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Coronavirus


Bjornebye

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8 minutes ago, Nelly-Torres said:

- they've done a similar thing with ventilator capacity than they did with their NHS nurses pledge. They've claimed to have 12k ventilators. The real figure is 8k, plus 4k that don't exist, in situ, and are instead going through the "procurement process."

 

- they interviewed some experts before Zahawi. I didn't see these interviews, but they concluded that the government plans for ventilator production are entirely unrealistic. The peak of cases is expected in 2 to 3 weeks. The expert suggests that lots of the new ventilators won't be available until after this peak. 

Also it takes a highly experienced doctor to operate the ventilation machines, according to that Welsh doctor who went viral the other day.  Takes more than a few weeks to get the experience required.  So some of us would end up with the work experience noob trying to save our life on the government's new ventilators.  

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16 minutes ago, Lizzie Birdsworths Wrinkled Chopper said:

In contrast to hand-washing and other personal measures, social distancing measures are not about individuals, they are about societies working in unison. These measures also take a long time to see the results. It is hard (even for me) to conceptualize how on a population level ‘one quick little get together’ can undermine the entire framework of a public health intervention, but it does. I promise you it does. I promise. I promise. I promise. You can’t cheat it. People are already itching to cheat on the social distancing precautions just a “little”- a playdate, a haircut, or picking up a needless item at the store, etc. From a transmission dynamics standpoint, this very quickly recreates a highly connected social network that undermines all of the work the community has done so far.

 

Don't do it. Particularly picking up crap that you don't need.

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1 hour ago, TK421 said:

It's utterly mental.  Johnson, Whitty and Vallance are pissed in the casino and throwing everything on black.  

 

Yeah they're definitely mental by the looks of it (well we know Johnson is, thinking of the other two mainly.) If so many of us can sit at home checking the internet with no qualifications in this area at all and predict that their plans aren't going to work/are a massive failure then see them backtrack so regularly, it really makes me wonder what's going through their heads.

 

Maybe it's some type of pressure behind the scenes making them go along with the stupidity but it's clearly not normal.

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1 minute ago, Red Phoenix said:

 

Yeah they're definitely mental by the looks of it (well we know Johnson is, thinking of the other two mainly.) 

The pinch of salt caveat applies but I read somewhere (might have been on here, even) that it's an open secret amongst Westminster circles that Johnson is a fairly hardcore alcoholic. 

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1 minute ago, Nelly-Torres said:

The pinch of salt caveat applies but I read somewhere (might have been on here, even) that it's an open secret amongst Westminster circles that Johnson is a fairly hardcore alcoholic. 

 

I wouldn't be surprised at all, would explain why he's so good at waffling shit too.

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From The Guardian :

 

Don't believe the myth that we must sacrifice lives to save the economy

 

- Governments must do whatever it takes – and whatever it costs – in the interests of our health and our collective wealth

 

- Jonathan Portes is a former senior civil servant

 

Is the cure worse than the disease? The Times claimed today: “If the coronavirus lockdown leads to a fall in GDP of more than 6.4% more years of life will be lost due to recession than will be gained through beating the virus.” It’s hard to know where to start with this nonsense. It’s based on a paper currently under review at a journal entitled Nanotechnology Perceptions, which simply assumes that a fall in GDP translates mechanically and directly into a fall in life expectancy.

 

It’s this sort of reasoning that appears to be leading President Trump to call for an early end to restrictions in the US, claiming that far more people would die of suicide from a “terrible economy” than from the virus.

 

But the premise is simply wrong. A recession – a short-term, temporary fall in GDP – need not, and indeed normally does not, reduce life expectancy. Indeed, counterintuitively, the weight of the evidence is that recessions actually lead to people living longer. Suicides do indeed go up, but other causes of death, such as road accidents and alcohol-related disease, fall.

 

So at the most basic level, this argument ignores what the evidence says. But perhaps more importantly, the idea that the way to minimise the economic damage is to remove the restrictions before they’ve done their job – definitively suppressing the spread of the virus – is a terrible one.

 

Does anyone believe that, whatever the government said, we could get back to “normal”, or something close to it, any time soon? If we were all allowed to return to work, many or most of us would, quite rationally, choose not to, for fear of catching the virus. And if, as the scientists predict, the result of loosening the restrictions was an acceleration in infections, then pretty soon many firms would simply stop functioning, as workers became sick, or had to stay at home to look after family members.

 

More broadly, restoring the economy to normal requires, above all, confidence. Amid continuing uncertainty both about their own finances and the wider economy, households won’t spend and businesses won’t invest. And that simply isn’t going to happen until the spread of the diseases has been contained.

