Coronavirus

[A Ram for All Seasons]

16 minutes ago, RamNut said:

Better to get a preliminary test result in ten minutes than no test at all, or waiting months or years for a test that takes 4 or 5 days.

its not specific but it could help to clear vast numbers of people from lockdown and then also help to  target the more specific lab tests. 

The new test is readily available now and It takes a couple of hours at most rather than days. Better to do it properly in a couple of hours rather than waste 10 minutes on getting  an inaccurate result.

The test you refer to is specific, 97.7 % specific, but that isn't good enough.

[bigbadbob]

2 hours ago, Gee SCREAMER !! said:

that's not how I recall it when chris whitty was on the briefing at the start . 20,000 was advised as worst projection but first week of lockdown indicated we would be under.  I would have to revisit the briefing to be sure but that would be an all day job to find, so we may have to agree to differ on this one . Obviously everyone hears things different.

https://metro.co.uk/2020/03/17/uk-55000-coronavirus-cases-says-chief-scientist-12411781/?ito=article.tablet.share.top.link

I found this, if it helps.

[Guest]

47 minutes ago, rammieib said:

You’re right but it’s a tough one. Our business has seen an order book drop of 15% for Q2/Q3. We can’t sustain the same labour costs for those quarters and this furlough has been used. We’ve stayed open and continue to do our best and improve cash flow in the obvious business areas.

In some sectors furlough is black and white. A car manufacturing company closes for two months or a dentist closes due to Government rules etc. They have an on and off switch.

For my company we don’t (I’m purposely not saying who I work for) have this on/off switch but if furlough allows a percentage of our workforce to get 2 additional months of pay cheques when being made redundant right now is quite possibly the worst time ever, then I’m all for it.

I actually think Rishi needs to find ways to stop companies making people redundant. Don’t ask me what that idea is - I read something about if an employee drops to a three day week the Gov could pay for the other two days and so on. I know that’s fraught with difficulties but a lot of emphasis right now is on short term protection, I think very little is being done on long term employment.

But how do you assess when redundancies are necessary or not?

A company with x £million in the bank can furlough staff and say there is no work right now so without this scheme you would be made redundant.

Is the furlough scheme necessary in that instance?

Maybe firms who have used the scheme should be assessed at the end of the financial year and re-imburse up to the extent that it does not put them into a loss making position or cause a cash flow problem based on reasonable projections.

The scheme should be there to protect jobs, not protect profits.

[Eddie]

15 hours ago, Andicis said:

Well Italy aren't including care homes in their figures for quite a while, that would probably put them higher than us in the statistics, nor is Spain who basically abandoned their care homes in some cases. The fact that our deaths are out of proportion to the rest of the world means we either had way more cases than we know about, or other countries are under reporting their cases. Or both.

All other countries?  How's about we are managed by a bunch of dimwits and chancers who thought that "Herd immunity" was the way to go instead of basically taking the thing seriously from the outset?

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, Eddie said:

All other countries?  How's about we are managed by a bunch of dimwits and chancers who thought that "Herd immunity" was the way to go instead of basically taking the thing seriously from the outset?

Does the same go for Italy, Spain and France? 

How about the EU that you have often said we are so dimwitted for voting to leave?

I'm still yet to hear of any other way out of this situation other than herd immunity to be honest.

[richinspain]

2 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

Does the same go for Italy, Spain and France? 

How about the EU that you have often said we are so dimwitted for voting to leave?

I'm still yet to hear of any other way out of this situation other than herd immunity to be honest.

 At this moment I think that 90% of Spaniards would swap Boris for Pedro Sánchez. 
 What a load of dimwits the Spanish government are. To pass to phase 1 of the exit from lockdown they have used a group of 15 experts comprising of 12 ex members of the various governing parties, and 3 hand picked professors.

[Eddie]

15 minutes ago, richinspain said:

 At this moment I think that 90% of Spaniards would swap Boris for Pedro Sánchez. 
 What a load of dimwits the Spanish government are. To pass to phase 1 of the exit from lockdown they have used a group of 15 experts comprising of 12 ex members of the various governing parties, and 3 hand picked professors.

As opposed to the British government who famously once said "We have heard enough from experts".

[Sith Happens]

I see the thread has allowed to become political again...

@David are you happy that this continues when it is clearly in your prohibited content?

[ramit]

Starting at the end of the month and excluding Ireland?

In what alternate reality does this make sense?

 

"UK airlines say they have been told the government will bring in a 14-day quarantine for anyone arriving in the UK from any country apart from the Republic of Ireland in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The new restriction is expected to take effect at the end of this month."

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-52594023

[Sith Happens]

 

[A Ram for All Seasons]

11 minutes ago, ramit said:

Starting at the end of the month and excluding Ireland?

In what alternate reality does this make sense?

 

"UK airlines say they have been told the government will bring in a 14-day quarantine for anyone arriving in the UK from any country apart from the Republic of Ireland in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The new restriction is expected to take effect at the end of this month."

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-52594023

I live abroad too, so I'm buggered if I have to go into quarantine for 14 days before I can watch Derby v Luton.

Does that apply if I come on the train?

[Eddie]

16 minutes ago, Paul71 said:

I see the thread has allowed to become political again...

@David are you happy that this continues when it is clearly in your prohibited content?

