blonde poker forum

So this virus will either kill half a million people in the uk or will be the biggest amount of hype since Corbyn election victory.

Does anyone have any interesting links to either the basic science or infection rates in different  countries?

The Chinese raw data is here

http://garnetcdn.migu.cn/lovebridge.html (http://garnetcdn.migu.cn/lovebridge.html)

Chinese data is of course impressionistic, linked to the truth but not exactly reflective of reality.

Very difficult to know how much is being hidden here with two of the hotspots being China and now Iran.

I have a trip booked to Asia on March 11th. Most of the poker festivals have been cancelled for the trip already. Was planning to go to Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam and Japan.

Not actually worried about getting the virus, but seems like it might not be such a fun trip. Lots of events cancelled, travel between countries maybe further restricted in the future. Certainly could be further outbreaks, developments in these countries over the next two months. May end up having to be in quarantine on my return or getting stranded?

Seems like I should knock the trip on the head at this point and go a different time there or travel somewhere else now.

Any opinions. I am submitting to fearmongering and hysteria?

I think life is rather good fun and so I'd err on the side of over caution and not take any risk by travelling to parts of Asia at the moment.

Coronavirus is an anagram of carnivorous.

Not quite up there with Colin Wanker but just thought I'd put it out there.

With significant outbreaks in South Korea (who knows what’s happening in the North?), Iran and now Italy, it seems likely that Covid19 will achieve official pandemic status in the very near future.

From everything I’ve read, it seems the fatalities are almost exclusively among the elderly, and in particular those with pre-existing health conditions. Symptoms for those under aged 45 are relatively mild. However, if there is a major infection rate here in the UK, the consequences will be yet more draining of already stretched NHS resources. So, if you’re not a victim of Covid, but in need of an NHS bed for an equally or more serious condition, you could be in trouble.

As for travel to the Far East, I think I’d make use of my travel insurance and cancel it until we’re on the other side of this.

I have trips booked to Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam leaving on March 13th. I doubt the insurance would shell out unless the Government advise against travel.

Yeah I also doubt the insurance will shell out at this stage unfortunately. Depending on your airline you may be able to reschedule or even cancel your flights. For myself I have nothing else booked so being a last minute planner has advantages in this case. But I am sure you will have lots of other things arranged.

I guess it all depends on how you think it might impact on the enjoyment of your trip. Obviously the problem is that things could escalate quickly, we just don't know what will happen.

Given the spread of the disease already I don't think there will be many places you could go to and avoid the disease in a month or two.  So I think it must be a preference to go places with good medical treatment that you are covered for.  If you are going for a week or two I don't think it matters too much if you are young and can get back on the plane.   If you haven't got travel insurance, I'd get it sooner rather than later (either for cancellations or medical/evacuation bils).

I always buy insurance immediately after booking the trip. No point in buying it after things go pear-shaped.

I booked my trip a few days before the COVID 19 story broke.

Why does this feel more worthy of concern than say Flu which picks off loads of old and people with pre-existing conditions year after year.

Is it as simple as 'we don't have a vaccine' so we worry more or does it transmit more readily, or are there more reasons why we should be more concerned than we are about flu (I mean zillions of people don't bother with flu jabs despite the evidence all around that it can be quite serious).

Even though it's only the very young, the very old and the people with underlying health conditions that are at risk, the death rate of this is almost certainly quite a bit worse than flu.  What the actual real death rate is at the moment we don't know because all the figures are highly manipulated.  You don't die immediately from it, it takes a certain amount of time so you have to measure deaths today vs infections from say 7 days ago? 10 days ago? 14 days ago?.  The longer it takes to kill you the worse the rate in reality is.  This is clearly also contagious, much more so than something like Ebola. 

Hard to believe.

Of course, yes & thanks. Flu death rate stats are far far lower than this virus, that'll do it.

I thought this, but saw a respected source saying that the number of infections is also likely to be significantly understated as lots of young people won't think they had it or won't report as symptoms can be mild/zero.

And of course there will always be people who realise that they have it but will think keeping quiet is the best option... 

Yes, that is fair.  We don't know the true figures and can't be sure either way.   I read the figures in China were being heavily manipulated to keep reported deaths down by not marking them as Coronavirus deaths unless a lengthy and complex test had come back as positive before the person died.  I cannot even put that down to a "respected" source though.

It appears to be a fact that Italy are now attributing 7 deaths to Coronavirus https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/coronavirus-news-uk-china-italy-outbreak-death-toll/.  All were either elderly or had health problems.  What does that mean for the death rate?  How many people were infected in Italy a week ago or 10 days ago?  How long does it take to die from this thing? I have no idea of the real answers to those questions.

As long as nobody in the medical day unit has it where I go for my infusion Weds afternoon, I'm not too worried down here in dark Dorchester.

I never get the flu jab, as it's a pain in the ass loading my wheelchair in/out of the car and going to sit in the Dr's surgery for an hour of an evening where there are probably more germs than I'll come into contact with the whole winter.

Worst flu I've ever had was colombian, anyway.

To give numbers - flu is usually about 0.05% death rate, and the Wuhan Virus is about 2 or 3%

In terms of infectiousness a person with flu usually infects about 1 other person, but with the Wuhan Virus it's more like 3 or 4 people.

Cheers, sometimes the obvious just doesn't smack you in the face - looked up death rates and could see the %  was way lower than the 2% that stuck in my mind for this one.

The mortality rate looks to be about the same as Spanish Flu, which was seriously bad for the World back in the day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu)

I think we should expect a lower mortality rate here because our health service is still pretty good despite the recent issues with funding and staffing. 

Is this study or source reputable? (I don't know the answer to that, I saw it linked on another forum)

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.18.20024539v1

Published recently.  It says the death rate is 4.8% "the mortality rate of patients with 2019-nCoV infection was 4.8%".

The problem with using mortality rates and confirmed cases is we ignore as yet unknown but suspected to be huge % of people who have covid and never know.

Personally i've taken the not worrying approach, i may get it, if i do i'm fortunate enough to be healthy and so suspect i may have flu like symptons for a few days.

In terms of event organisers etc its a nightmare, i've also had a trip to Korea cancelled, they are trying to re arrange for mid April but given the escalating situation in Korea this seems unlikely. Again they are not to worried about the health situation but more the travel restrictions people would be under both going and returning.

That's the approach I've taken, and I'm not healthy :D

Science wife has been very excited by this virus - her very favourite parts of her degree were the things that kill people and how they are spread.


She says that it's basically as good as it gets. With an outbreak like this there hasn't been enough time to do thorough peer reviewed papers and get them published so papers like this will be rushed out and the good and bad sorted out later.
(That isn't a slight on the authors - the emphasis is to get as much information out as quickly as possible to help - the one's that get things wrong will often publish their own redactions when it's time to do so; for now it's about getting information out).

If it's right then that is a bit higher than others current estimates - but it would still mean that over 95% of people who get infected will recover. From a statistical point of view I also noticed that the meta-analysis they did covered about 50k patients and that they were nearly all Chinese. That would be a very significant proportion of all the Chinese patients, given they extracted this data from other papers that have already been published I would have thought it was more likely that some of these studies had over-lapping samples. If those samples had unusually high mortality rates then it would have affected the overall average.


She also says they do take this in to account. With every disease there is never an exact number of infections and deaths, there are always just estimates and they will just keep on revising the estimates to make it as accurate as possible.

Additionally - the most likely cause for under reporting is that the symptoms were mild and recovery was straightforward. i.e. the most likely result of under reporting would mean that the infection rate was higher and the fatality rate was lower.

Ireland v Italy six nations due for next weekend has now been postponed.  100% a pandemic now.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/coronavirus-news-latest-italy-uk-china-tenerife-death-toll/

Feels a bit of an overeaction, though guess the 6 nations is knackered now?  They can't play Italy/England after this?   Cheltenham cancellation is about 3/1 now according to the Guardian (can't be arsed checking betfair as it will just make me grumpy).

The parents at my kids school are flapping as there was a school trip to a non quarantined part of Italy at half term.  There are thousands of kids there and some could have been to worse parts of Italy, Tenerife, Hong Kong etc.   You can't close every school in the country because of this.

Knew I shouldn't have looked, Cheltenham cancellation is 2/1 on betfair now.   Looks a lay to me.  Surely it can't get so bad in 2 weeks?

Somebody with flu infects 1 other person on average, for Covid-19 it's about 4-5 other people on average.  As another poster pointed out a death rate of 4-5% is not going to be the end of the world but it is nasty and imo Cheltenham and the Grand National are likely to be called off.  The cat is definitely out of the bag now.  Football fans in Manchester are probably wondering if this thing can stop Liverpool winning the league 

Get backing Cheltenham cancellation on betfair please.   

The mortality rate is very unlikely to be 4-5% on known figures. 

https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/horse-racing/market/1.169321914

Quite a liquid market already, yes putting on here.

Just spent the last 2 and a half weeks in the Philippines (landed back this morning), everything was fine.

I'd say to anyone with trips to Asia on the horizon to crack on and enjoy it, take advantage of fewer tourists with the Chinese essentially currently unable to travel.

Had a 100m stretch of beach in Boracay all to myself most days, absolute bliss.

Should have kept my trap shut.   Has gone in from 1.5 to 1.4 and not a cent laid by me.  Now I just have to sweat the official announcement and some thief coming along to steal my money...

:D

Prob 'anti-tilt' punters firing off?

Interview given by Ian Renton saying it will be on

https://twitter.com/AtTheRaces/status/1232643814172635138

(https://assets.thaivisa.com/forum/uploads/monthly_2020_01/received_189629492433302.jpeg.dbbc3d0cf25ada8c69b74ad6e30c14fe.jpeg)

Stay thirst, my friends!

Life in China during Covid 19.   
I will get around to writing my account at some point . 
Here we have been dealing with it for approximately a month and I believe what China has done to contain it is exemplary and I doubt any other county in the world could have put the whole place in lockdown to contain it as China has done

Someone mentioned that that the UK couldn’t close down all the schools in the country  to help contain it , but  that’s exactly what China has done.  At this time schools are due to reopen on March 16th but that could be extended as it has been on 2 previous occasions

Good man Craig. I've been waiting to get the inside story from from our China correspondent.


 ;popcorn;

"It's only the old and ill who will die" - Long term complications of getting Covid 19 include 35% chance of irreversible pulmonary fibrosis.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.18.20024539v1.full.pdf

I did at 3.70.  No doubt there is a good chance it goes ahead but those thinking there is almost no chance this gets cancelled have their head in the sand.  This is already a pandemic but strong containment is working in China.  The same will have to happen everywhere, if cases continue to rise then strong containment in the UK is incoming.

(https://i.postimg.cc/Zqh80hsC/cheltgoahead.jpg)

It doesn't say that anywhere in your link, and it seems a bold claim so early in the lifetime of this virus.

 

Gaohong Sheng et al. [20] have shown that viral infection can increase the risk of pulmonary fibrosis.Xie et al. [21] found that 45% of patients
showed signs of pulmonary fibrosis within one month after being infected with SARS-CoV.Hui et al. [22] found that 36% and 30% of patients
infected with SARS-CoV developed pulmonary fibrosis at 3 and 6 months after infection

Those are the results from SARS and not from COVID19. 

This is what the latest article in Lancet says on COVID19

A reticular pattern associated with bronchiolectasis and irregular interlobular or septal thickening were also noted to increase progressively from the second week. These findings indicated the appearance of interstitial changes, suggesting the development of fibrosis. However, since the natural history of COVID-19 pneumonia is yet to be fully explored, it is too early to label these lung changes as irreversible fibrosis

https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S1473-3099%2820%2930086-4 (https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S1473-3099%2820%2930086-4)

Can this really now be stopped?  Hospitalization rates even of 15% are going to overwhelm services.  Stockmarkets in Asia currently getting smashed, for the fourth day in a row.  This is here until a vaccine is widely available, probably in a years time.

