Corona please read very important

Aren't most of us likely to get this at some point?

Maybe I've been misled but the isolation isn't about stopping it just slowing it down

If you weren't worried about dying from seasonal flu, no point worry about dying from corona

All you can do is be as healthy and careful as you can and after that not worry about it

Maybe we will all get it, maybe some of us have it now, maybe we will die in 3 weeks; if so might as well enjoy the time we have feeling good and not waste it finding every case of someone who died to dwell on

FYI, KFC are shutting down between now and Wednesday.

Hopefully that will wake the stragglers up. Remember the chaos when they ran out of chicken?

As diabolo pointed out above, it's slightly encouraging that after almost exactly mirroring the rate of deaths in Italy for 15 days, in these past two days, though deaths are still increasing here, they are NOT mirroring the Italian rate.

On 21st March we were on 233 deaths (exactly the number Italy had on the equivalent day in their spread). That very close parallel had been happening for 15 days in a row with pretty much identical rate of increase.

But by today (Monday morning) deaths should have stood at 463 to mirror the Italian equivalent, whereas in the UK they have for the first time lagged behind, at 335. Still not good, but any divergence from the terrible Italian rate is a plus.

The one proviso is that weekend reported deaths up to Monday morning here in the UK have shown a dip in the rate (maybe not all the weekend reports get through by 8am Monday), and the Tuesday numbers have tended to spike - so I am wondering if we'll see a rise in the rate tomorrow.

Today there were 54 deaths reported in 24 hours. I fear tomorrow the number may be around 80. Let's hope not.

The other proviso, as some people have also pointed out, is that you can't reliably equate figures from two different countries.However, I do think the related figures to prompt erring on the side of caution (which to me equates with starting stricter restrictions sooner to be on the safe side.

I wonder what the Prime Minister will say this evening?

If you were worried about flights before...

Up to 1 million Britons on holiday or on business trips abroad have been asked to return to the UK immediately by the Foreign Office as they may not be able to get commercial flights within days.

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...tons-abroad-urged-to-return-to-uk-immediately

How much do you think each of these returnees will be tracked?

Related aside: how on earth can a million people be so irresponsible as to have proceeded with their travels at a time like this?

Added: with reference to the 7,000 people who supposedly have come here from China, Italy and Iran... if the Foreign Office's figure of a million Brits abroad for work travel/tourism is even close to correct, all 7,000 could have been Brits returning home for all any of us know. I wouldn't assume that they're foreign tourists being let into the country (or even wishing to come in the middle of a pandemic).

Those that wouldn't listen and was too arrogant to listen or thought they was immune to everything... well done, you just helped put the country into Lock down... Bravo.

Hay said:

Those that wouldn't listen and was too arrogant to listen or thought they was immune to everything... well done, you just helped put the country into Lock down... Bravo.

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Realistically it was always gonna happen.Sure they would have done it sooner but had to make it look like it was needed or peoplewould have screamed about police state

Well at least now we can ride it out and get it out of the way

Hopefully things look better in 3 weeks

Here are the key restrictions that will apply from tomorrow...



Note the last bullet - don't know if anyone reading this is on holiday or was still somehow hoping for a get-away, but if it's in the next few weeks that now looks impossible.

There's a lot more detail, including on the new limits on public gathering, in the full document...
https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...dance-on-staying-at-home-and-away-from-others

Worth noting that Boris Johnson emphasized the measures will be enforced by the police if need be, through fines and other tactics.

Edwin said:

Note the last bullet - don't know if anyone reading this is on holiday or was still somehow hoping for a get-away, but if it's in the next few weeks that now looks impossible.

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Ive seen no end of caravanners heading up the motorways over the past 48 hours, one would assume they are somewhat regretting their decision to flee.

Hay said:

Ive seen no end of caravanners heading up the motorways over the past 48 hours, one would assume they are somewhat regretting their decision to flee.

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IF it gets enforced, yes. There were already suggestions in the special news bulletin directly after Boris Johnson's address to the nation that the police would take a pretty hands-off, softly softly approach. Whether that's the case or not remains to be seen, but it rather undermined the message delivered less than 10 minutes earlier by BJ.

First hiccup: Mike Ashley has written a very punchy email to all staff this evening, telling them of his intention to keep his sports goods stores open so that he can supply "essential" equipment for people to stay fit.

It will be fascinating to see if the Tories let him get away with it, or if we have a Tim Martin type situation where he gets squashed a few hours later.

Edwin said:

that the police would take a pretty hands-off, softly softly approach..

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So not like in Florida

https://reddit.com/r/Whatcouldgowrong/comments/fnn5to/wcgw_hanging_out_during_pandemic/

Mike Ashley has no relevance to the country in the next few months. Buying a new pair of Nike trainers is NOT an essential service, and for him to say so is an insult to all the really essential workers like doctors and nurses.

However, this underlines the need for more precision from the government.

They say groups of more than 2 are to be dispersed, but that could prove to be a huge policing challenge, given the limits of police staffing, and also the fact that 20-30% of police may themselves be off sick, or isolated because a family member is sick, at any one time around the height of the crisis.

People travelling: how will police know if they're legit or not, unless they set up road blocks? And how will they know if people are telling the truth about essential travel, if there is no permit system or documentation?

