The big Coronavirus thread

coopster_the_1st

tailwindhome said:

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.

Does that mean their policy is to remain in this lockdown until there is a vaccine? (12-18+ months)

rjsterry

rick_chasey said:

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.

How things look is the least of our concerns. I think people on both sides of the argument are being massively premature in declaring the government response to be the right/wrong one. There will be bits that we got right and bits where we could have done better. What the balance of those is and whether it's even valid to aggregate these into an overall view is a question for a few years later.

It is not really surprising that countries with more direct experience of SARS seem to be coping better so far, but they also have a long way to go.

Stevo_666

rjsterry said:

rick_chasey said:

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.

I think people on both sides of the argument are being massively premature in declaring the government response to be the right/wrong one. There will be bits that on balance we got right and bits where we could have done better. It is not really surprising that countries with more direct experience of SARS seem to be coping better so far.

I agree, but it appears that some people want the government to be wrong.

Pross

rjsterry said:

rick_chasey said:

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.

I think people on both sides of the argument are being massively premature in declaring the government response to be the right/wrong one. There will be bits that on balance we got right and bits where we could have done better. It is not really surprising that countries with more direct experience of SARS seem to be coping better so far.

Though to play devil's advocate maybe we should have looked at them for guidance for that very reason.

TheBigBean

rick_chasey said:

DeVlaeminck said:

Anyone work in central London can comment on the situation? Round Derby the city centre is like a ghost town. Then we see pictures from London of commuters packed into the tube. Is this really still happening ?

Social distancing seems to be respected here - even supermarkets are now enforcing limited numbers in the store and directional arrows in the aisles are becoming a thing. On the parks things are far better than earlier in the week.

Now we are being told tougher lockdown could be on its way. Unless that is to tell all non essential workers they may not leave home to work as far as this area goes it'll be a gesture.

Spoke to a friend about this last night.

Regent’s Park was as busy as every Saturday.

I've just been and that is not true. Big school teacher signs saying that if you can't keep 2m away from each other then the parks will close.

It's cold today, but numbers are far lower than normal for a cold day. Still too many people for me, but that goes without saying.

rjsterry

Stevo_666 said:

rjsterry said:

rick_chasey said:

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.

I think people on both sides of the argument are being massively premature in declaring the government response to be the right/wrong one. There will be bits that on balance we got right and bits where we could have done better. It is not really surprising that countries with more direct experience of SARS seem to be coping better so far.

I agree, but it appears that some people want the government to be wrong.

I think people are just scared, which is perfectly reasonable. It's the people who aren't scared you want to worry about.

ballysmate

Pross said:

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.

They undoubtedly have higher commitments. But hospital workers, care workers etc who are working flat out will have limited sympathy for someone who moans they are not getting enough help to pay for their 5 bedroom house.

surrey_commuter

rjsterry 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?

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

Cancelling the annual trip to see the family and friends is not a light decision. Those of us who know people in Asia were taking action at least three weeks ago.

Stevo_666

rjsterry said:

Stevo_666 said:

rjsterry said:

rick_chasey said:

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.

I think people on both sides of the argument are being massively premature in declaring the government response to be the right/wrong one. There will be bits that on balance we got right and bits where we could have done better. It is not really surprising that countries with more direct experience of SARS seem to be coping better so far.

I agree, but it appears that some people want the government to be wrong.

I think people are just scared, which is perfectly reasonable. It's the people who aren't scared you want to worry about.

Agree with you on the second part of what you said in so far as some people seem to think it doesn't apply to them and we need to give them a wide berth. However people being scared is also driving some irrational behaviour (as you would expect).

rjsterry

Pross said:

rjsterry said:

rick_chasey said:

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.

I think people on both sides of the argument are being massively premature in declaring the government response to be the right/wrong one. There will be bits that on balance we got right and bits where we could have done better. It is not really surprising that countries with more direct experience of SARS seem to be coping better so far.

Though to play devil's advocate maybe we should have looked at them for guidance for that very reason.

There's nothing like having it actually happen to you to. Chatting with my dad the other day, he commented that the concerns about the 'cure being worse than the disease' are exactly the same arguments he heard around the foot and mouth outbreak and the ongoing bovine TB problem.

surrey_commuter

tailwindhome said:

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

To echo Coopster I have been thinking that really is not too bad, then I think it is nearly doubling the daily death toll so there will be bodies piling up.

Stevo_666

surrey_commuter said:

rjsterry 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?

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

Cancelling the annual trip to see the family and friends is not a light decision. Those of us who know people in Asia were taking action at least three weeks ago.

Possibly because it was impacting Asia earlier than it was here?

capt_slog

I've just returned from a walk with the good Mrs Slog around the local village footpaths.

Not long after getting into the fields, there was a young couple sitting on the footpath. Well, he was sitting on the footpath, and she was sitting astride him. It looked very social, but I don't think there was a lot of distancing going on.