(https://i.postimg.cc/KvmRYzvC/coronavirus.png)

It started in the Wuhan province - so far less than 1% of people who live in the Wuhan province got it and over 80% of people who do get it don't suffer any serious issues; so a bit of perspective maybe.


If you really want to have fun seeing how it could develop then I (and my wife) would recommend watching Contagion (2011) (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1598778/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1); Hollywood is always going to Hollywood but when my wife was studying epidemiology in her degree their lecturer suggested this film and said it did a pretty good job at showing a realistic pandemic.

The WHO are producing daily updates

https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200226-sitrep-37-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=6126c0a4_4 (https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200226-sitrep-37-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=6126c0a4_4)

They are publishing research, data and all sorts right now if people are interested.

There is a FAQ here

https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-coronaviruses (https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-coronaviruses)

Turns out snoking is not an effective way to stop the spread of COVID-19.

Thinking of cancelling my Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia trip.

What does everyone think?

What is the travel-agent saying Tom?

There is no travel agent Ralph, we booked it all online.

It is up to you, but...

https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200226-sitrep-37-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=6126c0a4_4 (https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200226-sitrep-37-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=6126c0a4_4)

Number of confirmed cases

Viet Nam 16
Cambodia 1
Thailand 40

There are no confirmed deaths in any of the countries

There is likely to be more under-reporting in those countries than here, but is Thailand today going to be worse than the UK in a week?  It feels like a flip at best that we have 40+ cases by next week.  It is a similar worry I have with all these schools closing now; if they close them now how can they open them when the risk is likely to be much higher in a month's time? 

Having been to Thailand, I think the risk of getting killed on the roads is likely to be still way higher. 

It really is up to you, I'd rather be on a small boat than a cruise liner right now, but don't think anyone will judge you harshly if you change your mind. 

How long is to go now?

Tough decision if you have no chance of a refund, although hhyftr the man city fan who just came back from The Phillipines reckons you'll be fine.

About a fortnight, we will be away for 3 weeks though and a lot can happen in that time.

I do have some lung fibrosis already, which I suppose would make me more vulnerable if I did catch anything, but it's not just about the risk of disease, it's about the effect the situation will have on the enjoyability, if that makes sense.

I'd say having some lung fibrosis definitely makes a difference to the risks.  I was trying to woek out if sleep apnoea would, but lung issue would worry me.

I would say that people in the tourist trade will be very pleased to see you, though I guess possible shortages and queues balance that.   If I was younger and healthier I'd say fk it and go.   Really is your decision.   Would it be a postponement or a never to be repeated trip given you are likely to lose quite a bit of money?

- The WHO are complete clowns and I do not believe a word that they say.  China's puppets.  Specifically for one, the WHO director, who was paid off and pressured by China to advise against the trade and travel bans that any sane person would have done.

- Trump appears to be more concerned about trying to keep the stock market up than truthful advice and competent measures as he directly correlates it with his chance of re-election.  He won't manage and stocks will be crap until a vaccine comes along.  Everything went up so much last year anyway.  

- IMO Cheltenham is probably 50/50 to actually go ahead now.  However I cannot see how the WSOP, the Olympics and Euro 2020 have any chance of going ahead at this point without a vaccine.  It's incredible that there are Europa League matches going ahead tonight with Italian teams when this is now a pandemic.

- More cases in the UK today (as expected) but this is the strange (and worrying?) part that I don't understand.

I would say you are probably about as likely to get the virus in those countries as in the UK right now. So if you aren't going to get any money back from your trip then you probably should go. However I guess the most important thing is will you enjoy it or will you be stressed and tense?

Is it a motorcycle trip? Or are you travelling on buses/trains? Traveling on public transport will put you in close contact with lots of people, but on the bike seems pretty safe.

One problem you might encounter is that if things progress then one of these countries might close its borders to another one of these countries or enforce a quarantine.

All of the poker I was going to play in Vietnam and Taiwan was cancelled but I was still probably going to go. However now if you travel from Japan or Korea to Taiwan then you have to go in quarantine, so that is the tourism part of my trip messed up aswell. I was able to cancel my flight and get credit with the airline so I just decided to do that in the end.

For you it seems right now you can still do all of your trip, and yes maybe it will be even better because it is less busy.

The problem of course is the uncertainty, how will things change over the next 4-5 weeks? I can understand why you are worried. In times of global uncertainty it is natural to kind of shut up shop a bit, stay with your families and stay at home.

Nick Rust has said this about possible cancellation of Cheltenham

https://www.express.co.uk/sport/horseracing/1247559/Cheltenham-2020-Cheltenham-Festival-cancelled-coronavirus-racing-news

"In terms of potential ramifications for the Festival, any decision that impacts on it taking place will not be a decision that racing makes, but rather the Government"

Regarding the Governments position, Matt Hancock said today

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/coronavirus-news-live-covid19-europe-uk-latest-a4372836.html

"We do want to minimise social and economic disruption subject to keeping people safe.

“Of course that is always going to be a balance. We’re going to be led by the scientific advice into what works.”"

I'd go, and my IS is shot.

Disclaimer - I'm not known for making smart decisions ;D

This is a pretty tough decision. Think I'd probably canvas all my immediate family and go with the consensus if there was one.

UK cases now up to 16, first one confirmed in Northern Ireland.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51667483

Hi Tom
At this moment I. Time I would say 100% go. I have friends who live there and say a no problem at all at this moment. They actually say it’s great as nice and quiet to get around .
As you know I live in China and we have dealt with this for the last 6 weeks .
I’d invite you here in Shenzhen but it would be a terrible time due to restrictions of  outdoor activities, nothing else .
That’s your only worry in visiting those places is that the major attractions may be closed to the public . The main concern in Asia is group gathering, so they close certain amenities like cinemas  , sports grounds, tourist attractions. etc

Just so you know 2 days ago Hong Kong has extended the closure of schools until 20th April . I expect where iO live in Shenzhen to follow suit. At the moment here, schools are supposed to return on March 16th .

There is going to be so many businesses that will have to  close due to the restrictions which consequently has resulted in no income for most
businesses throughout China . Staff are being asked to take pay cuts, landlords are asking to give rent relief.  Government properties are helping but private landlords don’t give a shit.   
These are sad times for such a beautiful country 

Like bergaroo correctly said , a worry can be quarantine rules by certain countries which can change at any time.
I live I. Possibly the closest Chinese  city to  Hong Kong.  All borders except one  here have been closed and if I go to Hong Kong now from mainland China . I have to do a 14 day quarantine by law.   Even flying from abroad now into China you have to do self imposed 7-14 day quarantine in your own home .   
These will be risks Tom

Thanks Craig. Plenty to think about.

My pleasure Tom
I would wait and see nearer the date.  and the main thing I’d look at is the inter- country quarantine .
If that’s ok I would say go for it.   Asia really is the best place on earth and you and your wife deserve to see it

Japan has closed all schools until April https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-51663182

Nikkei getting absolutely pummeled again.

Saw this earlier and it made me chuckle

'I can recall one time during WSOP where Men the master caught the Corona Virus and flipped over a 150/300 O8 table'


(https://pbs.twimg.com/tweet_video_thumb/ERwqe-rVAAAaaRS?format=jpg&name=900x900)

Stocks are getting THRASHED

My pension pot has taken a battering this week!  :D

Took flight yesterday and sold every equity I had. Feel better now

This is an interesting site re the virus

https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

Just spent all the cash in my SIPP  ;nana;

I have emptied my betfair account doubling down on my Cheltenham festival bet, after all I won't need any money on betfair if Cheltenham is abandoned.  Am gambling that Dom Cummings puts looking hard above public safety.

Switzerland has banned public gatherings of more than 1,000 people in response to 15 cases. 

Wow seems like an overreaction in Switzerland and many places. My Italian colleagues are amazed by the reaction in Italy.

You're a braver man than me. I'd made some good gains and couldn't stand the thought of another few percent dribblage for another day :) and potentially for another few hysterical days. Truth is I have no clue where any of this is going and suits my mentality to not be worrying about it and miss a few gains from any bounce

Not just an over reaction but possibly pointless if you don't also shut the airports and train stations.

Tighty is loving his cupboards full of tinned peaches right now.

:D :D

Prefer pears, myself.

You will be retiring at 75 at this rate Woodsey.

None of us are reaching 75, by the sounds of it  ::) :D

 ;hattip;

Tikay already there .

FFS, knew that was incoming.

You'd better not leave the house.

Everyone that has a runny nose thinks they're brown bread. Just com.

Just appeared on my Facebook

https://www.lazada.sg/products/virus-shut-out-card-from-japan-i582750022-s1674302773.html (https://www.lazada.sg/products/virus-shut-out-card-from-japan-i582750022-s1674302773.html)

Somebody has ordered 4 ffs. 

This magic card does all this

Viral bacteria is raging. In addition to wearing masks to washing your hands and pay attention to personal hygiene, if you want to step up protection, you can try the virus shut out air and sterilization protection plates in Japan!!

✅ strong ability to inhibit viruses and bacteria
✅ Effectively Block Microparticles and bacteria in the air, as well as all kinds of epidemic viruses
✅ Sodium Chlorate has strong oxidant, with antibacterial or antibacterial effect in a short
✅ Antibacterial effects are not affected by water ph
✅ help eliminate viruses such as phytoplankton, flu and reduce the chances of being infected or contagion to others
✅ #Suitable for all, especially suitable for patients / less immune / BB Children / children / pregnant women / elderly / long-term access to hospitals and clinics with more bacteria
✅ it can remove the odor of floating, like smoke, add sweat

📍 Use: Neck / put in chest bag
📍 One Pack valid for 1 months
📍 Japanese original entrance
📍 please use it immediately after opening to ensure quality effect

Glad to see Facebook is helping save us all.   

I also doubled down yesterday on it not going ahead when the price flicked back out to 3.35 briefly.  Clearly there is a chance both ways but the market was comically mispriced when it opened and is only now starting to reflect reality as people have wised up.  As much as that was a good bet., I am not liking the situation that is unfolding.  A lot of people have and are going to die/get ill plus my equities have taken a brutal hammering this week, far more than the monkey I might profit from this lol market.

The virus could well struggle in warm weather.  Perhaps we will get some good data on that now countries with tropical climates are infected.  Cold Europe with our mass crowds is not in a good spot right now.  If you believe the Chinese data then infections are falling there and the population are being highly controlled.  You can't even go into a shop without a mask on apparently.  That level of control is not possible here but the strategy of control the spread until a vaccine arrives is all that can be done.   Hospitalisation rates of 15-20% would be crippling for the NHS if it keeps spreading.  How far into the outbreak did China go on lockdown?  We are already infected and have not even bothered yet so brace yourselves.  I saw Moody's rated this as 40% chance of pandemic yesterday.  Complete clowns.

Go.

The football world and Coronavirus

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/51673076

"Newcastle and West Ham have banned handshakes at their training grounds in an attempt to stop the virus' spread."

Major E-Sports event cancelled for the public in Poland (still going ahead as a stream).  The Government ordered it off, they don't even have a confirmed case in Poland yet.

https://win.gg/news/3944/all-iem-katowice-tickets-cancelled-amid-coronavirus-concerns

Amazon tells employees to pause nonessential travel in U.S. due to coronavirus

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/28/amazon-pauses-non-essential-travel-in-us-due-to-coronavirus.html

Given the long latency period reported for Covid 19 this is looking bad now.  It won't be a horse racing decision regarding Cheltenham, it will be a Government one.  They cannot take the risk of upping the spread of this thing.

https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.com/news/coronavirus-study-incubation-period/.

