Westminstenders: How many Dead Cats Do You Get In A Thunderstorm?

[RedToothBrush]

It never rains. It only pours.

What I wouldn't give for a bit of old fashioned drizzle right now.

4 years on and we are facing a torment of calamities. Brexit, serious political instability in the USA ahead of an election that Trump will refuse to lose even if he does, trade deals with the rest of the world put on 6 week deadlines, anger within the commonwealth, a sick weak dependent PM on the back foot and ill briefed, rampant growing corruption in the Tory party, woke nut jobs out of touch with reality, councils on the brink of bankruptcy and the whole covid-19 crisis.

I know we are supposed to believe this wasn't here until late Jan but we've hardly kept our finger on the pulse here and China haven't been keeping the world abreast of it either.

OK. This annoys me.

Last week research found that they were able to detect covid-19 in sewage in samples taken in Italy in December but not in November or October. To be at detectable levels in December there had to be a certain number of people who had the disease then. It wasn't just one case. So reasonably you are looking at November as the entry point to Italy.

At one of the press conferences they said that for the UK to peak at the levels it did in April, it had to have been in the country 3 to 4 months.

There is an estimate of a date for the UK that I've seen is entry the first week in December (think this might be the WHO estimate).

The research in NYC says they had at least 10,000 cases before the first case was confirmed by a positive test.

I believe other research has found hotspots where it appears the virus has been more widespread than they expected though the UK the number of people who have had it is low overall which has surprised scientists.

I'm not going to talk about dodgy photos of car parks because I thought that was a pretty ridiculous way to try and access when it started.

However the weight of evidence is suggesting the early cases in Italy and the UK are earlier than initially thought, and I'm fully expected that to be the consensus in time, even if we've not had it and we are wrong about our belief. Indeed I've seen NOTHING that says it was significantly later than December and close to the first confirmed imported case on 31st Jan. Everything has said the early part of December is most likely. November is more unlikely but not completely beyond realms of possibility.

Yes the percentage of the population over all who have had it in the UK is small. But somewhere has to be where the virus entered the country. Someone has to be the early cases. Our community is a good candidate for an early entry point. And it's important to work that out, not just from the point of view of covid-19 but for wider understanding of pandemics and how to handle future ones better. It will be fascinating to see what the research eventually comes up with. Time will tell.

Whether friend does get the test his work has said remains to be seen. They won't be doing it for no reason.

Meanwhile, the Mail is reporting that Johnson was at the same Tory fundraising dinner as Jenrick, and has a picture of Johnson and Richard Desmond looking quite chummy.

No wonder Johnson just wants to call the matter closed.

Interesting that Jenrick overruled the local council for a proposed housing and hotel scheme at Sandown Park, lodged by the Jockey Club. The same Jockey Club that has Dido Harding on the board.

Also worth noting that Owen Paterson advised Randox, which has been given a large NHS contract without going through a tendering process.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/11/healthcare-firm-advised-by-owen-paterson-won-133m-coronavirus-testing-contract-unopposed

The same Randox that sponsors the Grand National at Aintree Racecourse, which is owned by the Jockey Club and where Paterson’s wife was Chairman and a Jockey Club steward.

www.bbc.com/sport/amp/horse-racing/53165858

Long time lurker here just popping in to say that the toilets are open during the day in Bournemouth. Doesn't stop people wandering off into the sand dunes with their loo roll over night though. Also some small businesses have opened in a limited way. Ice cream shop was cash only and the guy serving had no sign of any PPE.

Thank you for these long running threads. I come here to know what's really going on 😊

The blame lies at the feet of all who after a period of ' captivity' ( lockdown) decided collectively to mass on beaches and places of beauty to celebrate their freedom. The point I really want to say is that the complete lack of thought and self restraint when in the midst of a pandemic and behaviour of people at Bournemouth in particular was disgusting and the hurt those grieving having lost loved ones to Covid looking on and seeing such behaviour is unimaginable.

Pretty convinced dh brought it back from China at end November...

He came home feeling off - very unlike him! - and por ds1 got really ill. Coughing up blood type ill. Antibiotics didn't help. Ds2 also had a nasty urt illness.

I was fine.

No way we will ever know. I'm pretty sure AB tests will not show anything.