Bearing it mind that it was bloody freezing, I doubt they can have been from the same house, or they would have been in it. Perhaps it counts as exercising?

focuszing723

rjsterry said:

rick_chasey said:

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.

How things look is the least of our concerns. I think people on both sides of the argument are being massively premature in declaring the government response to be the right/wrong one. There will be bits that we got right and bits where we could have done better. What the balance of those is and whether it's even valid to aggregate these into an overall view is a question for a few years later.

It is not really surprising that countries with more direct experience of SARS seem to be coping better so far, but they also have a long way to go.

Yes, that's exactly what a specialist said from South Korea. Their response and actions were as a result of having to deal with Sars/Mers.

rjsterry

Stevo_666 said:

rjsterry said:

Stevo_666 said:

rjsterry said:

rick_chasey said:

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.

I think people on both sides of the argument are being massively premature in declaring the government response to be the right/wrong one. There will be bits that on balance we got right and bits where we could have done better. It is not really surprising that countries with more direct experience of SARS seem to be coping better so far.

I agree, but it appears that some people want the government to be wrong.

I think people are just scared, which is perfectly reasonable. It's the people who aren't scared you want to worry about.

Agree with you on the second part of what you said in so far as some people seem to think it doesn't apply to them and we need to give them a wide berth. However people being scared is also driving some irrational behaviour (as you would expect).

We're irrational creatures.

briantrumpet

surrey_commuter said:

tailwindhome said:

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

To echo Coopster I have been thinking that really is not too bad, then I think it is nearly doubling the daily death toll so there will be bodies piling up.

I think that the curve is still roughly following the Italian trajectory, and given the rate of spread in London before things 'got real', I can't see the UK diverging greatly.

I'm getting a bit annoyed by the media still trotting out the (technically correct) "record number of daily deaths in Italy/Spain", when actually they ought to be noting that the rate of increase is dropping very noticeably.

elbowloh

Pross said:

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.

This, the £2.5k is pre-tax and other deductions, such as pension, NI company car tax etc. the other problem is my wife not able to work. We were struggling to get through the maternity period as it was and now our household income will be even less.

Pross

rjsterry said:

Pross said:

rjsterry said:

rick_chasey said:

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.

I think people on both sides of the argument are being massively premature in declaring the government response to be the right/wrong one. There will be bits that on balance we got right and bits where we could have done better. It is not really surprising that countries with more direct experience of SARS seem to be coping better so far.

Though to play devil's advocate maybe we should have looked at them for guidance for that very reason.

There's nothing like having it actually happen to you to. Chatting with my dad the other day, he commented that the concerns about the 'cure being worse than the disease' are exactly the same arguments he heard around the foot and mouth outbreak and the ongoing bovine TB problem.

I think it has been exacerbated by the fact we seemingly have an annual scare story of some new flu strain or epidemic originating in Asia that is going to kill us all and they've never really panned out so we've become blase about them. I heard Ed Balls talking about the preparations they put in with SARS back when he was Chancellor and how worried they all were but for most of us it probably seemed like hype that never impacted on our country.

surrey_commuter

rjsterry said:

Pross said:

rjsterry said:

rick_chasey said:

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.

I think people on both sides of the argument are being massively premature in declaring the government response to be the right/wrong one. There will be bits that on balance we got right and bits where we could have done better. It is not really surprising that countries with more direct experience of SARS seem to be coping better so far.

Though to play devil's advocate maybe we should have looked at them for guidance for that very reason.

There's nothing like having it actually happen to you to. Chatting with my dad the other day, he commented that the concerns about the 'cure being worse than the disease' are exactly the same arguments he heard around the foot and mouth outbreak and the ongoing bovine TB problem.

As I understand it with foot and mouth if we had vaccinated we would not have been able to export so we wiped out several million cows so that a few hundred big farmers could carry on exporting.

kingstongraham

Stevo_666 said:

rjsterry said:

rick_chasey said:

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.

I think people on both sides of the argument are being massively premature in declaring the government response to be the right/wrong one. There will be bits that on balance we got right and bits where we could have done better. It is not really surprising that countries with more direct experience of SARS seem to be coping better so far.

I agree, but it appears that some people want the government to be wrong.

Thinking the government was a bit slow to react doesn't mean you wanted them to be wrong.

Same for the USA. I think Trump is going to kill a lot of people, I don't like Trump, but I want him to not kill those people. If he turns out to be right and letting the disease spread rampantly is the best answer, that would be lovely, and I would be happy, and we would learn from it and follow that best practice. But I don't see it happening.

surrey_commuter

Stevo_666 said:

surrey_commuter said:

rjsterry 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?

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

Cancelling the annual trip to see the family and friends is not a light decision. Those of us who know people in Asia were taking action at least three weeks ago.

Possibly because it was impacting Asia earlier than it was here?

That is my point. Why were we better informed and making better decisions than HMG?

