Covid-19 Virus

You don’t have to say if you don’t want to but are you in the vulnerable group?

 

Poor old Covid-19. In a week where it’s become increasingly apparent promotion and relegation won’t be happening in sport anytime soon, the government has cruelly relegated it from the Premier League of infectious diseases:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/high-consequence-infectious-diseases-hcid#status-of-covid-19

 

I’m at a loss to fathom when in your calculus anyone’s life is worth bothering about against the economy. If the economy isn’t able to give us all a few weeks grace (which it clearly is) then it is the economy that needs fundamental change. That’s not utopian dreaming, that’s obvious.

If you are looking to put a figure on this per head, then maybe look at other things we do, like airline safety or niche medical advances and see how it stacks up. But it’s pointless because we have to or the UK will be an outlier and face the economic consequences of that.

But your use of it’s ‘very sad’ comes over like an attempt to take the high ground of realism and that takes more than a bit of tough talk about how people die all the time.

 

You're probably not going to starve to death so it is fluids over solids. If it's solids you're looking at calories, vitamins and minerals NOT TASTE - there's nothing wrong with just biting off lumps of cheese from a block in front of the TV with biscuits or handfuls of breakfast cereal. It's getting chilly but don't forget the ventilation at home - you can batten down the hatches fully at night. Also: try to be 'up' as the path from cough to chest infection to pneumonia can be a quick and, ahem, 'short' one (particularly when you're in a run-down state).

 

No. This is an agenda, George Orwell was right.

 

That's if they are really infected of course.
Might just be a show "Look nobody is immune from this"

 

I'm 68, never did any stock piling, and if everyone else had done the same, there would never have been any shortages.
It's just the same as if there is a covering of snow, half the population react as if there will be no food in the shops for the next three months.

 

So would you support the current lockdown, at a cost of £330bn or similar figures that have been banded about and likely to last 10 weeks, to save 1 life?

 

That would end a number of things though. Team sports, concerts, cinemas, pubs etc.

 

Well you're straight wrong

This approach will lead to a level of austerity which will make the last decade look like a walk in the park

Tell me this time next year an alternate shouldn't have been considered

 

We’ve been through this before. You talk as if hammering an economy doesn’t cost lives in the medium term. It’s a two sided equation that needs evaluation.

The number of people who have a simplistic view that it isn’t baffles me. They sometimes talk as if torpedoing an economy is worth it if we save one life. I’m sure the Governments around the world would make a sensible evaluation and have arrived at the current strategy though.

 

10 years of austerity + will cost lives

 

Yes, that's why I said some.

If people continue to respect other people's personal space a bit more, and wash their hands more often, then that will be a small positive that comes out of this imho.

It might even reduce other infections, such as colds and flu, from spreading so much, especially if people also continue to cover their mouths when they sneeze and cough!

 

That has actually happened already. The current death rate is actually lower than normal at the moment even with the extra cv deaths.

 

False premise. You don’t have to torpedo the economy. The UK’s competitors are in the same boat.

Moreover, what are you going to do with this economic production if no one will come here and we can’t go there? If we don’t get on top of the virus there will be no foreign tourist industry, no international tourists or students here etc etc etc for a lot longer than two to three months.

Play this well, look after people and the stimulus package sees us through towards regrowth. You are not thinking it through if you think BAU is even near possible.

As for lives lost, we are a long way off figuring the good and the bad effects of a two to three month break where people get fit and the air clears up. How many deaths does air quality alone cost?

Well don’t ******* tolerate it then. Another ten years of austerity will be a purely political decision, a choice.

There was a lot of bleating about film from Italy of someone losing it with Police because they have no money. Every day in Halesowen or Dudley or Middlesbrough. Has been for a decade. Doesn’t take Corona to cause that so it’s hardly a threat.

 

Like or not, effectively ceasing production for 3-6 months torpedoes the economy. I'm not saying it's not the right thing to do (although I'm not convinced). I am merely trying to discourage the simplistic view of "lives verses the economy". They are completely interlinked. I am sure the Governments have taken a mature evaluation of the pros and cons of various courses of action with suitable experts and have not just listened to the look at me shrieking on social media.

 

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.25.20041475v1.full.pdf+html

I think the stats from this report were quoted heavily in the press yesterday and used by the imperial college as well.

As ‘few’ as 5700 deaths, maybe up to 7000. Daily peak about 330 cases, peak in deaths in about a week. Virtually zero deaths by early May.

Spain will be the worst with as many as 60,000 deaths.

 

Our perception of the economy has become unhinged in the last 40 years. We have imagined it into an utterly independent creature whose needs we must fit, rather than the other way round.

This was not the thinking that rebuilt the world after WW2, when Governments took decisive action.

They can again and this is actually an opportunity for so many things to emerge from the crisis. And before you start, I’m not talking about revolution. I mean a new social compact and the economy and manufacturing rebooted greener, leaner, hi-tech, resilient.

 

This 5700 is predicated on us following China’s strategies?

What it does indicate is that phase one could be over quite soon. April awful. May recovery. June restrictions begin to ease.

 

A best case scenario one would imagine. If these numbers turn out to be accurate then you'd have to tip your hat to Boris and the scientists.

I remember a few weeks ago they were saying 20,000 deaths in the UK would be a 'good outcome'. 5,700-7,000 would be an incredibly good result (unless you're one of said number or friends/relatives).

Let's hope that's the case. Social distancing will be around for a very long time to come.

 

I’m pretty sure I read in there somewhere that it acknowledges this is all based on following China, yet despite the obvious differences between what they and the rest of us can do, so far all countries have pretty much followed their trajectory anyway.

 

I'm sure he will respond himself but I doubt he's doing/saying/suggesting that at all. That's purely your interpretation about how you see it, nothing more.

What about if people become severely depressed & start committing suicide at at an alarming rate. Humans need structure or it can get out of control, its happened throughout history & now could be no different. When the Spartans come knocking on your door when there are no police to handle all the outrage, I assure you this will cause your life immeasurable havoc. You might understand it's better to have a more rounded & balanced point of view for the good of mankind.

 

Define "top three people".

 

Beckham, Attenborough, Jeremy Kyle ??

 

Just watching The Cure live at Glastonbury off the sky planner.
**** they were good.

 

Mrs TuT, TuT and ZZTop.

 

Makes you think doesn't it.
There is no test for Covid 19, but there is a test for Coronavirus, and most of us have Coronavirus of one sort or another in our body, but not enough to do any harm.
The test however does not tell the amount of the virus in any ones body, but everyone that dies now, that tests positive for Coronavirus, gets cause of death Coronavirus on their death certificate.
Think about that one and let that sink in!!
,

 

conspiracy theories are how idiots get to feel like intellectuals. - David Baddiel

 

I watched the streets instead, but I have seen The cure previously

 

That’s a lot of ‘what ifs’ considering that outside of hospitals, it’s pretty calm at the moment.

 

Well, the PM, the health secretary and the chief medical officer seem to be quite important people at this time but I see where you are coming from.

 

Yet those making the evaluation and the Conservatives in the US media that say they'd sacrifice their lives for the economy will be the last in the queue to do it. Why's that?