"A study by Chinese researchers found that the Wuhan coronavirus incubation period can be up to 24 days, contrary to the previously believed 14 days."

You have less hobbies than me, Jez ;D

The racing decision was a given, no? We always knew they weren't going to call it off, and it would be on the government to if pressurised.

You better get onto them :D

Would imagine they have a few e-sports teams in Asia?

Amazon don't want to be coughing up that sick pay.

Aintree, end of the PL, and the World Cup goners, then.

We do share one, smashing casinos.   I think I very briefly met you or your father on Ladbrokes poker cruise 1 or 2.  2 I think it was, a long time ago.   Do you get cashout values for antepost Cheltenham bets?

Fooks sake battered again today...... done over  20k this week  rotflmfao

That was definitely one, while the slots were good. Had a nice 3 year run, but had to retire from that unfortunately. Juice not worth the squeeze with all the tightening up on bonuses/wagering.

Would have been my old man on 1, I only went on the Caribbean cruise that was a Laddies only ship. We were both on the 2nd one, though.

I've got no idea, to be honest. Would imagine they'll void everything, or some firms would. Hills might not, trying to claw back all the money they've knocked in on fines this year :D

of all the things that the magic card claims this is the only thing that really annoys Science Wife.

The rest is just clearly nuts but claiming that phytoplankton are a virus is just stupid is how she put it :D

I don't know the finances, but isn't running Cheltenham behind closed doors as likely as cancelling?  Presumably levy + sponsorship + TV > prize money. 

I see that as the reason racing going ahead is still a favourite at this point tbh.  

It's what they did in the Europa League on Thursday with the Italian teams for one.

Think weather obv factors into not going ahead, too.

More cases in the UK, including one which was contracted here and not abroad.  A GP might test positive in Surrey who has been seeing patients all week. https://news.sky.com/story/first-case-of-coronavirus-confirmed-in-wales-and-two-more-in-england-11945201

Cobra meeting on Monday.  The fates of various sporting events could well be decided then. https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/health-and-care/illnesstreatments/news/110192/boris-johnson-chair-emergency-cobra-meeting

After his weekend off, of course :D

Read my posts. I actually live  in China.   It’s not you cannot go into a shop without a mask , you cannot be in public without a mask .  I wish I could find the time to say how it is here .  China will become the safest place due to the restrictions they put in place earlier when they were being ignored by the west .  I repeat only China could have contained this virus how they did with total lockdown

You talk about warm weather killing the virus.  It is actually said it takes heat , sunlight and humidity to kill it .  For us in China that is usually May  for that to happen .   I honestly think  the sign when the government will announce its over officially over  it will be when schools are allowed to open . Currently here is 16 th March.  Hong Kong & J.apan is 20th April . Go figure

This may be of interest; it’s the latest advice from BA senior management to airline staff in various customer facing roles:-

“Airport protection measures

We continue to work with the requirements of Port Health and Heathrow Airport to protect our airline and the airport. As a precaution, additional public health measures are now being seen at Heathrow on flights to and from Thailand, Japan, Republic of Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia or Macau.

We appreciate that the sight of Port Health staff in full personal protective equipment meeting aircraft may be unsettling. But rest assured that these measures are only precautionary, and the risk to individuals in the UK remains low.

The most effective form of prevention at our airport is good hand washing techniques, as advised by WHO.

Masks

Many of you have asked about the effectiveness of masks. Despite what you may see in the media, all expert international authorities still advise that are not effective. Some organisations have found masks to be potentially more hazardous, due to the need to touch your face.

As we’ve mentioned, the best form of prevention is good and regular hand washing techniques.

Contamination

Unlike other coronaviruses, with COVID-19 it’s believed that direct airborne spread is not significant. The main risk is from contamination of surfaces by droplets containing the virus that have been spread by an infected person. To get the disease a person has to spread this to lining tissue in the eyes, nose or mouth. Getting virus onto the skin is no risk provided it doesn’t contact the eyes, nose or mouth. It’s believed that close contact (probably less than 2m distance and more than 15 minutes) is needed.

This is why, consistent with all international expert authorities, we’re continuing to remind you that excellent hand hygiene is vital and the most effective form prevention.”

There’s more, but I think this is the most relevant.

Just heard a rumor that John Lennon Airport in Liverpool has been closed due to the Corona virus. That's tough on everyone. Imagine all the people?

Yes and it appears to be working.  There is no chance somewhere like the UK or the USA could carry out such restrictions though.


I read some discussion earlier suggesting it's definitely struggling in the hot countries.  It does not appear to be spreading strongly in Singapore and Thailand for two.  Whenever the vaccine comes it will be dead but the Summer could make it much much less of a problem first.  Global warming might have a use after all!

Some guy in America here who thinks he has it (and has travelled to a high risk country).  Doctors agreed but officials refuse to test him and sent him away to do what he wants

https://www.reddit.com/r/nyc/comments/fayko1/my_covid19_story_brooklyn/

 :D

If there cancelling Cheltenham then they should be closing the London Underground?

I would suggest the odds of them closing the underground are a lot lower than the current betfair price for the festival to go ahead.

I'm on the festival goes ahead for a Cheltenham budget boost, the expectation for the week has increased exponentially.

Plus paper headlines are lol out of control about this!

You might be right about getting it under control now with the restrictions etc. But there has to be a question mark about whether they would even be in this spot now if they hadn’t tried to sweep if under the carpet at the very start including shutting up the people that were raising it as an issue. If it was in the Uk they would have been on top of the issue way earlier because it would have been out in the open very quickly. Ultimately it’s hard to say how much of a difference it would make, but the question mark is there nonetheless.

Wow. that reddit guys experience is mad, but I read the first lot of testing kits in the US didn't work anyway.  Must have sourced them from that magic card guy.

You might as well lump the entire roll on Cheltenham going ahead Stu as if it doesn't you won't need it :)

I was thinking half of it so its win/win!

Beer on Friday Ralph if it's not on?

Sounds good.

France has banned indoor gatherings of more than 5000 people.  This includes the half-marathon coming on Sunday.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-51690657

Makes some sense if Paris is where most of the cases are.

Been a while since I've been to Cheltenham, but most of it was outdoors when I did ;D

All these actions while trains, planes, offices, cafes, restaurants etc etc are open just seem too stupid - is there another point I've missed ?

Imagine if it got so bad that they had to cancel the football season.

Imagine if Liverpool hadn't yet mathematically won the league should this happen.

Imagine if the only outcome is to declare the season null and void.

Imagine all the people in Liverpool going apeshit over that.

Imagine....

It’s much less disruption to call off a sporting event than to close the underground so they do that as a starting point.

Malaysia, Vietnam, Macau all showing no growth in Coronavirus cases.  They are places that “should” be but are warm temp so I take it as logical that covid 19 might well be neutralised by the spring/summer in Europe. Just about keeping the spread down until then.

To be fair Boris knows how to change the headlines!

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-government-wont-rule-out-banning-large-gatherings-says-health-secretary-11946939

Given the way he's talking there, I'm more inclined to worry about Aintree. However, we don't know what will happen this week, obviously.

12 more today....Only 1 that's odd, though.

Someone in Essex they don't know how contracted. 3 who had been in contact with someone that had it. 6 just back from Italy, and 2 from Iran.

It appears very likely the virus is widespread to a much larger degree than reported in Washington

https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1233970271318503426

"The team at the
@seattleflustudy
 have sequenced the genome the #COVID19 community case reported yesterday from Snohomish County, WA, and have posted the sequence publicly to http://gisaid.org. There are some enormous implications here.

This case, WA2, is on a branch in the evolutionary tree that descends directly from WA1, the first reported case in the USA sampled Jan 19, also from Snohomish County, viewable here

This strongly suggests that there has been cryptic transmission in Washington State for the past 6 weeks. 3/9"

The growth in the UK is now explosive and uncontrolled.   The comparison with the flu which I read in the Racing Post article is irresponsible and laughably wide of the mark Wuhan data linked earlier ITT disproves any death and hospitalization rate remotely similar to the flu.  less than 1 in 100,000 adults under 40 die of the flu, Coronavirus data has deaths in that group of 200 in 100,000.  An overall death rate of 4.3% and Hospitilisation of 17% is nasty and and potentially crippling for the NHS.

The good news is that growth in hot countries continues to be extremely slow.  Countries which had a lot of inbound from China and received early transmission.  Strong containment is also working.  I fully expect strong containment measures from the Cobra meeting tomorrow.  Keep the load on the NHS as low as possible until Summer arrives and we can get to a vaccine.  Allowing mass gatherings of people at this point is irresponsible and incompetent and I believe we will see similar measures to other counties here. 

Try and be a little more dramatic if you can, Jez.

Those ones who have been picking up £450 worth of gear at a time are laughing last. Especially when we're all on house arrest until summer.

Numbers down in the side events at Unibet Open Dublin this year. Lots of locals stayed away and specifically said it was because of the virus. 1 case in Ireland I believe currently!

Might not have to play 10 handed at WSOP this summer.

Obvs works for the Daily Mail

Might not be a WSOP this year  8)

Take all the precuations you like.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1233890663759958016

I saw a letter in the Metro today, it said something along the lines of - to all the people who keep saying to not worry because it only has a fatality rate of 2%, in the town where I live that would mean 2000 people!

Reminder
if needed
Unless there's specifically a modifier like 'of the total population', then percentage needing hospital treatment or percentage fatality means percentage of those infected.

Given that the original Chinese province still has less than 1% infected that means that persons letter should be "20 people" rather than "2000 people".

I honestly don't know how obvious that is. From a maths background a percentage amount always carries the question 'Percentage of what?', but I thought it might be worth pointing out in case other people have the same issue that this letter writer has :)

WTF?

The sort of behaviour you'd expect from someone who goes out in public wearing tracky bottoms and beaten-up trainers.

Is that a loaf of bread in he's left hand? Missed opportunity if so.

If there’s no WSOP, then we’ve got more to worry about than no Poker 😂

Now 6 deaths in Washington.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/03/02/coronavirus-live-updates/ That proves it has been spreading for a lot longer in the USA than we knew about.   Financial markets wont like that imo when they catch up with it shortly, they boomed up today over there.

Yeah no holiday probably  ;grr;

Get that pension spent, Woodsey :D

nm

lol now betfair have made a market on the olympic opening ceremony happening on the currently scheduled date

https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/en/special-bets-betting-10

Time to chase my inevitable Cheltenham losses

I have no idea on this one.   

It seems certain that it is going to get much bigger, but by then won't we all have given up and just run it anyway?  Given the spread it looks like everybody else is grasping.   Pretty surprised they have taken 5k in bets with that spread; it is like the old days of flutter.com.

For those thinking of betting; it seems they are actively considering postponing.  Hence that sould be factored in.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/51717839 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/51717839)

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ESNiBCoWkAEyLOJ?format=jpg&name=small)

https://nypost.com/2020/02/27/americans-are-avoiding-corona-beer-amid-coronavirus-outbreak-survey-finds/?utm_medium=SocialFlow&utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=NYPTwitter

Not sure if this has already been posted but it just shows how dumb yanks are generally.

UK cases up 34 in a day to a total of 85.  That really is explosive growth like other countries with similar climates are experiencing.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51741001?

I couldn't give a toss about if I personally get it or not, although I don't want to spread it to anyone...but the NHS is going to be crippled by this.

