It appears that many US citizens are looking to protect themselves or more likely their property -

From the BBC:

US gun demand soars

"It looks like US citizens are not only stockpiling food and toilet paper - but also guns.

New data from the FBI shows a 40% surge in background checks for people who want to buy firearms.

For the month of March, some 3,740,688 such checks were made, compared to 2.8 million the previous month.

It's the highest number of checks since beginning of the data in 1998."

Originally Posted by: llamedos 

Deaths from other causes such as regular pneumonia will fall and the lockdowns - short term at least - will reduce all manner of other ways to die.
The pandemic will probably have a negative death rate overall.

Originally Posted by: four 

PFW posted a link to a chart on the Our World in Data website near the end of the last thread. It shows total deaths per million people and is better than the FT one. As some of you probably didn't see it here is the link again: 

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-deaths-days-since-per-million?country=CAN+CHN+ITA+KOR+SWE+GBR+USA

(mouseover to highlight different countries)

Originally Posted by: Brian Gaze 

Another good article from the BBC regarding the true death rates of the corona virus.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51979654

Talks about the amount that are dying with it and how many are actually dying from it. It mentions that case of the 18 year old that died with it recently that got national coverage of being so young, but it then also mentions that the hospital released a statement in the days after saying it wasn't actually the virus that killed the supposedly healthy 18. 

But this got my attention..

 "Reports in Italy have suggested about 12% of their deaths are due to the disease."

I was wondering does anybody have any more information on these reports? This would be very significant should it be proven be so  as it would mean only around 1600 in Italy have been directly killed by the virus. 

Originally Posted by: picturesareme 

This is the most accurate and useful international comparison chart I've yet seen.  Anyone who thinks "were doing ok" in a "jolly it along " sort of way needs to spend a few minutes studying the chart and accept that out feck-wittery infested cabinet have made an almighty [censored]up of dealing with this since January.  Herd Immunity strategy led to utter complacency. 

Knowing we have thrown away our capacity to manufacture critical chemicals years ago, we should have made the effort as many civilised developed advanced nations did, and, knowing this epidemic was inevitably going to spread - that's what viruses do - and bought up reagents and supplies of PPE during January and February and the first half of March.

But no, out imbelic cretinous cavalier; lets put our shares our profit; our Brexit; our bonging of Big Ben; our brave new government power grabbing from itself, before the health of the British people.

Im so angry that thousands of NHS staff are effectively cannon fodder, a bit like the scientists and workers sent in post Chernobyl.  Im angry that our older (though not exclusively) folk are being cut down, thanks to the reckless idiots in charge.

There has to be a reckoning.  These nasty selfish little barstards need to be held to account.

Originally Posted by: Whether Idle 

PFW posted a link to a chart on the Our World in Data website near the end of the last thread. It shows total deaths per million people and is better than the FT one. As some of you probably didn't see it here is the link again: 

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-deaths-days-since-per-million?country=CAN+CHN+ITA+KOR+SWE+GBR+USA

(mouseover to highlight different countries)

To change countries highlighted:

1) Open this link 

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-deaths-days-since-per-million

2) Click on the country. The url will be appended and you can add up to 5, e.g. Italy, United Kingdom, France, Austria, Germany, USA

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-deaths-days-since-per-million?country=AUT+FRA+DEU+ITA+GBR+USA

Originally Posted by: Brian Gaze 

But you don't understand, Phil. Listen to what those who know better keep telling us: This government is advised by 'the world's best scientists'. This government never lies - it is just 'misinformed'

Originally Posted by: Justin W 

Deaths from other causes such as regular pneumonia will fall and the lockdowns - short term at least - will reduce all manner of other ways to die.
The pandemic will probably have a negative death rate overall.

Originally Posted by: four 

I see a crescendo of government bashing from the usual suspects here - I am sure these armchair experts could have done a much better job.

There will come a time when analysis of what could have been done better will be appropriate, but I don't think the time is now.

The problems are deep and structural and partly revolve around the institutions themselves, which are unresponsive in times of crisis.

Whilst I agree that the situation should have been taken more seriously sooner, particularly with stockpiling PPE, the hysteria about testing is silly. Antigen tests are a side issue - they only really come into their own when seriously trying to contain an outbreak (like South Korea did) but all European countries are well past that point, since borders were left open for far too long - if you want a real scandal about this, you have it there!

Originally Posted by: Maunder Minimum 

Another good article from the BBC regarding the true death rates of the corona virus.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51979654

Talks about the amount that are dying with it and how many are actually dying from it. It mentions that case of the 18 year old that died with it recently that got national coverage of being so young, but it then also mentions that the hospital released a statement in the days after saying it wasn't actually the virus that killed the supposedly healthy 18. 

But this got my attention..

 "Reports in Italy have suggested about 12% of their deaths are due to the disease."

I was wondering does anybody have any more information on these reports? This would be very significant should it be proven be so  as it would mean only around 1600 in Italy have been directly killed by the virus. 

