2/10

Just been down the pub with Blue Mountain - visited the pub with Blue M

wheel clamping - applying Denver boots to ...

the nurses' cars - self explanatory

;) but I expect you knew this all along. Still, having to pay to park at your place of work is shocking, especially for the poorly-paid workers. £8 per day is no small amount.

You know how it is, you fill the car up with petrol and the garage is doing a special price on respirators if you spend twenty quid on fuel, so you pick one up. Then you get home and it turns out the wife bought one at Tescos, then the kids get home from school and someone had a spare they didn't want so they brought it home and now they want to keep it. Then there's the one you bought in case you ever felt like a bit of respirating, put 'somewhere safe' and forgot about, you always find it the day after you've gone out and bought another one. I'm sure something like that happened with Germany...

I think the machines they're talking about are PCR analysers, though. Scotland had a lot of capacity lying around because the lab where I used to work does the bulk of the veterinary disease control screening for the whole of Britain (and some of Ireland and the continent). This was offered right at the start and turned down. I saw in the newspaper that they finally got the lab on stream at the end of last month.

The Faroes stayed on top of the epidemic from the start because they accepted the offer from a fish farm disease surveillance lab to repurpose immediately for human coronavorus testing.

I don't believe Germany had significantly more resources in this respect than Britain had. It wasn't just our lab, there were university and college and research and industrial labs across the country who came forward and said we can help with this, and they were all turned down in favour of "letting the virus move through the population" without mass testing. Then when Westminster realised what a mistake it made its reaction was to throw billions at setting up completely new labs run by political donors with no experience in the field.

It's not luck with Germany, it's competence.

Exactly, repeated in multiple areas.

Delay for 6 weeks, then panic and ignore available capacity but try eye-catching novel suppliers with no experience of the issues. It's exactly what you would do if you thought you were the protagonist in a libertarian science fiction story... which is what Cummings seems to think.

Must have been advice from one of his quirky, not mainstream, non-expert superforecasters.

ETA: For anyone who doesn't know the current UK government is being run using this book: https://dominiccummings.com/2016/11/...ecasting-2015/

Looks like Wales is accelerating the lifting of lockdown with pubs and cafes allowed to open indoors from August 3rd.

At least there's a nod to science I suppose by tying this to a continued fall in the number of cases.

Wyld Bird Seed are booked to play a Welsh outdoor venue on 2 August. Looks like that will have to be postponed or cancelled. :(

Well, despite the surprise announcement yesterday, outdoor gigs in England are not really going to be happening just yet.

We announced last week that our local music festival will not be happening this year. I looked at the new guidelines this morning, and there are still restrictions on the volume level of performance, and no singing or dancing in the audience allowed.

[OffTopic] Is the spelling of 'Wyld' a reference to "Wyld Stallions" ?[/OT]

Is is easy to criticise the UK's response to the Corona Virus epidemic. It is incredible how well we have overcome the difficulties caused by the virus considering Dominic is doing absolutely everything on his own. As such he is bound to make the odd mistake, what with his eyesight issues and everything.
It is not fair for people to compare us to nations with proper functioning Governments and the civil support structures who delegate responsibility, use experts and follow the science.

Not an issue for a Wyld Bird Seed audience (social distancing isn't much of a problem either) :o

Certainly in that general vein. I'd have had an umlaut over the 'r' in Bird if I'd have been allowed as well as a nod to Spinal Tap.

The UK is opting out of the EU vaccine programme because of *reasons*.

Brexit dogma is more important than British lives - although the British government wants the EU to share their research.

An "umlaut" !? That sounds rather......"European".

An umlaut on an "r" sounds - well I don't know how it would sound. Is that a feature of any known language?

Never mind not fair - it is downright not British!

It's a "metal umlaut" as featured on the 'n' of Spinal Tap - it's a joke.

Firm with links to Gove and Cummings given Covid-19 contract without open tender

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...ut-open-tender


Is anyone surprised?

Actual Trump Tweet:

:hb:

Still very few people wearing masks at Tesco or Waitrose (but in both stores it's generally possible to keep 2m apart). One change is that Tesco have removed the direction arrows for the aisles (Waitrose never had them); it was nigh-on impossible to follow them, anyway, since there was no apparent logic to some of them, and I think more people were ignoring them.

I'd have no problem if wearing a mask was required, though.

I think people are having a hard time socially distancing even outdoors. Previously when we tried to stay home and avoided crowds, that was easy. Now that people started doing some things normally and some sort of "activity" appears, they throw themselves into it fully, disregarding any virus. This aspect is not really much to do with our political views so much, more to do with your life situation. Old couples, such as me and the Mrs, have a slightly easier time keeping strangers off, and only acting with a small number of people.

