<<< badumptsch! >>>

Ahh crap, that's my rough sex safe phrase made public as well.

54689 closed of which 3254 were deaths. This time last week it was 9%.

There is something so satisfying when you get to "evacuate" after a long wait.

Suspect this is one of those rare moments in UIA where we can all agree.

There are 9 million people over the age of 70 in the UK. Let’s assume that half the population comes down with Covid-19. That would mean 4.5 million elderly people would get sick. WHO figures suggest that 30 per cent of the over 70s have symptoms serious enough to require hospitalisation.

In the UK in what is not the Govt’s ‘worst case scenario’, that would be 1.35 million elderly people requiring hospital treatment. And 8% or 360,000 of those over 70s would be likely to die.

No wonder the Govt and NHS want to smooth the peak of the epidemic.

Indeed, you articulate the problem well.

Delaying and flateening the curve is crucial and we have done a good job so far, I hope we don't drop the ball as we move into an even more crucial phase.

Also let's hope summer helps.

I cannot see how the curve can be flattened without employing pretty severe measures - mandatory isolation, closure of large public gathering points, suspension of mass transit... would the UK seriously do these things?

We need to delay brexit until next year.

The UK and EU should come together and agree to extend the transition period for 1 year and resume negotiations when the crisis is over.

It's not actually that bad. Exponential functions have one advantage, they are extremely sensitive and it's actually relatively easy to flatten exponential growth (if it wasn't the entire world would have the virus by now given it started in December).

The easiest way to flatten it is to get people to practice hand washing. Model simulations suggest that an increase in hand washing could widen the curve by an order of months.

Small actions dramatically affect R0, that's the good news. The bad news is that any exponential growth no matter how flat is still really really bad.

Incidentally a study suggested that hand washing increased the most when the population was moderately scared (better than very scared, a little scared or not scared at all). And I think Yougov suggested only something like 1/3 people were scared vs not scared or something.

Which kinda supports my argument that we are not yet on the 'too alarmist' side of the line but still on the 'too complacent' side.

Bloody hell, roflmao

So now we need the EU. Jesus wept....

Italy seems to be moving towards doing that.

The economic hit would be horrendous but  the alternative (collapsing  health service and a lot of people dying from Corona and other things) is worse.  I'm seriously not sure about the morals of the lot we have in power - money matters too much to them.  The lever that may work though is the notion that  the backlash against a muffed operation would be  horrendous for them politically .  Loosing power  probably trumps  reduced profits !

No. In fact I'd judge the UK has handled this better than the EU so far.

But falling into a no deal brexit because negotiations can't happen because of CV is not a good idea. I'm as pro brexit as anyone on here, but the last thing we need is the short term disruption during an international emergency.

Really concerned about the way the US is going. It seems like it could become like Iran.

Trump needs to be inpeached.

We cannot afford f*ckwits in this time of crisis. The US has failed and Trump shoulders most of the blame.

Just watched a qualified person on TV saying that mass gatherings are not a problem unless there is a much higher level of infection as an infected person can only affect a small group close to them so the effect would be the same in a pub as in a stadium, percentage wise.

The basic problem is their health system.  Limits to what Trump could do - even if he wanted to,  which  it appears he doesn't !

I've just turned 70. Hopefully I'm not one of your statistics. Breathing still good anyway 

But what about the incompetence of the CDC?

Really I don't know enough about their system to know who to blame. However the US should be one of the best prepared countries on the planet. They are leading in the relevant field.

And yet third world countries like Thailand seem to be doing a better job.

The US is not as bad as Iran yet but it soon will be unless they quickly get their act together.

And WE need to be ahead of the curve. Why is the USA not on the list along with Italy and Iran? We all know it will be on the list in a week's time.

Just had one of his fan boys on Peston where as just about insulting every group of people on the planet was laughingabout Coronavirus saying it won't affect America and flu is far worse. You don't want to wish an epidemic on somebody but ..........

Origin of COVID-19 for all cases (I can find stats on) in the UK after the 27th February:

Italy: 26%

UK: 9%

Iran: 6%

Spain: 1%

Japan: 1%

Germany: 1%

Singapore: 1%

That's only 45% of all the confirmed cases though,

One positive thing to come out of this is to see this Government suddenly grovelling and calling on experts and scientists for help. The same ones they were deriding before the election when the bloke down the pub was the expert we were supposed to be listening to. Not so popular now is he?

It's nearly gone in China. Italy is seeing 5x as many cases per day as the entirey of China!

Wuhan is likely safer than Milan.