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?

Bozo is out of intensive care and on a ward now www.theguardian.com/global/2020/apr/09/boris-johnson-moved-from-intensive-care-but-stays-in-hospital - how does one put a PM on a ward, I wonder? Do all of the other patients have to be security checked? Or is he really taking up a private room?

PMK and thanks BCF

I don't begrudge the PM a private room if medically feasible - but he probably needs too much equipment still for that

Obviously he needs security, which could be a nightmare on an open ward
More likely he is in a separate bay on a ward, for this reason

Really is a PITA for a hospital to have to deal with him being ill, isn't it. If only he had been more careful and less "take it on the chin!".

I've wandered onto silly threads again, going to get hammered by a load of people wondering why people might not appreciate BBQ's while there's a coronovirus pandemic - obviously some of us are just killjoys.

More clues that the data is wrong

Je Suis - I read that article - horrifying.... that's just care homes.

I was thinking about BJ being moved out of ICU, I would think any patient as soon as they are alert enough (which I think suggest he was much sicker than they let on) the would move them. ICU is a pretty distressing place at the best of time, but when it is full of people in respiratory distress..... well I think it would be pretty harrowing. (And not at all restful)

PMK

Sounds like Germany does include care home deaths in the total, judging by several TV reports.

A lot more v elderly dying now, which has been increasing the new deaths
CV has ripped through several care homes here, despite quarantines

e.g. in a German home or elderly care 3 more people counted as COVID deaths:
aged 82, 88 and 104, all with multiple comorbidities

Germany includes all deaths "with" COVID as being "from" COVID

EU finance minsters agree Covid-19 rescue deal

This is for Eurozone only, no UK contribution or benefit

https://www.rte.ie/news/europe/2020/0409/1129708-covid-19-plan/

European Union finance ministers have reached a deal on a rescue package for Europe, RTÉ News understands.

The plan will amount to up to half a trillion euro, a blend of low cost loans and credit lines,
according to sources.

.....
The plan utilises the EU's main bailout fund,
the European Stability Mechanism (ESM),
the European Investment Bank (EIB)
and loans from the European Commission.

A further so-called "recovery fund" will be agreed later by EU leaders.

Tony Connellyy@tconnellyRTE*

Figures on Eurozone breakthrough:

€240 bn for ESM enhanced conditions credit lines;
€100 bn for SURE work subsidy plan;
€25 bn for EIB cheap loans for corporate sector, leveraged up to €200 bn

pmk

BCF I imagine social care in Germany is also far better? The lack of it here has had reports that people are being pushed into Care Homes here despite them already having COVID symptoms but not being ill enough for hospital - or the hospitals not having spaces. www.nursingtimes.net/news/older-people/already-stretched-care-homes-must-prepare-to-go-beyond-for-covid-19-19-03-2020/. My friend works for the council and inspects care homes. She has been openly begging on FB for PPE from mechanics/beauty therapists etc, as they are being overlooked in favour of hospitals for donations.

poulet I'm sure they'd avoid sending a very frail elderly person to hospital or putting them on a ventilator if it would be too distressing or pointless

However, the care system for the elderly is good and
the health service model here is to treat everyone to the maximum, without rationing because of age etc

That still holds for CV, so people are taken to hospital as soon as treatment would help.

Coronavirus health teams regularly visit cases at home to check progress.
Other teams just phone the mild cases who are coping well at home.

Home visits don't happen here at all atm (even when you had a baby 3 weeks ago and need the final MW checks to have them signed off ) and I don't think (could be wrong!) we have anything like a Coronovirus health team. Just people dying at home, sometimes alone, and their death being attributed to something else .

I had 3 home visits from an orthopaedic doctor when I tore my ankle ligaments

• but at that time I did live on a 1st floor flat with no lift and he said I mustn't put my foot to the ground for 2 weeks

Going back to the first page of this thread and exercise Cygnus. I find that truly horrifying. It is the same government. Boris Johnson may like to pretend that it is a different one, but it's not. It was carried out in 2016. They knew. How many in the current government were in the cabinet then: Johnson and Gove t least off the top of my head.

They knew what the consequences would be of a pandemic on the country and the NHS.

