Coronavirus

[Serial_Apologist]

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This 'public taking the lead' I have found heartening and hope that aspects of it will inform life after the pandemic. I am not sure though that it will be as useful for dealing with any easing of restrictions, given shambolic government planning (assuming there is even any) and absence of clear explanation for 'decisions'.

"The public's" immediate emotional and practical response to Grenfell offered the kind of example of lead-taking I've always believed possible. As always, top-down authorities supposedly elected to resolve problems of this kind blocked the way. The trouble is, it goes against the grain of a public groomed from cradle to grave to be obedient to the biddings of consumerism, while all the time being told their "free choice" is tantamout to the last word in taking personal responsibility. Once removed from the nexus that is our social equivalent to nature's ecosystemic way of operating, you have to impose and internalise artificial modellings on human behavour to account for the consequences in terms of immaturisation and even infantilisation, such as religious doctrines, while keeping the pressures on in matters which should be existentially peripheral to healthy personal and interpersonal functioning - the "need" to constantly refer to mobile phones demanding instant responses and conforming to stereotypes useful to maintaining production line criteria, a prime example - to account for it.

From my limited perspective over the past 3 days, the mere mention of 'easing lockdown' seems to have signalled a change in atmosphere and approach - much more road traffic, at Morrisons no more cleaned trolleys and much higher levels of shopper throughput, heads down on phones creeping back, indications that some 'households' have got bigger when the barbie comes out...

See what I mean?

[Dave2002]

You are probably correct in suggesting that using the number of deaths per million of the population is a better metric when doing international comparisons. However, on the one occasion they did show separate charts for each metric the chart using deaths/million showed the UK in a marginally more favourable light than the chart they normally use. So I don't think that using deaths (instead of deaths/million) is part of the "attempts [that] are being made to suppress the full scale of the damage, to misrepresent what has happened". The countries shown that are dramatically different when using deaths/million are the US and Belgium.

I'm not convinced that it showed the UK better on that occasion. What it did show up was that despite our views of the USA, when the population size is taken into account it's not doing as badly as the one normally used suggests, and it did highlight the problem with Belgium which you and/or others round here have already pointed out. Of course it's still too early to tell how it will all look with hindsight.

Getting out of this mess is the next thing and that's probably going to be a really long haul.

Does anyone have any information about what China has been doing, either near Wuhan, or in the rest of the country?

[johnb]

Getting out of this mess is the next thing and that's probably going to be a really long haul.

Most definitely.

Out of interest these are two charts I cobbled together using the datasets from John Hopkins University (which the government and the FT also use for their charts). The chart of deaths/million that the government used had a logarithmic Y-axis whereas the other chart didn't. I've used a linear Y-axis for both charts:

[muzzer]

When you can’t trust the government in a public health emergency, there’s something pretty fundamentally wrong with the country. The past ten years in this country have been the strongest argument for civic participation in my lifetime. Mostly good people have stood by and very bad things have happened. We must do better.

[oddoneout]

On the subject of lying - or bending the truth for unworthy ends. Can someone perhaps clarify for me - the PM was not dependent on the NHS for his care and survival in my view. Some one in his position will always go through the private route although there may be some crossover of facilities and possibly personnel?
This query has been prompted by something that was mentioned on the news bulletin earlier, namely the PM giving an interview to the Sun about 'his coronavirus experience'. The mute button was employed in haste but not before I'd heard 'pumping litres of oxygen' and the well-worn 'touch and go' and '50/50'.
Thousands of people have had to go through this in the real NHS and will in many cases now be facing trying to get on with their lives without adequate support, while the PM milks the same experience for all it's worth and makes it all into something it wasn't. Yes he was ill, and I am glad, at a basic human level, that he appears to have come out the other side OK, but it should be left at that. No chance of that in Johnson fantasy land though.
In the meantime I am trying to improve my mood by dwelling on this from the Ullapool News FB page

The Ullapool News
15 hrs ·
Carrie Symonds and Boris Johnson have named their baby Wilfred Lawrie Nicholas Johnson.

“Will Law Nick Johnson”?

Fingers crossed...