Does this mean that we cannot mention Covid-19 in the Politics thread? As far as I can see, the two (the virus and the response to the virus) are intertwined because the people who are outlining the response to the pandemic are the government. In my opinion, there has to be a blurring of the lines, or the whole discussion becomes meaningless.

[May Contain Nuts]

8 hours ago, G STAR RAM said:

Is there actually any evidence that we had a 2 week advantage ove Italy and Spain.

From what I can see our first confirmed case was on 29th January and both Italy and Spains were on 31st January.

That's an interesting point actually. How did we end up at the oft-quoted "2 weeks behind Italy" from the near enough the same starting point?

First confirmed cases 2 days apart, but by March 23rd (UK Lockdown) Italy had recorded 6077 deaths, Spain 2311, but the UK only 335 in the same time period?

On the 9th of March (Italian lockdown) they'd recorded 463 deaths, UK 3, so since then we've gone from being undisputedly better off to arguably being the worst hit in Europe.

What were we doing between March 9th and March 23rd that's lead to such a huge boom in deaths since? That's the '2 week advantage' - throughout that time it was evident how badly it was spreading in Italy (a jump from 463>6077 recorded deaths) but we just carried on pretty much as we were.

It doesn't take hindsight to say we should have done more than just monitor the spready in Italy. If we'd have locked down on the 9th along with them (463 vs 3 recorded deaths) would we be seeing a similar disparity between our figures and their figures now?

We  just seem to have been blindly copying the mistakes other people have made, not learned anything, and then compounded them with our own!

 

[RamNut]

2 hours ago, A Ram for All Seasons said:

The new test is readily available now and It takes a couple of hours at most rather than days. Better to do it properly in a couple of hours rather than waste 10 minutes on getting  an inaccurate result.

The test you refer to is specific, 97.7 % specific, but that isn't good enough.

I think we may be arguing for different things. 
I was interested in the potential of the quick test to identify the early stages of possible infection. a positive or false positive would mean that the individual has to continue to self-isolate, and may be targeted for more specific lab testing. If all those with a positive result self-isolate, then all those with a negative result would not need to self-isolate.

If I have read it correctly the new Roche antibody test aims to confirm specific immunity to coronavirus after surviving an infection. There is reference to testing 14 days after a pcr lab test for example.

[alexxxxx]

2 hours ago, Paul71 said:

 

No gardens to sit in, crowded households and sunny weather. 

Id wager most of those groups sat together live together. 

[Andicis]

6 minutes ago, alexxxxx said:

No gardens to sit in, crowded households and sunny weather. 

Id wager most of those groups sat together live together. 

Transmission of the virus is pretty low outside too, I don't see much harm in it.

[Sith Happens]

10 minutes ago, alexxxxx said:

No gardens to sit in, crowded households and sunny weather. 

Id wager most of those groups sat together live together. 

 

3 minutes ago, Andicis said:

Transmission of the virus is pretty low outside too, I don't see much harm in it.

I do get that. Those aren't the rules though. I have been shielding for weeks now, my elderly parents have also been isolating so logic dictates none of us have it, so I could say I don't see the harm in driving up there and giving my mum a hug. 

I just don't believe all people out are in their own household, perhaps as part of the easing everyone needs to carry I'd so if challenged they can prove that they are, or face a fine if they can't. 

the longer people flout the rules the longer it will take us to get back to any sort of normality 

as someone who is shielding I object to having to do it longer than should be necessary because people make their own minds up on what is appropriate rather than following government advice 

 

[Andicis]

7 minutes ago, Paul71 said:

 

I do get that. Those aren't the rules though. I have been shielding for weeks now, my elderly parents have also been isolating so logic dictates none of us have it, so I could say I don't see the harm in driving up there and giving my mum a hug. 

I just don't believe all people out are in their own household, perhaps as part of the easing everyone needs to carry I'd so if challenged they can prove that they are, or face a fine if they can't. 

the longer people flout the rules the longer it will take us to get back to any sort of normality 

as someone who is shielding I object to having to do it longer than should be necessary because people make their own minds up on what is appropriate rather than following government advice 

 

Evidence is beginning to suggest that full lockdowns don't actually work anyway, but I do agree though that they aren't the rules. I'm hoping Sunday sheds a lot of light on where the rules are changing, because at the moment they seem a bit overzealous. It isn't fair you should have to do it for longer than necessary though, no. 

[Sith Happens]

Just now, Andicis said:

Evidence is beginning to suggest that full lockdowns don't actually work anyway, but I do agree though that they aren't the rules. I'm hoping Sunday sheds a lot of light on where the rules are changing, because at the moment they seem a bit overzealous. It isn't fair you should have to do it for longer than necessary though, no. 

I hope we have a small relaxation, I hope those not sticking to the rules don't ruin it for everyone else. 

my view is the instructions in the shielding documents are ott,  but the problem for me is and was that this happened quickly,  if these sort of laws and guidance had gone through there normal debate and consideration we would still be pre lockdown 

 

[Comrade 86]

5 minutes ago, Andicis said:

Evidence is beginning to suggest that full lockdowns don't actually work anyway

What is this evidence? I find it hard to believe that folk staying isolated does not effectively limit infections. How are folk not being exposed to the disease getting infected if not through contact with carriers?