I get sort of get why they didn't act on the findings. They are tories and spending money on long-term plans of no benefit to themselves is just not in their DNA. (MN exclaimer: I don't agree with the lack of action myself, but understand the reason for it.)

BUT! When they learnt of the existence of COVID-19 from China and then how it was overwhelming some european countries and going for a "take on the chin" approach is shocking. So shocking and inexcusable.

They seem to allowing it to wash through the country and relying on social pressure to dilute its effect or just using the public as a scapegoat. Was this their plan along? It was just too expensive and too much like hard work to address it properly.

Also they have somehow trained the public to assume that things like this inevitable and to hold the government to account seems too political or distasteful. I mean large social or societal upheaval like the GFC/austerity or brexit.

Reading another thread it occurred to me obviously the UK government's measures are lacking in most respects. I think closing down all international travel, restricting internal travel and forcing the closure of holiday parks and hotels for non-essential travel would be sensible measures.

Johnson's policy seemed to be throw money at the problems created, but do very little other than give "guidance" to the public. Although closing pubs and restaurants was one concrete action.

Raab is in charge now. What is the likelihood of Raab introducing stricter measures that would affect trade and the economy? Measures other than just telling the public to stay in and then giving them a fine if they don't?

What will be the effect of Johnson clearly selecting government ministers for compliance than ability? And his tendency to remove competent or free-thinking minsters? What is the chance of Raab or even the cabinet collectively doing anything that may deviate from what seems to be the designated path?

Thanks for the new thread, RTB
Gowns for medics to run out at the weekend.
www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/09/lack-of-surgical-gowns-for-medics-a-disaster-in-waiting-say-nhs-bosses-coronavirus

“There are no immediate stocks of gowns due in the national supply chain over the next few days and we are unsighted on when further deliveries will be made.”

We are unsighted: interesting euphemism.

Auld after identifying some ladies in a local village who wanted to make masks I posted this for them, maybe we could all share it to people we think might be interested in sewing and donating scrubs? There's another link going around I will try to find..
scrubhub.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/SCRUBHUBUKvolunteer-02-724x1024.jpg?fbclid=IwAR1j-wF8zCSahBbyzbQSD8rDP7GJ4PDBcT515u801f1biFssM384unErx4M

Good idea, jesuispoulet

There is a big problem with not tactfully and thoughtfully sharing some kind of vision of what lockdown (might) looks like with the wider public.

I live on an estate who seem desperate to party (disco on a driveway last night) and have a friend who also thinks the end of lockdown will mean a big party in her back garden. Some people on my estate are already trying to arrange big street parties. I am sure it won't happen for mainly apathy reasons but it does indicate that people really don't get a) the long haul and b) what coming out of lockdown means.

not that the builders opposite me have ever had a lockdown

PMK with a WFH cat.

The Marseille Bar (legal, not boozy) are suing the French state for not providing PPE for legal workers (lawyers, clerks, judges) who come into close contact with prisoners and other people they have to represent.
They are asking for masks, gloves, gowns and sanitiser gel to be provided, with a penalty of 1500e per 48hr period in which that is not carried out. Ruling on Tues.
Paris has followed suit.
(Sorry, hasty translation...)

I think closing down all international travel, restricting internal travel and forcing the closure of holiday parks and hotels for non-essential travel would be sensible measures.

Johnson's policy seemed to be throw money at the problems created, but do very little other than give "guidance" to the public.

It's only half a story. We got locked down in France. It was very worrying to be told by whoever, Hancock, Raab, to try to come home immediately, when your flight had just been cancelled. There was no follow up - "Come home immediately and for those who are stuck, we will organise repatriation flights." Not wait until the public outcry shamed them into it.

Then at Heathrow - no temperature checks, no attempt to quarantine people from affected countries, a bit of advice given out on the plane.

We have laws poorly drafted without scrutiny, left to individual police forces to try to interpret them as best they can, and the criticism of the general public not obeying the lock down rules, when in many cases, we don't know exactly what we can and can't do.

The Royals and other wealthy people, setting a bad example by immediately clearing off to their second homes, in parts of the country not well provided for any way with health care facilities.

The above angers me, the Saint Boris fans on other threads anger me.

PMK. Thanks BCF

There seems to be a lot of talk right about how to come out of lockdown. (R4 now, for example.)

I’d have thought we still have weeks to go...