The big Coronavirus thread

Stevo_666

Here are the state about ventilators by country (per head of population): I would be interested to know why countries such as The Netherlands, Sweden, Finland and Ireland have less than the UK per head:-




And here are the critical care bed stats: it would appear countries like Japan, Hong Kong, Denmark and Norway are in a similar situation as England. Interestingly the US comes out top of the league.


It would appear from the above that there will be multiple factors determining these numbers as it would appear to be not all about health care spending and the nasty Tories - as Rick seems to be implying.

pblakeney

rick_chasey said:

capt_slog said:

Something doesn't have to be perfect as something else for us to feel proud of it and admire it.

What do you admire about having 5x fewer ventilators and intensive care beds than Germany?

Italy has more than double the U.K. too are you proud of that?

The "diety" of the NHS is about the frontline staff.
People have been criticising the funding and management/government for decades.
The lack of ventilators and beds is the fault of funding and management/government.

rick_chasey

pblakeney said:

rick_chasey said:

capt_slog said:

Something doesn't have to be perfect as something else for us to feel proud of it and admire it.

What do you admire about having 5x fewer ventilators and intensive care beds than Germany?

Italy has more than double the U.K. too are you proud of that?

The "diety" of the NHS is about the frontline staff.
People have been criticising the funding and management/government for decades.
The lack of ventilators and beds is the fault of funding and management/government.

Right. Where are we disagreeing?

rick_chasey

Stevo_666 said:

Here are the state about ventilators by country (per head of population): I would be interested to know why countries such as The Netherlands, Sweden, Finland and Ireland have less than the UK per head:-




And here are the critical care bed stats: it would appear countries like Japan, Hong Kong, Denmark and Norway are in a similar situation as England. Interestingly the US comes out top of the league.


It would appear from the above that there will be multiple factors determining these numbers as it would appear to be not all about health care spending and the nasty Tories - as Rick seems to be implying.

I haven’t offered any reason why it is actually quite sh!t for both staff and patients, save for management cuts.

There’s a reason the private sector pay their management a lot.

Stevo_666

rick_chasey said:

I haven’t offered any reason why it is actually quite sh!t for both staff and patients, save for management cuts.

There’s a reason the private sector pay their management a lot.

I see you aren't offering any rebuttal to my point above that there will be many factors involved and countries that are often held up as shining examples of 'how to do it better' in other threads on here are no better off than we are in this respect.

morstar

Not for one second defending the government record on health funding.
But provision isn’t a 1 dimensional measure.
Demographics, geography and other factors affect it.
Centralised services can service larger populations with less absolute capacity than more dispersed populations where resources are duplicated serving less people.
More resource hungry but not necessarily as effective or well utilised.
Maybe factors such as this influence the relative numbers.
The real question here is, was our ICU capability effective in normal times? If not, that is a problem. If it was, the secondary question is, what spare capacity should be provisioned for an outbreak or similar?
I don’t know the answers to these questions. I doubt many of us here do.

surrey_commuter

capt_slog said:

rick_chasey said:

capt_slog said:

Something doesn't have to be perfect as something else for us to feel proud of it and admire it.

What do you admire about having 5x fewer ventilators and intensive care beds than Germany?

Italy has more than double the U.K. too are you proud of that?

I have one son who is not quite as bright as the other. Are you saying i shouldn't be proud of him?

If you buried your head in the sand and did not accept he was not as bright then you would not adopt different teaching methods and nurture and encourage him in the areas where he does excel.

surrey_commuter

How are our cancer survival rates?

I spent 3 weeks around a NNU, how can it be good for anybody that the nurses work a 12 hour shifts? With handover times at beginning and end this is actually 13-14 hours.

Stevo_666

morstar said:

Not for one second defending the government record on health funding.
But provision isn’t a 1 dimensional measure.
Demographics, geography and other factors affect it.
Centralised services can service larger populations with less absolute capacity than more dispersed populations where resources are duplicated serving less people.
More resource hungry but not necessarily as effective or well utilised.
Maybe factors such as this influence the relative numbers.
The real question here is, was our ICU capability effective in normal times? If not, that is a problem. If it was, the secondary question is, what spare capacity should be provisioned for an outbreak or similar?
I don’t know the answers to these questions. I doubt many of us here do.

Fair points morstar and I agree, I don't think that any of us know the answer. However we have to deal with the situation we find ourselves in and rants about whether we are 'proud' of having less ventilators than country X aren't really helpful.

capt_slog

Stevo_666 said:

rick_chasey said:

I haven’t offered any reason why it is actually quite sh!t for both staff and patients, save for management cuts.

