Covid-19 and Politics

[Captain_Swoop]

Dominic Cummings self-isolates after showing coronavirus symptoms

[Captain_Swoop]

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!

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Originally Posted by P.J. Denyer

But at least Johnson isn't bragging about the ratings for his virus update briefings. I guess that's... Something?

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.

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Originally Posted by Ivor the Engineer

Any evidence for this claim?

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

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Originally Posted by Ivor the Engineer

Do you think the minority of people not following the government's advice would behave significantly differently if, say, Jeremy Corbyn had won in December 2019?

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.

[KDLarsen]

Originally Posted by Squeegee Beckenheim

Chief Medical Officer Chris Whittey is experiencing symptoms and is self-isolating

That's the third person in Johnson's orbit.

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.

[Darat]

Originally Posted by Squeegee Beckenheim

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

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

[The Don]

Originally Posted by Captain_Swoop

Dominic Cummings self-isolates after showing coronavirus symptoms

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


edited to add.....

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

[The Don]

Originally Posted by KDLarsen

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

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

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

Fixed your typo

[The Don]

nevermind

[P.J. Denyer]

Originally Posted by Captain_Swoop

We are being directly asked by Michael Gove to follow the advice of experts. Michael Gove, a man who famously told the nation "we've had enough of experts"

Is it any wonder people aren't following their advice, they've spent a decade proving selfservingly claiming they are untrustworthy.

FTFY

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

[Sherkeu]

When bad news becomes good news:

Destination Taiwan is hurting (Dec 15, 2019)

Quote:

Taiwanese love to travel, but the region as a tourism destination is hurting.
...
The tourism deficit refers to the difference between the amount of money Taiwanese spend on travel abroad and the amount spent by foreign visitors and domestic tourists.

Beijing announced in late July that starting Aug. 1 (2019) it would suspend a program that allowed individual tourists from 47 Chinese cities to travel to Taiwan and the ban impacted Taiwan’s tourism in the third quarter, according to the central bank.

Since April 2018, China had been the top source of foreign visitors but in September, Chinese became the second largest group after Japanese. This shows the Chinese travel ban has had a significant effect on Taiwan’s inbound travel sector, according to the central bank.

[Captain_Swoop]

Nigel Farage Tweeted

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

[Captain_Swoop]

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.

[Captain_Swoop]

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

Promises promises

[Captain_Swoop]

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.

[Ulf Nereng]

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.

[catsmate]

Originally Posted by Captain_Swoop

Fruit and veg ‘will run out’ unless Britain charters planes to fly in farm workers from eastern Europe



https://www.theguardian.com/environm...eastern-europe

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

[catsmate]

Originally Posted by The Atheist

Now, here's some political leadership: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/coron...e20200327-1602



(Stolen off NZ, of course, but good on ya!)

Ireland implemented such a ban before New Zealand proposed it.

[The Atheist]

Originally Posted by The Don

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

Haha!

Post of the week!

[catsmate]

Originally Posted by The Don

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


edited to add.....

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

Pity about the Belgian cat.

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

[catsmate]

Originally Posted by Captain_Swoop

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.

I thoroughly approve.

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Originally Posted by Captain_Swoop

Nigel Farage Tweeted

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

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.

[a_unique_person]

Originally Posted by Captain_Swoop

Nigel Farage Tweeted

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

Send them back.

[angrysoba]

Originally Posted by The Don

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

Hoarder!

Originally Posted by The Don

edited to add.....

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

Originally Posted by The Atheist

Haha!

Post of the week!

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.

[plague311]

Looks like a small Welsh town has some new leadership:

Quote:

A coastal town in north Wales has found a whole new meaning to the phrase herd immunity, after goats were spotted roaming its quiet streets.

It comes just days after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson introduced tighter restrictions around social movement last week in a bid to limit the spread of coronavirus.

Hopefully they aren't just mindless sheep (heyooo)

[SuburbanTurkey]

Originally Posted by plague311

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.

[Darat]

Originally Posted by plague311

Looks like a small Welsh town has some new leadership:



Hopefully they aren't just mindless sheep (heyooo)

The welsh will make any excuse....

[Mojo]

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

Does Betteridge’s Law apply?

[The Don]

Originally Posted by Mojo

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

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.

[Captain_Swoop]

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.

[Captain_Swoop]

Originally Posted by Mojo

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

Does Betteridge’s Law apply?

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!

[Captain_Swoop]

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.

Quote:

Many firms have told the BBC that banks have refused them emergency loans.
Others can't get through on the phone or were told the money will take weeks.
The banks say they are following the rules set out by the government.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak said two weeks ago that businesses would be able to walk into bank branches and discuss Coronavirus Business Interruption loans

The promise from the chancellor was that "any good business in financial difficulty who needs access to cash to pay their rent, the salaries of their employees, pay suppliers, or purchase stock, will be able to access a government-backed loan, on attractive terms".

However, thousands of struggling firms can't get through to their banks by phone or, when they do, are being told by the banks they're not eligible.

Quote:

Bank say they're following rules set by the government, which mean firms can only get the emergency loans if they can't borrow in a normal commercial way, like borrowing against the value of a property.

Businesses wanting to borrow more than £250,000 are being told by banks that directors must sign personal guarantees. That means if the loan goes bad owing to a prolonged shutdown, their personal property is on the line.

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

[Planigale]

Originally Posted by The Don

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

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.

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.

[gypsyjackson]

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?

[The Don]

Originally Posted by gypsyjackson

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.

[gypsyjackson]

Originally Posted by The Don

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?

[The Don]

Originally Posted by gypsyjackson

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.

[gypsyjackson]

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.

[timhau]

Originally Posted by Captain_Swoop

Trump Tweets

The LameStream Media is the dominant force in trying to get me to keep our Country closed as long as possible in the hope that it will be detrimental to my election success. The real people want to get back to work ASAP. We will be stronger than ever before!

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