COVID19

[Woodsey]

So been a busy couple of weeks but seems like a good time for a work update...

Saw this link earlier, and although I know some of you don't like the paper I think this headline is going to be reasonably accurate.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8211739/Farce-banks-coronavirus-crisis-loans-just-5-000-businesses.html

We still don't have anything agreed and an actual CBIL doesn't appear to be on the table, but to be fair to them there have been a lot changes for us since the process first started.

We secured an order for 4000 metal storage trolleys going into NHS Nightingale. The first 250 went in on Friday and the remainder are to be delivered through the rest of the month. That was our biggest ever single order.......

Until we found out that one of our Chinese suppliers has a huge amount of PPE available for sale. We have an operation in the USA and things moved very quickly and we now have a 747 full of PPE being delivered to the USA government on Thursday.

Further to this, I can get a lot more and even 2000 ventilators but I believe the pricing on these is hugely inflated so I have made offers to NHS & Bupa.

Makes me wonder what the UK Government are doing if I can source it so easily.

Crazy times compared to wondering if the business would make it through the year 2 weeks ago.

Hey All

Been a busy couple of weeks since this post!

747 of PPE successfully delivered to NY State Government last week

But what is more unbelievable is we offered the same service to the NHS two weeks ago...... nothing.

A week ago we spoke to Nicky Morgan who but us directly in touch with Matt Hancock.
He passed us on to the cabinet team in charge of sourcing PPE. We were a priority offer for review as we had access to gowns. A week later we have submitted spec sheets but they've ordered nothing.

In that same week NY have sorted their second order for 3 more planes full!

It's no wonder we are short of PPE!

Wow, that’s amazing and really good news that NY state have been well organised in processing the orders. Great news if it means the business doing well again, I’m pleased to hear it👍.

Yes, certainly led to a few different conversations with the bank!

Been great to help NY as the lady I own the business with lives in Brooklyn.
The Chinese supplier donated 100k masks to help and all the pallets were marked up with China and US flags. Will try and post a pic tomorrow.

Just frustrating that we can't get a few shipments coming here.

Few images as promised

How much to charter a 747? Has to be north of £100k?  

No idea how much it is normally. Everything is through the roof.

$1.35m last week
$1.65m in May

Seems horrendously expensive......never been involved in chartering a 747 before but I’ve been involved in getting prices before for around 250 of us for conferences within Europe and I know what the ball park is hence my guesstimate. You must be making a few quid on the shipment if you can shell that out......good luck to you.........

[nirvana]

Oh and I always liked Norman Tebbitt, even when I was an anarchist

Horrible racist. What is there to like?

People aren't one thing

Incred saying. Am defo gonna use that in future. Your sayings have come on leaps and bounds...

Haha, just wanted to stop digging but couldn't quite do it

[nirvana]

My specific interest as to how easing lockdown takes into account age groups comes from having a mum who is 81 & lives on her own.

Took me 2 weeks to convince her to stay at home (got there about 1 week before lockdown), & since then virtually the only person she has had a face to face conversation with is me, when I deliver her shopping once a week - don't go in the house, talk from a safe distance.

She has been very good about it to this point, but is getting frustrated & can't wait to get out & about.
If restrictions started to ease but there was a different set of rules for her age group she would be furious and possibly rebellious.
However, I really think it's a bad idea for an 81-y-o to be mixing in the community any time soon.

Out of interest, do you think your mum absorbs how serious it is - not questioning her faculties or anything like that, more a generational thing. My mum is 78, my brother goes at least weekly and I've been a couple of times since lockdown to drop things - stay for 5 mins, she can't move easily so I do go in but stay a distance away.