Lonely old people seem to have it tough. Old lady at post office talked for minutes with clerk, haw hawing and making enormous clouds of virus, if she happened to be a carrier.

What's happening in Japan:
Tokyo’s rush back to business generating alarm at local levels (Asahi Shimbun)

Overall, Japan seems to be doing quite well compared to other countries, but as the government starts to reopen the economy, new infections continue to trend up. They were down to the low 2-digit levels in early June but 420 new cases were recorded yesterday. So about a 10-fold increase within a month.

Yep. Most of it seems to be in the Tokyo/Kanto region, but Osaka has also seen the numbers rising (I think it was 30 new cases yesterday or the day before).

Generally people wear masks without being ordered to and have mostly seemed to abide by requests to stay home except where necessary.

That said, people are beginning to get bored and going out more than before to theme parks, karaoke, bars and restaurants etc...

There will no doubt have to be some kind of interventions to bring the numbers down again...

...the government's offer to pay for people to travel round the country seems to be the complete opposite of what they need to do.

Why aren't you wearing one anyway? It's attitudes like that that force legislation to happen,

Compulsion is critical.
Masks must be a huge statistical good.
I have never had one since the sanding machine in woodworking. It seemed obvious to me that issuing gloves and basic disposable masks as a prerequisite to entering supermarkets was common sense.

Better be lucky than smart as NZ was.

Have you changed your view on face masks? I seem to remember you saying they were ineffective.

Michael Gove has just said to Andrew Marr that the government will not make it mandatory to wear masks in shops, although he does encourage people to do so.

Yet more abdication of responsibility by this government.

How does he know what the polls will say tomorrow when Johnson gets into the office?

At the moment I bet the polls are showing pretty much 50/50 on Johnson's popularity increasing or decreasing if he makes it compulsory or not. Can't expect him to make a call when the polling and focus groups are so evenly tied!

If Michael Gove says face masks should not be mandatory in shops then face masks should be mandatory in shops
That's what's known as the "lying ****" rule.

I agree about masks, but am not convinced about gloves, as they might be worse than sanitised hands.


Yes - a bad idea.

Here's my chart of the cases and deaths (7-day average, centred on the actual day, not lagging as in Excel's trendline) along with various dates of increasing and relaxing restrictions:
Attachment 42583

Because the scientific consensus appeared to be, and I'm not sure that it has changed, that it did not make a significant difference to the risk for the situations I'm in, nor does the government advice recommend it currently. The only shops I go to are large supermarkets, and I keep at least 2m from everybody else. I use the hand scanners, so I don't queue for the checkouts or deal with till operators.

I found a use for the masks (the wimpy kind, the n95 would have some use). When I find I am walking or bicycling to a smaller gathering I can't avoid, I put the mask on and avoid eye contact. This prevents strangers coming up to me and starting to talk. I also have a bandana around the neck at times, it's easier to pull up when I already have a bike helmet on.

Just out of interest, why does it prevent strangers talking to you?

Is this because they might come up to you and tell you to put on a mask?

OR

Because it is believed that people with masks on are sick?


I get the impression you don't think masks are of any use at all.

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I AGREE

Only the n95 masks are of much use. I have 2. The rubber band came off the staple on the first one, so I sewed the two rubber bands on. i have worn it inside stores for 2 months.

My masked look outdoors is to make me look anonymous and to discourage contact. I am uninteresting.

What is your argument for this?

If this article detailing what happened when a pub customer tested positive is to be believed, the (non-NHS) Test and Trace service is a joke.

Only the N95 masks are of much use to protect you from others. Regular masks help protect others from you.

The local abuse of the man who tested positive is very depressing. That's going to make people hide away if they think they've got it, when we need everybody with any symptoms to come forward for a test.

Well that’s the bloody point isn’t it!

If everyone were wearing a mask, then everyone would be protected.

That’s the point of condoms as well. It’s not just so that the wearer can be protected but also to protect the person they are having sex with.

I've got a couple of old respirator masks that I've been wearing in shops. They're meant to be disposable but I've been reusing them. I think now I'll also wear a snood round my neck and pull it up over the mask when I go into a shop.

If the mask uses an exhalation valve that is not filtered, you're being doubly selfish.

ETA: I have a full face shield respirator I pondered digging out a while back. It used an unfiltered valve, so I decided against it. Also I only have organic vapor cartridges (for tear gas) and not biologicals/HEPA.

I use one of the sport masks since it has a neck velcro strap to spare my ears. I find I have to head outside about once an hour to clear the moisture buildup off of the exhale filters and air it out.