COVID19

[Doobs]

Controversial

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-27/tough-pandemic-shutdowns-work-for-the-economy-too

More aggressive actions could help the economy in the long run.  

[EvilPie]

According to the gov site application process for employers to claim on the furlough scheme won’t be available until at least the end of April.. why ? The infrastructure is there.. you have to have paye scheme in place and the employees registered to it. Why such a delay?.. a deliberate tactic so that companies who do not have the liquidity to carry the costs of keeping staff on will go out of business and thus not be able to claim.. I know they say about temp loans but you have to go through an application process and they still want security such as property

They always said end of April. HMRC are the spowest. Reversing their infrastructure to dish out this kind of money isn't going to be simple.

The loans are a lot slower than I initially expected, and I'm sure that is going to be a huge problem for lots of people. Not sure I have an issue with them looking for security though, it's pretty standard and I believe they have to justify any unsecured amounts over 250k to the government.

I think it'll put loads through and that will have a huge knock on effect on the supply chain.

We're in a very strong cash position at the moment for a Company of our size but it's not going to be easy even for us. We don't have too many employees but having run the first payroll with furlough included I'm looking at around £7500 per week going out with zero chance of anything coming back for 6 weeks. £45k of cash flow is tough in our position so I'm sure other Companies will have an absolute nightmare.

It's great news for me if the cut off for justification is £250k as that's well over any amount I'd want to borrow. If I can just get enough to cover the wage bill that would do so going on what you've said I might just get the application in now and be done with it.

If they are offering you a normal loan though rather than a CBIL then they may well ask for a PG or other security.

Unsecured apparently no problem up to £50k which would be more than enough to see us through short term.

Probably best for me to just hold out until our next VAT bill at the end of June. They're normally around £50k so that's effectively a free loan for a while.

There's a chance we qualify for the £10k grant as well. I'm sure we get small business relief on our rates so I may be getting a free £10k sometime soon.

Vegas anyone??

[Marky147]

I've got Dec 9-30th booked up as a back-up to the most likely postponed summer trip

[kukushkin88]

Morning all,

A change of emphasis on the John Burn-Murdoch charts and more good insight:
(the old charts are all still being updated as well)

https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1245106818344538126?s=21

We can "turn the corner" in these charts just by testing even less - nobody tell Dom Cummings.  Even though the US is getting more tests done, their chart could just reflect the increasing difficult of obtaining enough testing capacity. Thus, for a lot of countries, the number of real cases is likely to be increasing more rapidly than shown in the charts

Having said that, there does appear to be good news from Italy.  I don't know the specifics of their testing, but I assume their testing isn't falling, so the figures at least represent the number of positives from the same number of tests.  The daily increase in deaths is also slowing there too.  Also Germany has much more capacity than we do, so a levelling off there is a good sign too.

If the USA and us ever get to the stage where we test better, our charts are going to go a bit nuts.  Given I read last night that we were now hoping for 25,000 tests by the end of April, then I can't see our chart going nuts for a while.  Maybe sometime in May we will see a major increase in our testing capacity, so the chart will then show an increasing number of cases?  At the same stage, the deaths could be falling significantly.  

Question for Doobs..

Is comparing numbers of cases, and deaths without any reference to population size a fair measure? Spain has a population of c40MM and has more cases than many larger countries.
I appreciate that both Italy and Spain may have populations that are skewed to the older end, but even so, Spain has more cases than Italy despite having a population that is only 2/3 of Italy’s.


Edited to add link to table breaking down figures per MM
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1244380095164420101?s=21

This should clear it up a bit.

[Chompy]

Feels like there's some hope surrounding hydroxichloroquine. I've taken it in the past for RA. It's one of the mildest drugs for it.

I've got Dec 9-30th booked up as a back-up to the most likely postponed summer trip

In!

[Marky147]

Good stuff. We'll get Tikay involved if he comes out of retirement!

Just finished watching that, and love that Rogan is still hoping one of the experts is going to say 'Just hit your sauna, and you're good'

[Doobs]

Morning all,

A change of emphasis on the John Burn-Murdoch charts and more good insight:
(the old charts are all still being updated as well)

https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1245106818344538126?s=21

We can "turn the corner" in these charts just by testing even less - nobody tell Dom Cummings.  Even though the US is getting more tests done, their chart could just reflect the increasing difficult of obtaining enough testing capacity. Thus, for a lot of countries, the number of real cases is likely to be increasing more rapidly than shown in the charts

Having said that, there does appear to be good news from Italy.  I don't know the specifics of their testing, but I assume their testing isn't falling, so the figures at least represent the number of positives from the same number of tests.  The daily increase in deaths is also slowing there too.  Also Germany has much more capacity than we do, so a levelling off there is a good sign too.

