I saw this week as a week of opportunity to drastically slow the spread, HMG has clearly taken the route of a short hard hit. The one thing not being taken into consideration is the chance of mutation, as we have already seen, we basically now now have 2 strains going around.

It looks at present that it is the weaker version prevalent in the UK, with the stronger version in Italy. But if this virus has already mutated once within a 3 month period, surely it could mutate again. The only way to cut the chance of mutation is to cut the chance of transmission and this is what I feel we have now missed.

Just watch the numbers this week climb rapidly, unless HMG goes down the route of the US of if you don't test them they can't have it.

They've taken the route of killing more people:

What do people think about corona virus themed Easter eggs? This is for real:

A baker in France has created coronavirus-themed Easter eggs, hoping to bring positivity to people as Covid-19 hits the country pic.twitter.com/wJXkqwX23G

— SCMP News (@SCMPNews) March 9, 2020

Excellent news...

That's disgusting!! I hate dark chocolate.

This is a nice diagram but it is not Data, Nick. I'd want to see the source and a calculation and interpretation of the two curves and some indication of the "weight" of the evidence.  Anyone can knock up a graph.

Roger

And no doubt went toward todays decision from HMG, but how large an increase in those tested, and a good stat is the number of tests against positive on any given day. So for example of those tested on Saturday, how many were positive. Remember a positive number will be small if we tested fewer people.

I am worried as my wife is asthmatic and is vulnerable to this.

There is less testing Sunday for Monday because many surgeries and minor units are closed. The figures will be up again tomorrow.

UK figures

• 24,960 people tested


• 24,641 negative


• 319 positive


• 3 deaths

New cases in the 24 hours to 9am for England have fallen by 19

It seems the amount of testing taking place is fluctuating as well

Cases by region in England

• East of England | 24 (+1)


• London | 61 (+10)


• Midlands | 31 (+6)


• North East and Yorkshire | 22 (+4)


• North West | 35 (+4)


• South East | 43 (+2)


• South West | 38  (+3)

To be determined | 24 (+4)

What?

It's a graph that's been doing the rounds, where the data it is based on is available somewhere. But surely it's pretty uncontroversial - it just presents in a clear visual format something that is well-known, utterly logical, and stands to reason.

Indeed, which clearly shows the mutation has occurred in Italy, post transmission to the UK. This could be genetic differences or just plain luck. What we need is broken down data on a daily basis. 

The government are being very clever just releasing a running total and making people extrapolate the granular information themselves as most won't bother.

The government I fear are going to get this wrong. Boris, is starting to think he is invincible. I think he is making a mistake.

Most recent data, by country taken from ECDC. I have added % of known deaths and ordered the list from highest to lowest in this regard:

Globally, attributed deaths stands at 3.47%, with Iraq and Argentina seeing the highest percentages of all. 

"Let's get Coronavirus done".

Poland is fine at the moment - not many Poles take skiing holidays in Italy - more to the point, is whether Poland decides to block flights from the UK at some point.

Greece is more iffy - cases are ramping up there.

Personally, I would not fly anywhere at the moment - too much contact with others in this country and abroad which could lead to infection. I have a 92 year old mother whom I am visiting on Wednesday evening - I could not visit her with a clean conscience if I had been in contact with anybody who is infected.

Thankfully the medical bloke looks like he knows what he's doing calm and collected and keeping us informed.

We're so far seeing fluctuations in case numbers with no daily doubling yet as per China and Italy etc with cases here well spread out and most traced.

This is from Sky:

'No rationale to close or cancel sporting events as things stand'

Governing bodies and sports broadcasters met with officials at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to discuss potential contingency plans for sporting events in the event that coronavirus puts a stop to events.

A DCMS statement said: "Senior government officials chaired a constructive meeting of sports and broadcast partners, as part of sensible contingency planning in relation to Covid-19.

"This included a discussion of how staging sporting events behind closed doors could work in practice, should the situation change and become necessary.

"However based upon the current scientific advice from the Government's medical experts there is no rationale to close or cancel sporting events as things stand.

"We will remain in regular dialogue with sports governing bodies and broadcasters, ensuring they are in receipt of the most up to date guidance from the health authorities."

___

It does make you wonder what our government scientists are saying that is so different to those in other parts of Europe.

Surely even you must have ripped up your Tory Party membership party card. The government wants to ensure a few billionaires can extract more rent from the UK economy rather than putting the welfare of the sovereign nation state first. Rule Britannia!

Perhaps they have evidence that containment is working. Nobody on this forum has tested positive yet (so I believe), so we don't know what the authorities do when someone does - are they good at tracing all contacts?

Once the spread becomes exponential, the chances of tracing all contacts and isolating them becomes virtually impossible - that is why Italy for example, has now had to resort to extreme measures.

Indeed; impossible to form a judgement without the source being given - something you've mentioned a number of times here.

Here's an interesting one from an article on the Imperial College website: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/195976/individual-response-covid-19-important-government-action/