It's not about any stupid bet, the competent thing would be to try and slow the spread right now and get it to hotter temperatures with as low an amount of cases as we can.

Realistically its not possible though is it? What ever you do, it only takes one person to start it all off again?

There is something really strange about the numbers in China now, they seem to have it under control, yet the majority of areas are back at work.
Surely it only takes one person in one of those areas to start the chain reaction again?

What am I missing?

China completely shut down cities (you don't shut down cities and kill your economy for the flu).  That is what it took to get it under control there.  No way people in this country would stand for that.  Even still the spread can still be slowed with containment measures.  Large gatherings, schools, public transport whatever can be curtailed.   Even the fit and healthy catching it is a nightmare as they have to stay off work and they spread it around until they realise.  The more containment you do the slower it spreads.  China shows what can be done at the maximum level.  Italy is shutting down specific areas now also.  A lot can change if we create time, not only could summer give a respite but vaccines or treatments could be given time to arrive.

The problem is the hospitilsation rate of this thing.  China data said 17% hospitalised but they have a lot of smokers and dodgy numbers.  Even if it is only 10% hospital rates here we are absolutely crippled with any significant amount of cases.

The NHS have 5900 critical care beds for the entire country https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/nhs-hospital-bed-numbers.   The Guardian suggested yesterday if the police end up with lots off work sick they won't investigate even murders.

I laid it to nick a grand when it got really short, so makes no odds to me, either.

3 cases of unknown origin, and 29 returning from holidays. Who are the other 2?

2 - Scotland

But most of China is now back at work so what is stopping it starting again?

The infected regions are still on lock down as far as I know (I dont know).   Hopefully I KNOW IT could say what it's like in his region now.

We buy a lot in China from various provinces and have our own plant there too. All our suppliers are back at work  and you need to be approved by the authorities to re-open. Not all are back with full work forces as a staggered return to work over a few weeks has generally been imposed

https://metro.co.uk/2020/03/03/student-beaten-racist-saying-dont-want-coronavirus-country-12341106/

Lolcountry.

Braindead mugs.

I work in a school and Coronavirus preparations are well under way.

We have plans in place for remote teaching and we are fairly confident we will be closed at some point.

my favourite bit was that if he did have coronavirus you wouldn't really want to splatter his blood over you.  Not that much logic was part if this attack.

Chief Medical Officer  supposedly said this on Radio 4 -

Did not see much benefit in banning large gatherings such as footy  matches as...

"An infected person could infect a few people sat near them" 

"If people went to the pub instead to watch a match - then the risk of transmission and infection would be much higher in such a tightly-packed confined space"

As opposed to outside in the fresh air in a stadium.


Any fact-checkers corroborate or is the guy posting nonsense??

No facts from me!

But my understanding is that the main way people are getting it is people touching contaminated surfaces and then touching their mouths eyes?

So what he is saying partly makes sense but then at a football match everyone is touching the seats, the bar and the door handles etc same as they would in a pub?

Unless they are cancelling everything I still cant see how it makes a big difference.

Roll on Tuesday!

FYP

I did read that quote a day or two ago also.  Came after the first Cobra meeting decided we are not at the stage to start bringing in restrictions yet.  Betfair marked surged yes shorter around that time.  

For those who love a good conspiracy theory...(gotta love a good conspiracy theory).  There is a research facility close to the Seafood market in Wuhan where the outbreak is alleged to have really started.

"as Botao Xiao of the South China University of Technology notes, the market was just 918 feet from a Wuhan level-4 biolab conducting experiments on bat coronavirus."

https://www.zerohedge.com/health/wuhan-seafood-market-ground-zero-coronavirus-outbreak-demolished

There are many reports and acknowledgements that Patient 0 of Covid 19 had nothing to do with the seafood market, although it did spread rapidly inside there.

"However, a study, by Chinese researchers published in the Lancet medical journal, claimed the first person to be diagnosed with Covid-19, was on 1 December 2019 (a lot of earlier) and that person had "no contact" with the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market"  

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200221-coronavirus-the-harmful-hunt-for-covid-19s-patient-zero

Patient 0 has also mysteriously vanished with no information about them to be found.

Lol, now we are only allowed the infection data once a week, and no specifics about locations will be given.

https://twitter.com/DHSCgovuk/status/1235207174407802880

"As of today, due to the number of new cases, we will no longer be tweeting information on the location of each new case.

Instead, this information will be released centrally in a consolidated format online, once a week. We are working on this now and plan to share on Friday."

Oh gawd, see all the replies from people pulling their kids from school.  They are going to keep them in a sealed bubble for 6 months?  I have some sympathy for those with underlying health conditions; but cranks and underlying health conditions are not a perfect fit on venn diagrams.

Giving people no inoformation is clearly going to lead to a whole bunch of nutters filling the gap.  The school facebook page was already full of people pushing crazy theories on each side (it is not correct to extrapolate from last week's low infection figures to assume that you have more chance of winning the lottery; 300 cases in Italy doesn't mean that every person who has been there is gong to have contracted Coronavirus and so on). 

FWIW The chinese lab theory has been pretty well debunked too.

Agreed, I am not even sure what the statement means exactly with regards to information.  It can be interpreted a number of ways.  Are we still going to get daily numbers just no location info?  But we will get location info on Fridays?

I agree the statement is kind of ambiguous but if they 'mean' the exact words they state then doesn't it just mean they're going to release a weekly file of exactly the same information that they were already doing?

Looks like there is going to be a fun 3 weeks at some indeterminate date in the future. 

https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1235501769007992832 (https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1235501769007992832)

Rumours house of lords to be closed for 5 months.  Otherwise they would all probably be turning up in full hazmat suits.

Regarding banning large gatherings and the possible effect on Cheltenham, Boris Johnson himself appeared on This Morning and said the following

"Prime Minister Boris Johnson said measures such as closing schools and banning big events "don't work as well perhaps as people think".

He told ITV's This Morning programme another way of responding to the virus would be to "take it on the chin" and allow it to "move through the population without really taking as many draconian measures"."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51749352

Ok if they are not going to take measures at the moment then that's up to them but the way he phrased it is really quite rough and heartless towards the elderly and vulnerable imo.

The Government is moving to phase 2 of the the virus plan.  This could include some restrictions on mass gatherings. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51749352 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51749352)

I have taken half my bets off the table for Cheltnham, though it seems really late to cancel. 

Wow the quote I lifted is from the same article, there is so much conflicting info and statements from people with authority out there regarding what is going to happen in the UK.

Edit : And now the BBC have changed the quote slightly in the article.  What I pasted before was word for word as it was 30 mins ago.

Why do we think there are (relatively) so few cases in North America, South America, & in particular, Africa?

I get that healthcare & reliable government data in large parts of Africa is somewhat rudimentary, but South Africa, with a population not much smaller than the UK, has zero reported cases.  

Australia, which has strong links with Asia, seems under-represented too.

I have read some horror stories from the States.  Even people who want testing don't seem to be able to get tested.  Given the lack of universal health care, cost of healthcare, low rates of sick pay/employment protection and a buffoon running the show at the top, then it will be no surprise if the cases explode there.

There is likely to be less direct routes to South America, so it is just going to be slower to get there.

On Africa, it is a mix of poor health care, so cases are not recognised and lower rates of international travel amongst the population than we experience.  It has been speculated that the virus might not do so well in warm weather, like flu, so transmission rates are going to be lower in warm weather countries all other things been equal.  This is part of the reason that people are hoping that much of the spread can be delayed until summer.

Bet it doesn't thrive in 100 degree heat ;D

Viva Las Vegas!

Ah, but think how well it will spread in the amazon room at 40 degrees  ;nana;

I'm never normally there very long :D

Did they release numbers today?

I don't know, but they have reversed their earlier stance and are planning to release daily updates again.

FWIW There was a case reported in South Africa earlier Tikay

That is really good, where did you see they had reversed it?

Nice and hot in South Africa, interesting to see if it spreads quickly there.  India imported a load from Italy so data there seems skewed to start with but should watch both these countries now.

They have been delayed apparently....

Pleased to see my bokking powers remain intact.

 ;applause;

^^^^

Ha, thought that might be wholly wasted.

Betfair market still managing to go wild in all directions on a delay in getting the numbers

It's like when they call out "no more bets" at a roulette table

Broken the 2.5m mark today, too.

If it drifts again I'm completely greening out as I can't see it getting cancelled now.

115 cases now in the UK, smaller jump than anticipated.

Yes is surging shorter on betfair.

Boris Johnson and the Tories appear to be taking a position of let the virus take its course through the population.  I wonder how many of their pensioner voters realise now how important the NHS and caring for other people is.

I couldn't give a shit if I personally get infected, I am not in a vulnerable group and I can easily self isolate for 1 month.  I just don't want to infect my loved ones or anyone else.

If I was a rich man or woman over the age of 70 I would definitely **** off right now to a hot climate.  It's not been given as advice anywhere but everything I have analysed says to me that is the smart thing to do.

Jayzuuuz effing C.....drama queen much? Do you work for the Daily Mail or something? The disease WILL take its course regardless of government intervention whether tory or labour....it is what it is. Don’t think any govt would be better that another....they wouldn’t.

My mum is 86 and pretty well off and she isn’t going anywhere so stop spouting bollox mate....  ;tracet;

Look at the WHO data on infection rates. Countries with high temperatures are not spreading this virus.  It it prospering in colder climates.  I take that as solid evidence it has a problem with the higher temps.

If you took offence at the suggestion the Tories are considering a harder line on this thing then I point you to Boris Johnsons comments today on This Morning

"He told ITV's This Morning programme: "One of the theories is perhaps you could take it on the chin, take it all in one go and allow the disease to move through the population without really taking as many draconian measures. I think we need to strike a balance.""

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51749352

You cannot state as a fact that all Governments would have an identical response or that this virus situation would play out identically to every different response.  What would a Corbyn government have done in this situation?  Nobody knows.  He was big on funding the NHS and looking after people though, and lots of other countrys in Europe that have a problem with infections have taken restrictions to slow the spread of the virus.  

FYP

All this talk of don't worry, it'll only kill the old and vulnerable doesn't do much for me really. Everyone else will just be laid up for weeks and nearly dying, but escaping. That sounds like something I'd quite like to avoid too if possible.

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiqFnKXf3do

Be funny if it wasn't so mental.

Everyone else won't be nearly dying, most young people should just get flu like symptoms.

If 5% of the population with the virus will need intensive care (current estimate), how does the NHS cope when we have a million new cases a week?  At current growth rates that could be as early as May/June. 

We have 4,000 intensive care beds and many of those will be out of action through staff sickness and maybe patients from the week before.

The UK chief medical officer has stated this morning that they think mortality is under 1%, and Trump has that hunch too :/

1% may well be curently true, but is it going to be 1% in June and July?  I think we really have to hope the hot weather does slow it down/kill the virus.  I think there is good evidence it does, and it isn't somebody spouting bollocks, as the spread seems slower in the likes of Singapore.   

First case reported in Nottingham! Batten down the hatches, defcon 5 and bring the army in!

i have taken precautions and taken my PC offline till norton comes up with protect against this virus

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1236029449042198528

https://mobile.twitter.com/lktproductions?lang=en (https://mobile.twitter.com/lktproductions?lang=en)

Relax guys, Trump understands this stuff.



https://twitter.com/ddiamond/status/1236059773231079430

That's to good "maybe I have a natural ability"

https://twitter.com/i/status/1236441095568945152

https://twitter.com/i/status/1236289649737371648

Lovely country.