Originally Posted by: picturesareme 

Justin - you are normally an intelligent and knowledgeable contributor, but you appear to be a little hysterical at the moment. Hysteria and screaming at people does not help when dealing with a viral epidemic - what is needed at the moment is constructive suggestions. There will come a time for a post mortem of where things went wrong. I stand by my post above - we lost the plot when we failed to close our borders to infected regions and carry out tests and isolation at ports of entry - that issue goes back at least two months. We should have been buying up stocks of PPE as well, since much of the disposable stuff is imported.

Originally Posted by: Maunder Minimum 

We should have been buying up stocks of PPE as well, since much of the disposable stuff is imported.

Originally Posted by: Maunder Minimum 

I'm not hysterical, I'm pointing out that your post is incorrect. Your constructive suggestions so far have been that we should have closed our borders two weeks ago and that we cannot destroy the economy to save a few tens of thousands of vulnerable people.

Most of our posts - some of mine included - are of the "I wouldn't start from here" variety. Yours are probably the best examples of this mindset.

So, in the spirit of constructive suggestion, here are my ideas for dealing with this disaster going forward:

1) The UK lockdown needs to be extended and tightened. Construction, building sites and all non-essential economic activities must be shut down for the duration. That means no 'jobbing' kitchen fitters out at work (at our neighbour's house, for instance), no carpenters on site doing a bit of tidying up, no engineering aside from that directly connected with the fight against the virus

2) HMG must immediately implement a debt amnesty and holiday. That means no mortgage, no or credit card repayments for anybody. It also means that there must be no deferral of interest on these debts - the lost interest would simply be cancelled when payments resume

3) All utility bills must be suspended for the duration of the crisis

4) The nationalisation of the entire economy should be extended so that all employed and self-employed people receive govt payments directly into their accounts. This should take the form of a basic wage for the duration of the crisis

5) All private health labs must be coopted into a massively expanded testing regime. All NHS staff - frontline or not - must be tested and the maximum effort must be made to complete this process within seven days

6) No doctor or nurse to work without full PPE

7) Police and army checkpoints to be used to ensure the lockdown is adhered to. Those who are proven to have breached the lockdown must face substantial prison sentences

8) A food drop (not the pathetic effort made by HMG so far) to be made every week to every vulnerable person in this country to ensure that they are shielded from the virus

9) Testing to begin on the general population as soon as NHS testing is sufficiently advanced. This can be done using surgery lists to start with. Only then can we start building an exit strategy

10) Full track and trace of the infected to be resumed

11) Borders closed and remain closed until infections are back down to single digits each day

Originally Posted by: Justin W 

I'm not hysterical, I'm pointing out that your post is incorrect. Your constructive suggestions so far have been that we should have closed our borders two weeks ago and that we cannot destroy the economy to save a few tens of thousands of vulnerable people.

Most of our posts - some of mine included - are of the "I wouldn't start from here" variety. Yours are probably the best examples of this mindset.

So, in the spirit of constructive suggestion, here are my ideas for dealing with this disaster going forward:

1) The UK lockdown needs to be extended and tightened. Construction, building sites and all non-essential economic activities must be shut down for the duration. That means no 'jobbing' kitchen fitters out at work (at our neighbour's house, for instance), no carpenters on site doing a bit of tidying up, no engineering aside from that directly connected with the fight against the virus

2) HMG must immediately implement a debt amnesty and holiday. That means no mortgage, no or credit card repayments for anybody. It also means that there must be no deferral of interest on these debts - the lost interest would simply be cancelled when payments resume

3) All utility bills must be suspended for the duration of the crisis

4) The nationalisation of the entire economy should be extended so that all employed and self-employed people receive govt payments directly into their accounts. This should take the form of a basic wage for the duration of the crisis

5) All private health labs must be coopted into a massively expanded testing regime. All NHS staff - frontline or not - must be tested and the maximum effort must be made to complete this process within seven days

6) No doctor or nurse to work without full PPE

7) Police and army checkpoints to be used to ensure the lockdown is adhered to. Those who are proven to have breached the lockdown must face substantial prison sentences

8) A food drop (not the pathetic effort made by HMG so far) to be made every week to every vulnerable person in this country to ensure that they are shielded from the virus

9) Testing to begin on the general population as soon as NHS testing is sufficiently advanced. This can be done using surgery lists to start with. Only then can we start building an exit strategy

10) Full track and trace of the infected to be resumed

11) Borders closed and remain closed until infections are back down to single digits each day

Originally Posted by: Justin W 

It is obvious that we need someone to blame as the death toll rises, we cannot really criticised virus. I suspect the other European and N American countries are doing the same as the death toll follows the same trend and pattern.

As ever hindsight will show what worked and what didn’t.

The delay between infection and death will mean any indication of effectiveness of current measures and assessment of the current situation will be reflected in the statistics in around three weeks time.

Our current situation is only possibly a judgement of the situation around three weeks ago.

Originally Posted by: doctormog