Dominic Cummings self-isolates after showing coronavirus symptoms

We need a real government, not one where the PM and the Health Minister don't follow their own advice and end up working on their laptop from a cupboard. They leave Gove,, the goldfish on speed to lie to the press. God save us all!

Yup. Low bar though it is to clear Johnson is at least better than Trump. I've taken small comfort in that for a while, now.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/c...ever-spz6sc9vb

I don't think the point is about who won the election. I think the point is about how there are consequences if you spend decades eroding people's trust in experts, science, and their leaders.

And now Cummings is in self-isolation as well, after developing symptoms.

https://twitter.com/JasonGroves1/sta...54527602282496 (Daily Hail's political editor).

Edit: Whoops, hadn't refreshed to see the thread had rolled over to page 13 with the above news.

PDF of article https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=h...r/download?p=1

That news, combined with Mrs Don returning from Lidl with two large bars of Ritter Sport have made my morning :D


edited to add.....

Does this also mean it's jumped another species barrier ?

Fixed your typo :p

nevermind

FTFY

ETA: actually, I may have misinterpreted who you're saying was proven to be untrustworthy. In which case no correction necessary.

When bad news becomes good news:

Destination Taiwan is hurting (Dec 15, 2019)

Nigel Farage Tweeted

I hear that the UK Government are buying ventilators from China, yes China. Can this be true?

Followed by lots of indignation from his 'followers' on Twitter about how we should refuse to use foreign ventilators and insist on British ones if we are taken in to hospital.

Glenn Beck: 'I'd rather die' from coronavirus 'than kill the country' from economic shutdown

Promises promises

Yesterday both Michael Gove & Matt Hancock proclaimed that the UK had reached 10,000 coronavirus tests a day.
Today Health Minister Helen Whately confessed that the actual number was only 7000


This is Helen Whately who today was thanking frontline healthcare workers (including nurses) for everything they are doing right now.

This is the same Helen Whately who voted against giving NHS nurses a pay rise and cheered in the House of Commons along with the other Tory MPs when the pay rise was turned down.

Thinks are looking better here in Norway. The number of daily confirmed cases is shrinking steadily from the peak 6 days ago. It fits what we know about how the peak will come about two weeks after a complete shutdown. There have been 26 deaths so far, but with 104 people still in intensive care that's expected to rise. Average age of those who have died is 85 with a span from 62 to 95.

I'm very satisfied with how the government has handled it so far. Our national health system was not overwhelmed. :)

Don't worry I'm sure BoJo will recruit out-of-work Britons to do the job.
:rolleyes:

Ireland implemented such a ban before New Zealand proposed it.

Haha!

Post of the week!

Pity about the Belgian cat. :(

How's shopping in the UK? Calm here, shops empty of non-staff but full of stuff.

I thoroughly approve.

From the country with the most experience with respiratory viruses in general and this respiratory virus in particular? Doesn't seem like a bad idea.

Send them back.

Hoarder!


Hey! Didn't I already say that here about Prince Charles? You know, because he is a shape-shifting lizard!

Well, I definitely thought it.

:mad:

Looks like a small Welsh town has some new leadership:

Hopefully they aren't just mindless sheep (heyooo)

Not quite as adorable, but turkeys have been spotted wandering the empty streets throughout Boston and Cambridge. It's not unusual to see them in the area, but it's less common to see them in the more dense parts of the city.

Spotted my first two of the spring in the suburbs this morning. One used a crosswalk while another waited patiently for traffic to subside.

The welsh will make any excuse....

Robert Peston: Is Michael Gove right that there is a shortage of coronavirus test kit ingredients?

Does Betteridge’s Law apply?

The UK government is applying the same tactics that President Trump and his administration have been using for the last three and a bit years - do anything to deflect criticism from your ****-poor performance including just making stuff up.

If and when someone actually bothers to check out your claim then do some combination of calling it out as fake news, claiming to have been taken out of context or engaging in some kind of Gish gallop.

It's just depressing :mad:

The UK government has IMO done a halfway decent job of implementing lockdown and putting support in place for individuals and businesses (though they took their sweet time for the self-employed). Their logistics operation has IMO been far less successful. They've dragged their heels over ventilators and PPE and completely dropped the ball when it comes to test availability.

If the lie about lack of ingredients is there to save their blushes while they redouble their efforts to get the tests out there then that's pathetic but if they are holding up production then that's criminal.

The Home Office says NHS doctors, nurses and paramedics with UK work visas due to expire before 1 October will have them automatically extended for a year so they can "focus on fighting coronavirus"
Then they can all **** off next year.

I can’t believe a man who lied through his teeth about the EU and then lied through his teeth about no-deal is now lying through his teeth about a pandemic!

Nearly a fifth of all small and medium-sized businesses in the UK are unlikely to get the cash they need to survive the next four weeks, in spite of unprecedented government support.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52114414

From the NHS PoV I think the government has been doing quite well. There was a sort of reluctance to act that was local because of a 'boy that cried wolf' phenomenon. Everything was hyped up for the last flu pandemic, then it was not as bad as was feared. So that when the alert came out about covid-19 a lot of systems thought that this was just another 'over reaction' and didn't really shift gear. This was not central government's fault it was local systems. I think this probably put in a two week delay, then either central pressure or modelling made everyone realise this was real then things have been moving forward fast. However things are still bureaucratic. The local pulmonology service can create a management plan for covid but it then has to be approved through various committees before it is circulated. Shift changes for staff have to be approved. But we now have eye and orthopaedic surgeons joining us on ward rounds to learn how to manage severe pneumonia. Whole wards are transitioning to units that can deliver advanced respiratory support to infectious patients something that previously only required a couple of beds. Our hospital respiratory isolation beds (negative pressure rooms) were mostly used for non-infectious patients, because we hardly ever needed them, now they are not required because we have whole wards requiring respiratory isolation.

It looks from the figures as if the UK will overtake China in terms of deaths by the weekend; the UK's graphs of cases and deaths are remarkably similar to Spain +8 days. Does the UK have more stringent isolation rules than Spain?

There may be many factors in play.

The rules seem pretty similar to me, shutting non-essential businesses and restricting travel. There may however be a difference in compliance with the rules and/or they may have been imposed at different points in the national pandemic cycle.

Until very recently, the UK was carrying out very few tests (the number is still hardly high in comparison to other European nations) so the number of cases, and perhaps even deaths (if tests aren't carried out on all recently dead people) may be understated quite significantly.

I personally only know of four people who who have reported Coronavirus like symptoms. All have now recovered after 2-3 weeks but none were offered a test.

Thanks; not very encouraging. I noticed your location - the more at risk members of my family are in South Wales (Llandeilo and Swansea). Is the picture in Wales different from the UK as a whole or broadly similar?

Our local health board has the largest outbreak of Coronavirus outside London. We're in South East Wales, it's much less bad elsewhere.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-52093126

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/u...paign=exchange

That outbreak is however likely under-reported because there still isn't routine testing of patients or medical staff.

Appreciate that, thanks. I've heard that medical personnel aren't being tested to any great extent, but wasn't sure if it were true. Hope you stay safe, and that SE Wales calms down.

... and this isn't even a one-week old tweet.