@JeSuisPoulet

I was wondering if the timing was connected with this www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jun/23/uk-to-launch-genetic-study-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-cfs?CMP=share_btn_fb&fbclid=IwAR3t3qF1UtTIZ5WfaWT1f2BTtP6uqSRio0xJeuk8piZrb5MXs_mKMWKihP8 as I suspect we will have an epidemic of chronic fatigue after COVID.

FYI, it's completely unconnected. The ME/CFS study has been in the works for at least 2 years (have seen the lead investigator present on the topic a number of times). What I know of the design I expect will exclude anyone with COVID-related symptoms.

I've never understood people or had little sympathy for those who are disabled or have chronic illness. Disability can happen to anyone, at any time, and besides common human decency, everyone should care how they are treated as they could be one of them tomorrow.

Dbro was in a spinal hospital due to sporting injury. The range of "how did you get here then?" answers was staggering. From drunkenly jumping in a fountain to tripping over a fireplace. Innocuous every day incidents. I wonder how many people now experiencing post viral CFS would have been sympathetic to sufferers previously.

who had not or had

This piece is fascinating and in the context of future localised outbreaks in the UK its slightly scary.

www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-spread.html
How the virus won

HOW THE VIRUS GOT IN
The China travel ban was a partial success: Only a handful of infected travelers from China are estimated to have made it into the country undetected before restrictions were imposed on Feb. 2.But it wasn’t enough.

A vast wave of infected travelers — roughly 1,000, one model suggests — came from other countries in Asia, Europe and the rest of the world in February, each a dangerous spark that could set off a wider outbreak.

Many of those infections died out. But by mid-February, a few caught fire and became outbreaks, spreading invisibly.

And

Researchers with the Seattle Flu Study ignored C.D.C. testing restrictions and uncovered a single case with no travel history in late February. This was the first sign that the outbreak had spun badly out of control.Over the two weeks that followed, people made about 4.3 million trips from the Seattle area.

Thousands were contagious. Genetic samples linked to the Seattle outbreak appeared in at least 14 states, said Trevor Bedford, a professor at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and a leader of the flu study.

Seattle was just the beginning. In New York City, where officials had found only a single case by March 1, roughly 10,000 infections had spread undetected.

New Yorkers and visitors continued to travel out of the city. More than 5,000 contagious travelers left in the first two weeks of March, estimates suggest.

And

By the time President Trump blocked travel from Europe on March 13, the restrictions were essentially pointless.The outbreak had already been spreading widely in most states for weeks.

Definitely worth a read.

PMK

Felicity
Good to hear that BCP sis the right thing and opened the toilets.
They are a pretty dysfunctional council but that was good move.

did not sis

The Economist had a summary article on Britain's Covid response that some might like to read. Among other things it suggests centralisation and lack of local, or other, flexibility contributed to the testing failure. I like it when people in higher places agree with me . That NY article isn't loading easily, but RTB quotes a bit about some researchers ignoring restrictions, by contrast.
www.economist.com/britain/2020/06/19/the-british-state-shows-how-not-to-respond-to-a-pandemic

PS, £900,000 excellently spent IMHO

So the paint job was already commissioned and underway before Johnson bothered to tell anyone? Because you don't do a paint job like that in an afternoon.

How stupid - it makes the plane a target for any terrorist group who see it flying overhead.

Has this been posted? A possible (surely certain) outbreak started by a businessman who returned from Wuhan on 16/17 December www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/health-52589449

Thanks MShip, I wondered if you knew. How could the study protect against people who have post COVID symptoms of chronic fatigue and others though? Maybe an antibody test? Especially hard given so many were not given a test if they had symptoms months ago?

I do think it is a timely piece of research and was needed well before the pandemic. Leaving those in pain/with chronic fatigue to manage it with meds rather than unravelling the source to help prevention has always been shortsighted.

A leaver friend popped up and started messaging yesterday, saying I had "been quiet" and he was surprised I hadn't posted about Duffield breaking lockdown. I commented she had resigned the Whip and apologised which was far more than the man making the rules who made a mockery of them had done. There's definitely some twitching going on there. Too many news stories not defending the dream?

Also dd's school has now rescinded the offer to have all kids in for a week on rota. Seems some R and Y1 parents wouldn't or couldn't comply. Frustrating as I had been so clear with dd she wouldn't be able to go back until at least Sept but had to ask her if she wanted to go. It's left her far more wistful for school than she was before.