[Bryn]

On the subject of lying - or bending the truth for unworthy ends. Can someone perhaps clarify for me - the PM was not dependent on the NHS for his care and survival in my view. Some one in his position will always go through the private route although there may be some crossover of facilities and possibly personnel?
This query has been prompted by something that was mentioned on the news bulletin earlier, namely the PM giving an interview to the Sun about 'his coronavirus experience'. The mute button was employed in haste but not before I'd heard 'pumping litres of oxygen' and the well-worn 'touch and go' and '50/50'.
Thousands of people have had to go through this in the real NHS and will in many cases now be facing trying to get on with their lives without adequate support, while the PM milks the same experience for all it's worth and makes it all into something it wasn't. Yes he was ill, and I am glad, at a basic human level, that he appears to have come out the other side OK, but it should be left at that. No chance of that in Johnson fantasy land though.
In the meantime I am trying to improve my mood by dwelling on this from the Ullapool News FB page

The Ullapool News
15 hrs ·
Carrie Symonds and Boris Johnson have named their baby Wilfred Lawrie Nicholas Johnson.

“Will Law Nick Johnson”?

Fingers crossed...

[BBMmk2]

Week 8 of CV-19 lockdown, shielded mode.

[MrGongGong]

When you can’t trust the government in a public health emergency, there’s something pretty fundamentally wrong with the country. The past ten years in this country have been the strongest argument for civic participation in my lifetime. Mostly good people have stood by and very bad things have happened. We must do better.

I'm sure I replied to this ?

[Constantbee]

Coronavirus: the knitting pattern!



Can be filled with foam and used as a worry ball. Safe to catch and share around

[ardcarp]

Coronavirus: the knitting pattern!



Can be filled with foam and used as a worry ball. Safe to catch and share around

Nice one.

One of our far-flung friends texted to ask how we were getting on under lockdown. Mrs A replied, "We're sipping coffee together in the garden. Haven't got the gun out yet." It was a typo of course!

[Bryn]

Nice one.

One of our far-flung friends texted to ask how we were getting on under lockdown. Mrs A replied, "We're sipping coffee together in the garden. Haven't got the gun out yet." It was a typo of course!

Ooo, you are a tonic. Well, solfa, anyway.

[Serial_Apologist]

I'm sure I replied to this ?

And I elaborated on it.

[MrGongGong]

And I elaborated on it.

That's what I remember
Maybe I alluded to a word that some folks don't like ?

[johnb]

Forgive me for being tediously pedantic but this is taken from today's daily release on the government website https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavi...mber-of-cases:

 	Tests 	   People tested 	Positive    Deaths in hospitals    Deaths in all settings
Daily 	   76,496 	 56,397 	  4,339 	   [B][COLOR="#FF0000"]396[/COLOR][/B] 			   [B][COLOR="#FF0000"]315[/COLOR][/B]
Total 	1,206,405 	882,343 	186,599 	24,097 			28,446

The deaths in hospitals (only) for NHS England alone is 327.

I don't expect much of this government but .....

[Dave2002]

Forgive me for being tediously pedantic but this is taken from today's daily release on the government website https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavi...mber-of-cases:

 	Tests 	   People tested 	Positive    Deaths in hospitals    Deaths in all settings
Daily 	   76,496 	 56,397 	  4,339 	   [B][COLOR="#FF0000"]396[/COLOR][/B] 			   [B][COLOR="#FF0000"]315[/COLOR][/B]
Total 	1,206,405 	882,343 	186,599 	24,097 			28,446

The deaths in hospitals (only) for NHS England alone is 327.

I don't expect much of this government but .....

Total disgrace .... or is it "merely" incompetence?

Well spotted.

The rather better comparison graphs with the rest of the world have been set aside again. Though why I can't understand - it's not as if any of those comparisons show the UK doing particularly well, and I've heard all the arguments about different countries doing different things, different measurements, yet it seems obvious that this is such a big event that the residual base line levels can be ignored for the time being. I know that in the longer term it will be possible to do a "more accurate" estimate of the excess over "normal deaths", but right now it seems clear enough that the magnitudes of the current disaster have swamped everything.

The only slight improvement today was that the horizontal grid lines have returned on the transport data graphs.