If the USA and us ever get to the stage where we test better, our charts are going to go a bit nuts.  Given I read last night that we were now hoping for 25,000 tests by the end of April, then I can't see our chart going nuts for a while.  Maybe sometime in May we will see a major increase in our testing capacity, so the chart will then show an increasing number of cases?  At the same stage, the deaths could be falling significantly.  

Question for Doobs..

Is comparing numbers of cases, and deaths without any reference to population size a fair measure? Spain has a population of c40MM and has more cases than many larger countries.
I appreciate that both Italy and Spain may have populations that are skewed to the older end, but even so, Spain has more cases than Italy despite having a population that is only 2/3 of Italy’s.


Edited to add link to table breaking down figures per MM
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Sorry misssed this question.

I am not a big fan of cases anyway, as it is clear different countries have different levels of testing.  There seems little chance we have less cases than Germany.  Looking at that link, it is pretty clear our recovered and serious/criitical patients are way out too. 

I think we are going to just keep seeing the same comparisons because we are used to seeing them, and I can't remember many saying Spain has 2,000 cases per million.  I don't think it is particularly fair, but I don't see it changing.  It is a bit harsh on the USA, as everyone is going to be looking at their cases just because they are the biggest country with a serious problem right now.

As an aside, some of the parents were flapping after half term as some of the kids come back from an Italian ski trip and were a serious risk so shouldn't be allowed back in the school.  Well some of them were calling for the whole school to be shut.  I remember saying things like we don't know which kids have come back from other more risky countries.  We'd just come back from Spain, and I really wasn't thinking of us.

[Jon MW]

The problem with quoting cases is also that even the countries with a lot of testing, like Germany, are still not capturing every case.

So if you have to extrapolate a little bit, or you have to extrapolate a lot, doesn't change that every figure given isn't the actual amount of cases in that country.

Even comparing the same country over time will have skewed results, Germany for example, had their testing skewed towards the younger population to start with and is only recently increasing the number in the older population being tested.

The number of confirmed cases per country is a figure to keep an eye on but it's only really for a very general trend and comparisons between countries seem to be largely meaningless.

The deaths by country are a bit more meaningful but for an international comparison I think you need a lot more than anyone (including Kush's link) have done so far. In particular the result over time compared to the size of the country.

For now that's also a general indicator rather than an exact measurement because it has to be obvious that a million deaths from covid19 in the US will mean a lot different to a million deaths in Lichtenstein (for example).

[kukushkin88]

The problem with quoting cases is also that even the countries with a lot of testing, like Germany, are still not capturing every case.

So if you have to extrapolate a little bit, or you have to extrapolate a lot, doesn't change that every figure given isn't the actual amount of cases in that country.

Even comparing the same country over time will have skewed results, Germany for example, had their testing skewed towards the younger population to start with and is only recently increasing the number in the older population being tested.

The number of confirmed cases per country is a figure to keep an eye on but it's only really for a very general trend and comparisons between countries seem to be largely meaningless.

The deaths by country are a bit more meaningful but for an international comparison I think you need a lot more than anyone (including Kush's link) have done so far. In particular the result over time compared to the size of the country.

For now that's also a general indicator rather than an exact measurement because it has to be obvious that a million deaths from covid19 in the US will mean a lot different to a million deaths in Lichtenstein (for example).

I’m unclear why the size country is a significant issue for growth rate of fatalities? I don’t think total deaths tells us much at this stage.

[kukushkin88]

The problem with quoting cases is also that even the countries with a lot of testing, like Germany, are still not capturing every case.

So if you have to extrapolate a little bit, or you have to extrapolate a lot, doesn't change that every figure given isn't the actual amount of cases in that country.

Even comparing the same country over time will have skewed results, Germany for example, had their testing skewed towards the younger population to start with and is only recently increasing the number in the older population being tested.

The number of confirmed cases per country is a figure to keep an eye on but it's only really for a very general trend and comparisons between countries seem to be largely meaningless.

The deaths by country are a bit more meaningful but for an international comparison I think you need a lot more than anyone (including Kush's link) have done so far. In particular the result over time compared to the size of the country.

