Westminstenders: Following the EU lead

[RedToothBrush]

Coronavirus poses a particularly Irish shaped question. How the UK responds to Irish plans for ending lockdown and whether Arlene continues to back an all Ireland plan will be fascinating to watch and see justified regardless of which way we go.

The UK for all its new found independence is looking very closely to the success / failure of EU strategies before making our own plan public. Mainly because we've yet to write one.

Johnson hasn't led much. He's delegated. Yet he gets all the praise for doing the sum total of fuck all and never being the bad guy. There always another fall guy to blame.

Economically we are stuffed and promises of a very quick bounce back don't look likely based on public confidence and willingness to return to places like pubs restaurants and shops.

Our ability to adapt to new conditions at short notice has been tested and businesses can not afford to do this again soon.

This is the background to which we go into talks. Both sides need an extension to serve their best interests. Johnson is determined to cut our nose of to spite our face for the sake of his legacy and to keep those paying the back handers and dodging tax happy.

DGR - more likely the bike lanes...

Bozo didn't believe it was a problem until mid March then. He could have been keeping an eye on what was happening in China - they had locked down six weeks before.

JeSuisPoulet
So, to re-phrase and out of curiosity, why do you think we have the highest mortality rate from COVID in the EU?

I'm going to reserve judgment on that when all the evidence is in.

Those 130 flu deaths in Germany haven't caused any public concern, because flu is a known risk and there are treatments

whereas there are no drugs for COVID, the deaths are much much higher
and 18% of cases are hospitalised, 2% in ICU

Without knowing how many incomers were involved I can't really answer that question.

Of course you can't or won't. I travelled from a place which normally had twenty flights a week. We were on the first flight out that week; eventually there were three flights that week. You can start to make an estimate - by then British Airways said that 90% of their fleet had been grounded. You can work out an approximation of what that meant in passenger numbers.

Britons will suffer health problems from Covid-19 for years, warn doctors

The same will hold for all countries with a high number of COVID cases

• it's about far more than the 1% or so who actually die

The human cost - and economic cost - of longterm ailments and long recovery periods

Some of those - often young or middle-aged - who had "moderate" / severe COVID will suffer longterm:

PTSD, lung problems, blood clots, inflammation - possibly brain too ....

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/02/coronavirus-britons-health-problems-covid-19

Gosh, well I guess it is a good think you aren't in any kind of role where damage limitation is required. You'd apparently still be there with your whole body on fire ignoring the evidence that your hand in the flame might be causing it.

The figures on Worldometer of course are still showing Belgium, Spain and Italy as having more deaths per 1M people than the UK.

Those 130 flu deaths in Germany haven't caused any public concern, because flu is a known risk and there are treatments

Germany are not up to date with their stats;

"30 Sept 2019 Report on the Epidemiology of Influenza in Germany 2018/2019"

"For the 2018/19 season, no estimate of excess-mortality could be made, as the necessary data of the Federal Statistical Office are published with a time delay. However, the estimate for the 2017/18 season (still lacking in the last annual report) has been supplemented: approximately 25,000 influenza-related deaths exemplify–together with other parameters–the extraordinary severity of the flu epidemic 2017/18."

www.rki.de/EN/Content/infections/epidemiology/inf_dis_Germany/influenza/summary_2018-19.html

Signing off now anyway.

Clavinova
Without knowing how many incomers were involved I can't really answer that question.

Why? How many would be OK if they weren't quarantined?
How many would be risky?

The major difference between flu and coronavirus, is that we understand flu and can predict what happens when there is a positive case in the community.

Just getting back to basics here.

