What new measures / restrictions will we see today?

BS...……….they hushed the bloody thing up for weeks , they are desperate now to get their economy back why would anyone believe them 

Gary Neville 

TOP MAN - well done you 

Yes, I am convinced. They are restarting their economy and if Wuhan has no new infections for 14 days, then the lockdown will be lifted.

People like Q kept saying that the Chinese data was dodgy, but that was pretty wrong.

The dodgy guys seem to be our own government, I was struck by this (posted in yesterday's thread)

Britain faces a “massive shortage” of ventilators that will be needed to treat critically ill patients suffering from coronavirus, after it failed to invest enough in intensive care equipment, a leading ventilator manufacturer said on Wednesday.

“England is very poorly equipped,” said Andreas Wieland, chief executive of Hamilton Medical in Switzerland, which says it is the world’s largest ventilator maker. “They’re going to have a massive shortage, once the virus really arrives there,” he told Reuters in an interview.

Ventilators, running in the thousands of dollars per unit, are used to help people with respiratory difficulties to breathe. They are high-tech versions of the “iron lungs” that kept people alive into the 1950s during fierce polio epidemics.

“They are not well equipped with ventilators and intensive care stations,” he said. “They invested very little, and I think now they will pay the price.”

 Hamilton CEO Wieland is skeptical, however, of the British government’s recent call for manufacturers from other industries including Ford (F.N), Honda (7267.T) and Rolls Royce (RR.L) to help make equipment including ventilators.“I wish them the best of luck,” Wieland said. “I do not believe anything will come of it. These devices are very complex. It takes us four to five years” to develop a new product.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-ventilators-exclus/exclusive-uk-faces-massive-shortage-of-ventilators-swiss-manufacturer-idUKKBN2153GU

How the coffins are being transported in Bergamo as their cemetery runs out of space

https://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/2020/03/18/foto/bergamo_non_c_e_piu_posto_70_mezzi_militari_portano_le_salme_fuori_dalla_regione-251650969/1/?ref=fbpr#1

My son owns a wholesale wet fish business. In volume terms universities (particularly Cambridge colleges) and other educational facilities represent a substantial part of his business......demand has collapsed; add to this Mother's day is the single busiest event of the year for him, but orders from hotels and restaurants are down by over 60%. His stocks are ordered in advance and a large number of those deliveries simply couldn't be stopped.

He's currently freezing down over £150k worth of fresh fish !

On a positive note the family won't starve, although we might start growing scales 

It's consistent with personal reports from a couple of friends who each have a son working in China, though not in the previously most severely affected areas.

Yes, it makes no sense for them to lie about it. 

Well they lied at the start.

Yesterday I mentioned how I hoped that the lower population density of London (vs Milan/Wuhan) might make us less of a hotspot, but something I didn't consider is air pollution. There seem to be more opinions (not proven yet) from doctors who say that air pollution and lower lung health might be contributing to the high number of deaths (urban N.Italy is one of the most polluted regions in Europe).  

Unfortunately London is very polluted too, again largely due to govt policy and inaction.

On the plus side London's demographics is quite different (younger population), so hopefully we'll never see the Lombardy/Wuhan rates here.

I agree. Wuhan has been locked down for weeks. In those circumstances, it is perfectly plausible to me that the rate of infection will fall and even that the disease will appear to be under control. The difficult thing, however, will be stamping it out completely. My fear would be that for a long time there will be the odd stray case bubbling along meaning that we can never completely let down our guard.

They certainly did and they've clearly realised the error of that approach

Not quite. They underestimated it at first and the local (party) authorities at Hubei tried to cover it up, but their national CDC never lied and they have been sharing their data since early Jan.

The Chinese find no benefit in the trial of Lopinavir–Ritonavir

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001282?query=featured_home

I echo that too Brian.  So sorry to hear of your losses. It’s a tough time for us all but much more so for some.

I know that Richard (Maunder) goes on and on about the borders not being closed but he does have a point.

The fact that they weren’t proves that Brexit was/is purely a jizzfest, a snuff movie for the weirdos of the Conservative Party to get their rocks off on. Once they had ‘got it done’, they were left standing around with their dicks hanging out while the virus flooded in.

In a nutshell, this the situation for many small business people, llamedos. Whether the government's positive words will translate into real help remains to be seen. We have a regular "Grimsby Fish man" who calls with his neat, clean van. We make a point of supporting him - but given that he is "doing the rounds" I wonder if he is not likely to deliver more than fish!

We are planning to do a big shop from him for the freezer in case he has to stop coming, so at least that helps his cash flow.

WRT fish scales:

Bioplastic Made From Fish Scales Just Won the James Dyson Award

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/bioplastic-made-from-fish-scales-just-won-james-dyson-award-180973550/

Roger

Several Schengen countries have actually exercised more control of their borders compared to the UK.

You are correct and it makes me furious - the UK had the chance to get ahead of the game, but the authorities somehow missed the juggernaut coming down the highway at full tilt, with lights flashing and horn blaring!

They failed - they did not want to disrupt the economy by curtailing travel, because they did not see that a stitch in time saves nine million!

I pasted here a copy of the email I sent to my MP the other day - I had emailed her several times a couple of weeks ago urging strict travel restrictions, but to no avail.

This is what I sent her yesterday:

"

The real scandal (and I mean the real scandal) is that borders were not closed and travel severely restricted weeks ago!

The whole of Europe has let its citizens down in that regard.