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?

BCF - but we don't really know the mortality rate - the data for UK has been bungled. It is simply not possible to guage the real cost in lives as it is in other countries. It is costly, which is why I was suggesting UBI to ease.

Yes lockdown can't go on forever, but until we have some rather basic questions answered rushing back will only mean we have to lockdown again and again. We don't even know if, once survived, the severity increases upon reinfection (if there is such a thing).

Feedback from the frontline.

The small labs that have progressed with their own testing initiatives have set common operating procedures, so one lab will not be reading the RNA levels as infectious and another not. On top of that they are now bringing in clinicians freed up from clinical trials ( in itself sad ) to replace the scientists with just PRC reading skills to read the results and bring the benefit of clinical knowledge. The problem, as it has been all along, is PHE. They have set up a super lab in Milton Keynes and requisitioned all the most advanced PCR reading equipment from smaller labs, yet it is managing 1500 tests a day when the Crick is doing 500 tests a day for UCLH, and planning to extend to other London hospitals with the inferior equipment it has left and at the same working on a test that will not require specialist skills to read.

Loads of initiatives going on to understand the implications of not just the virus itself but for protocols in eg Cancer care.

And nobody in the vaccine field has ever seen such rapid progress made in developing a vaccine. It is in animal testing already and so much of the work is being done in non commercial institutions that it will be free worldwide.

The Scientists are making heroic progress, just in site of the government not because of it ....

In spite....

It may be country-dependent initially, but if a few countries return and just accept the losses, it will be very difficult for other govts to keep people locked up and the economy bleeding out.

But the glory days of hopping on a plane and going anywhere EasyRyanJet will take you might be gone forever.

I can't see the UK (for example) being happy to let all an sundry in and then quite happily put them up in 14-day isolation at the UK taxpayers expense. And vice-versa.

So how much will the required travel insurance to cover that cost ?

Schools in France are not totally shut. They are open to HCP who have no other solutions and who provide professional certificates. In my town of c20k inhabitants, there is one primary school open receiving primary age children with heads from the town's 3 primary schools going in on rotation running it. Our head is also at DS2's school every day when he's not doing that, providing support to families who cannot print off resources, work online, etc.
But I believe 50% of DS2's class are AWOL. Since 35% of his class are from the traveller community and their attendance is patchy at the best of times, I'm not surprised...

you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-patients-being-moved-to-care-homes-unless-proved-negative-of-covid-19?share=b3d5f7b3-7abe-48fa-b46d-454db68a0ecb&source=rawlink&utm_source=rawlink&share=803a250d-7147-4f5f-a237-206d0c778fd9

Care homes are being asked to take potential and positive covid patients, making vulnerable residents sitting ducks.

I'd love to know what countries afflicted by Malaria and Typhoid and Cholera and all the other tropical diseases
think of the utter panic being caused by a disease with a FRACTION of the fatality rate that they tolerate year in year out

If the western world is going to stay in lockdown for a virus with a fatality rate of under 5%
it needs to get over itself

I'd love to know what countries afflicted by Malaria and Typhoid and Cholera and all the other tropical diseases think of the utter panic being caused by a disease with a FRACTION of the fatality rate that they tolerate year in year out

As part of the building of the Panama canal (a story well worth looking into) they eliminated malaria along the route. In fact the Wiki article on malaria is illustrated with a photo of that effort ...

I answered NO to all of those questions.

Just watching Taking Control and got to the part where Cumming's New Frontiers thinktank (2003) shows his right wing ideology with catchphrases such as "politicians should not be in trusted with things crucial to the nation's future as education and health".

I do wonder if this call for herd immunity, which he was supposed to be behind, is a way to get the public to agree with this. Link to the iplayer show here www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000ggnm/taking-control-the-dominic-cummings-story

I do wonder if this call for herd immunity, which he was supposed to be behind, is a way to get the public to agree with this.

I wonder if we are going to get a story recently that it was a misunderstanding all along, and they were really discussing nerd immunity ? (Presumably from such things as sex and a social life ). Might explain self isolation a lot better.