News to me that it gives you the shits...... ::)

If I'm stuck in my house with running water and loads of materials I think I can keep myself clean without loo roll - mad scenes.

I think Jon MW mentioned the film Contagion from 2011 - amazing how similar it is to the current situ..fun watch

The latest developments in Italy have done it for the cruise a group of us had booked.

4 nighter departing from Genoa, but we were all flying into Milan from various airports and travelling together to Genoa from there.
Party of 5, one has had to drop out anyway cos of the virus, and 2 were warned by their work they'd be put into self isolation for 2 weeks on their return.

So instead we're making use of the flight back we all had booked from Majorca (where the cruise is due to finish) and just going there for a few nights instead.

Fingers crossed MSC cancel the cruise and then we can claw back some £££. If not then I'll be badgering our rep for some credit towards a future booking :)

Wait till this hits.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1249990/Asteroid-warning-NASA-tracks-4KM-killer-asteroid-hit-Earth-end-civilisation-asteroid-news

Andrex will be very hard to come by. Quilted will be totally out of the equation.

Fortunately the earth is flat, so it'll probably miss the edge, but just imagine.

The 2071 one looks more likely, and I'll be long gone by then, luckily :D

1.09/1.1 the Cheltenham cancellation the day before.  Think the Aintree cancellation is better value. 

I was thinking this through, and I don't think the spread now matters too much, it is the spread when the intensive care beds are getting full that matters.  You have 20,000 cases needing an intensive care bed, and 1,500 new beds coming online each week the mortality rate isn't going to be 1%.   It appears Northern Italy is already getting to the point where services are overwhelmed already and they don't look to be close to peak demand.  I don't know how many beds that they can convert to intensive care substitutes, but I hope it is a fair few.   Though having spent some recent time observing intensive care and high dependency units, it is going to be pretty hard to convert other wards.  You'd be rushing through visas for every nurse and doctor in this country right now, wouldn't you?   

There seems to be good news coming out of China, but I struggle with believing the numbers. 

The Chinese numbers make no sense at all to me. If they have almost completely got control of the situation it would be great to share the solution!

They have the ability to lock down cities or even bigger areas which we do not.

I was going to say - it's not really a surprise it it? Apart from trying to suppress it right at the start the Chinese have pretty much told us everything they've been doing.

But they are not locked down.

I deal with factories in Ningbo and Shenzhen and both of those and all their related sub factories and suppliers are back at work and have been for a couple of weeks.

My understanding is that the majority of China is back at work. That would mean it only takes one person to mix back into those groups and it all starts again?

I am sure it has some significant effect, but I struggle to believe some of the news.  This morning the only cases they reported outside Wuhan were imported from Iran.   A lot of the country has the right temperature to encourage spread and in a lot of areas people live in such close proximity to each other.  People are still treating thousands in hospital, there has been talk of equipment shortages, yet there are no locally transmitted cases outside Wuhan.  

So my girlfriend still wants to book a trip for the month of April. Seems to be a bad idea at this point to me. Not from the perspective of getting the virus but more from borders being closed. Flights cancelled. Having to go in quarantine. Germans and British getting travel banned as happened in Vietnam and Israel. And just general possible disruption to the trip and stress.

What do people think? We have nothing booked at this point and no money invested.

At this stage i can see in a few weeks time a lot more restrictions for people from Germany and the UK both within the country and for non essential travel

I assume this is International.  I'd just leave it for now.  There seems a more than reasonable chance you just burn money and cannot go.  If uou leave it a couple fo weeks and it does improve, there will still be lots of capacity, as I have heard of many people cancelling trips. 

My working assumption is it is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.  I'd love to believe the figures coming out of China and see a bit more hope.

If it is more local, try and get as much of it on rates where you can cancel.

Woodsey getting used to knocking out big five figures a day on the pension at the minute.   Better cash it in woodsey and get the remainer spent.  In happier news petrol will be sub £1 a litre at this rate soon

:D

Fk that actually thinking of doubling down if it keeps getting battered!

https://twitter.com/i/status/1237058315940777984

Who needs experts when we can get the view of TV personalities...

https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1237027356314869761 (https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1237027356314869761)

FWIW Flu is way more serious than people realise too.

I am very much in the "this is likely to be really shit" camp.  I still reserve the right to snigger at those with trolleys full of bogroll and hand gel.

 (http://i.imgur.com/z91Fxs0.jpg) (https://imgur.com/z91Fxs0)

That's kind of why my wife's epidemiology lecturer recommended it for them - it's not that it's just similar to the current situation - what's happening now is basically what happens for every epidemic; it just doesn't normally happen on this wide a scale.

All of the things like travel restrictions and quarantines and closing down sporting events and schools happened with the SARs virus (for example) - but only in parts of Asia.

Which leads on to:


This is what happened to the SARs virus. It got spread by lots of people - control measures were put in place - it got spread by less people.

Eventually you reach a point where a lot of the population left just aren't susceptible to the virus and anybody who does get the virus is easily isolated and treated before they  have a chance to infect other people.

This virus is a lot more like seasonal flu then it is like SARs - that is why it's become such a big deal; but the epidemiology of it is likely to be pretty similar.

Long term: the best case scenario is that this control suppresses it as much as possible until a vaccine is found then it's going to be largely wiped out; worst case scenario is probably that the control measures will get the epidemic under control but no vaccine will be found so there will be periodic outbreaks in the future.

spare a thought for the workers at Andrex who will likely find themselves on 12 months unpaid leave after the summer as people stop buying toilet roll and use up the stuff they have been panic buying this week.

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b_QS4e31c8

Would be funny normally.

Blimey ch4 news reporting 196 deaths in one day in Italy.

NBA game on the West Coast tonight behind closed doors.  First one i think in USA.

https://www.espn.co.uk/nba/story/_/id/28884486/warriors-play-home-games-fans-following-san-francisco-order

Did you see that Getafe are refusing to travel to Milan tomorrow? 

We are starting to get restrictions at work now, no flights at all including internal ones, got a lot going on in Ireland at the moment so that’s a pain. They want to monitor where people are planning on going on holiday in the coming months. Pretty sure it’s only a matter of time until they start restricting access into hospitals which largely stalls the day job until until they see fit to allow access again.

I've been told no casinos, pubs, football matches, cinemas etc by my work.

I'd rather get it and fight it off then give up all that!

My work don't know about my 'hobby' yet. Neither do they know I am flying to Edinburgh on Friday :D

Where do you work, Porton Down?

Another trophyless season for the scousers when the EPL gets scrapped for the virus.

This voices my fears of the worst case scenario better than I have done previously.

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca

I’d be more worried they highlighted casinos to you, they’ve got your number  :D

NBA player tested positiive tonight before his game and the league is now suspended indefinitely after completion of tonights games.

Trump has introduced a travel (and trade) ban from the EU.  Looks very political given the UK is excluded.  Apparently the EU hasn't introduced the strong measures the US has??

Will read the rest in the morning.

Apparently it isn't trade, Trump just got confused in his speach.

Close.....

A boarding school

Ahhh. I can understand their desire to keep the school isolated, but it still feels overly controlling. Did they add Churches to the banned list?

BBC News - Tom Hanks coronavirus: Actor and wife Rita Wilson test positive
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-51847198


You never know what your gonna get...

Thanks Doobs , great article.

 :hello:

Definitely getting battered right now.

I have nothing left to double down with.

thought the summer was supposed to stop the spread of this, He is in Australia where it is summer and a lot warmer than a British summer 

Stop isn't the right word, the temperature should slow down the spread if it is like flu.  Looking at the numbers, this seems to be the case, but given it is new, we don't really know for sure.

Same here actually but if I did I would!

This best fits my current view, from Andrew Lillico on Twitter,

“If the govt thinks a) almost everyone getting CV eventually is near-inevitable; & b) containment will be v successful the 1st time used, an obvious drawback of too early containment cld be the risk of acting before enough people had it. You'd want lots to get it, but not too many”

We have to flatten the curve so hospitals cope as well as possible, keep the death rate to 1% not 3-5%.

There won’t be a vaccine for 7 billion people for at least 2 years if not longer.

The virus will pass through the population over 3 to 4 months rather than 1 month and hope that gives us immunity until a vaccine can be made.

Otherwise we all stay inside like China, hide from the virus but can’t get out until 2 years time when a vaccine is ready.

All sent home from work today. Plan is for all non essential staff to work from home until further notice.

Bloody hate working from home, go stir crazy.

So the Government says if you feel ill you should self-isolate. Well if people are doing that how are they confirming new cases.
I feel rough today, so if I self-isolate and I'm lucky enough to recover, I won't know if I had it or not.

Next month I'll be celebrating year 13 of working from home

Yeah, it gets worse

Came into London on British Rail & Tube today. A lot less busy than usual, overlaid with a subdued atmosphere. Read the article that Doobs linked on the way in, and began to think this might be my last trip to the smoke for awhile. In fact there may not be a choice, since I heard a rumor that the Tube’s going to be shut down (possibly fake news, ofc).

Met a mate at a pub near Victoria station for beers & lunch: earily quiet. Now I’m in the Hippodrome playing cash, and they’ve only just opened a third table: very slow. Never seen anything quite like it, tbh. Hate to concede defeat to this thing, but nothing other than restricted contact makes any sense till it’s over.

Good luck to all Blondes.

another 8% off the pensions today.   Everyone will be skint this time next week.  betfair lost 15% of its value today which is pretty brutal.  Betway got a lot to answer for.  Don't think it's just the virus causing this today.  Online poker/casinos are goiing to boom this summer.  Bookies should prefer that as the income is gtd and has no swings or variance like pricing sporting events.   Really surprised the shares have fallen this far.  People are going to be bored shitless sitting at home for weeks on end on their machines.

https://www.racingpost.com/news/bookmaker-shares-in-freefall-amid-unprecedented-concern-caused-by-coronavirus/427689

Hills are now worth £800m market cap wise as a company.  How the mighty have fallen.  Denise nearly paid herself that in the last 2 years in salary and divi's.  Quite amazing.

https://www.hl.co.uk/shares/shares-search-results/w/william-hill-plc-ordinary-10-pence

It's if you have a fever or a persistent cough - so not exactly just if you feel ill.

There will be many, many people who don't get counted in the official figures because they just had mild symptoms (or no symptoms) and didn't even necessarily think it wasn't just  a cold.

But if you feel ill enough to think you might need a doctor then you need to call 111 and if they think it's necessary they will refer you for a test.

Self isolating by itself doesn't really make a difference - if you were ill enough to phone 111 then it wouldn't matter if you were at work or not, and if you were they'd tell you to self isolate.

Doubt this helped much...

https://twitter.com/JesseLehrich/status/1237918168032653313

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/12/trump-coronavirus-travel-europe-resorts-126808

‘Kinell......done over 40k now!   ;yippee; ;yippee; ;yippee;

Three Leicester players got it. Arteta got it.

Be surprised if there's much footy this weekend.

Jason Burt
@JBurtTelegraph
·
1h
In light of Mikel Arteta being tested positive for coronavirus the Premier League is expected to be suspended tomorrow.

Hudson-odoi also positive and entire Chelsea squad into self isolation!

Think Boris is bungling this.

Events moving faster than him.

Asking people to self isolate for 7 days isn’t going to wash. 😏

This illustrates what broadly annoys me about journalism.

Coronavirus: UK's approach 'concerning', says Jeremy Hunt (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51865915)

This article contains the opinion of 3 people.

