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

My birthday! xp

Going out boozing with work colleagues tonight so, er, you love to, er, see it?

Oops, serious developments, one of the work people invited to the pub tonight just got tested positive and was still coming into work as of yesterday. One of the women I work with is freaking out in case he decides to show up at the pub tonight, she was at lunch with him yesterday - she's also Italian and somewhat jumpy at the best of times.

Lol

Downing Street say that, despite the advice from the Electoral Commission, they think the May elections should go ahead.

This is an interesting piece of guidance to ignore.

— Sam Coates Sky (@SamCoatesSky) March 13, 2020

Twitter again telling you that the guillotine is the only option for the class enemy.

Jeremy Warner, who opined that a benefit or coronavirus was a "cull of elderly dependents" is upset because his favourite ski resort is closed. pic.twitter.com/WoBJX6xYYr

— Martin Barrow (@MartinBarrow) March 12, 2020

Eek, stay well Tom!

People in govt royally ****ed off at this Newsnight graphic which they say is deliberately reductive in order to go viral / attack the govt, and omits any context of where each country is in terms of timeline, or the scientific advice on each measure pic.twitter.com/crKcPpyjLR

— Alex Wickham (@alexwickham) March 13, 2020

(Maybe Govt should put some people up for fucking Newsnight then)

I've been expecting to get it all along tbh, I reckon they'll start dropping like ninepins in my work next week and it'll be closed a week from now.

stet: dingdingdingding

and are more outbreak prepared

Singapore will also fine or deport you for ignoring their instructions tbf.

not as harsh as deporting you just for the offense of not being white!

The government are not closing a thing down. It does feel like there is a desire for as little intervention as possible, as opposed to South Korea.

South Korea has done more than just "flatten the curve" of new Covid-19 infections. It bought the curve down through:
- Aggressive testing (20,000 tests daily, "drive through" testing)/isolation
- School holiday extended
- Government advice to stay inside
- large events cancelled pic.twitter.com/MGzuX9Oc6w

— Tom Hancock (@hancocktom) March 13, 2020

Stet, the person I'm quoting there is you!

Sorry, I'm lost. The point is that Italy is at 1000 deaths while we are at 10.

We are 12 or so days behind them in cases. In deaths, given reasonable assumptions, we are four weeks behind them.. So if you want to know where the govt's "we are four weeks behind Italy" is coming from, I think it's that.

A good counterpoint/critique to the govt strategy is probably in this thread:

Unlike all other countries, the UK strategy aims to build herd immunity by allowing the steady spread of #COVID19. The government argue it will block a second peak in several months time. Here are EIGHT questions about this HERD IMMUNITY strategy: (THREAD)

— Anthony Costello (@globalhlthtwit) March 13, 2020

which for me really boils down to question 7 - "shouldn't we try to snuff this one out?". The govt answer to which, I think, is "yes, and then what?". Snuff-it-out strategies are essentially hoping something will turn up to save us all -- like the vaccine in his point 8 — before they collapse. And the vaccine is 18 months away.

Saw someone on the news asking for the govt models and calculations to be shared so they can be peer reviewed/stress tested. I think that's a fair request. I might not be able to understand it myself but I'd be more reassured by a wider expert consensus.
Right now I feel I'm being asked to have faith in the people who got Brexit done.

and stet

I have faith in stet

That something that might turn up might also involve a combination of antivirals that proves effective, I suppose?

https://images.app.goo.gl/jsK6gkDhCFMxmQws7

I can't send images from phone, but was inferring Stet doesn't even know Prince Paul!

That something that might turn up might also involve a combination of antivirals that proves effective, I suppose?

so the plan is to replace it with a Routemaster trolley?

With all the elderly and sick falling out the back door

Kind of a side issue for me, though possibly not for those with family overseas they actually want to see - with the direction of travel (Argentina, Croatia today banning travellers from the UK), if the plan is for 60% or so of people to get it, it's going to be absolutely impossible to leave the country before long.

At the same time, a major lockdown where most of the country is kept away from the virus but no one builds immunity... how is that going to work in the long term? You might stop the spread of the virus in the short term but if it's everywhere else then how is anyone supposed to travel anywhere?

My son is scheduled to go to a month-long camp in S Korea in July and the way things are going now it's S Korea who aren't going to let him in, rather than the other way around

so the plan is to replace it with a Routemaster trolley?

