I can only repeat what I posted earlier.

I think the communication from HMG is really appalling.  We’re getting soundbites and having to make sense, or nonsense of them, which is nothing short of dangerous.  Then we have social media taking them to different levels and people working up a fever!

We’ve made big news of ‘herd immunity’ but where did that come from?  No doubt it was talked about as part of the plan but not as a single move to a solution.  We had closure of schools that was supposed to happen last Friday, now it’s next Friday. Where did that come from?  No doubt discussed as a future plan. Now we’re sending over 70’s to Coventry!  

No doubt all, and more, have been mentioned and discussed as future possibilities, if and when the time is right, but none have been seen as stand alone solutions.  We need to be rational!

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This morning I bought the ST from a local garage as usual. The guy working behind the counter was coughing, spluttering and had a runny nose. I know the runny nose is not a classic symptom but surely he should be self-isolating? My guess is he needs the money. Worrying.

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Having found a way to avoid the paywall (thanks, Firefox add-in!) I've had a dig around. It seems to be doing its best to ramp up worries! The odds of any of the "most extreme" stuff having to be enacted will be vanishingly small.

Sample content:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/coronavirus-police-could-be-restricted-to-handling-loss-of-life-incidents-n677zszwh

"Police will be able to respond only to incidents involving loss of life if they become overwhelmed by the coronavirus pandemic, according to plans drawn up by force chiefs."

...

Military personnel are poised to fill holes in the ranks of key public services if the workforce starts to succumb to coronavirus on a mass scale. They include police, fire and ambulance services, emergency service control rooms, petrol tanker drivers, environment agency flooding control teams, power supplies, customs, air traffic control and hospital catering if 20% of staff are off work, said one military planner.

There is reluctance in Whitehall to put armed troops on the streets, as has happened in Italy. More than 1,200 firearms officers from the Civil Nuclear Constabulary and 2,500 from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) can be deployed to provide “significant support if required”, said Simon Chesterman, a chief constable and the national spokesman on armed policing for the NPCC.

They in turn could be replaced by soldiers to guard military bases and nuclear power stations, as happened during the 2017 terrorist attacks, freeing MoD and nuclear police to do frontline work with local forces.

Fears about the knock-on effect of fuel shortages on the emergency services, as well as food deliveries to supermarkets, have led the military to prepare to use its drivers and fuel tankers to keep the country’s vehicles topped up.

“Even a small backlog in deliveries from only one refinery or storage depot could prompt panic buying and cause fuel supplies to dry up over big parts of the country,” said one emergency planning officer. “That was the big lesson from the 2000 tanker drivers’ strike.”

 

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Are you in self isolation for seven days?

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It’s seems this morning we may not all agree on the strategy (although it is hard to make out).

It’s clear everyone agrees that the communication from
HMG has been appalling to say the least.

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I'm still isolating today, but I feel fine - no symptoms of anything whatsoever. No fever, no coughing, nothing at all. I had a good 9 hours' sleep last night too.

While I'll avoid my elderly neighbour until the weekend, I'll almost certainly be at work tomorrow.

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The advice is subjective.

A sense of misplaced loyalty to employers will ensure millions of people turn up to work in the morning coughing and spluttering.

I'm in a position where I can work from home...however, tomorrow morning I am expected to turn up for work for a 10am team meeting where 60 of us will all be crammed in..

Common sense dictates that people who can work from home do work from home.

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What add-in are you using? (If you don't want to share I'll understand and remove my post).

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This one:

https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-firefox/blob/master/README.md

Note that I haven't gone through the code to make sure it's not doing anything nefarious, but it actually works for the Times at least!

It's worth mentioning that if you have a library card you can read the Tele for free (along with other papers, but not the Times) via Pressreader.

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  Exactly!  We’re making the big mistake of turning soundbites into solutions!

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One assumes that all over 70s I’m the Lords and Commons will be doing the same as well?

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I know my workplace - even though it's a school - will think the worst of anyone self-isolating. They'd be miffed if you took a day off work with a cold, let alone because you coughed a dozen times on a Saturday morning.

(This is, of course, explemified by the head coughing all over the place in that meeting two Fridays ago. She shouldn't have been in like that, but the culture is unless you're too ill to drive yourself you're coming in. It sucks, but I'm sure my workplace isn't the only one like that.)

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Valance is "59-60" according to Wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Vallance

Perhaps he can "self-isolate" for the next 15 months and do everyone a favour. 

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There's an interesting piece in the ST by Nadine Dorries. Her symptoms were apparently more severe than her 84 year old mother who has serious medical conditions and is a life-long smoker. 

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I think this is a really interesting page. 

We could learn a thing or two. In fact, I’d like to think we will react differently when this next happens, as it will. 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/15/experience-of-sars-key-factor-in-response-to-coronavirus?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other 

 

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But you had a fever last week? 