She's perfectly competent etc but extremely nonchalant about the whole thing and doesn't really have much obvious sympathy with why everyone else is taking it so seriously

Hope you don’t mind me butting in ?
 Denises mum 86 soon ,flatly refuses to be told to isolate ,her sons round almost daily ,she walks to the shop despite her elderly neighbour shopping for her , only doesn't go to bingo As it’s closed and her sister has v bad COPD ,we’ve visited and sit outside but she wants to carry on as normal ,she normally goes on local buses in every direction ,as it kills time as she says But has stopped that at least but she’s champing at the bit to get out ,she was bussing to Tesco today but her son turned up ,so he gave her a lift but on seeing the queue she came home .

My dad 86 last week has been at home for 6 weeks now ,quite happily gardening and me n my local sister deliver food n shopping . Since mum died he seems fine about It all ,  almost glad of the peace And quiet

Not at all Tony, don't think you're going to change Denise's mum by the sound of it.
 
In a situation like this, where some restrictions are likely to be measured in years rather than months , I can totally understand her mum thinking like she does even if it's very risky.

Your Dad's approach i, I suppose, just goes to show we're all different.

[nirvana]

Out of interest, do you think your mum absorbs how serious it is - not questioning her faculties or anything like that, more a generational thing.

Yes, I think she does. Once Italy's situation became apparent, & there was decent age data from there she knuckled down.
Before that it was, 'If I get it, I get it!'.

There will come a point, if it goes on for much longer, when she takes the line 'at my time of life...'.
I think that perspective will be common throughout that generation, & will make extended enforcement of a purple-rinse only lockdown almost impossible.

Thanks for answering, I'm still trying to develop the conversation further with my Mum so she's absolutely clear about things but makes up her own mind.

I don't think any Government could enforce any different behavioural requirements for different adult age groups. The advice will almost certainly be for over 70s to continue shielding themselves but I think it would be a massive over reach to try and make this more than advisory

[StuartHopkin]

So been a busy couple of weeks but seems like a good time for a work update...

Saw this link earlier, and although I know some of you don't like the paper I think this headline is going to be reasonably accurate.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8211739/Farce-banks-coronavirus-crisis-loans-just-5-000-businesses.html

We still don't have anything agreed and an actual CBIL doesn't appear to be on the table, but to be fair to them there have been a lot changes for us since the process first started.

We secured an order for 4000 metal storage trolleys going into NHS Nightingale. The first 250 went in on Friday and the remainder are to be delivered through the rest of the month. That was our biggest ever single order.......

Until we found out that one of our Chinese suppliers has a huge amount of PPE available for sale. We have an operation in the USA and things moved very quickly and we now have a 747 full of PPE being delivered to the USA government on Thursday.

Further to this, I can get a lot more and even 2000 ventilators but I believe the pricing on these is hugely inflated so I have made offers to NHS & Bupa.

Makes me wonder what the UK Government are doing if I can source it so easily.

Crazy times compared to wondering if the business would make it through the year 2 weeks ago.

Hey All

Been a busy couple of weeks since this post!

747 of PPE successfully delivered to NY State Government last week

But what is more unbelievable is we offered the same service to the NHS two weeks ago...... nothing.

A week ago we spoke to Nicky Morgan who but us directly in touch with Matt Hancock.
He passed us on to the cabinet team in charge of sourcing PPE. We were a priority offer for review as we had access to gowns. A week later we have submitted spec sheets but they've ordered nothing.

In that same week NY have sorted their second order for 3 more planes full!

It's no wonder we are short of PPE!

Wow, that’s amazing and really good news that NY state have been well organised in processing the orders. Great news if it means the business doing well again, I’m pleased to hear it👍.

Yes, certainly led to a few different conversations with the bank!

Been great to help NY as the lady I own the business with lives in Brooklyn.
The Chinese supplier donated 100k masks to help and all the pallets were marked up with China and US flags. Will try and post a pic tomorrow.

Just frustrating that we can't get a few shipments coming here.

Few images as promised

How much to charter a 747? Has to be north of £100k?  

No idea how much it is normally. Everything is through the roof.

$1.35m last week
$1.65m in May

Seems horrendously expensive......never been involved in chartering a 747 before but I’ve been involved in getting prices before for around 250 of us for conferences within Europe and I know what the ball park is hence my guesstimate. You must be making a few quid on the shipment if you can shell that out......good luck to you.........

