Westministenders: Peak something

[BigChocFrenzy]

Westministenders: Peak something

The story so far

COVID has changed the world for the next few years, like a slowly exploding nuke:

• killed well over 100,000 people
• made many people afraid to leave their home
• caused a Global Depression

Countries locked down because they needed the extra time to

Raise the Line while Flattening the Curve:

1. Flatten the curve of the numbers needing healthcare to a level the system can manage

2. Raise the capacity of their health services and public health systems - their testing and tracking process

Also, scientists desperately needed time to find out more about COVID:
how to avoid it, how to treat it

What happens next ?

Research teams around the world are working to produce a vaccine,
will become hopefully available within the next couple of years

In the meantime, treatment procedures are being developed to better treat COVID sufferers.

Also in the meantime, countries will need to gradually exit lockdown to rescue their economies from complete catastrophe.

Timing & measures for each country will be dependent on:

Death rate after peak,
health service capacity,
testing & tracing capacity etc

....and also what their govt and public deem an "acceptable" level of extra deaths & serious illness.

Possibly some countries will need to cycle in and out of lockdown,
whereas others will be able to accept the death toll with lesser social distancing measures.

The first few countries are already relaxing lockdown,
so the UK will watch, wait and hopefully learn what works and what doesn't

..... then copy these the correct way round

Stay safe, Louise 👍 and everyone else too

Yes strange timings borntobequiet. Robert Carrier was even worse. Elizabeth David was good for ideas but Jane Grigson was much more reliable. 😀

"Margaret Thatcher invented Angel Delight." 🤔
I think we had that in the 1970s at Uni, so well pre-Thatcher

Soya mince in packet meals had that horrible squeekiness against the teeth - remember, anyone ? -
hence only broke / drunk students would ever eat it, not people with normal taste buds
Amazing how soya has improved since

My late parents were both excellent cooks, so I learned to cook when I was wee
An important life skill when poor, so I only had Vesta or Angel Abomination as a guest

30 mins to roast a chicken
😳🤢🤮

Even in the 80s, people used to ask me if I took Garlic Pearls (remember them?) because my mum cooked with garlic she bought in France every summer and drove back to Scotland, along with a lot of red wine, in the boot of our Austin Maxi.

Article in the Guardian with predictions on the future of the airline industry: www.theguardian.com/business/2020/apr/16/small-planes-and-no-business-class-will-flying-ever-be-the-same-again-covid-19

IIRC Mrs. Thatcher worked for Walls ? Lyons Maid ? She was on the team looking at soft scoop.

We have been talking about peak oil (demand) and peak car at work. These are the sort of questions we talk about all the time, because it's at the heart of our jobs, but for the first time in my career you can now suggest that the peak has passed (without looking like a crank).

(NB People used to talk a lot about peak oil but they meant peak oil from a supply perspective, not demand).

She was on the team looking at soft scoop. She should have stuck to it.

People used to talk a lot about peak oil but they meant peak oil from a supply perspective, not demand

Well, I know the Russians didn't in the 80s. They had some ... unique ideas.

My mum was an excellent cook so even in the 60s, we ate well. Having, shall we say, a mixed up heritage (with South African and Danish influences), Mum wasn't afraid of trying different cuisines. And Elizabeth David was an early influence.

And I could never abide Angel Delight

Butterscotch Angel Delight

🤢🤮

DGR, I meant about 10-15 years ago lol ... before shale oil/gas.

miss Climpson 😂😂

Margaret Roberts worked for J Lyons on soft ice cream and on the techniques for turning starch-based foods into powder by removing water. This research eventually led to Instant Whip, and its cheap knock-off Angel Delight.

She applied for a job at ICI in 1949 but was rejected for being "headstrong, obstinate and dangerously self-opinionated."

Butterscotch angel delight - the weird salted caramel of it's time

Am still thinking Universal Basic Credit would solve a lot of the worry around ending lockdown and people not having income.

Re the way forward; ideally a testing strategy that can trace test and do cluster testing, maybe regularly, so that we can see when resurgences are likely and narrow down where the disease is. Testing can be used as prevention to get ahead and lockdown for shorter periods to manage the disease to some extent. Of course we've left it to a stage now where deciding where to start is just as messy as just diving in. We've done this all arse about tit. I was wondering if they might do areas and create a more formal border between care trust lines before lifting lockdown - so no one trust is overwhelmed but people stay within a set area which can then be locked down if cases rise again.

The last three week block finished last Friday. The next three week block has been announced today. Does that mean a sneaky extra week has been built in with the next block finishing with the Friday bank holiday (8th May)? (Personally happy with the extra week not least as shielding ds taken from his last day in school runs to 12th June).

PMK thanks for the new thread BCF

Universal Basic Income, that was meant to be.

I noticed a lot of the comments on the live feed for Raab today were asking about quarantine for incoming flights...so more people becoming aware of the folly of us all sitting at home like good students and thousands roaming about unchecked. Feels like that will be the next "the public have asked for...so here you go!" and then they'll spend on that instead of tests (probably).

There's not much point in expending significant resources quarantining arrivals while you still have widespread community transmission + lockdown.

Quarantining arrivals makes very good sense before you have significant community transmission (or once it's been halted).

Yes Misti I agree, but it is interesting that this is one of the Brexiteers phobias turning against Saint Boris

Lovely flowers today callmehelen.

My Mum was a really good cook so we ate well, but I visited my paternal grandparents in the mid 90s with my partner and my grandma told us she’d got pasta in specially “because I know you youngsters like to eat that sort of thing.” She served it up the next day with pork chops and standard veg completely unadorned/without sauce, clearly swapped out for her usual boiled potatoes.

My mother was not a good cook, so when I comment on the monotony of the food in the 1950s, I don't know how much was governed by there still being rationing, or her dislike of cooking. A bit of both, I imagine, because others did eat more imaginatively. It wasn't until about 1960 that new foods began to grace our tables. Pub food had to wait until the 1970s to begin to improve.

Sending people coming in from other countries
possibly contagious
onto public transport
is unforgivable
but that is the UK plan

My health economist friend thinks lockdown will be going on beyond the next 3 weeks (in response to plans for a social event this time next month - it will need to be online).