On the testing debacle I was interested to see that Southampton University who were one of the later ones to join the small local labs testing initiative are now getting government funding. Are the government quietly coming round to the good sense of using local resources? Having said that they still voted against weekly testing for NHS workers which could be enabled by more of these local lab initiatives, so they are still blundering on like a ship without a rudder.

I read an article by an Oxford don lamenting that they had been late to join in and their labs had sat useless for weeks - perhaps time to understand why their culture was different to that in London and Cambridge 😏

Anyone doubting that Covid was being transmitted out of China in December is also ignoring the fact that Taiwan responded to cases being transmitted from Wuhan in December. As a result of SARS they were very alert to the possibility of a pandemic originating from China and they were already quietly starting to do health checks on passengers on planes from Wuhan from mid December. As soon as WHO made the alert on 31 December they swung their entire pandemic control plan into action on a scale that suggests they had been gearing up for some time. A model that other countries did well to follow. This was almost two weeks before Xi started to prioritise a National Covid response over his wrangling with Trump, until that point it had stayed as a local Wuhan issue and they had limited powers beyond shutting the wet market down and cleaning it up ( removing important epidemiological evidence) . Whilst that local complacency persisted it was clearly spreading out of China worldwide. jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762689

Emily I agree. It's an odd thing but people/the media seem to think it "radiated" from China in some sort of Mexican wave along countries that are next to each other. This completely ignores the fact people jump on a plan and are in another continent in hours.

*Plane obviously!
Secret Barrister doing some good threads on the slight of hand with pubs opening masking the dissolution of legal right to a jury trial www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10158331299823334&set=pcb.10158331302513334&type=3&theater

Pepperwort
I get the Economist and New Scientist and Private Eye
all three of them agree that the over centralisation and appalling decision making have been the UKs problem
on Covid
on Brexit
on Climate Change
on Austerity

On the £900k BJ blowjob vanity project, dh was showing me video that shows that one side of the Union flag tail fin has had it effectively painted upside down

Do you think that someone was deliberately wanting to send a message that the UK was in distress?

Good morning. May I say, I'm very impressed by all the veg-growing on this thread. (I have 2 tiny tomatoes growing on my 3 tomato plants. 😃)

I swing from depression to fury at the news. Crowds on beaches slammed, despite the footage being of people mostly social- distancing as far as I can see, no comment on the fact of KS and RLB walking along the pavement relatively close together, and, most annoyingly to me, football celebrations praised by Merseyside (?) council as being mostly in line with government guidance. Admittedly followed in the report I saw, by a sentence on the vast fortune spent by the club, presumably leaving viewers to judge the significance of that. Why should footballers be allowed to throw themselves on top of each other anyway? FWIW, I consider the cult of modern football to encapsulate everything that's wrong with society. Depraved, debauched, done to excess, corrupt at its highest level, dominated by men, BAME underrepresented at management level, completely indulged by the 'establishment'. It seems to me to be bereft of any values or principles. We see cheating, bitter complaining from club managers about decisions, disgraceful behaviour of fans, everything shoved out of its way to let the football juggernaut crush any last vestiges of moderate, considerate, respectful behaviour. IMO, it's the ugly game.

Back to my main point, why can't councils be more active in trying to help people enjoy our lovely natural resources in a safer, more organised way? It seems to me, the whole British establishment reaction to the pandemic has been one of defeatism. Apparently everything has either been too difficult to do, or too difficult to do well or in a timely way. Why not allocate dates for people to be allowed to enjoy beauty spots instead of saying use your common sense or we'll close beaches? Have times or days when only vulnerable groups are allowed to safely enjoys parks, beaches, gardens etc. Employ people to attempt to administer schemes. Why not insist that shops extend their opening hours instead of reducing them? It's so frustrating to think that for want of measures like those people like Sostenuto's GD are stuck inside for even longer and before too long probably everybody will either be in another lockdown or forced for lack of financial support to risk their health to earn a living.

I'd have been fine with a more authoritarian approach to allow for a shorter sharper, and therefore more effective lockdown once all genuinely 'herculean', efforts to test and trace weren't managing to reduce numbers of infections. Like most of you, I'm absolutely not fine with legislation that allows the government to do a power grab though.

www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/boris-johnson-seeks-alternative-to-galileo-project-1-6717792