Why the 12th? Surely the beginning of April would be more appropriate.

Could not edit previous post correctly to include table, but here is table showing Europe stats and listing in order of highest to lowest 'sum of deaths' as of time stated in original post

What is going to happen to all the indian call centres which support UK businesses?

If our imports are reduced people will raid the countryside much more than they do now.

Sorry, cannot see that remotely happening, there’s plenty of meat available in the UK 

My school numbers so far  expected Monday approx 100 Actual 21

                                          Tuesday Actual 12

Think the school will close itself by end of week

To be fair, he did start with the word 'if'.

There's no doubt that theft from farms is a problem - you can't protect a field of sheep or pigs. There have been cases of animals being slaughtered in the field and the carcasses just left scattered around. Horrendous.  There must be a black market and I guess people will buy cheap meat just like cheap anything.

My car's MOT went ahead today. Left the key in the porch this morning and when the car was returned the driver pushed the key fob and paperwork through the letterbox. Both will remain on the floor until tomorrow. Waved at the driver (who I vaguely know) through my house door so not completely anti-social.  

Only a matter of time before we are all forced by gun point to wear one of these: 

https://twitter.com/sahouraxo/status/1242486494436241408

Sweet Jesus... 

Sports Direct going from bad to worse. Hours after claiming to be "essential" they have apparently put prices up 50%.

Retailer Sports Direct has reportedly hiked prices of some equipment by more than 50%, as staff say they are still being forced to go to work amid the coronavirus lockdown. Mike Ashley’s company detailed the price increase of the sports equipment, which includes skipping ropes, weights and resistance belts, in documents seen by PA news agency.

https://metro.co.uk/2020/03/24/sports-direct-increase-price-sport-kit-online-coronavirus-closure-12449117/

Argos in Sainsburys is open , I find that surprising 

Interesting one but I reckon people   will still receive  calls from "Jim"  from Mumbai  letting them know there is something wrong with their computer.

Mike Ashley  really is the lowest from of life -  pond scum has more integrity 

Not against mine, the trend is obvious and the daily variations are mostly noise. Although nobody really knows, again I think we'll probably be at hundreds of deaths daily by the end of March but I don't think we'll reach the Italian numbers as there are probably many contributing factors there.

The number of confirmed infections in the UK is also pretty meaningless and I am surprised people still pay much attention to it, given that we are not testing in the community. The important numbers are hospital admissions, ICU admissions and number of deaths. 

PS. I see Maunder started saying that life went on even after the 'Spanish flu' and we got the roaring 1920s, well that's all right then. Let's be both incompetent and fatalistic by 'letting this rip' in order to usher in the new era and the new 20s.

Went for a cycle this afternoon and it was great, perfect weather and mostly empty roads and paths. I had a (distant) chat with 2 people, a builder I know who seemed to love the whole thing. No traffic, perfect weather and he didn't have many cancellations so far. He and his crew wear masks and gloves and (apparently) they get rid of them every day.

There was a police car at a (usually) busy junction and I noticed a hot copper so I talked to her and asked how are things going in the area. She said still early days, but almost everyone behaves so far. They only had a call to disperse a group of teenagers, but even they complied.

PS. Another positive to come on Sunday, we move on from the annoying GMT.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard appears to have finally penned a sensible piece:

Donald Trump’s half-baked coronavirus response risks prolonging the agony

The only sure circuit-breaker for global markets is evidence that Europe and America have a credible policy to contain Covid-19, and that means a full lockdown followed later by an East Asian tracing regime.

Monetary and fiscal safety nets are ultimately inadequate if Western democracies - chiefly the US at this point - dabble with half measures that prolong the agony. The stimulus will be exhausted before the pandemic is brought under control. That is a key reason why the greatest rescue in economic history has so far struggled to restore lasting confidence.

President Donald Trump risks making matters worse for the US economy by suggesting that restrictive measures (very mild in two-thirds of the country) might be relaxed within a week. “Our country wasn’t built to be shut down. We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem,” he said.

....

New infections are no longer a relevant metric since markets have lost all confidence in the testing regimes of the UK, the US, The Netherlands, France, Italy, Spain, and several other states.

I'm sure they will try to exploit the Coronavirus issue.

"I'm calling on behalf of HM Government. You are aware of the new law to deal with Coronavirus. It gives us special powers to install some special software on your computer so that we can collect important information about the Coronavirus."

The government have bought 3.5million blood test kits to detect antibodies to test NHS staff and other key workers to see whether they have had the virus they'll be available within weeks.

Ontario update: official province wide lock down in place. All non-essential shops must close tonight (although locally they are already closed in the main due to a municipal state of emergency). Note liquor stores are categorized as "essential"...!

We have not been out apart from solitary exercising for days. The kids are already getting cabin fever, so God knows what it's like if you are confined with small children in an apartment . Traffic and footfall on our street very light so I think most people are being pretty good about following the restrictions. One of us will venture out to try and get some food tomorrow.

Reading news has led to some pretty morbid thoughts and calculations. There will be a certain grim fascination in seeing how the approaches in countries like the UK, Sweden and the US play out in the weeks to come.

Here is a paper reviewing the persistence of various known coronaviruses on various surfaces and the effects of various agents (apologies if already linked).

Some of the analysis of the data from the cruise ship talks about viral load. The idea being that the greater exposure to the virus the more severe the illness. I've read about this in a few different sources. If there is something in it, it would mean that although you could catch the virus from touching a contaminated surface the virus load would be tiny meaning you would be much more likely to have a mild illness. 

It could also explain why so many medics on the front line have suffered so badly, given they are exposed to a much bigger viral load.

Pretty impress wth New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, contrasts with Trump.

"We are not willing to sacrifice 1-2% of New Yorkers. That’s not who we are. We will fight to save every life we can. I am not giving up."

https://twitter.com/NYGovCuomo/status/1242479407031296000