It's this, which needs to come down. It's a much more accurate statistic as it doesn't care for the lack of testing.

Imperial were saying the daily peak would be 260 a few days ago. The problem is no one really knows what the UK is reporting. It's possible today's figures have been artificially inflated by a batch of deaths that took place 10 days ago. The reporting really is poor IMO. The only thing worse than no stats is poor stats as someone high up in the government might have said.

I agree about the reporting, but epidemiological modelling can also be quite poor. My neighbour virologist was fuming about it.

The fascist idiot in Brazil has been spouting more dangerous nonsense:

Bolsonaro made the unfounded claim that hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug touted by US President Donald Trump, was totally effective in treating Covid-19.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52101615

13 new deaths in the North East and North Yorkshire

• Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust - 4 


• South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust - 3 


• York Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust - 3


• South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust - 1


• Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust - 1 


• Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust - 1

One thing I've not heard mentioned is the weather in the UK this week is pretty much ideal for spreading the virus according to Chinese studies. It apparently thrives in low humidity and temperatures of between 5C and 11C. 

We really need to see the number of deaths in Italy to start falling next week, otherwise we are fcked (they just passed 3 weeks since their lockdown).

The irony in comparison with consecutive GFS model runs can't be escaping you

But is it on a knife edge?

Same world I'm afraid - more runs needed 

36.5% again.

Any news on why only 8240 tests were done?

Indeed. But they extended their problem when they pre-announced a lockdown in Lombardy causing much flight to the south which is now picking up the cases as the north relents.

Similar problem in India where the "lockdown" there has caused mass exodus to the hinterlands.

Reports that a 12 year old girl has died from Coronavirus in Belgium. Not thought to have underlying conditions.

No Idea. It's clear the government lied again though on Sunday. They clearly said they'd done 10,000 tests...

The problem with that is that NI isn't paid by everyone - it's only 'earned income' that qualifies. Unearned income - dividends, pensions, capital gains, other investment income, etc - isn't NI'able.

The key problem is that too much income in this country escapes being taxed, do that those who do pay tax have a higher relative taxation load to bear and public services are starved of income.

I fail to see how a health insurance scheme based on people paying a proportion of their income would alleviate this problem.

The second issue is that NI technically doesn't fund the NHS. It's supposed to fund the welfare state including pensions. 

Hopefully it will be raised at today's briefing. 

I think the daily figures are so variable that it would be better to look at a rolling average over three or four days. I’d be hopeful that that figure could stay below 500/day.

In other news my work colleague who went down with symptoms last week appears to be on the mend and may be back working from home tomorrow. She hasn’t been tested AFAIK. 

Yes, I agree that a moving average is better, the daily figures are mostly noise. The trend is clear though.

I also had good news from my friend in London, he is getting better. 

He’s a bigger fool than Trump; something I thought quite difficult to achieve