For now that's also a general indicator rather than an exact measurement because it has to be obvious that a million deaths from covid19 in the US will mean a lot different to a million deaths in Lichtenstein (for example).

I’m unclear why the size country is a significant issue for growth rate of fatalities? I don’t think total deaths tells us much at this stage.

I should clarify that I mean in terms of assessing the success of a strategy in combatting the virus.

[Jon MW]

The problem with quoting cases is also that even the countries with a lot of testing, like Germany, are still not capturing every case.

So if you have to extrapolate a little bit, or you have to extrapolate a lot, doesn't change that every figure given isn't the actual amount of cases in that country.

Even comparing the same country over time will have skewed results, Germany for example, had their testing skewed towards the younger population to start with and is only recently increasing the number in the older population being tested.

The number of confirmed cases per country is a figure to keep an eye on but it's only really for a very general trend and comparisons between countries seem to be largely meaningless.

The deaths by country are a bit more meaningful but for an international comparison I think you need a lot more than anyone (including Kush's link) have done so far. In particular the result over time compared to the size of the country.

For now that's also a general indicator rather than an exact measurement because it has to be obvious that a million deaths from covid19 in the US will mean a lot different to a million deaths in Lichtenstein (for example).

I’m unclear why the size country is a significant issue for growth rate of fatalities? I don’t think total deaths tells us much at this stage.

I should clarify that I mean in terms of assessing the success of a strategy in combatting the virus.

Because we don't know how many cases there are.

It is more likely that there are 10 million un recorded cases in the US than there are 10 million un recorded cases in Lichtenstein - obviously that feeds through to deaths.

Like with the other factors general trends can be found by looking at the figures available but there's absolutely no nuance to the data.

The obsession with daily figures probably doesn't help, it's interesting to get a daily update but comparing week on week is probably more helpful once countries are past the stage of being able to meaninfully track every case.

[kukushkin88]

The problem with quoting cases is also that even the countries with a lot of testing, like Germany, are still not capturing every case.

So if you have to extrapolate a little bit, or you have to extrapolate a lot, doesn't change that every figure given isn't the actual amount of cases in that country.

Even comparing the same country over time will have skewed results, Germany for example, had their testing skewed towards the younger population to start with and is only recently increasing the number in the older population being tested.

The number of confirmed cases per country is a figure to keep an eye on but it's only really for a very general trend and comparisons between countries seem to be largely meaningless.

The deaths by country are a bit more meaningful but for an international comparison I think you need a lot more than anyone (including Kush's link) have done so far. In particular the result over time compared to the size of the country.

For now that's also a general indicator rather than an exact measurement because it has to be obvious that a million deaths from covid19 in the US will mean a lot different to a million deaths in Lichtenstein (for example).

I’m unclear why the size country is a significant issue for growth rate of fatalities? I don’t think total deaths tells us much at this stage.

I should clarify that I mean in terms of assessing the success of a strategy in combatting the virus.

Because we don't know how many cases there are.

It is more likely that there are 10 million un recorded cases in the US than there are 10 million un recorded cases in Lichtenstein - obviously that feeds through to deaths.

Like with the other factors general trends can be found by looking at the figures available but there's absolutely no nuance to the data.

The obsession with daily figures probably doesn't help, it's interesting to get a daily update but comparing week on week is probably more helpful once countries are past the stage of being able to meaninfully track every case.

We have to ignore cases I think and focus only fatalities, if we are to learn anything in the short term about good strategy. The scale at which testing is behind likely number of cases is remarkable really.

[Doobs]

The problem with quoting cases is also that even the countries with a lot of testing, like Germany, are still not capturing every case.

So if you have to extrapolate a little bit, or you have to extrapolate a lot, doesn't change that every figure given isn't the actual amount of cases in that country.

Even comparing the same country over time will have skewed results, Germany for example, had their testing skewed towards the younger population to start with and is only recently increasing the number in the older population being tested.

The number of confirmed cases per country is a figure to keep an eye on but it's only really for a very general trend and comparisons between countries seem to be largely meaningless.

The deaths by country are a bit more meaningful but for an international comparison I think you need a lot more than anyone (including Kush's link) have done so far. In particular the result over time compared to the size of the country.

For now that's also a general indicator rather than an exact measurement because it has to be obvious that a million deaths from covid19 in the US will mean a lot different to a million deaths in Lichtenstein (for example).

I’m unclear why the size country is a significant issue for growth rate of fatalities? I don’t think total deaths tells us much at this stage.

I should clarify that I mean in terms of assessing the success of a strategy in combatting the virus.

