RandoEFC

I honestly have no idea. My knowledge only comes from experts and the news second-hand. I think it's going to have to really die down before countries start to come out of lockdown but if there's still a small handful of undetected cases I don't know what's stopping the virus from spreading all over again if immunity from recovering once isn't guaranteed. I think you can only call it 100% safe when you can supply a vaccine to the majority of the population.

I think the early research is showing that recovering from it once makes you unlikely to contract it again but there have been a few cases of people getting it twice. Some have said that life can't truly go back to normal until a vaccine is developed.

What? Hancock said weeks ago that he was in discussions with supermarkets and retailers up and down the country about dealing with the panic buying situation and the body that acts as a spokesperson for those industries came out and said there had been absolutely no contact from the government. Then there was the EU procurement scheme fiasco where Hancock said he expected us to be involved and a week later the government were like "oh lol sorry we found the emails in our spam folder" and that's why we didn't join in before it also came to light that we had representatives at meetings where it was discussed in person. Now we have Gove making claims about the reactives or whatever they're called being unavailable and saying he's been in touch with the appropriate people and they're saying the complete opposite. They've done some things well, provided the appropriate financial support (not that they had any choice because I don't know what viable alternative there was if they want people to follow the restrictions without vast swathes of the country going destitute) and yes the extra hospitals are obviously a good move but just because they've got some basic things right doesn't mean you cant question their decisions and statements elsewhere. I think most sensible people have a certain amount of sympathy and patience with the government because nobody could get all these calls right in such an unprecedented crisis as this but I'd feel much more comfortable if they were willing to admit the occasional misstep rather than try and pretend every u-turn is all part of the plan. Anyway, what the fuck is this all about?

I heard on an LBC phone-in yesterday about an NHS lab where they were all tested, and 8 of them came back positive who had demonstrated mild or no symptoms, so wouldn't have been tested at all if they weren't NHS. That's all in one lab so hopefully it isn't as widespread across the whole NHS.

I've stopped paying much attention to the daily briefings as they haven't said anything ground breaking for a week or so, but you could forgive the government for changing their mind on things if they just explained why. I understand mass testing at the start for the sake of contact tracing etc. and I understand it at the end when they need to start deciding how safe it is to start relaxing the restrictions. Right now I think it's important to test NHS workers and other key workers, arguably those in vulnerable groups as well. However, anyone who is low risk and has any inkling that they have it should just be self isolating and taking it easy. It shouldn't really be essential for them to get tested.

First death over here just announced this evening.

This is happening on an almost daily basis, politicians coming out with some facts or vague plans that they're putting in place and it being proven wrong by the industries they've been "talking to" within minutes. Honestly now that the social distancing/lockdown/school closure rules are no longer being reviewed on a daily basis I think they can stick a pin in the daily news conferences for a couple of weeks until they have something tangible to tell us.

First paragraph, spot on. Second paragraph, the greater threat has always been hospital capacity getting overwhelmed. While most under 70s are not likely to die, many of them need hospital care to get through it. I don't know what the actual numbers are but if 10% of people that get it need hospital, that's probably 9% who recover and 1% who go down even with intensive care, but if too many people go in at once, many of those 9% won't get a bed and will actually die. Feel free to correct my numbers science people, just throwing rough estimates to be able to make the point.

See my post above. Germany are doing loads more testing. They're getting a lot of positive results from people with mild symptoms whereas we only test people with more severe symptoms. Therefore more official cases for Germany but not more deaths.

Germany are testing a lot more than other nations. I think I read they've recorded a lot more cases as they're testing more people with mild symptoms. In the UK for example, people are only getting tested when they need further treatment, so the deaths:cases ratio is worse than Germany. That said I think they are doing a better job of containing it as well as that.

I'm not here to get into a slagging match or score points against Tories. This is obviously an unprecedented time and there's no playbook on what governments should do. All I'm saying is it's not exactly reassuring when the prime minister and health secretary advising us on how not to spread coronavirus have both caught it themselves, and that their several missteps and lack of preparation when we saw what was coming in China, Italy, France and Spain gave us plenty of time to prepare yet we've made all the same mistakes as each of those countries despite the warnings from those getting those experiences in those countries first hand being readily available. I'm really not trying to stick the boot in, at least not more than is due. I'll readily acknowledge that it could have easily been caused by an irresponsible or asymptomatic journalist or staff member at number 10 that neither of them could do anything about. I have to say on the SAGE thing though, whether it was those scientists or our own government, they were idiots and they were called reckless by experts in pretty much every other country and by the WHO. They are culpable for the herd immunity theory which was debunked weeks earlier by China and Italy and barely held up to basic scrutiny for 48 hours before they back tracked on it. This isn't about that though really. All I'm saying is that our government are playing catch up because they didn't understand what they were up against for too long when they should have. This may or may not be a consequence of that but it isn't reassuring.

Hmm I don't know. Like people have mentioned, shaking peoples hands at one of the hospitals where there were known coronavirus patients isn't exactly good leadership and if our government had taken the time to take this seriously at an earlier stage I think the prime minister would have known better than to do that and essentially brag about it afterwards. I also dont really know why parliament has stayed open as long as it has even if they were practicing social distancing at PMQs this week. I think the governance has been better since they really began to understand what they were up against but it took them too long to do that. They've known about the outbreak since January yet they were too busy debating whether or not to make Big Ben bong on January 31st when they could have been preparing us for this. Instead we got to early March and our government was talking about herd immunity as a viable strategy to the bemusement of the rest of the developed world. It's not exactly reassuring in any way when the two people most responsible for fighting this thing in the UK have caught it themselves but to me it isn't surprising because our government seem to have misunderstood and underestimated this virus at every turn so far and are now only just looking as if there's some sort of plan to get a handle on it.

I mean, on one hand it can happen to anyone. On the other hand, the prime minister and actual health secretary catching coronavirus is just about the perfect expression of how poorly this government has failed to understand this crisis and how to deal with it. It's one thing struggling to get the message across to the country who don't want to believe it but a whole other thing to fail to take the precautions as the actual leader of the country to stay healthy yourself.

I wouldn't wish it on anyone, just to be clear. He'll be fine, hopefully. He'll obviously get the highest of medical care like Prince Charles.

Lol

1978 for any particular reason @nudge?

The people's government delivering again.

I thought the coronavirus was the finale. Or at least a prequel.

New community. Apparently that's her out of the series now...

I have no problem with this to be fair. It doesn't exactly scream competence but at least he's willing to admit he made a slight mistake.

Been told not to come in tomorrow as we're only expecting about 30 kids. Glad to see our public taking the whole key worker thing seriously and not trying to take the piss and use the schools as free daycare. Will be in once in a while on a supervision rota for the foreseeable. I'm going to not be a cunt and only leave the house for shopping a couple of times a week until further notice. Going to be shite.

Booooooooo Europe. Yaaaaaaay sovereignty.

We have now. Only Manx residents returning can enter along with individuals brought over considered absolutely essential to keep the island going whatever that means.

Did Downing Street do a presser today? Even the most loyal of Johnson's press cheerleaders are starting to ask questions today. It's a horrible situation for any world leader but if he stutters through too many more loops of "please follow the advice" while the country continues to ignore him it becomes increasingly difficult not to calm him weak as piss. Obviously I hope that doesn't prove to be the case.

13 cases now on the Isle of Man. None receiving hospital treatment yet thankfully but still an uncomfortable rise from 0 on Thursday.