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?

So sorry Clash

Clash - I am so sorry for your loss.
A friends daughter is a carer and lost one of her fav clients yesterday- who had been an active spritely 94year old.

2 things I can't get over today with the whole care home situation,
1/ friends daughter has said that she is barred from saying anything negative - has been told she will loose her job. Which she knows that will leave those who rely on her in a more precarious situation.
2/ c4 had a big section on the Care hone crisis - where they showed the government advice on care homes (which I think they changed today?) which said that the virus posed no particular risk to those in care. I mean I am no epidemiologist, but a highly highly contagious virus that is particularly fatal for older groups? The law probably doesn't allow it to be literally criminally negligent- but how could they not see it was going to be a huge issue?

Which comes to a question... why exactly is it that they won't publish who is on cobra? Is it because it's light on scientists and heavy on people like Cummings..... self appointed "visionaries".......

So a lobbyist - someone with no experience of project management- is running the program to ramping up testing...... no wonder we are mikes off

mrslaughlan - yes, what could possibly go wrong?

Riiiiiiight

clash Death is hard.

Dec 31 is now a polite fiction
I'd love to be wrong, but I agree with Peregrina that it's not going to be polite fiction and that they will stick to this date.

It's about ego, lines in sand, and all sorts of manly things (no offence DGR). Or, it might be about the billions to be made from shorting the pound. Or both? Those are both strong incentives and no one in government will personally suffer.

clash
💐

I have just read in the New European that the EU doesn't regard Brexit negotiations as the priority - face to face are out of course, and they are not happy with the security behind on line methods. Their priority is tackling the corona virus. But as far as the Tory Government go it's still full steam ahead with Brexit.

Well, Johnson did say it would be a Titanic success.

ClashCityRocker I'm sorry for your loss 💐
Your aunt has always been a part of your life and you will naturally miss her

The human kindness of carers and NHS staff is sometimes all that makes this whole horror bearable

'Lock her up' protests against Michigan governor

Lock up all Trump's enemies,
i.e. all who won't bow down to him

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/apr/15/coronavirus-us-live-trump-decision-cut-who-funding-sparks-outrage-latest-news-updates?page=with:block-5e9751118f08cf571cdb1af4#block-5e9751118f08cf571cdb1af4

It’s surely no coincidence that Donald Trump has repeatedly attacked Whitmer, a popular Democratic governor,
in recent days as she requested emergency medical supplies for Michigan.

Some of the UK made ventilators are no use, according to those who use them.

the i online

Trump blaming WHO to divert attention from his own series of cockups over COVID

"Look a squirrel !"

A foreign squirrel, even better

clash so sorry to hear your news. Similar story at my F in L's care home - they ensured he was peaceful and not pm his own at the end. They have been locked down 5 weeks but the virus has still swept through, the nurse with him at the end had lost her own Mum to it only a couple of days earlier. Matt Hancock's announcement came about an hour too late for us and now I have to support M in L and DH and DC through this awful arms length grief without any of the normal rituals or extended family physical support. Hopefully we can have a proper memorial at a later date also because my F in L was the nicest man with no edge to him at all and deserves so much better.
Care work staff are heroes and its an absolute scandal what has been allowed to happen in them.

No plans on how to exit lockdown, no-one stepping up in the absence of Johnson and Dorries in stupid tweet shocker.

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/15/uk-government-has-no-exit-plan-for-covid-19-lockdown-say-sources

www.politico.eu/article/will-the-coronavirus-kill-the-brexit-negotiations/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
Will the coronavirus kill the Brexit negotiations?
A negotiating timeframe that was already deemed improbable has turned nearly impossible.

“Let’s be honest: The political leadership is focused on something else now,” one EU official said. “If your house is on fire, that’s your first and sole priority.”

And

Virtual negotiations also have their limits. The first Brexit round in Brussels involved over 200 people. Negotiations were divided into 11 separate meetings based on topics, where negotiators discussed a wide range of issues simultaneously.

And

The lack of physical meetings also has consequences for the intra-European dynamic.

The ability to speak from one script was Brussels’ greatest asset in the first phase of Brexit. It’s why Barnier put a lot of time and energy into personally traveling to EU capitals to make sure everyone remained on board if uncomfortable choices have to be made.

But a leaked letter from the German ambassador to the EU, Michael Clauss, to his political bosses in Berlin lays out how difficult that unity will be to preserve in the coming months. The meetings where EU countries are briefed by the Commission on the talks have been difficult to organize in a secure, virtual manner. And it’s difficult to understand each other’s sensitivities when you’re not in the same room, Clauss said.

And

A delay to the end of the transition would create its own issues. The U.K. would also become a third country when it comes to the next EU long-term budget come January 1, even if an extension is agreed, meaning it would have to negotiate payment and access terms to individual EU programs and schemes.

