"When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

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Red Queen!

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It is no longer anything to do with open or closed borders. Most international travel has ceased. It is all about internal movement and contact. I agreed with you that early on, we should have shut our borders while we tracked and traced all contacts of those early infected. However, the Brexit government decided that it was not willing to 'take control of our borders' and just kept them open.

But now that the virus is epidemic here, we have no option but to restrict social contact, shut down all non-essential operations and treat the seriously ill. Your obsession with keeping foreigners out while restarting the economy is now looking absolutely absurd.

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Got a text from a friend in London this morning who sounds like he has been down with it for the last 3 days. He has a fever, persistent dry coughing, slight difficulty in breathing and a complete loss of taste and smell. He doesn't know where he picked it up from, but he had his hair cut on Saturday before the lockdown.

His wife is pregnant (5 months) and she moved out so he can completely self isolate. His mother wanted to meet up on Sunday, but fortunately he refused. I just spoke to him on the phone and I could hear his difficulty in breathing, but he is fit and healthy and in his 30s, so I think and really hope that he will fully recover. He did sound quite worried though as his symptoms have got worse since yesterday.

What more can be said about this guy really, he really should be sectioned.

Donald Trump has raised fresh alarm by dismissing demands from state governors for more ventilators in hospitals to fight the coronavirus, telling Fox News host Sean Hannity the equipment is unnecessary and that states “shouldn’t be relying on the federal government”.

Belgium is going up exponentially:

1049 new cases and 69 new deaths in Belgium

You have to take total population size into consideration - for Belgium, that is 11.4 million.

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I'm mildly surprised he hasn't attempted to open a new chain of pangolin burger joints.

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I haven't followed the US much, but I wouldn't be surprised if his ratings have gone up. It's well documented that people tend to rally behind their leaders at times of national crisis, it probably happens in most countries (even though different leaders will handle this in varying degrees of competence).

 

A spike in coronavirus patients means hospitals in and around Paris will reach saturation point within 48 hours, the head of the French Hospital Federation has said, with the peak not expected until April, Reuters reports. 

Paris and its suburbs now account for over a quarter of the 29,000 confirmed coronavirus infections in French hospitals.

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Tesco will limit the number of items customers can order in an online shop to 80 during the coronavirus emergency, it has announced.

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The largest brothel in Prague is to be converted into a quarantine centre for the city's homeless, Matthew Day reports.

ShowPark, which normally operates under the slogan "You may do everything but do not have to do anything", has been given 72 hours to gear up for the arrival of the Czech capital's homeless people.

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The Swedish approach is actually more hybrid than what the article suggests:

• high schools and universities are closed


• for more than 2 weeks now the govt has been officially advising people to work from home


• social distancing rules are in place (keep distance from other people, avoid queuing etc.)

There are also some other factors in Sweden that could help them: low population density (even in the south), very healthy population and great health care system and a strong sense of personal responsibility.

I still think they are taking a risk though and they will probably revise their policy.

Here in Australia non residents or citizens are not able to come into the country, which means people on working visas. Today they announced even citizens would be quarantined for 14 days in facilities upon arrival. We are starting to see community spread across Australian cities. Here in Perth we are averaging around 30 new cases a day for most of this week. The majority still arrivals from overseas. At the moment we have 3 cruise ships off the coast, at least 1 confirmed with covid19. The Western Australian government are ordering these ships to remain offshore and Australians will be quarantined in an island of the coast for 14 days. Everyone else will not be allowed onto Australian territory and the government is telling them to go to other countries. Some kind of stalemate is occurring as these ships are still out at sea.
We had a week which was hot in Perth for the time of year, we were around 34-37c and night minima above 20c. Maybe that has prevented further community transmission, it's difficult to say.

And a lot have blonde hair and blue eyes, or has that theory gone out the window?

Rounded off with breakfast at Milliways?

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It was way more prevalent in Essex (and possibly everywhere) than Corona virus so far. Everybody in my family got it, most of my friends or their friends when we discussed. I am staggered that Imperial College have not investigated this further. it was NOT flu or a cold. It was a day's fever and a continuous cough. It seems impossible to get anybody to take any notice despite the huge potential implications. Everybody soldiered on like you do because we had not heard of Corona virus. None of us were monitoring daily deaths of anything then. I don't know or haven't heard of  a single person who has had Corona virus here yet. If we got the same thing now we would be bricking it, believe me. Even somebody on here knew someone who had to go on a respirator with it. I wished I could speak in person with a virologist at Imperial College.

P.S. - Hospitals were very busy around then but even if you did go to A&E with a cough and breathing difficulties you would have been sent home. They didn't take any notice of a cough - then. i wonder how many death certificates were issued in January that said "pneumonia" as cause of death??

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"Don't mention the war" - B.Fawlty 

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The number of doctors (not just hospital ones) who have died from CV in Italy has increased to 45.

Just awful

Deaths in Spain rise sharply
Health officials say the number of deaths in Spain has risen to 4,858, up 769 in the past 24 hours. The previous day saw 655 deaths. Overall Spain has seen an increase of 7,871 cases in the past day to 64,059.

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I know you want us to be positive Caz and I admire that. A lot of what you say it is true. But is important, even in the now, that errors are highlighted or it will be glossed over afterwards, as before, and we won't learn from that hindsight. Without attributing blame to any specific Government, it didn't need hindsight. We all saw the numerous documentaries and scientists warning about an impending pandemic. A large number have people were clamouring for increased support for a failing NHS. We know experts and scientists were deliberately ridiculed. None of this was heeded by Governments, worldwide. It didn't need hindsight, it needed forethought.

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Cult figures can do no wrong it seems.

From the otherwise damning BBC article of 24th March:

Coronavirus: What this crisis reveals about US - and its president

 

"The latest Gallup polling shows the split: 94% of Republicans approve of his handling of the crisis, compared with 27% of Democrats. But overall, six out of ten Americans approve, pushing his approval rating up again to 49%, matching the highest score of his presidency. As with previous crises, such as 9/11, Americans tend to rally around the presidency, although Donald Trump remains a deeply polarising figure. After the attacks of September 11th, George W Bush's approval rating was over 90."

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Boris Johnson tests positive.

Over the last 24 hours I have developed mild symptoms and tested positive for coronavirus.

I am now self-isolating, but I will continue to lead the government’s response via video-conference as we fight this virus.

Together we will beat this. #StayHomeSaveLives pic.twitter.com/9Te6aFP0Ri

— Boris Johnson #StayHomeSaveLives (@BorisJohnson) March 27, 2020

I wonder if he met Prince Charles in the last fortnight?

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Two weeks ago when we were still going for mitigation/delay (herd immunity), there were some politicians, commentators and even a few scientists (!) who were saying that we have the best scientists in the world and we shouldn't question our policy as they know best and it could even damage morale. 

As I said then, this was exactly the time when scientists should speak if they disagreed, they had a duty to do this and this is the very basis of science. Some people also confuse criticism with 'blame game', it's not a blame game. It's trying to understand what might work better and learn from others. All countries and all governments are struggling with this, but there seem to be different degrees of competence.

I wonder how the approval rating will fare as the epidemic gathers pace across the US?  I guess that with the outbreaks largely away from areas where his core support is strongest there will still be a prevailing sense of 'not our problem'. I think it might be different as/if it spreads more widely (as seems probable).

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