Coronavirus

[LHC]

Britannia Hotels have covered themselves in glory this morning, not only sacking staff with immediate effect, but clawing back any holiday pay and making those that live on site homeless:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-51972372

I hope they go out of business and the Hotel Manager who sent these letters rots in hell.

[Dave2002]

[MrGongGong]

Britannia Hotels have covered themselves in glory this morning, not only sacking staff with immediate effect, but clawing back any holiday pay and making those that live on site homeless:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-51972372

I hope they go out of business and the Hotel Manager who sent these letters rots in hell.

On the list

We need to make sure these people suffer the consequences after this is all over.

[LMcD]

Good to know that they only order the best quality, though, that we, the taxpayer, are stumping up for.
It would be interesting to know when the order went in.
Normal supply chain?

... and a special delivery of Bronco for Boris ....

[Jazzrook]

Article by Richard Horton, editor of the Lancet medical journal:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/18/coronavirus-uk-expert-advice-wrong

JR

[johnb]

Article by Richard Horton, editor of the Lancet medical journal:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/18/coronavirus-uk-expert-advice-wrong

JR

Sobering reading.

Richard Horton is absolutely spot on.

[cloughie]

... and a special delivery of Bronco for Boris ....

Wouldn’t that be bucking the system?

[Dave2002]

The uncertainty about the values is still problematic. Social distancing measures are intended to put the reproduction number down closer to 1, and ideally below it.

I made an error here - at least in my own thinking. Firstly, what is meant by reproduction number? I think it means number of people to whom the virus is transmitted from contact with a single person carrying the virus. If this is what it means, then a reproduction number of 1 still gives a potential initial contact list which is infinite. Simple maths shows that if the reproduction number is less than one, say alpha, then the potential contact list is 1/(1-alpha) or hopefully a bit les than that. Thus a reproduction number of 0.9 would give a contact list of 10, of 0.8 would give a contact list of 5, 0.75 would give 4 as the size of the contact list.

For any rational fraction n/m less than one, the potential contact list is easily seen to be m/(m-n).

However, at present the reproduction numbers are all greater than one, so the contact lists are potentially infinite in all cases.

What limits the problem is not only the reproduction number, but also the reproduction rate - how long it takes for the disease to infect someone else, and for them to also pass that on. I am sure that this is included in the models being considered by those who are analysing this sort of thing.

One probably very much unexpected thing about this, is that the major problem seems to be impact on resources within a very short time, hence the problems reported in China, Italy and Iran. This is not to consider the scale of the whole problem insignificant - which it certainly isn't - but even now the deaths world wide are not huge when considered on a very large scale, though a very large number of people have now got the virus, or had the disease and passed it on.

[jayne lee wilson]

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2237475-coronavirus-latest-news-china-reports-no-new-local-cases/

[LMcD]

Difficult to square the latest news from scientists with BJ's suggested timeline at yesterday's press conference.

[Bella Kemp]

On the list

We need to make sure these people suffer the consequences after this is all over.

I absolutely agree, but the trouble is if we boycott the hotel chain it will be the workers who will lose out on their jobs and security - the big wigs will just set up shop somewhere else if the business fails. The story, though, does have a happy ending of sorts, if one reads to the end.

[MrGongGong]

I absolutely agree, but the trouble is if we boycott the hotel chain it will be the workers who will lose out on their jobs and security - the big wigs will just set up shop somewhere else if the business fails. The story, though, does have a happy ending of sorts, if one reads to the end.

I'm sure there are ways

[Count Boso]

Article by Richard Horton, editor of the Lancet medical journal:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/18/coronavirus-uk-expert-advice-wrong

JR

The best summing up so far: "I’m an epidemiologist. When I heard about Britain’s ‘herd immunity’ coronavirus plan, I thought it was satire."

[Anastasius]

Sobering reading.

Richard Horton is absolutely spot on.

i agree with you regarding the article. Yet nowhere can I find any suggestion as to exactly what he would have done were he in charge.

Indeed, what would you have done ? I have no idea.

[Dave2002]

i agree with you regarding the article. Yet nowhere can I find any suggestion as to exactly what he would have done were he in charge.

Indeed, what would you have done ? I have no idea.

It's often easiest to predict what's going to happen after the event!