― Psychedics with Rosie Swash (Noodle Vague), Friday, 13 March 2020 13:55 (forty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

With all the elderly and sick falling out the back door

― Non, je ned raggette rien (onimo), Friday, 13 March 2020 14:02 (thirty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

build the bridge, fling the corpses over the side of of it

if it's everywhere else then how is anyone supposed to travel anywhere?

Following on from this, the initial assumption was that BA's cash reserves would cushion them until normality returned and they could clean up in the medium term when smaller airlines went out of business. Realistically, if that might be true for two or three months but are we even going to have a national flag carrier by the time this is over?

I am honestly going to have to stop reading this and other threads for a while because it’s too depressing, but I just realised I cant actually guarantee when I’ll see most of my family again at the rate this is going.

Lab responding:

NEW: Labour are calling on the government to publish their scientific advice so that public can have confidence in the UK’s approach, as Britain increasingly becomes an outlier in terms of not cancelling events etc

— Paul Brand (@PaulBrandITV) March 13, 2020

absolute steaming take from jen williams

Presumably so more people with humanities degrees can form expert opinions on epidemiology, more expert than, say, a group of senior professors of epidemiology https://t.co/8bxNA7Pe8C

— Jennifer Williams (@JenWilliamsMEN) March 13, 2020

she's responsible for 80% of the MEN articles that aren't "Man, 64, dressed as schoolboy in a wig before sexually assaulting teenage girl" but she is also a menace and an exemplar of why journalism is a net negative at this point

I wonder what kind of degree she's got

Studied English @ Manchester

Local elections have been postponed for a year.

she's done a few great pieces of investigate journalism on topics that deserve much more attention, yet personally seems like a real snide, disingenuous, negative shite w/ a myopic and undeserved righteous indignation abt the local press that helps fuel her strong sense of resentment

Labour's call seems eminently reasonable to me. I do worry it will lead to more of the utter shitshow on Twitter right now and SEO experts making more Medium posts with graphs, but it might also help epidemologists understand this thinking

seems like a real snide, disingenuous, negative shite

I predict she has a great career in journalism ahead of her.

Local elections have been postponed for a year.

gives rory stewart a bit more time to sleep on a few more strangers' floors

Talking of, his book is Kindle Deal Of The Day for 99p. A reading group beckons.

did anyone else add him on whatsapp. going to drunk text him some poetry at some point

gives rory stewart a bit more time to sleep on a few more strangers' floors

Typhoid Rory

she's done a few great pieces of investigate journalism on topics that deserve much more attention, yet personally seems like a real snide, disingenuous, negative shite w/ a myopic and undeserved righteous indignation abt the local press that helps fuel her strong sense of resentment

― ogmor, Friday, 13 March 2020 bookmarkflaglink

It's like a textbook example of someone who should not be on twitter.

i can definitively state that i wouldn't pay 99p to read the thoughts of Chairman Rory

is it the journal he wrote about all the free accommodation he's been getting? dari of a scrimpy kid

Labour's call seems eminently reasonable to me. I do worry it will lead to more of the utter shitshow on Twitter right now and SEO experts making more Medium posts with graphs, but it might also help epidemologists understand this thinking

― stet, Friday, 13 March 2020 bookmarkflaglink

Don't think it's enough as stated in that tweet. The government have abdicated on their responsibility to lead, leaving the premier League to cancel matches etc. A lot of the decision making on what someone does or does not do is at the private sector layer.

The government doesn't really want people to cancel matches, afaict. It's counter to the strategy which is "make people who can survive it catch it".

https://www.irishpost.com/news/old-boris-johnson-quote-jaws-mayor-hero-resurfaces-amid-coronavirus-crisis-181536

stet - yes, so surely they should advise/insist that the league to carry on?

And show their working. This strategy will not sit straight with people. Hence all sorts of public/private actors taking their own measures.

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/31vc3DrhK5L._SY200_.jpg

"Caught between hostile nations, warring factions and competing ideologies, at the time Afghanistan was in turmoil following the US invasion. Travelling entirely on foot and following the inaccessible mountainous route once taken by the Mogul Emperor, Babur the Great, Stewart was nearly defeated by the extreme, hostile conditions. Only with the help of an unexpected companion and the generosity of the people he met on the way did he survive to report back with unique insight on a region closed to the world by twenty-four years of war."

This is a thread on what universities are doing, which is basically all sorts.

First, some good news. A small number of universities have now stepped up. Notably, Durham University drew on their own staff expertise to model #Covid_19 impacts in the staff/student community and decided to move teaching online from next week https://t.co/Dwehk16z8l

— USSbriefs is on strike #UCUstrike (@USSbriefs) March 13, 2020