Flu is a known risk with known treatments - and a far far lower risk of death or serious longterm illness

So even in a bad year, whether Uk or Germany, there are a couple of headlines, but almost noone actually worries about it

People do worry about COVID
Including governments - which is why so many countris in the world shut down

Having a bad flu epidemic won't distract people from COVID

"Germany are not up to date with their stats;"

@Clavinova That is the difference between "estimates" and recorded deaths

Very few deaths are actually recorded as flu

• that's not just in Germany, but in the Uk, USA etc too

They are actually estimated from the recorded deaths and the total deaths

I learned this by accident when reading criticism about how the CDC do this

Hence there were 130 deaths actually recorded so far in Germany,
but later in the year the RKI will estimate what the total is, which will be in the tens of thousands

That's because some deaths will be partly due to other causes, same as for COVID

This isn't the original paper I read disputing the CDC flu figures

• it's the CDC themselves explaining their mathematical model

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/how-cdc-estimates.htm

CDC uses a mathematical model to estimate the numbers of influenza illnesses, medical visits, hospitalizations, and deaths in the United States, (1-4) as well as, the impact of influenza vaccination on these numbers.
The methods used to calculate the burden of influenza have been described previously (1-2).

More recently, the same model was adopted to estimate influenza-associated deaths in the United States.

This methodology has been used to retroactively calculate influenza burden, including deaths, going back to 2010.

Mrslaughan made this point: The Deaths in care homes - was made so much worse, by PHE policy of discharging untested elderly, who had Covid symptoms into care homes . Yet we knew what had happened in Italy and Spain. Infact in complete contradiction of the government policy of shielding over 70's

The Government's guidance on discharging patients from hospital has still not been substantively updated, and is more or less as it stood on 19 March 2020: www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-hospital-discharge-service-requirements#history

It's been over 2 weeks since the update which provided that it was "being reviewed following publication of the COVID-19 adult social care action plan" - given the lag in attention being paid to the issues of testing, PPE, isolation issues and deaths in care homes this is very concerning.

Incidentally, just wanted to pick up on Clavinova's point about the Dutch Prime Minister - I may be in a minority, but I see a big difference between a PM stating that he was still shaking hands, including with people in hospitals against expert advice, and one who was advising people not to shake hands, and then apologised for bodging his own advice:
news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-boris-johnson-was-shaking-hands-as-some-scientists-were-calling-for-it-to-stop-11983606

Yep, the Dutch PM was on the news here at the time and we all had a giggle saying people were bound to forget,
including some politicians

You're not in a minority Arborea - only the most cloth-eared or blinkered or both would not be able to see and acknowledge the difference

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/09/two-week-coronavirus-quarantine-to-be-announced-for-uk-arrivals

Be interesting to see if this strategy is indeed announced on Sunday, but I'm guessing even if it is, they'll be no monitoring or enforcement.

Video of CMO Interview in 2016

https://twitter.com/harrytlambert/status/1258811416544509952

Harry Lambert@harrytlambert (new Statesman)

New: Footage of Sally Davies, then Chief Medical Officer, reporting on Exercise Cygnus in Nov 2016.^

"We've just had in the UK a three-day exercise on a pandemic that killed a lot of people…
and it became absolutely clear that…
we could not cope with the excess bodies." 1/3

…as we reported on Mar 16. But note that Davies then says:

A severe pandemic "will stretch everyone, it becomes very worrying about the deaths…

and then what that will do to society, as you start to get all of those deaths…
and then the economic impact." 2/3

…"as you start to get all those deaths."

This is not the language of suppression.
This is mitigation.

Cygnus tested for 200-400K deaths.
That was thought plausible.

The UK overturned years of Whitehall planning when it locked down on 23 Mar.

(See: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2020/03/why-weren-t-we-ready …) 3/3

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/08/revealed-uk-scientists-fury-over-attempt-to-censor-covid-19-advice

Government scientific advisers are furious at what they see as an attempt to censor their advice on government proposals during the Covid-19 lockdown by heavily redacting an official report before it was released to the public

Still here - still trying to keep space with the most insightful news analysis there is.

You have all probably seen this but the FT 'all cause' death stats were interesting.

www.ft.com/content/a26fbf7e-48f8-11ea-aeb3-955839e06441

apace not space!

DrBlackbird that’s interesting about quarantining arrivals. But ‘door/horse/bolted’ springs to mind.

I don’t understand why the U.K. hasn’t done this before.

UK only country in world not doing airport health checks or closing border

metro.co.uk/2020/05/07/uk-jordan-are-countries-world-not-health-checks-airports-12669125/