Germany has about 3% false negatives and that they can't realistically reduce this %

DG Those with the money and power won't let it be reconstructed to support us all staying home for 18 months or 2 years, whatever.
Even the Brexit Magic Money Tree won't do that