Coronavirus

[Parkins left foot]

Genuine question big man. If you or one of your family gets ill, where do you go?

I mean it's not next door but I could get whisked to New Cross fairly swiftly. You seem to have nowt.

Not the only area that that would be an issue - nearest 'proper' hospital to me is Yeovil which is 17 miles away

 

[Johnny75]

Our ‘local’ hospital has to do this: https://www.scrubsforstoke.co.uk/ and people genuinely think the government is doing the best it could?

I say ‘local’ but its flipping miles away, our actual local hospital isn’t allowed to actually be a hospital anymore and is a pseudo old people’s home.

Stafford?

That's plenty busy, I had an elective surgery there 3 weeks ago. It's an excellent hospital now they've binned the A&E off.

Sad on the scrubs issue, particularly as there's 2 companies in Leek and two in Wolverhampton that could provide scrubs.

 

[pr0sl0]

Also - on the point of "everyone's been caught off guard with this":

A) Unsurprisingly, the countries which have responded fastest and managed to nip it in the bud (well... to varying degrees of whatever you want to define as "success" - looking at you, China) are those which have had recent prior experience with localised pandemics like SARS, and which built up both infrastructure to respond to future diseases as well as developed a popular cultural understanding of the kinds of behaviours required to help slow the spread. Or, if you're Germany, you actually built up the infrastructure in advance, in response to years of warnings from public health experts. Most countries are terrible at long-term risk mitigation, but it's not actually that hard to do - and it certainly doesn't let any individual country off the hook just because they're one of many, either.

B) This is kind of exactly why scientists and environmentalists have been screaming so loudly about climate change since the 80s. Even bigger problem, just as inevitable, and still barely anything's been done about it at the scale required to truly mitigate it because the measures required would feel a lot like what we're going through now in terms of disruption. Like quarantining cities, or entire countries, if it works, it'll feel like overkill - and you'll get hate for it from the public. I mentioned Tamiflu in an earlier comment, because the amount "wasted" on it by governments worried about bird flu is an apposite example here. In that case, several governments did scramble to get ahead of a possible pandemic... except it fizzled out, and the hundreds of millions spent on buying up stockpiles (only a couple of years before the financial crisis) did seem to make some governments and experts warier of being quite so proactive as a result. Damned if you do, damned if you don't, to an extent.

 

[Tredman]

Stafford?

That's plenty busy, I had an elective surgery there 3 weeks ago. It's an excellent hospital now they've binned the A&E off.

Sad on the scrubs issue, particularly as there's 2 companies in Leek and two in Wolverhampton that could provide scrubs.

You aren’t exactly young

If place of death were recorded as M6 since they closed the A&E it would be by far and away the winner for Staffordians.

 

[Rui_CostCo]

It was wrong to play against Atlético, says Liverpool's public health director

“People don’t make bad decisions on purpose – perhaps the seriousness of the situation wasn’t being understood across government at that time."

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/apr/02/wrong-to-play-liverpool-v-atletico-says-citys-public-health-director-matthew-ashton

 

[AndyWolves]

It was wrong to play against Atlético, says Liverpool's public health director

“People don’t make bad decisions on purpose – perhaps the seriousness of the situation wasn’t being understood across government at that time."

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/apr/02/wrong-to-play-liverpool-v-atletico-says-citys-public-health-director-matthew-ashton

It wasnt understood by anyone, except maybe Nuno

 

[Johnny75]

This isn't the case though. The UK was an outlier at the time, it attracted significant criticism - both from experts in other countries, and from experts based in the UK - and the mistake was so bad that the government has repeatedly tried not just to downplay the U-turn but actively pretend that it wasn't even the strategy in the first place. Going by the current rates of deaths and cases, it's already looking like a significant number of people are going to die or be left seriously ill unnecessarily.

Why it was the initial plan is still unclear. I don't buy that it's all down to some single bad actor (aka the "Dominic Cummings/Boris Johnson wants poor people to die" theory) - sure, it could be some evil plot to unleash an illness that's particularly dangerous for the core Conservative voter (genius?!), but more likely is it's some combination of bad advice and bad response to that advice. We likely won't know until this whole crisis is behind us, but unfortunately until then we're stuck with what we've got.

So what about Italy, Spain, France, The Netherlands and Belgium, why were they unprepared?

Why are Sweden still not enforcing school closures? It isn't like the UK government have gone out on a limb against everybody else is it?

 

[AndyWolves]

What depresses me is how we end this, I just cant see anything other than lockdown until a vaccine is available.

I try to be positive and see what other approaches there could be and I dont see anything that works. The virus is too contagious to lift any of the lockdown measure

 

[Johnny75]

Also - on the point of "everyone's been caught off guard with this":

A) Unsurprisingly, the countries which have responded fastest and managed to nip it in the bud (well... to varying degrees of whatever you want to define as "success" - looking at you, China) are those which have had recent prior experience with localised pandemics like SARS, and which built up both infrastructure to respond to future diseases as well as developed a popular cultural understanding of the kinds of behaviours required to help slow the spread. Or, if you're Germany, you actually built up the infrastructure in advance, in response to years of warnings from public health experts. Most countries are terrible at long-term risk mitigation, but it's not actually that hard to do - and it certainly doesn't let any individual country off the hook just because they're one of many, either.

