bojo is king, brexit is on, stuff is fvcked, tomorrow starts here -- new govt new thread new battle

The presser discussed your point too, onimo: their worst-case is 80% infection, they think the mortality is 1%. But they stopped short of giving the figure because they said "you can multiply those and get a figure, but the hope is if you can suppress that peak you can reduce the death rate by 20-30% in certain categories"

My employer (NHS Trust) is introducing employee testing next week I think

111 Covid-19 stuff as of last night had switched over to an NHS England public health line which goes through a basic flowchart and tells you don't need to call 111 if you're not in a confirmed outbreak area or haven't been to one of the affected countries

What they do tell you is to go on the website and use the online symptoms checker, which is...the exact same set of questions they read out on the phone to you

I suppose another factor is that the most vulnerable populations aren’t evenly distributed through the country. We saw this during the election: some places have a lot more old people than others.

||||||, agree. Hope there’s some intervention. Is ordering takeaway doing the state some service?!

we had one company who install eg stairlifts, accessible baths etc in elderly people’s homes. their supply chain was all out of china- so were hit by the first order impacts from wuhan shutdown. now they’re dealing with collapsing consumer sentiment and people’s reticence to have strangers in their homes. one of many businesses round the country

PM: “I must level with you, the British public, many more families are going to lose loved ones before their time.”

— Lewis Goodall (@lewis_goodall) March 12, 2020

This is a completely fucking pointless wasting my time but I'm thinking about how Corbyn would be handling this, whether it would have strangled his government at birth or whether it'd end up being the making of them.

In the end it doesn't really matter.

you think so? I'm astonished and a bit impressed that he said it. It was exactly the sort of thing Trump should have been doing last night imo.

xp

He's getting to live the wet dream of every idiot Tory politician ever - the chance to be Churchillian.

Yeah, Churchill had a few thoughts on averting suffering in certain populations too.

Lol interesting.

The govt approach to coronavirus is one of the most interesting social experiments of recent times.

If it works: UK avoids shutting down the country, but suffers virus outbreak no worse than elsewhere. Masterstroke.

If not: UK suffers 100s or 1000s of avoidable deaths.

— Hugo Gye (@HugoGye) March 12, 2020

If its the latter then the sense of rage in this country is going to be out of control.

feel a bit ambivalent on this. like, it does seem unreasonable that drastic measures should be put in place now when the number of infected is going to continue to rise for months regardless, on the other hand how can you ever believe that the tories are acting in the interests of the general public and not just prioritizing the economy and their rule?

We are betting a lot on behavioural psychology here. If they are right that the peak is 10 weeks away, they say you can’t keep the country isolated that long. Especially when nice weather comes.

Feels correct but fuck me that’s a big big bet.

Good luck Prince Phillip.

xps to Matt

Yeah, I keep thinking about it too but it’s just making me angry, cos you know there’s no fucking way Peston would just be shitting out dangerous and irresponsible pieces about “herd immunity” if Corbyn was doing that. They’d be scaremongering about communism if he said the government would fund businesses through the worst and brainwashing if he closed the schools. Don’t even want to think what the reaction would be if he had said about people dying like that.

The bit of Johnson's speech that scares me is the section about sporting events, he's clearly no idea what being at a football match is like, how many people you're in close proximity to, especially on the train there. It suggests he has no idea about any of the other stuff as well.

I mean they just let Cheltenham carry on as normal, they clearly don’t give a shit.

I just heard (on a radio program about the SARS outbreak) someone saying "when you flush a toilet without the lid down, micron sized droplets get distributed all over the ceiling above" and I'm not going into a public toilet for a long time.

Sgt. Biscuits - I’m also an NHS Trust employee but we haven’t been told about any staff testing yet. Are you clinical staff?

Someone ought to explain the *private message* rules to our Rory @daraobriain pic.twitter.com/fH0JfE4Uju

— Uncle Tits (@Unclebarxist) March 12, 2020

I totally just cleaned my loo seat with surgical spirit.

i too have the surgical spirit rn

ENBB - No, I'm not, I just saw an email from my department's clinical director saying that they plan to bring in in-house testing with 6 hour results turnaround from next week and to wait for further details

They're one of the trusts with a HCID centre who are treating cases, so it may be they're better equipped to electively move on this now, idk

I work in Children's so possibly likely we suspend a lot of elective activity and get allocated to supporting overstretched adults services

Ah ok. I’m at a specialty hospital so no A&E or HCID and so far we’ve only had one patient test positive so yes maybe they’re much more prepared to offer that there. Makes sense. A co-worker was saying her friend is a nurse somewhere and her ward has just made a COVID-19 ward so all of a sudden she’s right in the thick of it.

I just heard (on a radio program about the SARS outbreak) someone saying "when you flush a toilet without the lid down, micron sized droplets get distributed all over the ceiling above" and I'm not going into a public toilet for a long time.

well yeah, we're breathing in micron sized droplets all day long; if your toothbrush is in the same room as the toilet it's covered in them, but y'know...

atmospheric moisture yeah, but breathing in micron sized droplets of some scummy old disease ridden randos fucking piss and liquid excrement is a bit more harder to digest!

I know Stet and other posters have done a good job of explaining the rationale behind project Herd Immunity, but it all seems like the wrong approach to me. I think schools and colleges should be closed as per some other countries, as it would actually delay the spread - rather than taking a fatalistic oh well it'll happen anyway.. so fuck it approach.

i think one of the perceived problems with closing schools is what healthcare staff, amongst others, who have children do.

does anybody know what happens in other countries like ireland for instance?

no doubt that children are amazing for spreading stuff without getting ill - aiui the reason the flu inoculation is important at school is not to prevent children getting it but to prevent its spread in the adult population.