Because we don't know how many cases there are.

It is more likely that there are 10 million un recorded cases in the US than there are 10 million un recorded cases in Lichtenstein - obviously that feeds through to deaths.

Like with the other factors general trends can be found by looking at the figures available but there's absolutely no nuance to the data.

The obsession with daily figures probably doesn't help, it's interesting to get a daily update but comparing week on week is probably more helpful once countries are past the stage of being able to meaninfully track every case.

I'd say once a week isn't going to be useful given the growth rate.

Away from twitter disclosures, it seems the Government are also tracking hospital admissions data, as I saw a story a day or two ago where it mentioned that there were promising signs as admissions were slowing.  I think it was Neil Ferguson who said this.  I am pretty sure they are getting up to date numbers on staff and GP sickness too.  So in the background they are likely producing a lot of up to date stats.

I don't see how looking at cases is better than deaths anymore.  If we had better testing, cases could be better as it is a leading indicator.  If I was in Government, I'd definitely be looking at the trend in hospital admissions as a proxy for the trend in cases right now.  That is assuming that they can get frequent up to date figures.

[kukushkin88]

The problem with quoting cases is also that even the countries with a lot of testing, like Germany, are still not capturing every case.

So if you have to extrapolate a little bit, or you have to extrapolate a lot, doesn't change that every figure given isn't the actual amount of cases in that country.

Even comparing the same country over time will have skewed results, Germany for example, had their testing skewed towards the younger population to start with and is only recently increasing the number in the older population being tested.

The number of confirmed cases per country is a figure to keep an eye on but it's only really for a very general trend and comparisons between countries seem to be largely meaningless.

The deaths by country are a bit more meaningful but for an international comparison I think you need a lot more than anyone (including Kush's link) have done so far. In particular the result over time compared to the size of the country.

For now that's also a general indicator rather than an exact measurement because it has to be obvious that a million deaths from covid19 in the US will mean a lot different to a million deaths in Lichtenstein (for example).

I’m unclear why the size country is a significant issue for growth rate of fatalities? I don’t think total deaths tells us much at this stage.

I should clarify that I mean in terms of assessing the success of a strategy in combatting the virus.

Because we don't know how many cases there are.

It is more likely that there are 10 million un recorded cases in the US than there are 10 million un recorded cases in Lichtenstein - obviously that feeds through to deaths.

Like with the other factors general trends can be found by looking at the figures available but there's absolutely no nuance to the data.

The obsession with daily figures probably doesn't help, it's interesting to get a daily update but comparing week on week is probably more helpful once countries are past the stage of being able to meaninfully track every case.

We have to ignore cases I think and focus only fatalities, if we are to learn anything in the short term about good strategy. The scale at which testing is behind likely number of cases is remarkable really.

Worth anyone who is interested in the ‘pink charts’ listening to this:

https://twitter.com/janinegibson/status/1244519429825802240?s=21

[Woodsey]

The problem with quoting cases is also that even the countries with a lot of testing, like Germany, are still not capturing every case.

So if you have to extrapolate a little bit, or you have to extrapolate a lot, doesn't change that every figure given isn't the actual amount of cases in that country.

Even comparing the same country over time will have skewed results, Germany for example, had their testing skewed towards the younger population to start with and is only recently increasing the number in the older population being tested.

The number of confirmed cases per country is a figure to keep an eye on but it's only really for a very general trend and comparisons between countries seem to be largely meaningless.

The deaths by country are a bit more meaningful but for an international comparison I think you need a lot more than anyone (including Kush's link) have done so far. In particular the result over time compared to the size of the country.

For now that's also a general indicator rather than an exact measurement because it has to be obvious that a million deaths from covid19 in the US will mean a lot different to a million deaths in Lichtenstein (for example).

I’m unclear why the size country is a significant issue for growth rate of fatalities? I don’t think total deaths tells us much at this stage.

I should clarify that I mean in terms of assessing the success of a strategy in combatting the virus.

Because we don't know how many cases there are.

It is more likely that there are 10 million un recorded cases in the US than there are 10 million un recorded cases in Lichtenstein - obviously that feeds through to deaths.

Like with the other factors general trends can be found by looking at the figures available but there's absolutely no nuance to the data.

The obsession with daily figures probably doesn't help, it's interesting to get a daily update but comparing week on week is probably more helpful once countries are past the stage of being able to meaninfully track every case.

Obsession with daily numbers help if you have an agenda to criticise the Tories ar every opportunity