Stevo_666

surrey_commuter said:

Stevo_666 said:

surrey_commuter said:

rjsterry 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?

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

Cancelling the annual trip to see the family and friends is not a light decision. Those of us who know people in Asia were taking action at least three weeks ago.

Possibly because it was impacting Asia earlier than it was here?

That is my point. Why were we better informed and making better decisions than HMG?

I don't know, were we? And who is 'we'?

john80

rick_chasey said:

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.

My experience of senior management is that their ego does not match their talent. I am guessing that you are fully involved in the mantra that a CEO is worth multiple thousands the lowest employee. Most doctors i know think that management get paid too much, are not knowledgable in their job and there are too many of them. In the private sector there is little link between pay and performance.

TheBigBean

Doctors were the only profession to outscore finance professionals with regard to a confidence to (in)accuracy survery I saw. Weather forecasters were the best.

tailwindhome

coopster_the_1st said:

tailwindhome said:

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.

Does that mean their policy is to remain in this lockdown until there is a vaccine? (12-18+ months)

The expectation is that it will continue into the early summer and relaxed and tightened as necessary.

Their strategy is to chase down the virus with extensive testing.

Essentially it's Virus Whack-a-mole.

Edit- They're expecting the peak of this wave to come 10-12 April.

Jeremy.89

john80 said:

rick_chasey said:

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.

My experience of senior management is that their ego does not match their talent. I am guessing that you are fully involved in the mantra that a CEO is worth multiple thousands the lowest employee. Most doctors i know think that management get paid too much, are not knowledgable in their job and there are too many of them. In the private sector there is little link between pay and performance.

Interesting, recently on a skiing trip friends and lots of the guys have parents who are GPs. Nice to live up to the chin stereotype... Anyway they all said their parents regularly complain about spending too much time on management overhead activities, and too little time on patient care. They place the responsibility for that on the focus that successive government's have placed on trying to streamline the management of the NHS.

joe2019

surrey_commuter said:

rjsterry 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?

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

Cancelling the annual trip to see the family and friends is not a light decision. Those of us who know people in Asia were taking action at least three weeks ago.

Our university embarked on a trip to Berlin a few weeks before the lockdowns, the only student who pulled out because of CV was Chinese, with family living in China.

nickice

A lock down was enough to bring me back on here. Things are pretty strict in France and I fear the rule of law is gradually being eroded. It might seem a small point but we're allowed to go out for exercise within a 1km from our house (not clear if it's as the crow flies or not) as long as we do it individually. However, all sorts of other conditions have been attached (such as cycling isn't included for some reason) mainly by tweet which is no way to do things. The executive are getting too much power here and it's worth pointing out that every dictator has a 'good' reasons for restricting civil liberties. A fine of 135 euros for not having a form (or for having filled it in incorrectly) seems excessive to me. At least Boris looked a little pained to be imposing a lock down whereas Macron seems to be positively relishing it. He keeps talking about being 'at war' as he clearly fancies himself as a wartime president.

On the other hand, before the total lock down idiots were spending time close together in parks having picnics and were even going to restaurants once all the schools and universities were closed. I do wonder how much of a difference the small number of people not following government instructions really would have made, though.

I do think that if we're in this for the long term they're going to have to relax some of the measures. I can't really see any real reason why I shouldn't be able to go for a longer bike ride especially as the chances of ending up in hospital are so minimal. I'm diabetic and exercising at home doesn't cut it for me or even jogging as I have some weird inner-ear problem that makes it an impossibility.

What's interesting is that my wife had to take our baby to A&E last week (on the advice of our doctor) as he'd had a fall (don't most accidents happen in the home) and it was empty. We're now seeing what the true emergencies are...

nickice

The expectation is that it will continue into the early summer and relaxed and tightened as necessary.

Their strategy is to chase down the virus with extensive testing.

Essentially it's Virus Whack-a-mole.

Edit- They're expecting the peak of this wave to come 10-12 April.


I'm not sure how the relaxing and tightening would work. I'm not going to be going back into a bar/restaurant knowing that that's where the next wave will start and wouldn't businesses seem some kind of certainly?

morstar

nickice said:

The expectation is that it will continue into the early summer and relaxed and tightened as necessary.

Their strategy is to chase down the virus with extensive testing.

Essentially it's Virus Whack-a-mole.

Edit- They're expecting the peak of this wave to come 10-12 April.


I'm not sure how the relaxing and tightening would work. I'm not going to be going back into a bar/restaurant knowing that that's where the next wave will start and wouldn't businesses seem some kind of certainly?

Arguably, that’s the ideal.
Once nations suppress this initial 1st peak, relax the rules.
It will allow business to resume but people will be more reticent to return to pre virus levels of social engagement. That will naturally slow, but not stop, the 2nd peak. Hopefully by the end of the 2nd peak, herd immunity will be starting to work.
Ultimately, that’s guesswork though.