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

I'm not convinced that the headline is a smoking gun, is the thing - "the NHS and councils block booked beds in care homes to ensure they were ready to deal with a surge in patients coming from hospital" is the right thing to do if you think there's going to be a surge of such patients - it's the not testing them before discharging that's the scandal, and we already knew that.

meanwhile in the history of shitposting:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EZLI19wVAAI8zzq?format=jpg

Andrew - I don't think the government were open about this, for one.

Besides lack of protection and testing it's the treatment of care homes (which was always late in the news) and how they were turned into a mix of a hospital and a hospice. These details add to that picture around the collapse of the response.

after being exposed and immediately prior to becoming infectious, people exposed to c19 will test negative (whitty mentioned this yesterday but obviously its fairly well known), given the increased vulnerability of other patients in care home settings it seems obvious that there needs to be some other measure for isolating those leaving hospital in order to ensure that testing is effective.

the only way this could have been dealt with properly is with pre-existing, properly resourced public health at local levels. A sensible national approach would have been to have coherent central messages and to empower (not responsibilise) local public health workers to organise local responses that take account of the complexity of local factors. At the same time there would need to be platforms for public health workers to share emergent knowledge around successes and failures in such a way that the response can be mobile and take account of emerging factors and complications.

It is obvious that those in charge have very little knowledge of the country they run. Johnson's NRPF comments are the most shocking example of this, but I think the constant "but what if...?" questions from the public, which rarely get translated into questions asked by journalists, repeatedly reveal how disconnected politicians are from the ramifications of their policies. I think its only partly true that the ambiguity is intended to trip everyone into herd immunity, there's also a very real sense in which politicians and *experts* do not understand the difficulties that people will face in trying to comply with all this stuff or how material conditions will make attempts to socially distance increasingly futile for increasing numbers of people in the next few weeks.

The disempowerment of local government and the elitism of whitehall is here compounded by the presence of *top* experts who deal in the high abstraction of epidemiology, communications tech, etc. There also isn't time for trials in the isle of wight to determine that people are more likely to comply with public health directives issued personally over the phone than ones issued from a notification on your phone. Anyone with experience engaging people around health interventions could have told them that. Anyway fuck this government and fuck the clueless, spineless experts who stand beside them enabling this gibberish (while staying out of politics)

how can you go hang out w people and have a BBQ. are we supposed to piss in their borders

don’t all have the superhuman bladders of the cummings family

At least Liverpool can win the fucking league now:

[PART 2] As the Premier League announces it should return on June 17th, me and @WindyCOYS explore why it shouldn't:
1. Unreliable tests bought from a man with a dodgy history
2. Disproportionate risk faced by BME players
3. Inherent dangers of training https://t.co/gVJRQz0UWh

— aut_omnia (@aut_omnia) May 29, 2020

Downing Street Daily Briefing

Government was unable to reduce Coronavirus threat level below 4. Boris Johnson signalled on Wednesday it was likely to be reduced to 3, but the Joint Biosecurity Unit did not agree to this yesterday.

Lockdown lifting goes ahead nevertheless pic.twitter.com/Pt8cDzMVAq

— Sam Coates Sky (@SamCoatesSky) May 29, 2020

wait what

uhhh

you know, I'd be OK with Cummings staying if they said "let him stay and we won't let thousands die"

I mean, I wouldn't, but fuck this is the worst

There is clearly no rationale for easing restrictions and no journalist that I've heard has called them on this

Update on new rules for Hongkongers seeking to live/work in UK: Home Office appears to confirm that if China presses on with security law, *all* 2.9m 'British nationals (overseas)' in Hong Kong will be allowed to come to UK whether or not they *currently* hold a BN(O) passport.

— Hugo Gye (@HugoGye) May 29, 2020

of course slogging your guts out in the fields for minimum wage and dying of the Rona is much preferable to Xi's social credit authoritarian state!

someone at work just said they have to ease lockdown because lockdown's already fucked. if everyone's going to be in the parks/driving to BC, then you might as well make it look like it was meant and pretend you're still in charge.

either that or he's just jealous that the better-run countries are unlocking.

xp presumably facing racism from, scapegoating over failures of, the same political establishment that invited you, if I know britain

you see, dominic cummings was just disruptingly ahead of the curve

either that or he's just jealous that the better-run countries are unlocking.

I see it not so much as jealousy as feeling the need to prove the UK will be financially competitive post-brexit and also preventing people from seeing how other countries are doing, wondering why the lockdown hasn't changed here, and drawing the conclusions. Everything the govt does is about its own PR, not fighting the epidemic.

I wonder how many countries will go down the route of Greece and specifically ban UK residents from entering when the borders re-open.