All our pricing is ex works so plane costs are just passed on on top.

It's horrifically expensive, but I don't even know what it should be normally.

I'll let you know what the normal price is when it's all over!

[Chompy]

https://youtu.be/Qe_o5J-hJ6Q

Peterborough city centre on Friday.

[Woodsey]

https://youtu.be/Qe_o5J-hJ6Q

Peterborough city centre on Friday.

 Got to be a wind up?

[tonytats]

No most peterborians are idiots

[Chompy]

https://youtu.be/Qe_o5J-hJ6Q

Peterborough city centre on Friday.

 Got to be a wind up?

That was my first thought but plenty of masks (the idea of fendwellers wearing masks a month ago would have been roffley) and police cars on show. Also, the weather checks out and nobody seems to be going in or coming out of shops.

[kukushkin88]

https://twitter.com/john_lichfield/status/1253980234669600769?s=21

The mystery of the understated U.K. Covid fatality figures shown up again. If we were missing so many thousands by accident, why wouldn’t France have similar issues?

Lots of other interesting issues in the thread from John Lichfield as well.

[kukushkin88]

Another good article from the FT:

https://twitter.com/sebastianepayne/status/1254320901635612673?s=21

I think it is paywalled, he summarises the main points in the Twitter thread.

[Pokerpops]

Another good article from the FT:

https://twitter.com/sebastianepayne/status/1254320901635612673?s=21

I think it is paywalled, he summarises the main points in the Twitter thread.

Some excellent responses in that thread.

In particular those pointing out that the FT’s concern for domestic abuse sufferers and the victims of sexual and emotional abuse ties in very well with their wish to see lockdown ended...

[kukushkin88]

Another good article from the FT:

https://twitter.com/sebastianepayne/status/1254320901635612673?s=21

I think it is paywalled, he summarises the main points in the Twitter thread.

Some excellent responses in that thread.

In particular those pointing out that the FT’s concern for domestic abuse sufferers and the victims of sexual and emotional abuse ties in very well with their wish to see lockdown ended...

Yep, it’s good to see the decent journalists exploring both sides of the argument, highlighting just what a difficult situation this now is.

[kukushkin88]

Another good article from the FT:

https://twitter.com/sebastianepayne/status/1254320901635612673?s=21

I think it is paywalled, he summarises the main points in the Twitter thread.

Some excellent responses in that thread.

In particular those pointing out that the FT’s concern for domestic abuse sufferers and the victims of sexual and emotional abuse ties in very well with their wish to see lockdown ended...

Yep, it’s good to see the decent journalists exploring both sides of the argument, highlighting just what a difficult situation this now is.

Our version of lockdown lite seems particularly bad for the vulnerable people mentioned, it just extends the length off the lockdown, while lots of parts of society aren’t locked down at all, they remain trapped.

A decent article from the NYT,  when the lockdown release does come, some of these ideas look👍.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/25/opinion/summer-parks-covid.html

[Doobs]

https://youtu.be/Qe_o5J-hJ6Q

Peterborough city centre on Friday.

You know Peterbrough. 

At 2 minutes there is a family of 5 in that whole huge big square near McDonalds, and a couple of people going past the front and a couple going past behind.  There are normally 100+ people there on a sunny day, frequently more if they have stuff on.   There must be 100 people in that McDonalds alone on a normal day.

The rest is filmed on the long street between that square/cathedral down to your footy ground.   That street is probably a good 200 metres long and they are filiming it at ground level.  Most of these people could be 10 metres apart with very few of them noticeably close to each other, and this is spliced together footage so that we only see the "busy" clips.  I haven't been into Peterbrough, but we aren't far off and it has been really quiet whenever I have been out.   You get the odd clowns out walking hand in hand and taking up the whole pavement, but the vast majority are still staying away from each other and giving each other a wide berth.