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Some good content in this article that's unfortunately hidden in the assessment on Government's approach:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/15/boris-johnson-coronavirus-outbreak-how-strategy-shifted

"A clear warning is provided by global health expert Dr Michael Head, of Southampton University. “The UK population have significant control over their daily life,” he said yesterday. “You choose when to pop out for a pint of milk or go to a concert. Significant disruptions greatly reduce that control and thus need high population compliance. You won’t get that over a long period of time.

“People already can’t be trusted to buy toilet roll properly, so how about long-term compliance when significant levels of freedom are removed and there’s a need to stay indoors for long periods of time? The evidence, as we have it right now, suggests it will decline.”

...

This point was echoed by Adam Kucharski of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. “It’s easy to say, ‘Let’s just do what Wuhan did’, but the actions there have involved a change to daily life that has been unimaginable in scale and impact.”

Measures there included a lockdown on nearly 60 million people in Hubei and strict quarantine and travel restrictions for hundreds of millions of people – both citizens and foreigners. “China cannot sustain them indefinitely,” added Kucharski.

In addition, the vast majority of the population in Wuhan is likely to remain susceptible to Covid-19, he added. “As soon as control measures are lifted, there is the risk of new introduced cases and another outbreak. In addition, countries such as Hong Kong and Singapore, which for so long have managed to contain Covid-19, now seem to be seeing a rise in transmissions, as infections continue to be introduced.”

...

Professor Mark Woolhouse of Edinburgh University agreed. “It is now very difficult for those countries that have gone into total lockdown to know under what circumstances they can come out of it. And, to the best of my knowledge, none of those countries has a clear plan – an exit strategy – through which they can relax their measures.”

Woolhouse added that the World Health Organization – which has been pushing for strict lockdown measures across the globe – had provided no advice on how these measures could be ended. The lesson for the UK is clear, say experts.

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Quite. It's exactly the same attitude here at my school.

Just cancelled my mum,s 88 was going to take the family out with her  for a meal she was very upset  but I just can’t run the risk for her.

 

This morning's "Broadcasting House" Radio 4 interviews already back-pedalling on over-70s isolation. Apparently it means to go out as little as possible but still collect prescriptions and go shopping when necessary, not completely locking yourself in for 3 months. A definitive and consistent statement would be welcome - it may arise from the Andrew Marr interview which I haven't time to sit through.

Another tidbit from the same programme - Boots to initiate first private prosecution of shoplifter by a store chain (believed to be so, anyway) because police said it wasa civil matter and wandered off. The scrote was csught red-handed with £160-worth of goods, already had 21 prosecutions, incl 16 for shoplifting. An open-and-shut case and they hadn't got time to do anything even before the virus emergency got going.

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I had sweating and shivering on Friday night, although I do remember the temperature in my bedroom was exactly 20C - warmer than usual, but I didn't feel like faffing around to adjust the temperature. No idea if it was actually a fever as I don't have a thermometer. The earliest delivery dates for ones that don't cost a fortune on eBay and Amazon was Friday (or at least it was yesterday) which makes a mockery of the whole thing, as by the time they'd come you'll have recovered anyway.

(This is one of the flaws in the government's advice to self-isolate. If you live alone, think you might have a fever and don't have a thermometer, there's no way of finding out short of buying one, or imposing on a friend to come round with one.

Furthermore, the actual advice (via 111) is that you only need to self-isolate if you have a fever or a persistent cough. I don't have the latter and the fever was uncertain - if I had one, it's gone now. I honestly couldn't, in all good conscienceness, justify not going in based on that. Proof of a fever, maybe, but saying "erm, I felt a bit crap on Friday night and I don't want to come in" would go down like a lead balloon.)

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Reports around here that people have been stealing hand sanitiser from the local hospital.

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I think Brian is being alarmist above. A virus is a parasitic organism and all such biological phenomena end up in an equilibrium with its host population - it does a parasite no good to wipe out its hosts. So in time, humans will coexist with this new virus family in the same way we manage our relationship with influenza outbreaks. Even as the virus mutates like flu, vaccines will be modified each year to keep up - there will be an annual corona jab eventually.

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I am so mad this morning. Boris needs to address the nation and clear up this confusion.

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I’m now at the point where are don’t know what is safe / advisable to do and what isn’t.
Case in point - we (myself, wife and kids) were scheduled to go for an overnight stay in a hotel in the New Forest next Fri into Saturday.

We wouldn’t be going out to crowded indoor areas, more like outdoor walks etc.
We would of course have to eat out in restaurants/ at the hotel etc.

What would be the advice in the above scenario? I think I can cancel up to the day before but not sure if that’s over reacting?

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