love* in the time of plague (and by love* i mean brexit* and other dreary matters of uk politics)

For your birthday, we should all remember Margaret Thatcher?

As long as I don’t have to go to work, knock yourselves out.

It wouldn't be the 13th though, it'd be the closest Monday.

looks like what passes as a nationwide scorcher today in England, the rona will be raring to go!

🤦

Another remarkable fact about this mismanaged epidemic. Your personal doctor, your GP, is not able to order a test or home test for you. You have to go yourself through 111 or a website.

— Anthony Costello (@globalhlthtwit) May 19, 2020

And this is how training for contact tracing is going:

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/20/no-one-had-any-idea-contact-tracers-lack-knowledge-about-covid-19-job?

oh lads

https://images.sk-static.com/images/media/img/col6/20200511-162850-406680.jpg

Facebook has been showing me ads for that a lot

me too, looks like the algorithms still need a bit of work

seriously tho 34 quid to watch webcam chats with Jess Philips, David Aaronovitch, Steven Pinker, Nick Robinson...just take my money now

I'm sure this has been pointed out before but any test and trace app where stage one is 'enable Bluetooth' is not going to work unless they are also sending battery packs out to everyone in the country.

lol, otm.

The contact tracing stuff is going to have fun long-term ramifications for privacy. I think that Palantir's underlying technology is pretty much designed to see who suspected terrorists / criminals have been associating with so the military and police can hit their extended networks. Harriet Harman wants to bring forward legislation to explicitly stop the use of data for anything other than the NHS but the government has been resisting.

Bluetooth uses very little power tbf.

Not on my iphone it doesn't.

A point that doesn't get made enough is that the nature of capitalism profoundly changed when millions of people willingly opted in to previously unheard-of levels of surveillance in exchange for convenience and free stuff.

Given that Apple had been running explicitly privacy-centric iPhone ads for some time it looked like we were reaching a tipping point there. But I do think that, if the app works, most people will throw their privacy away without thinking too hard about it if it means being able to move around freely and live their lives again. It's what happens when the pandemic is in the past that people are going to freak out about.

The NHS does have the capability to anonymise big data sets but I don't know how the trace bit can possibly work with any real degree of anonymity. If people get a message saying they've been in contact with an infected person what's to stop them just ignoring it and going about their day?

This is obviously a hugely technologically and legally complex area but, Bluetooth aside, the idea that people have to actively download an app is likely to limit the effectiveness. Singapore went down that route and nobody used it. It's effective in China as you are basically barred from shops, workplaces and restaurants unless you are using it, aiui.

Also the most vulnerable people, the elderly, are the least likely be downloading the app in the first place.

they'd get their heads round it quick enough if you had to use an app to vote Tory

A few years ago I was in an airport and this old lady came up to me "why are young people on their PHONES all the time". I thought she wanted to grouch about it but no, she genuinley didn't know what smartphones were. Not saying that's representative but she's bound not to be the only one, either.

I figure 'app-shaming' will become a thing; colleagues frowning on others not using the app when others are etc. The extra distrust comes with the app for free.

At least now you don't need an app to tell which wankers in your area are tory voters, all doubt is removed when you see who is banging their pot the loudest every thursday evening.

We've been getting some cunt who gets into his car and blares the horn - from 8:05!

I was walking past some grand old and new posh houses near the rectory last thursday and some of demented these pot bangers were staring right at me as i walked past them with dog and a can in my hand. i was waiting for the Donald Sutherland in Invasion of The Bodysnatchers pointing thing to happen!

Might still have a vuvuzela knocking about from the 2010 World Cup to really show my appreciation.

I want to see roy castle tap-dancing with his trumpet!

that might be difficult...

not for the lack of dedication!

It's definitely a vision of what the next world will be like!