There’s a reason the private sector pay their management a lot.

I see you aren't offering any rebuttal to my point above that there will be many factors involved and countries that are often held up as shining examples of 'how to do it better' in other threads on here are no better off than we are in this respect.

He will. There'll probably be a scientific paper to cite as well.

pblakeney

rick_chasey said:

pblakeney said:

rick_chasey said:

capt_slog said:

Something doesn't have to be perfect as something else for us to feel proud of it and admire it.

What do you admire about having 5x fewer ventilators and intensive care beds than Germany?

Italy has more than double the U.K. too are you proud of that?

The "diety" of the NHS is about the frontline staff.
People have been criticising the funding and management/government for decades.
The lack of ventilators and beds is the fault of funding and management/government.

Right. Where are we disagreeing?

I doubt that we are. You simply have to make similar differentiations.

coopster_the_1st

morstar said:

Not for one second defending the government record on health funding.
But provision isn’t a 1 dimensional measure.
Demographics, geography and other factors affect it.
Centralised services can service larger populations with less absolute capacity than more dispersed populations where resources are duplicated serving less people.
More resource hungry but not necessarily as effective or well utilised.
Maybe factors such as this influence the relative numbers.
The real question here is, was our ICU capability effective in normal times? If not, that is a problem. If it was, the secondary question is, what spare capacity should be provisioned for an outbreak or similar?
I don’t know the answers to these questions. I doubt many of us here do.

The NHS has flexed and implemented solutions that are equivalent to 50 new hospitals. Ignoring the staffing requirements that's a lot of space capacity to keep mothballed.

The usual SJW's are now in a panic as they are starting to realise the deaths of these people cannot be stopped so are looking to throw blame around. It really is immature behaviour from people who should know better but maybe it better demonstrates that they have never actually grown up!

DeVlaeminck

Sweden is interesting, low on the list of ventilators per capita and not doing much in the way of isolation either.

elbowloh

So, i'm being furloughed as of Monday and i tell you, it does not seem like it will be a paid holiday. The letter I got says that my role is one that been identified as being at risk of redundancy, but to the prevent that they are going to putting me on furlough using the government scheme. I'm going to looking for jobs in the meantime, because, once the 3 months is up, I could well be made redundant. Even if they keep me on furlough, i'm looking at a massive drop in income when my wife can't return to work following maternity and the nursery are still intending to charge for care that they are not providing. Plus my flat sale fell through (for the 4th time).

Its stressful and scary even though i recognise that a lot of people are much, much worse of than me.

Stevo_666

capt_slog said:

Stevo_666 said:

rick_chasey said:

I haven’t offered any reason why it is actually quite sh!t for both staff and patients, save for management cuts.

There’s a reason the private sector pay their management a lot.

I see you aren't offering any rebuttal to my point above that there will be many factors involved and countries that are often held up as shining examples of 'how to do it better' in other threads on here are no better off than we are in this respect.

He will. There'll probably be a scientific paper to cite as well.

I'm sure he's busy looking for one right now. At least it'll stop him fretting about the other big issue of the day, the rise of hard right - for a little bit

rick_chasey

Great.

briantrumpet

DeVlaeminck said:

Sweden is interesting, low on the list of ventilators per capita and not doing much in the way of isolation either.

It's a risky experiment...

surrey_commuter

Here is a timeline thought.

Today we are meant to be meeting friends in a pub, he is an accountant working for a Japanese company who got posted to LA. They cancelled three weeks ago.

How can this chap have more insight into C19 than HMG?

morstar

elbowloh said:

So, i'm being furloughed as of Monday and i tell you, it does not seem like it will be a paid holiday. The letter I got says that my role is one that been identified as being at risk of redundancy, but to the prevent that they are going to putting me on furlough using the government scheme. I'm going to looking for jobs in the meantime, because, once the 3 months is up, I could well be made redundant. Even if they keep me on furlough, i'm looking at a massive drop in income when my wife can't return to work following maternity and the nursery are still intending to charge for care that they are not providing. Plus my flat sale fell through (for the 4th time).

Its stressful and scary even though i recognise that a lot of people are much, much worse of than me.