 

So there is no tradeoff here. Health and economic considerations point in exactly the same direction in the short term. Do whatever it takes – and whatever it costs – and do it now, in the interests both of our health and our collective wealth.

 

But what comes next? It is entirely reasonable to point out that serious damage to the economy, if it persists over the longer term, will reduce our welfare and maybe even – as austerity and its aftermath have done – life expectancy. The last 10 days have seen universal credit claims rise more than five-fold, to half a million, while YouGov data suggests that 2 million people may have lost their job. The recession is already here.

 

But this need not, and should not, be permanent. The risk here is that we allow the inevitable fall in GDP that results from shutting down the economy to drive firms out of business and workers into long-term unemployment. And there is nothing inevitable at all about this.

 

After all, many European countries, such as France or Italy, probably, see their GDP fall by 10% or 20% or so in absolute terms every August when workers take their summer holidays. No one notices – the numbers are “seasonally adjusted” to take account of holidays, which means it doesn’t show up in the published data – nor does it do any damage. Workers continue to be paid, and businesses don’t go bust just because they’re not making any money. Come September, everyone gets back to work as normal.

 

Of course this is very different – that won’t happen automatically with Covid-19. The impacts are more widespread and long-lasting – and we don’t know how long – than an enforced extra holiday. But rapid and appropriate action by government can go a long way. Keeping workers in jobs and firms in business needs to be the priority. In the circumstances, the government’s made a good start, although there’s lots more to do.

 

So what we should be worried about – both from an economic and a health perspective – is not how much GDP falls. It’s going to fall by a lot, and that’s a good thing. If it didn’t – if people were still going to work despite being told not to – then the lockdown wouldn’t be working and we’d still see economic consequences further down the line. It’s what happens to GDP in a year or 18 months that matters.

 

And the long-term consequences? It wasn’t the sharp fall in GDP in 2008-9 that reduced, over the course of the next decade, life expectancy for the poorest in our society. It was how the government chose to address the economic fallout of the global financial crisis – by underfunding and understaffing the NHS and social care, and by eroding the basic welfare safety net that people depend on when times are hard. As we are now discovering, these were false economies that left us less, not more, prepared for this crisis.

 

Similarly, if we allow Covid-19 to permanently damage our economic and social fabric, it will be our own fault, not that of the virus. This time we can, and must, do better.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/25/there-is-no-trade-off-between-the-economy-and-health

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Ironic it seems the young are going to pay the price for bailing out and keeping mainly the old safe. The old who enjoyed good opportunity, jobs and housing ( it's a lot easier to self isolate at home if your home has an outdoor tennis court etc than to self isolate in a 2 bedroom flat on the tenth floor of a tower block.

 

I hope when this is over the older generation are going to appreciate the sacrifice's being made by the rest of the country but judging by their voting record I doubt it.

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12 minutes ago, Gnasher said:

Ironic it seems the young are going to pay the price for bailing out and keeping mainly the old safe. The old who enjoyed good opportunity, jobs and housing ( it's a lot easier to self isolate at home if your home has an outdoor tennis court etc than to self isolate in a 2 bedroom flat on the tenth floor of a tower block.

 

I hope when this is over the older generation are going to appreciate the sacrifice's being made by the rest of the country but judging by their voting record I doubt it.

Could have been taken from either of the two world wars that. A lot of those oldies may not have fought in the war but they certainly lived through the impact of it afterwards.

 

Stay ay home and go on the internet with your food deliveries with money from the government, I guess my grandad who was killed in action would have taken that as a sacrifice for the oldies instead of leaving behind his wife and 1 year old child. 

 

Living in a democracy is about accepting that others have differing opinions to your own, no matter how daft that may be and they are free to vote that way. But yeah, hopefully everyone takes a long hard look at themselves after this, not just the old. 

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/25/nhs-staff-warned-to-hide-id-after-spate-of-targeted-muggings

 

NHS staff are being targeted by muggers trying to steal their identity badges so they can use them to obtain the free food and drinks being offered to doctors and nurses tackling coronavirus.

 

Health service bosses are so concerned by a spate of incidents that they are preparing to warn all hospital staff to hide their NHS lanyards when they are arriving at or leaving work.

 

NHS England condemned attempts to rob staff as “the actions of an idiotic few”.

Last week robbers tried to grab badges belonging to two personnel at Lewisham hospital in south London but did not succeed. The muggers approached the two staff – thought to be doctors – as they were walking through a park just outside a rear entrance to the hospital.

 

One of the doctors’ colleagues said: “Something like this is appalling. It’s beyond the pale and so shocking. Someone tried to grab my colleagues’ ID badges as they were leaving but didn’t get them.”