B) This is kind of exactly why scientists and environmentalists have been screaming so loudly about climate change since the 80s. Even bigger problem, just as inevitable, and still barely anything's been done about it at the scale required to truly mitigate it because the measures required would feel a lot like what we're going through now in terms of disruption. Like quarantining cities, or entire countries, if it works, it'll feel like overkill - and you'll get hate for it from the public. I mentioned Tamiflu in an earlier comment, because the amount "wasted" on it by governments worried about bird flu is an apposite example here. In that case, several governments did scramble to get ahead of a possible pandemic... except it fizzled out, and the hundreds of millions spent on buying up stockpiles (only a couple of years before the financial crisis) did seem to make some governments and experts warier of being quite so proactive as a result. Damned if you do, damned if you don't, to an extent.

Germany did not build up an infrastructure as has been discussed not 3 pages before this. They didn't place ventilator orders until 2 weeks ago. The figures out of a China are bobbins according to actual people who live there and nobody has 'nipped this in the bud'. Nobody.

Your tammiflu example is apt here and serves as a warning to what type of equipment you keep, where, for how long and who updated it.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

So what about Italy, Spain, France, The Netherlands and Belgium, why were they unprepared?

Why are Sweden still not enforcing school closures? It isn't like the UK government have gone out on a limb against everybody else is it?

This is where I really agree with you Johnny. We have seen governments trying to follow theories from advisors. Now it is possibly fair to say that the UK was criticised for following the herd immunity idea after Spain and Italy were falling to bits, but they reacted to scary numbers. In the same way as FINALLY Trump seems to be reacting to scary numbers (with the caveat that the US reaction is still a bloody mess - church gatherings allowed is insanity). You see something that bad as a prediction on the course you are planning to navigate, the least you can do is change the course.

Sweden I have to be honest is now a really scary one. I have no idea why their government is ignoring all the evidence from every country around them and inviting this thing into every home now.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

Germany did not build up an infrastructure as has been discussed not 3 pages before this. They didn't place ventilator orders until 2 weeks ago. The figures out of a China are bobbins according to actual people who live there and nobody has 'nipped this in the bud'. Nobody.

Your tammiflu example is apt here and serves as a warning to what type of equipment you keep, where, for how long and who updated it.

Can I ask you a question on this?

I seem to remember you having spoken to one of your chinese suppliers and they were telling you they were coming out of it and getting the economy sort of ready for re-opening. Did they have any clue about the real body count ideas that now seem to be coming from sources in the Wuhan area which suggest 3k ish is a joke and really it is ten times than minimum? Is there any feeling out there that this was miles worse than the published figures.

 

[Johnny75]

You aren’t exactly young

If place of death were recorded as M6 since they closed the A&E it would be by far and away the winner for Staffordians.

Cheeky git.

 

[Johnny75]

Can I ask you a question on this?

I seem to remember you having spoken to one of your chinese suppliers and they were telling you they were coming out of it and getting the economy sort of ready for re-opening. Did they have any clue about the real body count ideas that now seem to be coming from sources in the Wuhan area which suggest 3k ish is a joke and really it is ten times than minimum? Is there any feeling out there that this was miles worse than the published figures.

They said you can multiply the number of cases by 4 and deaths by 10 as a minimum.

As of last week their factory was still open but not so sure on how long.

 

[Parkins left foot]

Sweden I have to be honest is now a really scary one. I have no idea why their government is ignoring all the evidence from every country around them and inviting this thing into every home now.

They are out of step completely with the rest of Scandinavia - spoke (well texted) my sister in Denmark a few days ago, everything apart from essentials have been shut there for some time & they are self isolating the same as we are.

 

[MARKakaJIM]

What depresses me is how we end this, I just cant see anything other than lockdown until a vaccine is available.

I try to be positive and see what other approaches there could be and I dont see anything that works. The virus is too contagious to lift any of the lockdown measure

Can't see any way the current rules continue for the 12-18 months assumed to get a vaccine out in volume. It's just not sustainable.

I think if numbers stabilise and start to decline then we'll see some relaxing of restrictions and then probably a bit of toing and froing between full lockdown and some relaxation as the NHS fills up and empties.

I think as long as they stabilise to some extent and don't grow out of control then you'll start to some some specific relaxation in isolated areas. Whether that be government or industry lead, somewhere down the line people are going to start looking at safe ways to get different industries back into some sort of normality before too many livelihoods are lost.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

I think you are bang on Mark. There will be periods of in and out of quarantine

 

[Rui_CostCo]

They said you can multiply the number of cases by 4 and deaths by 10 as a minimum.

As of last week their factory was still open but not so sure on how long.

I read I think in the Grauniad, that now that families are receiving urns of ashes, and a clearer picture of true numbers is emerging from china, that they have under reported by around 35-40k

 

[arklowolf]

I think you are bang on Mark. There will be periods of in and out of quarantine

I can see there being certification of some kind, to say your 'clear' for travel abroad at some stage in the future.
Possibly for other reasons as well.

Looking at Sky news this morning, just saw Matt Hancock said similar yesterday. Makes sense.

 

[leedswolf]

The Bailiwick of Guernsey has clarified that any business who delivers takeaways must now shut with the exception of the Meals on Wheels service.

 

[Sniffer]

Two things that I noticed yesterday.

1) Matt Hancock almost sounds competent.
2) Question Time is far better without an audience. It had become unwatchable.