COVID19

[Chompy]

Must be something to some, or all, of it I guess. DMT, Ayahuasca, sensory deprivation, DDP Yoga. Never tried any of them tbf.

Anyway, on to today's 'Questions Unanswered' session.

Q&A Bingo

"Ramping up"
"Surge Capacity"
"Not out of the woods yet"
"Pedal to the floor"
"Green shoots"

4-6 2+, 6-1 3+, 12-1 4+, 25-1 full house

"Ramping up" spread 2.5-2.7

First question comes from: 5-4 Laura Kuenssberg, 3 Peston, 6 Bar.
Number of bookshelves behind question askers spread: 2.1-2.3

Max stake £10. All profits to the NHS.

Just found out Sporting are doing actual prices.

https://www.sportingindex.com/spread-betting/politics/british/group_b.1305ccfe-2992-4777-bb4a-880fd174d9d1/boris-daily-briefing-thursday-2nd-april-2020

[arbboy]

i'd lay peston at 33/1.   like the bookshelves spread.   Seems spot on to me. 

[TightEnd]

Max Bet Kuenssberg please

Over under on journos who will cram 3 questions into 1?

over under on questions on testing actually answered?

[Chompy]

Koony now 4-7

Number of questions requesting numbers 3.5-3.8
Number of answers containing numbers 0.3-0.6

What's going on today? I've seen Sandown races go off closer to time than tonight's trio.

Why would anyone say 'cheese'? MAX sell at 0.5 here.

[Doobs]

This is a summary of where the actuaries response group thinks Covid 19 mortality is right now, and includes comparisons with flu

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/covid-19-actuaries-response-group_covid-19-in-numbers-mortality-v-normal-activity-6651491858767851520-FGae/

TLDR It is around 4 times to 16 times more deadly than normal flu for over 50s (central rate is approx 9x more deadly for males, 5x for females).  These are multiples of flu mortality, and men already die more easily than women.  Bad news for overweight over 50s males, as it is more deadly again for you. 

[Sheriff Fatman]

Someone I went to school with, and who I'm friends with on social media, lost their Dad overnight to COVID-19.  It's the first time I've seen anyone impacted who I knew personally, which makes it feel much closer to home now.

It was probably inevitable that this would be the case, as we're still at the relatively early stages of this.  Sadly, I fear there's much more of this to come in the short-term.

[Karabiner]

Someone I went to school with, and who I'm friends with on social media, lost their Dad overnight to COVID-19.  It's the first time I've seen anyone impacted who I knew personally, which makes it feel much closer to home now.

It was probably inevitable that this would be the case, as we're still at the relatively early stages of this.  Sadly, I fear there's much more of this to come in the short-term.

It must be awful not to be able to comfort a dying parent or attend the funeral.

[Woodsey]

Reports are that Mexico is urging Trump to hurry up with the wall........

[DropTheHammer]

Someone I went to school with, and who I'm friends with on social media, lost their Dad overnight to COVID-19.  It's the first time I've seen anyone impacted who I knew personally, which makes it feel much closer to home now.

It was probably inevitable that this would be the case, as we're still at the relatively early stages of this.  Sadly, I fear there's much more of this to come in the short-term.

My cousin’s wife was in hospital a week ago with corona. Only in her 30s but has kidney problems, so that was a concern. Fortunately she’s now out, having made a strong recovery.

Thanks Doobs for posting that actuaries info, very informative and always interesting to see the professionals’ opinions.

[nirvana]

I think raising hopes on the antibody tests was also a big mistake.

Not here yet, having suggested could be distributed by amazon and boots within days.

They backtracked a bit today. Needs more time to check it works etc

When it does come, how practically do you tell a percentage of the population to crack on whilst expecting the majority to stay locked down?

Yep, the last point is really difficult i think. Almost to the point of no value or undoable. Would have obvious uses in terms of random sampling that might show what is happening in the general population.

Might also have some value (that you could persuade the majority of the population to agree with) in terms of getting certain key workers back working

[Cf]

Someone I went to school with, and who I'm friends with on social media, lost their Dad overnight to COVID-19.  It's the first time I've seen anyone impacted who I knew personally, which makes it feel much closer to home now.

It was probably inevitable that this would be the case, as we're still at the relatively early stages of this.  Sadly, I fear there's much more of this to come in the short-term.

It must be awful not to be able to comfort a dying parent or attend the funeral.

Immediate family can attend funerals.

[RickBFA]

Seen a few things starting to seriously question the numbers of Chinese deaths.

https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/wuhan-deaths-03272020182846.html

Here’s one, reckons 42,000 might be closer to real figure.

[DropTheHammer]

Horrible that they’re such a bunch of deniers and liars. How do we still not know for certain if those infected can catch it again, and after how long...they must know that in China.

Hopefully when the dust settles we will reverse our 5G decision.

Do people think this will kill HS2?

[Pokerpops]

This makes an interesting read.

https://www.economist.com/briefing/2020/04/03/the-hard-choices-covid-policymakers-face?fsrc=newsletter&utm_campaign=the-economist-today&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=salesforce-marketing-cloud&utm_term=2020-04-02&utm_content=article-link-1

[kukushkin88]

Horrible that they’re such a bunch of deniers and liars. How do we still not know for certain if those infected can catch it again, and after how long...they must know that in China.

Hopefully when the dust settles we will reverse our 5G decision.

Do people think this will kill HS2?

The Chinese are leading attempts to answer the first (reinfection) question and are collaborating internationally.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24532754-600-can-you-catch-the-coronavirus-twice-we-dont-know-yet/

Seems unlikely they'll reverse the 5G decision. The anti Chinese sentiment will be pushed hard by the Trump/Breitbart/Telegraph/IDS types but cash will be king on this I think.

I doubt it will be curtains for HS2, impossible to know at this point. It might be that the entire system collapses and has to be built again from scratch, if that does happen this guy should sit on the advisory committee for how to go about it:
[urlhttps://time.com/5803225/yuval-noah-harari-coronavirus-humanity-leadership/][/url]

We just don't know about suppression of Chinese numbers, the evidence is as poor as it gets, anecdotes. We do know that their response was extreme and much earlier than anything we did:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-uk-boris-johnson-china-south-korea-testing-covid-19-pandemic-a9397786.html

 I think all countries will be manipulating the figures to some extent, seems like the nudge unit is front and centre in our response. At least we have North Korea to make us all look good in the transparency contest:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/02/north-koreas-coronavirus-free-claim-met-with-mounting-scepticism

The nudge unit:

[urlhttps://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-uk-government-nudge-unit-dominic-cummings-herd-immunity-a9444306.html][/url]