DG Foreign holidays and business trips should be something to forget about for the next few years.
BUT ...
the entitled mc might rise up in fury and it would also absolutely hammer Southern Europe

• so politics might triumph public health

Emily Do some government bodies and commercial companies have the same policy as BIll Gates in his foundation's efforts to develop a vaccine ?

i.e. Pursue all the promising lines in parallel, to save time,
instead of trying one after the other, which is the normal process and saves money

the entitled mc might rise up in fury and it would also absolutely hammer Southern Europe - so politics might triumph public health

You're seeing a "Dantes Peak" type campaign to discredit the science to ensure the bars and beaches fill up ?

I'd be curious as to how that might (or might not) develop asymmetrically ? Imagine a UK with fuck all border control (like now, really) butting up against a Europe that doesn't fancy the away game of humans v. Covid ?

Similarly, a wide-open US that has to exist in a world where every other country has strict immigration control in order to keep C-19 at bay ?

It was a misunderstanding all along, and they were really discussing nerd immunity?

Or in the case of Cummings & Gonnings, turd immunity.

Apparently France unlike the U.K. adds their care home deaths to their daily death figures. It seems that if the U.K. did, the figures would be significantly higher than France’s. We need parity of figures.

Government has misled public over UK deaths being lower than France.

The global death comparison chart used in the televised briefing on Monday 13 April showed covid-19 fatalities in France were just above 14,000, as compared to the UK total of 11,329 confirmed hospitalised deaths. Chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said the chart only “looks at deaths in hospital”.
But, according to Public Health France, the figure for France included deaths from outside hospitals, such as in care and nursing homes. In fact, on 13 April, there had been a total of 9,588 reported deaths of covid-19 patients in French hospitals, from the total of 14,967 deaths in all settings.
It means the UK is in fact above France’s trajectory of reported covid-19 deaths

www.hsj.co.uk/coronavirus/government-has-misled-public-over-uk-deaths-being-lower-than-france/7027404.article

Comparing deaths with other countries can be very helpful to understand what the differences are, what works, when is the peak likely etc

Public health officials have generally been careful and responsible, doing their best to give a fair picture

However, some politicians and tabloids are treating this like a football league, boasting about their team, misusing statistics to prove they are the greatest,
or alternatively trying to show the manager is an idiot

The middle of a crisis is not the time to arse about like that.

I don't think we'll ever have true stats for death rates. I've heard, anecdotally that local coroners are putting pressure on GPS and other HCPs to record cause of death that isn't Covid.

Interesting posts today. I have some reservation about a vaccine that's ready in less than 18 months to be honest in terms of full testing.

We had to self-isolate before lockdown was declared. I would have taken the kids out anyway by then.

I had assumed that realistically schools wouldn't be back til September given the cancellation of all exams etc.

Do people think they'll be back before then?

It would be easier if I had any confidence whatsoever that the Government are a) Ever telling the truth b) Making decisions based on people's wellbeing rather than their mates (and their companies) bank balances.

Conspiracy or cockup?
The uk published cv19 data (coronavirus.data.gov.uk/) has changed its format - it used to be an arcgis dashboard, now its an extract.
The original version used to have cumulative and daily barcharts of cases and deaths in UK.
The new version has UK totals but the barcharts are now for England only.

For some reason the daily case count now shows quite a pronounced flattening (cumulative) and very much reduced daily total from the peak.

However the headline daily case total published on 14th - for the UK is 5252 yet the England daily total is 104 (both figures are for 13th)

Obvious nonsense - the UK daily case nos for the previous 3 days were 8719,5288 and 4342. The 'new' England chart has these as 3160,2154 and 831

Either they are showing the wrong data or they are putting out 'spun' data to suggest that lockdown is working. (the original charts did indicate lockdown was working - just not as strongly!)

It was on C4 News tonight: GPs are having death certs that state CV19 is a cause of death sent back to be changed.

So having spent all the money saved by ten years of Tory Austerity in a month, someone's going to have to pay it back, and soemthing tells me it won't be Somerset Capital Management and the Russians BJ plays tennis with.

Well Cummings was back at work today - so you can well imagine he doesn't like the story the numbers were telling

There are some astonishing polices by PHE - the most fucked up one is trying to force care homes into taking patients , who they want to discharge from hospitals, obviously too sick to go home, into the care of care homes - without actually establishing that they are covid19 free.

There's the pointy end of a Eugenics policy....

.... and I would love to know if PHE did try and screw Scotland with regards to PPE..... there has been denials - but what's the truth? Any pointers to reliable info sources?