1. Keith Neal, emeritus professor in the epidemiology of infectious diseases at the University of Nottingham - who thinks that the UK plan is sensible
2. Susan Michie, professor of health psychology at University College London - who pretty much says you kind of guess what to do in an epidemic because everyone knows 'what' to do but not 'when' to do it (a lot of this is inferred because she only gets about a sentence in the article)

and
3. Jeremy Hunt - as an ex-minister, he no longer has access to all the advisors; in terms of qualifications and experience he is basically - some bloke.

The BBC is actually good journalism because they include all 3 of these opinions - but it's still annoying how the actual experts get a sentence or a paragraph and 'some bloke' gets the headline and the emphasis of the article.

He was health secretary for 6 years and us chair of the health and social.care committee.   Think that makes him more than "some bloke".

If he has based his opinion on expert testimony to the Health and Social Care Committee then I still don't like journalists but I'd give some sort of retraction - but, as far as I know they've only had a single preliminary meeting about coronavirus and that was a while ago: so I don't think it's likely.

Government ministers aren't experts - they're managers.

Being Health Secretary is irrelevant unless he's also dealt with the same situation and learned all the expertise from it.

The epidemics he was around for were Zika - but that pretty much came to nothing over here; and H1N1.

H1N1 was qualititatively different to this outbreak and if he is using that experience to inform his judgement here then that is not a good thing.

H1N1 was much more infectious in the open air then this coronavirus - so closing public events becomes a different decision making tree, and
H1N1 had much more of an impact on children and adolescents - so closing schools becomes a different decision making tree.

Basically if he is using his experience as Health Secretary to inform his current decisions he could arguably be doing worse than the average person.


That's not to say that his opinion is necessarily wrong and the government opinion is right - there's still a whole bunch of judgement involved; but without his ministerial briefings he's not in as good a position to make that judgement. Unless, and until, he gets extra advice from experts his judgement is about the same as the ... maybe not average.. but at least the well read man on the street.


It's not like they couldn't still have the same article with the same headline - I just think it would be more accurate to portray it as; experts advising the government think this is a rational course of action - other experts agree with them - but the former Health Secretary disagrees.

I would say unfortunately you aren't going to get a job as a sub editor with headlines like that. Needs to be snappy, concise and to the point!

Into London this morning. Like travelling on a Sunday morning. Obvs a lot of companies and individuals actively distancing already. Think this is what the government wants without having to mandate it too soon. Pretty smart imo

Don't know if I read this here or somewhere else but the number of 'names' getting this would seem to imply zillions more have already got this. How's my science JonMW or am I spouting blx as usual

Yep, when I first heard it I thought he had lost his mind but reading more into it last night it actually seems a very measured approach.

All the people screwing about closing schools don't seem to have taken into account the choice of zero pay while they look after the kids, or sending them off to infect the vulnerable grandparents who have to take them out to play somewhere as they cant handle them in the house for 2 weeks so they still all infect each other and the elderly population too.

I
People are hysterical. Soon have all anti government types begging the government to be more fascistic

Think that's already been covered under a slightly different question :D



To add - it's a bit odd seeing so many people saying the UK is an outlier because we're "doing nothing"

This was the change from trying to get everyone with the virus in hospital to explicitly admitting that was no longer possible and hospital was now more about whether you actually need hospital treatment.

We've been taking measures to slow down it's spread - we just haven't been taking all the same measures, at the same time, as everyone else.

Have we? Can't say I've noticed.

(Also blue is my colour)

One author uses blue text and Cf posts again. Nice to hear from you :-)

Wonder if we will get discounted sports packages for next month or 2 with no live sport?

They are showing all Bundesliga matches for free on German TV this weekend!

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0z1pWExSQg

Perkins a really smart guy, and this a good listen.

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kas0tIxDvrg

And this.

Thats it, we’re working from home for at least the next month, can’t see it for being less than 2 months if I’m honest......

Italy's figures are getting worse.

Quite a few countries banning UK nationals for the time being.

Hearing that BA are under severe financial pressure.

This is one big clusterfuck for the world.

.

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3URhJx0NSw

Quite funny parts of that -Rogan desperate to believe that Sauna is gonna protect him

(https://i.imgur.com/EBPxVge.jpg)

I was told in my local supermarket yesterday morning that they hadn't had any hand sanitizer in stock or delivered now for over a week.

I also had an email from Ebay saying sellers selling items like sanitizer found to be well over the normal selling price would be severely reprimanded, so I went to have a look and found many tiny bottles of 49p Aldi hand sanitizer up for sale at £24.00

Europe is closing ranks.

Poland stopping UK nationals.
Flights to Canary Islands not being allowed to take off today.

The worst is yet to come....

Mass redundancies & even bankruptcies in the Airline industry alone are going to be off the chart.

 

The whole travel/tourism industry is gonna fall apart at this rate.

Airlines
Tour Operators
Agencies
Hotels
Airports

Which will then trickle down to the local businesses across Europe that rely on the tourism cash.

The travel industry as we know it has probably changed forever in these last 2 weeks.

Add the Cruise Liner business to that list.

Don't know how I missed them off, probably gonna be the most immediately impacted of the lot. Pretty much all major cruise lines have suspended operations for at least a month.

We have some clients on a round the world voyage at the moment, left UK early January and not due back until early May.
The cruise operator, Cruise & Maritime, yesterday announced cancellations across their entire fleet and all ships to return to their home docks in UK/Germany. All impacted customers to receive a full refund.
So our couple, who are probably somewhere over towards Australia at present, will be due a refund of £26,000 on their return, and essentially will have had a 10 week cruise for free.

There are not gonna be many winners in all this mess, but I think they will view that as a result.

Yes, the Cruise industry is in for a real bad time, but I fancy the Airlines will be even harder hit.

Delta Airlines alone have grounded 300 jets. Three hundred. And overnight, since they announced that, more countries announced travel bans.

Read an interesting piece earlier alluding to the fact that if this had happened pre the digital age.

Some people would have coughs and colds, some old people would have died of respiratory or other illnesses. No-one would know it was happening, life would go on, economies wouldn't be trashed.

1918-1920 Spanish flu case in point

The press would still be reporting on it.  For instance AIDS was all over the TV and newspapers in the 80s and only a few hundred people a year were dying of it.  I don't think The Sun of the 80s would have missed the chance to produce lots of scare stories about some new illness that could kill 5% of people who got it.   

Maybe we would all have been too busy playing cricket on village greens and eating cream teas to notice?

Haha, I know I would have been. Hal-e-con days as one of my friends says

AIDS has killed 32 million people so far.

No-one getting into the States from Monday. At least from Europe anyway, including us.

Suprised we weren't on the list at the start, anyway.

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9vIUtXa9ug

Good to see Donald got himself tested, hence proving that tests are available for multimillionaires throught the States.

Those laying WSOP cancellation at 20/1 are having a shocker, though it could follow in the footsteps of other World Series and limit itself to locals only?

That Amash Adalja interview is quite interesting.

Now going to finish the Rogan one.

Gives me an excuse to not go back to the gym for a few more weeks ;D

Guess I'll have to throw my dumbbells around at home for the timebeing.

http://nautil.us/issue/83/intelligence/the-man-who-saw-the-pandemic-coming

Interesting read.

The US government has really changed its position.

President Trump committed $2Bn for the fight against coronavirus just over a week ago and the Democrats castigated him, saying $8Bn was needed. He relented and Congress approved the $8Bn.

Now he has declared a National Emergency and is making $50Bn available. That's a lot of dosh.

Looks like most of Vegas is shutting down as we speak.

Oops posted this on the wrong thread

Looks like I could be getting locked up for 4 months

https://www.itv.com/news/2020-03-14/elderly-to-be-quarantined-for-four-months-in-wartime-style-mobilisation-to-combat-coronavirus/?fbclid=IwAR3Ab4M2wmPnWheobBPyRFdzuhj_NzG1QAQU8fXixiUabd6KLmexadbtB-g

I know how to avoid Corona virus. Move to Albert Square.

(https://i.imgur.com/H514WPM.jpg)

https://twitter.com/i/status/1239102590719332354

Ha, hard to imagine a better way of spreading the virus.

Blimey.


Coronavirus: Isolation for over-70s 'within weeks'

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51895873


Surely that can only be an "advisory"? They can't force folk to do it can they?

Says it's advice, and 'reduce social contact', so not quite imprisonment.

I'm 39 and I already do all of that, so no problem for me :D

posted that story on the itv site earlier its happening in italy spain and france already but its everyone there not just the over 70s

its not law but its highly recomended
 

Stupidest question of the day.


Sophie Ridge asks Matt Hancock: "Can you guarantee that everyone who needs a respirator will get one?"

Some guys ITT doing some maths on it.

https://twitter.com/murtaman/status/1239216046973861888

.

Every pub/bar in Ireland has been ordered to close until March 29th.

https://womensagenda.com.au/latest/speed-trumps-perfection-who-executive-director-on-stemming-the-spread-of-disease/

He should be doing the daily briefings , not lame duck Boris.

By far the best speech I have seen on this crisis so far.

For those that need it, the NHS advice is here

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/ (https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/)

I am not sure how old people are going to be able to get good advice on this; it isn't even that clear to me, and I have got google.  Imagine how it must be if you are in your 80s and your source of news is the Daily Express?

My youngest has a cough, it isn't even a bad one and she hasn't had a temperature, but it has been hanging round since last week.  Given she is young, she would get mild symptoms, so the cautious thing to do would be to keep her off school?  So I ring the school and they don't seem clear either.  So I think there should be a flowchart for what the government wants us to do, and I just can't find one.  She is at home right now, but is there much point if 80% of the other parents whose kids have a cough are sending them in?  and given the end reult of the Government plans, even if not the intention, is that most people get it, shouldn't I be just getting her as much schooling as possible?

 

FFS newspapers cant make there minds up

some are reporting that ibuprofen could make the virus worse
others are saying its fake news

seemingly started by a tweet by french health minister but reports his twitter was hacked

This seems solid and is written by a doctor

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/doctor-note-ibuprofen-coronavirus-worse-200316045046677.html (https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/doctor-note-ibuprofen-coronavirus-worse-200316045046677.html)

So use paracetamol if you can.

Which newspapers are saying it is fake news?

edit.  FWIW The french minister's tweet is still there.  You'd think it would br taken down if wrong.

If you have to take ibuprofen and think you have covid19 speak to a doctor. 

there was half a dozen when i googled it over night but can only see a English version of a Bulgarian newspaper now
rest have gone missing

https://www.novinite.com/articles/203622/Fake+News%3A+Ibuprofen+and+Cortisone+may+Worsen+your+Condition+if+you+are+Infected+with+COVID-19

will be interesting to see how many from cheltenham contract the virus.. they were packed in nice and tight..

or was it allowed to go ahead as an experiment to see if mass gatherings contracted on a large scale ?

love a conspiracy me  ;D

(https://s19.directupload.net/images/200316/o5otgo5m.jpg) (https://www.directupload.net)

i am getting worried about the panic buying can't get my hands on any sanitizer now, as a wheelchair user i use it all the time.
everywhere is sold out and any time some comes in people are walking out with a dozen bottles

Think online is probably your best option mate....

Keep us posted on how this goes, if things get desperate, I’d be happy to send you a bottle or two next time I’m able to get hold of some.

Great gesture sir.. and what makes this kind of forum great... if a few more people demonstrated some common sense and thoughtfulness then we might not be losing our minds out there fuelled by a media with no scruples

Not on the same level but needed a face mask for a genuine reason. Farkin impossible and yet you don't see a zillion people wearing them. People must be buying them just to admire their hoard - complete wallopers.

Andrew Neil
@afneil
Unconfirmed reports that President Macron about to announce total lockdown with confinement to homes for five weeks, starting Wednesday.