_I just heard (on a radio program about the SARS outbreak) someone saying "when you flush a toilet without the lid down, micron sized droplets get distributed all over the ceiling above" and I'm not going into a public toilet for a long time._


well yeah, we're breathing in micron sized droplets all day long; if your toothbrush is in the same room as the toilet it's covered in them, but y'know...

xp
Different solutions will always bring up additional challenges, but it doesn't mean you write them off because they are tricky. I don't think bring your kid to work day would be a good idea though!

Now the Tories have discovered the magic of big government anything is possible!

does anybody know what happens in other countries like ireland for instance? .

The closure of childcare facilities across the country will leave many parents with difficulties if they can't work from home and need to go to work. There is also uncertainty about how workers will be treated as facilities shut. @EileenMagnier reports | pic.twitter.com/fjZ8V3joy4

— RTÉ (@rte) March 12, 2020

Some of my ambivalence is just because it is tories and their record of causing the most vulnerable and disabled to die in large numbers already. Maybe it's a reactionary thing to some extent and i'm not using the old *facts and logic* here! But the fact remains it's a fucking tough call and there aren't really any simple solutions. But "never ever trust tory cunts" is written right through me like a stick of rock (next to shitposter 4 life).

oh the humanity ... LibDem spring conference, Welsh Labour conference and the Starmer unveiling cancelled.

one thing is *always* true: never ever trust the tories.

obv there is nothing to be gained if shitloads of people die and i don't doubt they are going for a win here. But it's the competence that I'm bringing into question and also that they seem be writing off lots of vulnerable immune compromised people (including lots of old bastard Tory voters) as acceptable collateral damage here, or at least that how I perceive it and I'll admit to not being the balanced and fair person but it's how I see it.

151 page 2014 Dept of Health study of the impact of school closures on influenza pandemic. headline, from an epidemiological pov (ie ignoring other social impacts, it's pretty much always a good idea, if done early.

The epidemiological evidence suggests that school closures can influence transmission of
pandemic influenza, although this is dependent on timely implementation. The apparent lack
of an effect on morbidity in some studies may be due to the fact that schools were often
closed relatively late in the respective outbreaks.

and

Modelling studies usually predict that school closure will result in greater reductions in peak
than in cumulative attack rates.

so, reduced pressure on services and systems, but number of cases is the same, is how i read that.

omfg if i ever again post without closing my fuckin brackets i swear i'm gonna go off beachy head.

A report on testing kits.

https://qz.com/africa/1816621/coronavirus-rapid-test-kits-to-be-made-in-senegal-with-uk-help/amp/?

Just think for a moment how truly shit this year is going to be. And then think about dealing with Brexit for all of next year and beyond, something that even a lot of leavers were saying would be tough in the short term, but that's okay because we're in a good economic position and haven't just taken a massive cobid-19 sized hit oh wait

Yeah the aftermath of this is hard to imagine. If 300-500,000 people die, very little is going to be the same again.

the Asian countries learned from SARS

I think the West needed a wake-up call

cobid-19

ffs, covid-19 not corbyn-19, the world dodged the coronommunism virus already

Just think for a moment how truly shit this year is going to be.

― ymo sumac (NickB), Thursday, March 12, 2020 8:59 PM (twenty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

liverpool league title foremost in yr thoughts here presumably

lol that's not gonna happen if the premier league had some fucking guts and a sense of civic duty

BBC News are still doing that Newscast thing that started as Brexitcast, now focusing on coronavirus but with the same insufferable chummy atmosphere and shit-eating grins all-round. The fuck is wrong with them.

— FQ Coyle (@francisqcoyle) March 12, 2020

fucking hell, good job I've almost entirely totally cut out bbc tv from my life since the election.

i think one of the perceived problems with closing schools is what healthcare staff, amongst others, who have children do.

does anybody know what happens in other countries like ireland for instance?

no doubt that children are amazing for spreading stuff without getting ill - aiui the reason the flu inoculation is important at school is not to prevent children getting it but to prevent its spread in the adult population.

― Fizzles, Thursday, 12 March 2020 19:50 (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Another factor here is how many kids with working parents are or would be looked after by grandparents & therefore risk of increased spread to the older population

the short answer fizzles is that we really dont know yet.

the school shutdown was only known at very high levels first thing this morning and the entire service are reacting all day, right up til 7pm when the DPER circular came out covering leave

i had thought it gave carte blanche for special leave for parents (ranted on the irish thread) but on review (and consulting with a civil service HR professional who is currently making the tea) its actually leaving it up to local arrangements quite a bit and clearly expects people to clock their hours, with a bit of flexibility:

 Caring responsibilities e.g. due to the closure of a primary school/crèche: in this scenario both employers and employees should be flexible in their approach to ensure business continuity and employees should work from home where possible. Employers need to implement alternative working arrangements to support employees to attend work. For example, this could include flexible shifts and longer opening hours, to support the provision of services while supporting social distancing measures. Civil and public service employees must stay in regular contact with their managers at all times throughout the period. DPER is reviewing the process for managing caring responsibilities during COVID-19.

also being made clear that staff will be reassigned and redeployed so i guess ill be burning bodies or something by april

Thread on SK's procedures for containment, all ongoing.

New innovative ideas were taken seriously and enacted ASAP. World class IT programs were implemented

🚘 Drive thru testing

🛰 Utilization of GPS information for contact tracing.

🧳Travelers entering the country DL a self report app by KCDC to track symptoms and wherabouts. /3 pic.twitter.com/0d4JBsjoOO

— Hannah Nam MD (@HannahNamMD) March 11, 2020