Honk if you're Horny for Health Heroes

fond memories of the early years of the lockdown when this was just an empty but essentially benign gesture

Little bit of history here: UK govt just sold bonds at a negative yield for the first time ever. £3.75bn of conventional 3 year bonds (eg not index-linked) at -0.003%.
Investors literally paying the government to take their money… pic.twitter.com/YSIqoBBe5I

— Ed Conway (@EdConwaySky) May 20, 2020

What we effectively have here is the wages of millions of people being paid by investors who think that they will lose even more money putting that cash pretty much anywhere else. I'm guessing these are mostly investments being made on behalf of pensioners or people who will be pensioners soon.

The potential for the government to do a lot more with that cash in the reconstruction is enormous but that's the point at which they will suddenly decide enough is enough.

"If we are to harvest British fruit and vegetables this year, we need an army of people to help."

The Prince of Wales has shared a message in support of the #PickForBritain campaign. 🍓🍏🍅@DefraGovUK pic.twitter.com/a7WIDYo7E0

— Clarence House (@ClarenceHouse) May 19, 2020

In North Korea he would be joining us to pick the crops amirite

Seems short-sighted to have so many children unable to go to school and so many soft fruits that need to be picked and not have identified a perfect Uzbek-style solution to kill two birds with one stone.

*languidly indicating a chimney that could also do with sweeping*

PM says he's thought a lot about the NHS surcharge for non EEA staff to use the health service. Acknowledges he was just treated by someone who would have had to pay it! Who saved his life.

Johnson: "I do think that is the right way forward."

He said it makes money. #PMQs

— Kate Proctor (@Kate_M_Proctor) May 20, 2020

Charles should tread carefully here, his younger brother got into serious trouble with the feds for asking children to harvest his plums.

some other things which make money

*charging relatives of executed political prisoners for the cost of the bullet
*melted down gold teeth
*selling fighter jets to authoritarian regimes, oh hang on

Lol @ this interview:

Kerala's "rockstar" Health Minister @shailajateacher sharing the state's #COVID19 story live on BBC World News 🔥

(Part 1/3) pic.twitter.com/GM8VI8hlLO

— Siddharth🌹 (@DearthOfSid) May 18, 2020

This interviewer can't believe Kerala are not actually fucking this up like we are.

Hilariously, the call has gone out to Conservative MPs to dash back to the House of Commons from pandemic isolation in their homes to give the PM moral support in a Chamber that was quiet as a graveyard during Sir Keir’s last two attacks.

A little bit of Darwin Awards, as a treat.

Lol:

MPs have just voted by 350 to 258, govt majority 92, to discontinue remote participation in Commons on 2 June pic.twitter.com/m5U4UCdpbc

— John Rentoul (@JohnRentoul) May 20, 2020

time to start a parliamentary dead pool lads

are MPs gonna be allowed to stay at home if they don't think it's safe?

I’m at Clapham Junction and I have never seen anything like it for quiet. Real Sunday 2am stuff.

Not a massive amount of mask wearing. Possibly linked to the “govt advice is to consider wearing a mask” announcements.

i've still not worn one - from everything i'd heard the govt lack of buying PPE tied with non medical stuff buying all the masks up meant there weren't enough for people who genuinely needed them so it was selfish as fuck for me to go buy one when i'm socially isolating at home, not getting close to anyone when i do go out and so dont need it.... but then today i see on my socials someone posting that not wearing a mask when you go out is "a sign of privilege". so yeah confused.

people will say anything to feel superior

that said if you're going to mix with people a mask isn't a bad idea idk, but if you're steering clear it's probably an indulgence. of course if we were all given proper medical-grade masks then it'd be much easier and almost second-nature to do it regardless

Medical-grade protects you, even a cloth face covering helps protect others is what I understand about it. And especially in confined spaces like buses

not wearing a mask when you go out is "a sign of privilege".

That's so much utterly backwards nonsense. I actually don't know where to get a mask. Are there shops stocking them? I suppose I could look on Amazon but that's because I have an internet connection and a credit card.