New NHS 111/999 data on potential covid cases ("based on potential COVID-19 symptoms reported by members of the public to NHS Pathways through NHS 111 or 999 and 111 online") came out this morning. Still showing consistent falls with no e.g. VE Day effect as people speculated. pic.twitter.com/xJbNK6qxYI

— Daniel Howdon (@danielhowdon) May 26, 2020

would the HK people like to pick some fruit?

anecdotally, outside is a lot noisier today, traffic and people. there was even a scooter accident (and a group of people gawping at said accident). usually the noise is idling ocado vans delivering to over the road.

NHS England reported two deaths in London yesterday compared with 250+ at the peak. This is due to be revised obviously but in general, while the number of hospital deaths varies by region but nowhere is above 25 or so. Which suggests this is is predominantly a care home thing now, unless/until it flares up again.

Give it another couple of weeks and we should know but the schools thing is a massive unknown quantity.

Is there any reliable data on whether survival rates for hospitalised patients have improved since the start of the pandemic?

Judging by the amount of traffic going past my window today lockdown is well and truly over on the outskirts of Dundee.

I've had the week off and have been in the park all day every day, although still fully socially distant. Everyone else appears to have sacked it off altogether, there was a group of 30 or so kids hanging out and playing football and no one seemed remotely arsed.

Yeah people think it's all over,who knows where they got that idea from?

Expect to see this replicated almost everywhere:

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/may/29/soas-to-slash-budgets-and-staff-as-debt-crisis-worsens-in-pandemic

For context, SOAS has about 2700 international students and expects to lose up to £16m in revenue.

UCL has 13,000.

At this stage it's evident there isn't going to a magical all-clear moment, at some point there's going to have to be a tapering off and outdoor socialising seems reasonably safe and uncontroversial as long as it isn't thousand of people flooding onto beaches. And they don't just start hugging each other.

More people in closed spaces, including schools, feels like where the danger lies.

Going straight from 'you can meet one person at a distance of 2m' to 'you can have barbecues and use another person's toilet' is where things are going to go wrong.

simply getting people out of doors full stop has probably had a really positive effect. feb and early march were chilly!

the S Korean govt re-opened the schools then shortly afterwards closed them again when there was another outbreak. I know it is a shithole capitalist hellscape as well, but still jealous of just the basic level of competence and commitment to stopping the Rona killing more people their govt has.

There's no incompetence like British upper-class incompetence! Expect this to drag on for years, unless a miracle vaccine manifests itself.

i've said it before here but i think the global economic disaster whose consequences are waiting patiently in the wings is going to make lockdown politics look extremely basic and easy to manage.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/29/coronavirus-symptoms-not-isolating-sage-track-and-trace

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to your Second Spike. Please make yourselves comfortable. Your Track & Trace operative will be with you soon*.

*lol

"The main No 10 representative was Ben Warner, a data scientist recruited to Downing Street after running the Conservatives’ election campaign model. He previously worked with Dominic Cummings on the Vote Leave campaign."

🤔

“flash points tend to happen where there is a perceived lack of equity”

"2.9m 'British nationals (overseas)' in Hong Kong"

I presume this will be all about inviting capital flight from Hong Kong into London and have seen that 2.9m boiled down to 300000 BNO's somewhere else.

Can't see people observing distancing at the beach and the like, the government opening things up and most damming of all the inability to get track & trace running means we'll surely have an outbreak.

The question is surely when rather than if at this point.

and given that, will they have the ability to go "backwards" and tighten restrictions again? Either in terms of credibility or mindset. Because I can see them trying to style it out until hospitals really are overwhelmed

they don't give a shit

^^^

By itself the idea of going outside and seeing ppl isn’t horrendous, it’s the loss of whatever grip on clear messaging they ever had (which was close enough to nil) plus the fact that tracing is gonna fall on its arse plus we can all go to primark and schools are opening... just feels like a disaster about to happen. I was thinking there was no way pubs reopen this summer but I wonder now

On the other hand, just use common sense end of 🤣🤣

Tho it kills me to say it reopening pubs in the height of summer will be a recipe for mayhem

I still think they prob won’t

not sure if the govt has quite worked out the details of this yet but it looks like they might be allowing all 2.9 million HKers to come to the UK

this will split the brexit crew nicely

Update on new rules for Hongkongers seeking to live/work in UK: Home Office appears to confirm that if China presses on with security law, *all* 2.9m 'British nationals (overseas)' in Hong Kong will be allowed to come to UK whether or not they *currently* hold a BN(O) passport.

— Hugo Gye (@HugoGye) May 29, 2020

But I worry about them doing it with “guidance” instead of the rules they have elsewhere and it inevitably becoming a free-for-all xp

Wouldn't put anything past this lot now, if the shops don't kill anybody who matters I can see some sort of pub opening before the end of July

Xp This is surprisingly great, what’s the catch?

oh, I see xyzzz and calz - the only two ppl I have blocked! what are the odds? - have posted about it, carry on