Sur le portetape. L'incred.

Well they hadn't really cancelled anything over here when that started, so gave it a mastermind pass, and football was still going ahead.

Take your cap off, Alex Jones :D

Kids need a fright now and again, so don't always need one ;D

I know a manager at Aldi and he will get you some and I will post it to you .

PM me how many you want and your address if you want.

Trumpets have sold out though .

thanks everyone, friend managed to find me 2 bottles in a store today and picked them up for me.

hand washing is something i do but is kinda pointless for me first thing i touch after washing hands is the last thing i touched before i washed

i normally go through a bottle or 2 a week, thought after the first rush of panic buyers that stocks would return to normal so i didn't stock up extra (and add to the low stocks)

I asked in tesco for you.   They said they had some today but it went quickly.  They also said that the pharmacy should be able to order it in for you as it is for medical reasons.

W.H.O Director-General gives a 20 minute speech on how the people of the world should protect themselves during the Corona virus outbreak then opens the phone lines for waiting journos to ask questions.

After some trouble with her connection a reporter from Mexico gets her turn.


"Hi, I'm What's her face from Mexico. What advice do you have for Mexican citizens?"

yeah every time some gets delivered people are phoning friends to get there quick panic buying will hopefully end soon

W.H.O Bloke says we must test. Boris says we're not testing.

Apparently we are only testing people who are already in hospital with respiratory problems. All others who suspect they might have it are told to self isolate.


If that's true there could be 10 of thousands of cases we don't know about.

Withholding the information on the number of deaths is scandalous as well.

 https://mobile.twitter.com/DHSCgovuk?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1239202990369705984&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fglobal-health%2Fscience-and-disease%2Fcoronavirus-latest-news-uk-covid-19-spain-deaths-cases%2F (https://mobile.twitter.com/DHSCgovuk?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1239202990369705984&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fglobal-health%2Fscience-and-disease%2Fcoronavirus-latest-news-uk-covid-19-spain-deaths-cases%2F)

Department of health and social care 6 hours ago

The most common symptoms of #coronavirus are: New continuous cough OR High temperature (37.8 degrees or higher) If you have these symptoms, it’s important that you stay at home for 7 days to help protect your friends and neighbours.

Boris has just announced that anyone living with anyone coughing should stay at home for 14 days.

That escalated quickly.  Do they know how frequently these ankle biters are coughing?  Can't even go to the pub. 

The Government estimated 5-10000 last week and more by now

They are doubling every 2 or 3 days, though the Dom Cummings will have us believe it is every 5 or 6 days.  I suppose if you spend your working hours with Tory ministers you may start to belive everybody is an imbicile who can't use a spreadsheet.   I suppose we can pretend it is every 5 or 6 days if we don't test.

What does "Self isolate" actually mean for your average family?

Do you keep your teenagers off work or your kids off school?

How do you get provisions?

How do the elderly self isolate for 3 months?

Gill's Dad is quite elderly, so he tried to order his groceries from Ocado on Sunday. The first delivery "slot" they could offer him was April 3rd.

My mum is quite lucky in that there's quite a few of us who can visit to deliver food and essentials. I'll leave it to her to decide if she would rather take her chances with us visiting or prefer us not to come in and be in close proximity for any extended time.

Those people that don't have a number of friends and family close by are going to need support from somewhere I would have thought. Perhaps this is the time where I can find my active charitable vocation - happy to go deliver stuff in the evenings to people without the trial of chatting and trying to be any kind of emotional support.

"...They are doubling every 2 or 3 days..." source? What spreadsheet?

I miss Brexit.......

Where's MANTIS when we most need him?

Working for Brad.

Self isolating?


Praying?

Wherever he is, he is probably telling people that it is no different to the millennium bug.

Nah, bet he's got it sorted.

Press conference question ...

On a scale of 1-10 how have you Mr President handled this crisis.

Did anyone expect him not to say 10  ;D

I expected him to say "Very tremendous".

 :D

Nobody in the world has a 10 like we have.

Our 10 is admired throughout the world .

It’s a tremendous 10.

anyone remember this series?


https://www.amazon.co.uk/Survivors-Episode-1/dp/B00FZRL4JY/ref=sr_1_1?crid=393WVBTY18JZ0&keywords=survivors+bbc&qid=1584390578&s=instant-video&sprefix=survi%2Cprime-instant-video%2C234&sr=1-1-catcorr

Probably the only positive to this is that this utter shitshow should be the end of Trump and Johnson.

 ;applause;

Ha, that whooshed me first time. Can't believe Boo of all people got it.

Of course it won’t, Boris will emerge as the hero at the end of this  ;cheerleader;

For Boris, this is the equivalent of the Falklands for Lady Thatcher.

I can see it now, his arms held high with the adulation of having defeated the virus, with the additional halo effect of holding a newborn baby on the doorstep of number 10. Bigger majority than last time at the next election, stuff of legends  ;tightend;

:D :D :D

89 UK cases on 5/3/2020*,
1543 as of today 16/3/2020

https://twitter.com/DHSCgovuk?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor (https://twitter.com/DHSCgovuk?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor)

The reported cases have doubled four times in 11 days, which is pretty much doubling every 2 or 3 days.

I wrote a spreadsheet on the 6 March with some rough estimates based on Italian and French growth rates at the time.  I though we'd do better and that they would "only" increase 5 fold for the first couple of weeks.  The number of reported cases is spreading quicker than I assumed in my projections.

You can see a post I made on the 6 March here:

http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=68630.msg2274225#msg2274225 (http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=68630.msg2274225#msg2274225)

I didn't assume 5 fold increases til June, I assumed it would reduce and would only be doubling each week from Mid April.

I haven't seen the Government projections, but they did say that they expected the bulk of cases over a 3 week period, and that would be consistent with what I did.  This is why they have to take such severe actions right now, the NHS could be overwhelmed by this time next month.   I assume their projections aren't getting released as they are genuinely scary. 

Have a nice evening.

* FWIW It was 13 the week before.

.

get corona one

Was thinking, nah it is going to be so difficult to get a positive result but...

along comes Jezza to score one last own goal  before the final whistle.

 Corbyn, who stands down next month, also said he would not be self-isolating even though he’s over 70. (http://Corbyn, who stands down next month, also said he would not be self-isolating even though he’s over 70.)

Would love him to stick around as long as possible but it’s not in labours interests, fingers crossed RLB is next in line to secure Boris’ legacy.....

It should be the end for.him, if the public ever comes to understand how badly the UK government screwed up.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/u-k-realized-its-coronavirus-plan-could-kill-over-100-000.html

I think you probably mean you want it to be the end for him as most tory haters do......in reality we’ll only know if their strategy has worked later in the year when  it’s all come out in the wash.

"strategy".  Is that the one from yesterday evening, yesterday lunch time or the day before?   

Suprised they are still odds on.   But voters have short memories and it is still a long way to the next election. 

You'd delay Brexit, wouldn't you?  If it was a rational decision, not a political one, anyway.   I am not talking forever, but 12 months or so til this is fixed, or blows over.   Though maybe it is too far progressed?  In that case, you'd delay what is difficult and absolutely doesn't need to happen.

The strategy will probably change a bit nearly every day as the situation changes, it’s no surprise to me anyway........I don’t expect any different from tory haters to have a whine up when it suits them.

Seems sound but the reason the government will say 5 or 6 is because the statistical model they're working on assumes it will double every 5 days (and they just can't help themselves adding the 'or 6' to hedge).

It kind of highlights a big issue: Statistical models are not real life (and they are never meant to be).

The every 5 days assumption could be because that's what's expected over the longer term (it could be they just made the wrong assumption) - but anyway that's where the government gets it's figures from.

Speaking of which - the statistical model they're basing it on, which was published yesterday states in it that they had to change their assumptions in the last couple of days (and it was by quite a lot).

The reason why the government has changed tack is because their advice has changed.

When you're doing something differently to everyone else, it could be that they are right. The 'herd immunity' strategy is bonkers. It works by vaccinating children, not by allowing a population to catch something, especially something as dangerous as this. If they don't really know what they're doing, it would have been a lot safer to do the same as everywhere else instead of gambling with people's lives. We have lost a week, but now they are toeing the line to some extent, though they still haven't closed the schools.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/15/epidemiologist-britain-herd-immunity-coronavirus-covid-19

It was never a herd immunity strategy. That article the person quotes "The stated aim has been to achieve “herd immunity” in order to manage the outbreak" - that wasn't the stated aim, that was mentioned as an effect of the strategy.

The analysis is on this page https://www.imperial.ac.uk/mrc-global-infectious-disease-analysis/news--wuhan-coronavirus/
report 9

They were looking at the mitigation strategy as used successfully for 4 pandemics previously (most recently 2009) - rather than the suppression strategy.

Neither of these is a 'herd immunity' strategy.

That's not to say that the gist of that article is wrong or the gist of your post is wrong - but language matters and makes a difference.

NB: some epidemiologists classify herd immunity as 'only' what happens from vaccination - others take it to mean the proportion of the population not susceptible. Even definitions vary, let alone their idea of the right strategy.

It’s a little surprising this is dividing down political lines but since it has....

I think a good way to try and understand how slow and pathetic our governments response is, is to think what countries like Italy would do if they could wind back the clock and act decisively two weeks earlier. We have very few respirators relative to equivalent European nations *. How did we think we would be different? Catastrophic for Boris to come up against an enemy that can’t be influenced by his bullshit and rhetoric laden clown act. Certainly seems likely we’ll top the death totals at some stage.

*  https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00134-012-2627-8/figures/1 (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00134-012-2627-8/figures/1)

A good time to revisit the excellent article Doobs linked:

 https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca (https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca)

When I was in for my kidney surgery at the beginning of December, there were already onco-urology wards so over stretched that the patients who’d been there the longest were looking after the newer patients, as well as having to provide guidance to agency nursing staff, it’s nearly impossible to overstate how badly this will go for the U.K and it’s decimated health service.

Tbf. You literally know nothing but are talking as though you are an authority. It's just so pointless

Businesses who are insured against being unable to trade still can't claim even if forced to close by the Government unless they have specific cover against pandemic say insurers.

Completely true, the thing is we won’t know until we’ve got through this whether we did the right thing or not so opinions from the lay public is literally a waste of hot air. I can tell you from working with doctors for over 25 years that is it is completely standard for even top experts in their fields to have different opinions on certain issues and that’s what you are seeing here, so people posting links with certain views and presenting them as gold standard is once again a waste of time really, even if it is an interesting read as other experts will often disagree with them. I go back to we won’t know if the right thing was done until it’s done and dusted, and even if they did a decent job you can be sure they will find things they could do even better in future.

It might be report 8 not 9 but the reports don't seem to download the right report from the right link :s

But there are other links direct to the pdf around

I suspect the Brexit thing will become irrelevant as the EU will implode / explode and therefore we won’t have any EU institution to deal with.

Now is the time to help other countries, if the UK can make 10/100/1000 ventilators each day, it should give 10 % to other counties that can’t make their own. This export of ventilators would kill people in the UK(because they are not in use here) but should still be done.

What is the end game for this pandemic in the UK and the world, lock down everyone, no physical meeting of anyone at all. Do this for 2- 4 years while they look for a vaccine that is effective and is safe. This will kill 10”s of thousands of people in the UK from medical complications that can’t be solved, and domestic violence in addition to CV19 deaths, which should petter out as people stop passing the virus to each other. The economic contraction will kill many too as the country won’t be able to afford the health care we once had.