Hope you manage to get sorted. Scary times and knowing there are many worse off does little to reduce the stress.
May be making a similar post on Monday myself. Our company announced furloughing last thing Friday but is making up salaries to 100%. Although on the flawed assumption we could be doing non-chargeable work for them which was pointed out as incorrect. Suspect they are hastily revising plans now they’ve realised that the government definition of work is (rightly) not whether something is billable or not.
Galling thing is I declined a job offer on Thursday which under normal circumstances I would have taken. On the balance of probabilities, I felt staying put was a safer option.
May revisit that decision next week although the offer has now been withdrawn.

coopster_the_1st

DeVlaeminck said:

Sweden is interesting, low on the list of ventilators per capita and not doing much in the way of isolation either.

There will be a huge amount of pressure on Sweden to follow what every other government has done because if the Swedish approach is proved to be correct that will cause a lot of problems for everyone else. You could see similar pressure being applied to the UK government.

Similar applies to the USA and Trump. The left/woke/SJW's are not wishing the best for the US people but hoping the country crashes so it ousts Trump otherwise the world will see a rise in capitalist and American style policies.

rick_chasey

surrey_commuter said:

Here is a timeline thought.

Today we are meant to be meeting friends in a pub, he is an accountant working for a Japanese company who got posted to LA. They cancelled three weeks ago.

How can this chap have more insight into C19 than HMG?

In more news to cheer you up, Ireland, 1/10th of the population of U.K or even less is rolling out half as many tests as the U.K in total, ie 5x as many per head.

tailwindhome

rick_chasey said:

surrey_commuter said:

Here is a timeline thought.

Today we are meant to be meeting friends in a pub, he is an accountant working for a Japanese company who got posted to LA. They cancelled three weeks ago.

How can this chap have more insight into C19 than HMG?

In more news to cheer you up, Ireland, 1/10th of the population of U.K or even less is rolling out half as many tests as the U.K in total, ie 5x as many per head.

Ireland have tightened lock down restrictions further and have downgraded their projection for active cases at end of March from 15k to 6k as the curve flattens

The good news is that excess deaths are preventable.

elbowloh

morstar said:

elbowloh said:

So, i'm being furloughed as of Monday and i tell you, it does not seem like it will be a paid holiday. The letter I got says that my role is one that been identified as being at risk of redundancy, but to the prevent that they are going to putting me on furlough using the government scheme. I'm going to looking for jobs in the meantime, because, once the 3 months is up, I could well be made redundant. Even if they keep me on furlough, i'm looking at a massive drop in income when my wife can't return to work following maternity and the nursery are still intending to charge for care that they are not providing. Plus my flat sale fell through (for the 4th time).

Its stressful and scary even though i recognise that a lot of people are much, much worse of than me.

Hope you manage to get sorted. Scary times and knowing there are many worse off does little to reduce the stress.
May be making a similar post on Monday myself. Our company announced furloughing last thing Friday but is making up salaries to 100%. Although on the flawed assumption we could be doing non-chargeable work for them which was pointed out as incorrect. Suspect they are hastily revising plans now they’ve realised that the government definition of work is (rightly) not whether something is billable or not.
Galling thing is I declined a job offer on Thursday which under normal circumstances I would have taken. On the balance of probabilities, I felt staying put was a safer option.
May revisit that decision next week although the offer has now been withdrawn.

I'll be getting 80% of my full salary for the 1st month, then after that it will be down to about 50% after tax. I've been looking in the last 24 hours and there are still new jobs being advertised, which seems strange. I've been at my place 10 years, so hoping that if i do get made redundant that they'll give me enough to tide me over as I don't think things will pick up again quickly

Hope you managed to sort something out!

rjsterry

surrey_commuter said:

Here is a timeline thought.

Today we are meant to be meeting friends in a pub, he is an accountant working for a Japanese company who got posted to LA. They cancelled three weeks ago.

How can this chap have more insight into C19 than HMG?

I wouldn't read anything into it. Sounds more like a lucky guess to me.

tailwindhome

elbowloh said:

morstar said:

elbowloh said:

So, i'm being furloughed as of Monday and i tell you, it does not seem like it will be a paid holiday. The letter I got says that my role is one that been identified as being at risk of redundancy, but to the prevent that they are going to putting me on furlough using the government scheme. I'm going to looking for jobs in the meantime, because, once the 3 months is up, I could well be made redundant. Even if they keep me on furlough, i'm looking at a massive drop in income when my wife can't return to work following maternity and the nursery are still intending to charge for care that they are not providing. Plus my flat sale fell through (for the 4th time).

Its stressful and scary even though i recognise that a lot of people are much, much worse of than me.