The two sides are set to hold a high-level conference in June to take stock of progress in the talks. They will have to decide on whether to extend the transition by July 1.

With Johnson being stubborn / out of action and no one else willing to lead in his absence that deadline is going to come around quick and I'm not convinced that we will make it tbh.

A fudge is probably our best option.

I find it interesting that they are finding the limits of virtual working. DH has been aware of it for a long time having worked in It and being no stranger to virtual working. He's always said he get more done and gets to the heart of problems being on site. He sees things and gets feed back he otherwise wouldn't. And more to the point he builds relationships in a different way over a meal or a pint. It's such an overlooked aspect of business meetings. For all the 'we will work from home more and that will reduce international travel' talk, that's the accountants talking not the people who actually do the crucial work.

I don't think this has been posted here yet all opinions are not equal ? It strikes me this is ever so apt considering we have/had an unknown group of scientists advising Bozo over the early stages of the pandemic. It also makes me think of several people on Facebook I'd love to tag...but I digress.

I agree with your DH Red, colocation has been a key component of effective software development teams for some time now, in spite of coding being one of those jobs that can be done remotely from anywhere. It's the "team" aspect that's hard to manage remotely, as trying to balance the face-to-face time you need to build relationships clashes with getting actual work done. A mix of office and remote is best, in my experience.

Very moving video of the funeral procession for the nurse who died, Mrs Murphy worth posting to anyone trying to minimise the effect of not planning for and having PPE.

Yep red Anyone who has worked in a team has long realised the considerable limitations of remote working.

Sure - repetitive tasks, anything requiring only pure information from others without much actual interaction can be 100% remote / WFH
but interactive teamwork or negotiation with stakeholders - which is a hidden part of many projects - requires human presence

I spent years with some projects involving teams in different countries.

The bean-counters always looked at how much cheaper it was to have satellite sites in India, Morocco, Malaysia etc -
but never counted the later costs in project delays, less than optimum end products, misunderstandings, problems missed, last-munite fire-fighting ....

Whatever the theory says, anything much more than just presenting a report needs people in the same room
The human brain does not have the same efficiency in remote working as a mainframe

I agree with your DH about working on site, and how the informal meetings in the bar or over coffees can build relationships and smooth the path so that potential problems don't arise.

And then quite honestly, some business meetings are just a complete waste of time. Full stop.

But there are jobs which are good candidates for being home based, like getting a long report written up, where you need to sit down and concentrate without interruption. In a Brexit context, doing some of the spadework could come into this category. E.g. take fishing,
what is our knowledge of what is caught where, by whom, where is the catch landed and sold, what is the income generated - all tasks which are essentially a matter of looking up the information and probably tabulating it. Then taking this table or list as the basis for talks. Not running around like headless chickens, or making up three word soundbites.

OldMrs I'm sorry for your loss 💐

So much pain and bereavement in every country,
which is why this crisis is so much more difficult, to handle - for both politicians and citizens - than say the 2008 GFC

I note this from the Huff post article about all opinions not being equal:

The idea of anti-intellectualism has been nurtured by the right-wing press to encourage those who identify as the working class to reject those whom they perceive as elitist. Nigel Farage captured this mood perfectly with his Leave campaign for Brexit.

I think it's a bit more complex. We have the concept of "being too clever by half." We also have the idea of the Gifted Amateur running things - hence a PM being a Classicist, advised by a historian, neither of whom seem to have the first clue about what to do in a medical/biological crisis. I do think that Maggie Thatcher would have tackled this much more effectively having once been a scientist.

Then as far as working class people go - our education system has always been elitist - how many perfectly intelligent people were condemned to only an elementary education pre - war, and fobbed off with the Secondary Moderns for 20 - 30 years post war? These people switch off, they are told that education is not for the likes of them. Note how Farage is very careful to parade what he thinks are his Working class credentials - his pints and his fags, and play down his privileged education.

Peregrina I don't disagree. I'm still interested in the idea that opinions can still trump facts in the face of a pandemic though. A lady who dropped out of Uni posted about "Poor Boris" a few days ago with #BeKind. As soon as I said that just because he was sick doesn't mean he shouldn't be held to account she went beserk and launched a ranting personal attack, to which I responded with facts about how unprepared we were, to which she said I was "being patronising" to which I said "I am sorry if you find facts patronising" she then said her opinion was "based on the facts as I see them, Boris couldn't have done a better job"...her #BeKind was all but forgotten as she told me I was "acting like my shit doesn't stink" "ramming my beliefs down her throat when they weren't asked for like a snotty selfish cow" etc. She was really very angry about it but thought her opinion was equal to facts. Obviously I've blocked her now but it bought home how even with a science based problem, people will still do this and it made me realise why she couldn't handle Uni.

And even now the Brits being repatriated from India were asked to make their way home by public transport with no health checks of any kind