The alternative is that the country locks up the over 70s so they are cocooned and then tries to get the virus to pass through the population as rapidly as we can cope with the hospitalisation rates to help the pneumonia cases recover. There will be ventilators setup in lines in village halls to help those affected. Death rates will be huge, but better than doing nothing.

I fear 1 won’t happen as there is not the discipline to keep this in place long enough. 2 won’t happen as people won’t accept the deaths. I suspect that we will go in waves from one to the other, lockdown > get bored > cases escalate and too many die > lockdown and loop.

We will end up with an app on your phone giving your CV19 status, if you have had the virus then you will be free to move around, these people will be the workers for the next few months / years.

Oops that went a bit TL/DR

I don’t quite know “nothing”, I have two science based degrees and have worked in a scientific field for most of the last 17 years, it’s almost irrelevant but not totally, I’d reckon it puts me slightly in front of a lay person for understanding the situation. More than that though, I am unable to work due to the immunotherapy and so I can spend nearly all my time trying to learn from people much more better informed and knowledgeable* than I am. Woodsey is right that we won’t know for certain for a very long time but the U.K. is clearly going to fall in line with everyone quickly, there’ll be another panicked change of direction once todays deaths are announced. School closures incoming.

* The fact that we are very short respirator wise for example is just a number that can’t be disputed.

Yes to the respirator bit - and yes to the NHS 'could' be better equipped (although that obviously has the proviso that if the NHS had been kept at full post-Blair operational capacity - what would have been sacrificed to pay for it?)

But - closing the schools was always part of the plan.

Things move fast in an epidemic - what isn't appropriate to do one day. might be the appropriate thing to do a couple of days later.

In terms of party politics - the government seem to be pretty much following expert advice; you can get your expert advice elsewhere - but their action all along have seemed to pretty closely tie in with the modelling that's been shown (and the implication of what the modelling was before they refined it).

I'm not defending the politics - I'm defending the science and maths.


If you wanted to add politics to it. The modelling specifically states that it is not looking at any moral implications - that's for the public policy makers to introduce after they interpret the advice. It could be argued that the government are being guided too much by the science and maybe should apply a bit more humanity to it.

Biggest event in our lifetime?

The last paragraph certainly makes a good point. I’m also keen not to try and appear wise after the event, it’s just as much of a dick move here as in gambling. On Thursday last week Vallance said we were “4 weeks” behind Italy, yesterday 3. I think my point remains valid to ask what Italy would do if could wind back the clock, we have that opportunity and we still aren’t taking it, we have far fewer respirators per capita than Italy.

In terms of the science and the maths, this document has it covered better than most I think:

 https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf (https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf)

That's the research paper I've been talking about - it should be on the page I linked to but didn't quite work.

But didn't Italy put lockdown measures in place after 20 cases were confirmed?

What more do you think they could have done?

EDIT: having re-read it from your link, what they exactly state is, "We do not consider the ethical or economic implications of either strategy here, except to note that there is no easy policy decision to be made", I might have assumed they meant - it's up to the politicians to decide that.

Yes.

And the financial/economic slump that will follow, right across the globe, will be even bigger.

Trying to stay upbeat, but it all looks pretty gloomy right now. 

Funny that their science was different to that of so many other countries.

a. the science isn't different - the maths might be;
bi. the maths might be because they are other countries;
bii. for example, they use Intensive Care capacity as a very key variable to inform their results - this is all going to be different everywhere.
c. I haven't seen any similar analysis to compare it to. If the WHO have a similar paper then I could look at the differences for example.

And even with all that considered you will still get different opinions anyway.......

Yeh but 'certainly seems likely we'll top the death totals' doesn't sound like someone learning much however clever they are and however much they've read.

What was labour's pledge on respirator numbers before this happened.

I don't think the science and maths was different, the reaction to it was different in some counties than others.  

We do have an advantage vs some countries, as we have effectively conducted our actions earlier in our epidemic than others have in theirs.

Given Jezza's view on his own social distancing, I think it is optimistic to suggest a labour government would have acted quicker. 

They would likely have had a few more nurses, but it is hard to see how any significant changes would happen in 3 months.  If they'd got in the time before, it is reasonable to assume there would be more doctors and nurses.  Though keeping the critically sick numbers below intensive care beds would be pretty much as hard as it is now.

d. It could be a disastrous miscalculation based on arrogantly thinking they know better than the conventional wisdom.

Italy locked down on March 12th, there were 15,113 cases confirmed and 1016 dead at that time.

 https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/ (https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/)

"On 22 February, the government announced a new decree imposing the quarantine of more than 50,000 people from 11 different municipalities in Northern Italy."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Italy

It should be remembered that the Italy outbreak was much more regionally confined than the UK one.

Yes - they could have gone straight to a national lockdown - but there are consquences to every decision like that.

Given the regional lockdown (where the cases mainly were) didn't work, it's not entirely clear whether going straight to the national lockdown would make a difference.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1239584711346769920

They initially locked down 50,000 in a population of about 60.5million. That’s ~0.08% of the population. We should have learnt quickly from that.

I spoke to our brokers today, and he stated they arrange business interruption insurance for a lot of bars and restaurants with Aviva (not our insurer) and Aviva have a clause that clearly excludes Government or Police forcing closures to suppress infectious diseases so they wont be paying a penny to anyone.

My response was 'wow'

Ive had this off a few providers today whilst on a call out, luckily i mainly deal in investments and we are finding people have lost in area of 16% of their investment since start of situation, but in reality the boat has sailed and people need to weather the storm

It's just so surreal. I can't drag myself away from the telly.

I can't imaging what the world will be like when it's over.

Talking of spreadsheets, here is one I "like" with case numbers for the UK and graphs:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eTKeK9vRxgw0KhvKxPCaDrfaHnxQP-n9TsLzsEymviY

This guy has been a bit of a legend on the stats front on the DHSC twitter feed.

He has some views, that's for certain. I like his facts.

Company I work for now doing all broker appts via FT/Phone for the forseeable.

Who’s gonna be first to have a moan up after all that support offered by the government? Come on don’t let me down!

Agree that if winning in 2015 or 2017 there would be more doctors and nurses. This would be good per se but unlikely to help massively in the critical care situation we'll face soon where respirators most likely to be the limiting factor rather than absolute numbers of nurses. Pretty unlikely that Labour would have examined the NHS in such a granular way a couple of years ago and determined a massive uplift in per capita respirators would be a key priority - maybe they would have moved in a more draconian fashion but given they were agreeing with Govt conclusions until about 5/6 days ago, that's pretty unlikely.

Even if Government has acted later than may later prove to have been optimal I can forgive that rather than climb all over them because this is so different to anything a Govt has faced in a number of generations and worse they have to do it in the post Diana era where people spout specious shiz like 'one life lost is one too many' and people love to blame someone, anyone, for every bad thing that happens.

To me it's pretty basic, loads of people will die, not one of the deaths will be the 'fault' of Government per se and to blame them is ridiculous, petty and pointless - not to say different voices shouldn't express explicitly counter perspectives as that could steer things in a better direction but when people (just normal people) are facing a once in a lifetime scenario and, as said before, make less than optimal decisions this is just a learning curve and I couldn't really give a monkeys if a few more people died because of that - it's still not their 'fault'.

No support for freelancers/self-employed/gig-economy types, renters etc. Guess some can get JSA/universal credit & housing benefit but others might not be able to.

"Momentum" moaned on Twitter almost immediately.

What a case you are - never failing to demonstrate your lack of self-awareness.

Button it trappy.....for some people including you even giving the world away wouldn’t be good enough if it was done by a conservative government which brings into question your self awareness.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/51929628

This basically.

Rent a house? Get paying as normal. Own said rented house? Enjoy your rent and mortgage holiday.

Own a small business? Sucks to be you with no income for the coming months. But here have a loan so that if and when things are back to normal you have more debt to pay off.

It’s on the cards I reckon, you can see they are adjusting as needs be, plus I think govts just like to stagger decisions rather than fire all their bullets in one go. Not sure about the second point really, it’s tricky to just give out free money everywhere as there is a balance to be had between helping people and bankrupting the country.

.
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAhO1rQN8N8

Lol

He obviously needs to do something for renters who lose their jobs, but the mortgage holidays are for those who need it.
I can't see the banks offering it on BTL mortgages with out proof of hardship.

Its a lot easier and quicker for them to arrange the mortgage holiday offer with the banks than arrangements for the payments to the 2.5 million UK landlords.
Don't forget the overall principle here is to keep the money moving, lend companies money, to try and minimise layoffs.

Own a small business? What would you prefer no business or a chance to keep it running? Not many moaners do well with small businesses anyway.

Don't forget people, this is just the start!

.
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujhnCibbDMU

Hopefully there is more to come. And I'm not saying what we've got isn't a start. But at the same time I think it fair to call out some of the things currently missing.

So hardly any UK schools have closed from day 1 that's over 8 million sticky kids, younger ones know for spreading bugs like wild fire.. add associated parents..add people who are going about their business as normal.. lets say 20 million people arguments sake..

Question : with an incubation period of 4 days and 20 million people wandering around, why has there not been a huge explosion of cases ? tens of thousands should be affected by now..dropping like flies.. yet 0.003% of the population have been diagnosed for a virus with a 98% recovery rate

Either its not easily as communicable as they say or the media have panicked us into its like the end of the world

How about we take a moment look at the actual facts and not the scaremongering reports.. take sensible precautions and resume normal life

As who say?

The transmission rate is the r naught value if you want to look up what 'they' say :)

I think part of the problem is they don't know how many people have it as they effect it has on people varies massively.

deaths are doubling every 2-3 days the spread is real
the number of people with this virus is way over the number of confirmed cases because people are not getting tested unless they are patient in hospital

So we are guessing at numbers ? if you say is true and say 100,000 people have it with a 2% mortality rate that should be 2000 dead.. we have 70 odd.. need to get some context..

varies massively ?? the majority have flu like symptoms for a few days and are fine.. we know exactly how it affects people

'they' are the establishment and the doctors.. with a r naught value of 2 the question remains.. why are not more of us sick then ?

I would advise rereading the Tomas Pueyo article. In terms of the recovery rate, it’s not necessarily of value because of all the unknowns that we have atm but the known recovery rate in the U.K. so far is 3.33%.

 https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca (https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca)

They haven't died yet.

The cases have been doubling every 2 or 3 days.  I think the average time to death is about 17 days amongst the deaths (I am not checking this, but its is in that order).  Most of these deaths you are seeing now will be people who caught it at least a week ago.

A week ago there were 373 confirmed cases, a week earlier just 51.  

Also the mortality rate is only going to be under 2% if the NHS isn't overwhlemed.  People who need intensive care and a respirator are not going to be as likely to live when those things are no longer available.  

This is not scaremongering, these are facts. 

And it isn't just the huge numbers of potential deaths that matter, we do not know the long term prognosis of the survivors.  Given the virus damages the lungs and organs, many people who survive are likely to develop conditions that need long term support of some kind.

Well yes then, i would say that is a massive variance no?
Between flu like symptoms for a couple of days and in a box.

The first sentence is key. The only explanation for the current situation is that there people who all are intubated and are only being kept alive by respirators, once this capacity is overwhelmed then the increase will be dramatic. We have less respirators per person than all comparable nations and that is why there is a feeling that we should be acting sooner not ‘at the same time on the curve’ or later than a country like Italy.

This is a good explanation of how I understand it, seems like the Aussies are in a relatively good spot, the densely populated parts of the U.K. and US are going to have it worse than most in the short to medium term.

large scale quarentine and then all emerging two weeks later to catch it anyway will overun the nhs..and that will cause deaths not the actual disease.. you cant just hide from this