Hope you manage to get sorted. Scary times and knowing there are many worse off does little to reduce the stress.
May be making a similar post on Monday myself. Our company announced furloughing last thing Friday but is making up salaries to 100%. Although on the flawed assumption we could be doing non-chargeable work for them which was pointed out as incorrect. Suspect they are hastily revising plans now they’ve realised that the government definition of work is (rightly) not whether something is billable or not.
Galling thing is I declined a job offer on Thursday which under normal circumstances I would have taken. On the balance of probabilities, I felt staying put was a safer option.
May revisit that decision next week although the offer has now been withdrawn.

I'll be getting 80% of my full salary for the 1st month, then after that it will be down to about 50% after tax. I've been looking in the last 24 hours and there are still new jobs being advertised, which seems strange. I've been at my place 10 years, so hoping that if i do get made redundant that they'll give me enough to tide me over as I don't think things will pick up again quickly

Hope you managed to sort something out!

Why the drop to 50%?

rick_chasey

In hindsight letting Cheltenham go ahead on the day Italy went into lockdown is a very very bad look.

This was when I was still unsure if uk policy was the right one. Turns out it very likely was a costly one.

Stevo_666

Stevo_666 said:

tailwindhome said:

Stevo_666 said:

TheBigBean said:

A mood lifting article about all the companies helping out.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/mar/28/british-retailers-and-manufacturers-in-wartime-effort-to-fight-covid-19

That's good read, thanks Bean. Interesting to see the variety of companies and number of ways that are being found to help.

Something I've noticed over the last couple of days is small businesses & sports clubs sourcing, purchasing and donating small volumes of PPE masks gloves etc.

I presume that small businesses can access the supply chain at points the NHS procurement just can't do, reaching the guy with a dozen boxes of gloves in a storeroom that the NHS can't find as they're set up to buy 50,000 boxes.

Sometimes it's the collective effect of these small actions that make the difference.

I heard this week that our company is making components for ventilators using its 3D printing technology, but I guess a lot of this goes relatively unreported. Fair play to them.

We've now reconfigured some of the other 3D printers in our production facility to produce those clear protective masks/visors.

We're not in the front line of this effort but every little helps.

Jeremy.89

coopster_the_1st said:

DeVlaeminck said:

Sweden is interesting, low on the list of ventilators per capita and not doing much in the way of isolation either.

There will be a huge amount of pressure on Sweden to follow what every other government has done because if the Swedish approach is proved to be correct that will cause a lot of problems for everyone else. You could see similar pressure being applied to the UK government.

Similar applies to the USA and Trump. The left/woke/SJW's are not wishing the best for the US people but hoping the country crashes so it ousts Trump otherwise the world will see a rise in capitalist and American style policies.

Why do people need to wish the best for America when it's just a democratic hoax?

Pross

tailwindhome said:

elbowloh said:

morstar said:

elbowloh said:

So, i'm being furloughed as of Monday and i tell you, it does not seem like it will be a paid holiday. The letter I got says that my role is one that been identified as being at risk of redundancy, but to the prevent that they are going to putting me on furlough using the government scheme. I'm going to looking for jobs in the meantime, because, once the 3 months is up, I could well be made redundant. Even if they keep me on furlough, i'm looking at a massive drop in income when my wife can't return to work following maternity and the nursery are still intending to charge for care that they are not providing. Plus my flat sale fell through (for the 4th time).

Its stressful and scary even though i recognise that a lot of people are much, much worse of than me.

Hope you manage to get sorted. Scary times and knowing there are many worse off does little to reduce the stress.
May be making a similar post on Monday myself. Our company announced furloughing last thing Friday but is making up salaries to 100%. Although on the flawed assumption we could be doing non-chargeable work for them which was pointed out as incorrect. Suspect they are hastily revising plans now they’ve realised that the government definition of work is (rightly) not whether something is billable or not.
Galling thing is I declined a job offer on Thursday which under normal circumstances I would have taken. On the balance of probabilities, I felt staying put was a safer option.
May revisit that decision next week although the offer has now been withdrawn.

I'll be getting 80% of my full salary for the 1st month, then after that it will be down to about 50% after tax. I've been looking in the last 24 hours and there are still new jobs being advertised, which seems strange. I've been at my place 10 years, so hoping that if i do get made redundant that they'll give me enough to tide me over as I don't think things will pick up again quickly

Hope you managed to sort something out!

Why the drop to 50%?

Presumably his existing take-home is close to 5k per month so the £2.5k cap doesn't equate to 80%?

Obviously some will point out that £2.5k is more than most have to get by on whilst totally ignoring that higher earners will probably have a higher level of financial commitment they have to cover.

tailwindhome

https://twitter.com/sundersays/status/1244196933729759233?s=19