Coronavirus

[Roses]

I don't know about other parts of the UK but around here people are putting soft toys like teddy bears in their windows to try to cheer kids up.

In ours as well as my rainbow artwork I have put a couple of teddies and my soft toy dinosaur. 

[Walter]

I don't know about other parts of the UK but around here people are putting soft toys like teddy bears in their windows to try to cheer kids up.

In ours as well as my rainbow artwork I have put a couple of teddies and my soft toy dinosaur.

I've put a sign in my window it says ;

KEEP THE F*CK OUT

[Roses]

I've put a sign in my window it says ;

KEEP THE F*CK OUT

I hope you are joking!

[Walter]

I hope you are joking!

It is only necessary for me to know if I am or not! 

[ad_orientem]

In order to save the economy Sweden is taking the herd immunity approach, even though we're at least a year away from a vaccine. If I was a Swede I'd be slightly worried.

It seems Sweden is doing a little bit of a u-turn now by introducing more restrictions. On Sunday they had over 100 deaths and today almost 60. Just to put things into perspective, Sweden has roughly two times the population of Finland and more-or-less the same testing criteria, but they have over three times as many confirmed cases (4,947) and almost 15 times more deaths (239).

I was pleased to hear that our testing capacity is to be doubled over the next two weeks and after that increased by another half.

[Roses]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-52117814

A GP's surgery has apologised for sending out letters to patients with life limiting conditions asking them to fill in a DNR form!

[Udayana]

I don't agree with the article but I think the feeling is similar to what I am thinking about when I write Not Just During Quarantine.

https://theconversation.com/what-will-the-world-be-like-after-coronavirus-four-possible-futures-134085?fbclid=IwAR0nMaEQCiNZr2C0cJm3I6JI8lA28fbYmgTjov2O2a3s61zA2ki2xEelEyk

R4 Fallout: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000gztl

Panel discussion programme considering similar issues.
 

[Robbie]

I don't know about other parts of the UK but around here people are putting soft toys like teddy bears in their windows to try to cheer kids up.

In ours as well as my rainbow artwork I have put a couple of teddies and my soft toy dinosaur.

Do kids go out at the moment? I suppose some do, short daily exercise. It's a nice idea Littleroses.

I'd have liked being at home when I was a young child, endless holiday. I had my sister and my cousin's garden backed on to ours, we went over the fence all the time.

Working from home is OK, I only go out to deliver stuff to and sometimes pick up from, my in-laws, uncle and aunt's garages, and wave to them. My sister & daughter do the same. It's all weird & worrying though, collective gloom.

Walter i don't blame you for your sign :-). Hope you are OK & safe in the  camper.

[jakswan]

If we have a huge rise in unemployment, there may well be no choice  in what we fund. Thge idea that we'll turn into some socialist nirvana is laughable

We will be funding the national debt.

A socialist nirvana is indeed laughable.

[Gordon]

An overview of the testing fiasco.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/01/absolutely-wrong-how-uk-coronavirus-test-strategy-unravelled

[Walter]

Do kids go out at the moment? I suppose some do, short daily exercise. It's a nice idea Littleroses.

I'd have liked being at home when I was a young child, endless holiday. I had my sister and my cousin's garden backed on to ours, we went over the fence all the time.

Working from home is OK, I only go out to deliver stuff to and sometimes pick up from, my in-laws, uncle and aunt's garages, and wave to them. My sister & daughter do the same. It's all weird & worrying though, collective gloom.

Walter i don't blame you for your sign :-). Hope you are OK & safe in the  camper.

Hi Robbie,

Im safe and well and currently parked up at my sons place , thanks for your concern.
I was at risk of being asked questions or being moved on and fined for being 'out' without good reason ,so after talking to my son it was decided i should come here for the duration 

[Walter]

Robbie

ps, KSAW your self

[Roses]

Do kids go out at the moment? I suppose some do, short daily exercise. It's a nice idea Littleroses.

I'd have liked being at home when I was a young child, endless holiday. I had my sister and my cousin's garden backed on to ours, we went over the fence all the time.

Working from home is OK, I only go out to deliver stuff to and sometimes pick up from, my in-laws, uncle and aunt's garages, and wave to them. My sister & daughter do the same. It's all weird & worrying though, collective gloom.

Walter i don't blame you for your sign :-). Hope you are OK & safe in the  camper.

Kids are out and about around here.