And how will people on the Underground be stopped, unless it becomes pass-based with checks at entry and exit points?

So there's quite a lot of vagueness about implementation and enforcement, and Mike Ashley's (in my opinion disgusting) attempt to (in my opinion) dodge the shut down... that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Let's hope people really do take note, and police really do come down hard on selfish people who ignore the instructions.

Death is coming to people we love. 'Policing by consent' sounds nice, and we hope for consent, but without definite enforcement, and systems to make that possible (like how do you tell if a person has good reason to travel, or can people just do what they like) then it's all a bit loose, and where the spreading of the virus remains loose, the danger of very bad death rates remains real.

More precision, and more coercion needed.

One more thing: "get deliveries from supermarkets if you can" is all very well. Elderly people shouldn't be going out to food shops at all. Prioritise them for deliveries? Or surely the army have thousands of trucks and the manpower to escalate deliveries hugely, working with supermarkets and their supply chains. Many supermarkets at present have no available delivery slots for a month. And then after that, the new ones will get booked up, if a million or more households are trying to get deliveries.

I want to support the government because it's not an easy situation at all, but I do think things still need to be firmed up more.

I don't think Mike Ashley's grasps the seriousness of the request and the bad PR he will get from this. This isn't a wonga type situation where they have a bad reputation for charging a few quid more. He has to realise that anyone that loses a loved one due to this over the next few weeks is going to blame the like of him. It doesn't matter a jot whether or not it was caused by his outlets and factories, he and others like him are going to be blamed.

Mike Ashley is sat on a financial house of cards. The tide is going out and I think they are going to see his group has no swimming costume on

A German expert gives a different view. 2200 over 65's die in Germany every day, if 1% of them have Corona Virus then it is 22 people a day that died with it.

A decent watch for the opposing view. Hopefully people take on board opposing points of view too. He says Italy has higher levels of pollution, just like China and this would account for the deaths due to previously damaged lungs. I never had northern Italy down as having bad air though. Anyway, still worth a watch even if you still end up disagreeing with him.

I'm still sat on the fence and undecided but will 100% be complying with the lockdown

LCHappy said:

A German expert gives a different view. 2200 over 65's die in Germany every day, if 1% of them have Corona Virus then it is 22 people a day that died with it.

A decent watch for the opposing view. Hopefully people take on board opposing points of view too. I'm still sat on the fence and undecided. He says Italy has higher levels of pollution, just like CHina and this would account for the deaths due to previously damaged lungs. I never had northern Italy down as having bad air though. Anyway, still worth a watch even if you still end up disagreeing with him.

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On a simple percentage basis, surely you should be measuring the numbers against the daily Covid-19 case rate, not the national daily death rate? In addition, you should plot this data in a Gaussian distribution to determine the SD, and therefore try to predict the direction this distribution is going in? One thing this is not, is a simple '22 people a day' determination, it will be nothing like that as time progresses.

It's the UK we need to keep focus on though, they have the 4th highest death rate as of yesterday:

23/03/'20
Country Cases Deaths %
Italy 63,927 6,077 9.51%
Iran 23,049 1,812 7.86%
Spain 35,136 2,311 6.58%
UK 6,650 335 5.04%
Netherlands 4,749 213 4.49%
France 19,856 860 4.33%
China 81,171 3,277 4.04%
Turkey 1,529 37 2.42%
Belgium 3,743 88 2.35%
Brazil 1,924 34 1.77%
Switzerland 8,795 120 1.36%
Sweden 2,046 27 1.32%
USA 43,734 553 1.26%
S. Korea 8,961 111 1.24%
Canada 2,091 24 1.15%
Portugal 2,060 23 1.12%
Austria 4,474 21 0.47%
Germany 29,056 123 0.42%
Norway 2,625 10 0.38%
Australia 1,887 7 0.37%

anthony said:

On a simple percentage basis, surely you should be measuring the numbers against the daily Covid-19 case rate, not the national daily death rate? In addition, you should plot this data in a Gaussian distribution to determine the SD, and therefore try to predict the direction this distribution is going in? One thing this is not is a simple '22 people a day' determination, it will be nothing like that as time progresses.

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It is such a strange thing, for me the numbers are saying one thing but the pictures are saying another. I haven't personally switched sides of an argument so many times as I have done with this. The pictures of people lying along the floors of a hospital corridor, and being grateful for that space isn't made up. That hasn't happened before and there is no denying that.

LCHappy said:

It is such a strange thing, for me the numbers are saying one thing but the pictures are saying another. I haven't personally switched sides of an argument so many times as I have done with this. The pictures of people lying along the floors of a hospital corridor, and being grateful for that space isn't made up. That hasn't happened before and there is no denying that.

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It does surprise me how the UK TV Press are not emphasizing the disparity between the German figures and the UK ones. Depending on what you read, some say they have a greater number of ventilators. In other reports, it's suggested that their demographic spread has a higher number of young people than other countries. Whatever the reason, one could be forgiven for thinking that our TV news outlets are doing a bit of their own 'self isolating', and that the British public are less aware of this disparity than they should be!

So order them online, where stricter rules for the workforce are in place, not encouraging members of the public just to pop down to the shops. These sanctions are a good start, but not enough, building sites big and small can continue, imv, they are not essential services right now.