 

All staff at the Lewisham and Greenwich NHS trust’s two acute hospitals have now been told to keep their lanyards concealed when they are entering or leaving the premises. The trust’s all-staff briefing issued on Monday said: “Following reports of an attempt to take the ID badges of two members of staff as they were leaving work, please make sure your ID badge is out of sight.”

 

Those trying to steal ID badges are thought to want them to obtain the free coffee, pizza and other products that high street chains such as Leon, Domino’s, Costa Coffee, Pret a Manger, Burger King, Pizza Hut and Greggs have begun offering NHS staff to thank them for their efforts in dealing with the coronavirus epidemic.

 

An NHS official said: “This is absolutely grim. ID badges are being stolen in a few places as staff come out of their trust. As soon as staff are coming off-site they are waiting for them and stealing them, to get the free food and also so they can go shopping during the protected early morning shopping hour that some supermarkets have put in place for NHS staff.

 

“It’s mainly nurses who have been targeted. They’re the ones who often walk out of the main entrance of a hospital with their lanyards on.”

 

NHS England is finalising new advice that it will send to all 240 trusts in England, asking them to tell staff to be vigilant and to keep their ID badge hidden.

 

Ruth May, its chief nursing officer, said: “Our NHS staff are pulling out all the stops in the face of an unprecedented global health threat, so these reports are really concerning. We have seen some extraordinary acts of generosity from businesses and the public and this will not be overshadowed by the actions of an idiotic few, but I would urge everyone to show NHS staff the gratitude they deserve and help them to do what they do best.”

 

Several departments at University College Hospital London, a major acute trust in the centre of the capital, have recently advised their own staff to beware after several incidents. Trust bosses then issued a briefing to all personnel on Monday repeating the need to be careful.

 

It said: “We are doing what we can to keep you safe. Please raise your vigilance and do not have your mobile phone or NHS lanyards/ID visible outside our hospitals. Please remember to report any incidents to security at UCLH too.”

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3 minutes ago, Anubis said:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/25/nhs-staff-warned-to-hide-id-after-spate-of-targeted-muggings

 

NHS staff are being targeted by muggers trying to steal their identity badges so they can use them to obtain the free food and drinks being offered to doctors and nurses tackling coronavirus.

 

 

Boils my blood that, just bring back some form of corporal punishment on a temporary basis for these scum. Any kind of detention will probably lead to three full meals a day and better health care than most. 

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I think generally people are nasty arseholes. They act civil usually because they fear consequences of acting badly. REAPER CUSHIONS smothering the airways of those who voted against what's good for the masses in favour if what's good for themselves. Not me though I'm an angel through and through and wouldn't even abuse the powers of mind control if I was locked in a room with Salma Hayek and Sofia Vergara. 

 

1 day in I'm losing my mind.

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31 minutes ago, davelfc said:

 

 

Boils my blood that, just bring back some form of corporal punishment on a temporary basis for these scum. Any kind of detention will probably lead to three full meals a day and better health care than most. 


Not in prison they won’t.

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LONDON (Reuters) - Britain on Thursday said Prince Charles, who has coronavirus, did not jump the queue for a test because his symptoms and condition met the criteria. 

Charles tested positive for coronavirus earlier this week but is in good health and is now self isolating in Scotland with mild symptoms, Clarence House said. 

When asked why the heir to the British throne had a test while millions of frontline health workers have not, Britain’s junior health minister, Edward Argar, said: “My understanding is that his symptoms, his condition, met that criteria.” 

“The Prince of Wales didn’t jump the queue,” Argar told Sky news.

 

 

 

Maybe a better question would be how the hell are the royals/MPs  managing on £2500 a month (before tax) while they are unable to work or furloughed.  

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11 hours ago, Dougie Do'ins said:

I wonder how many of these are of retirement age and over. If so, it's pretty reckless. Be interesting to know if some of these retired early or fucked off for other reasons

On the Dr/consultant side there was an initative offering early retirement in the  last few years so yes there could be early retirees I. That figure. 

I am genuinely shocked at the number of medical professionals who have died from virus heard about a couple in China but levels in Italy mad. Their slogan that they going to work to save lives we need to stay at home to save lives needs to resonate with the whole population.

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7 minutes ago, 1892-LFCWasBorn said:

d1P4Jom.png

 

Mental this as pointed out by Sky News. Anyone infected from Madrid can get a flight to London (so both most infected cities in both countries) and just go straight home without anyone checking or them getting tested.

 

The same applies to New York, the most infected City in the US.

 

gn1igIC.png

 

This is the bit I don't get apart from repatriation why allow these routes / passenger planes  to still fly ? This basic balls up tells me Johnson is not in charge. Lunacy.

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