[Gordon]

A poignant look at the implications of the lockdown from someone who is unlikely to live long enough to see it end.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/02/terminal-cancer-lockdown-death

[Roses]

A poignant look at the implications of the lockdown from someone who is unlikely to live long enough to see it end.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/02/terminal-cancer-lockdown-death

So very sad.

[Nearly Sane]

A poignant look at the implications of the lockdown from someone who is unlikely to live long enough to see it end.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/02/terminal-cancer-lockdown-death

A friend's father is going to die in the next day or so. They had a choice of the father being taken into hospital but then they would not be allowed to visit. So the family are in the house waiting for him to die, and then they will have to choose which 2 of them goes to the funeral.

[Nearly Sane]

We will be funding the national debt.

A socialist nirvana is indeed laughable.

Though any govt will be forced into a much more interventionist position. In the last week there have been 950,000 applications for universal credit.

[jeremyp]

In the USA, the government's response is widely regarded as disastrous.

Here in the UK, our number of deaths per capita is now twice as bad as the USA.

Our daily deaths per capita are worse than theirs too.

[Walter]

In the USA, the government's response is widely regarded as disastrous.

Here in the UK, our number of deaths per capita is now twice as bad as the USA.

Our daily deaths per capita are worse than theirs too.

jeremyp

i know you are familiar with the figures but how many people per day die because of the virus
NOT number of deaths of people who tested positive and died ?

I cant seem to find that information
thanks

Walter

[Udayana]

jeremyp

i know you are familiar with the figures but how many people per day die because of the virus
NOT number of deaths of people who tested positive and died ?

I cant seem to find that information
thanks

Walter

Not jeremy but hey ...

No-one knows that figure and will not until the epidemic is over .. best can do at the moment is to guess at abut half.

Even if there is some pathology that could uniquely identify covid-19 as the cause of death - more research is needed to identify it. In practice, any death will have multiple factors involved. 

But this is not only about the actual number of deaths but when these people die - even if all of these people would have died anyway this year (about half a million die each year in the UK) - if they all die in the next two or three months NHS hospitals themselves will grind to a halt. And it's not as if people will stop dying for other reasons. The alternative is for people with covid-19 not to be treated - and then many will die who could otherwise have been treated and lived happily for years to come...

[wigginhall]

I can see that the lockdown flattens the curve, so that the NHS doesn't get too many cases at once, and tons of people are just given morphine and left to die.   But what happens after that?   We can't keep a lockdown for a year.   Of course, there is the hunt for a vaccine and anti-virals.  I don't think the bugger is going to just go away.

[Walter]

Not jeremy but hey ...

No-one knows that figure and will not until the epidemic is over .. best can do at the moment is to guess at abut half.

Even if there is some pathology that could uniquely identify covid-19 as the cause of death - more research is needed to identify it. In practice, any death will have multiple factors involved. 

But this is not only about the actual number of deaths but when these people die - even if all of these people would have died anyway this year (about half a million die each year in the UK) - if they all die in the next two or three months NHS hospitals themselves will grind to a halt. And it's not as if people will stop dying for other reasons. The alternative is for people with covid-19 not to be treated - and then many will die who could otherwise have been treated and lived happily for years to come...

thanks for your reply however you could have stopped at the end of the second line !

[jeremyp]

jeremyp

i know you are familiar with the figures but how many people per day die because of the virus
NOT number of deaths of people who tested positive and died ?

I cant seem to find that information
thanks

Walter

It doesn't exist. We aren't recording that information. Some people who had coronavirus might have died anyway but they are being counted. There are probably also people who died of coronavirus but who aren't being counted because they weren't known to have coronavirus at the time.

However, it's the only half way reliable statistic we have got even though it lags the situation by two to three weeks.

For example, the number of new cases reported each day is constrained by our woeful lack of testing  capacity - it's a Chernobyl geiger counter problem. I am really frustrated by the fact that we are not doing randomised testing in any sense. The government simply doesn't know the extent of the epidemic in this country. It seems obvious to me that they should be trying to find out.

[Roses]

Medical staff do the testing and they can't be in two places at once, when they are looking after the sick. No doubt lay people could be trained to do it, but that takes time. 

[Aruntraveller]

Medical staff do the testing and they can't be in two places at once, when they are looking after the sick. No doubt lay people could be trained to do it, but that takes time.

And yet Germany manage to do 500,000 tests a week. Stop letting the government off the hook. They reacted too late, thought they could bluff and bluster Boris style their way through a pandemic. They are negligent. And I would argue wilfully so.