Interesting article highlighting how the government are trying to shift the blame onto the public for going out and about for exercise exactly as they have been advised to do.

https://www.redpepper.org.uk/the-politics-of-covid-19-busy-parks-and-public-blame/

Originally Posted by: Rob K 

I know the UK has a population more than ten times that of Denmark but even so those stats are low. How has Denmark managed to manage the virus to those levels?

Originally Posted by: Northern Sky 

Something I have been wondering for a while is how big a factor were the Chinese New Year celebrations back in late January in the worldwide spread of the disease.

By this time, the Chinese government knew full well that there was a major health crisis developing in their country and it was around time that Wuhan was put into lockdown. I imagine though that many people would very likely have already left the country to travel to many other locations in the world before the Wuhan lockdown came into force.

Originally Posted by: David M Porter 

https://twitter.com/laineydoyle/status/1249127908876128259?s=20

A very interesting read this thread. The post about the Stereophonics gig in Cardiff is especially haunting. Read the whole thread. 

Originally Posted by: Joe Bloggs 

Careful, someone will accuse you of bickering... Yes, an interesting read, had forgotten about all the cancelling of St Patricks Day festivities. Have noticed in the official number of cases that Cardiff has been soaring in recent days/weeks. I don't know if the testing criteria is different between NHS England and NHS Wales but Cardiff's proportion of official cases per head of population is higher than all but 3 London boroughs.

On that note, i see that Cumbria has continued to have a lot of positive cases, only 5 London boroughs ahead of it. I don't know if any reason has been given or specific event but it does seem a bit of an outlier. One thing i have noticed is that when reading cases from abroad they have sometimes linked outbreaks to specific events. Other than a link to a choir* that i read at some point i don't know if there have been links to individual events at all in this country.

*Have read a few stories where a choir meeting has caused an outbreak. I suppose that people come into close contact and singing in a choir involves taking deep breaths in close proximity to other people who are sending lots of germs out and there is a lot of recycling of air. I suppose such a situation occurs at a packed gig too.

Originally Posted by: JHutch 

Careful, someone will accuse you of bickering... Yes, an interesting read, had forgotten about all the cancelling of St Patricks Day festivities. Have noticed in the official number of cases that Cardiff has been soaring in recent days/weeks. I don't know if the testing criteria is different between NHS England and NHS Wales but Cardiff's proportion of official cases per head of population is higher than all but 3 London boroughs.

On that note, i see that Cumbria has continued to have a lot of positive cases, only 5 London boroughs ahead of it. I don't know if any reason has been given or specific event but it does seem a bit of an outlier. One thing i have noticed is that when reading cases from abroad they have sometimes linked outbreaks to specific events. Other than a link to a choir* that i read at some point i don't know if there have been links to individual events at all in this country.

*Have read a few stories where a choir meeting has caused an outbreak. I suppose that people come into close contact and singing in a choir involves taking deep breaths in close proximity to other people who are sending lots of germs out and there is a lot of recycling of air. I suppose such a situation occurs at a packed gig too.

Originally Posted by: JHutch 

I think there was an argument offered somewhere that age demographic was a factor. I've just looked at 2019 data and the 65+years band represented 24% compared to the England average of 18.2%

Originally Posted by: llamedos 

I have a friend who lives on the outskirts of Copenhagen and so I have had a real-time commentary on what is happening there. One of the first things they did was to mark one way routes on all footpaths in parks etc. and have wardens there ticketing people for breaking social distancing rules. Danes in general have abided by the lock down rules very strictly.

Their government has taken real practical measures to control transmission and crucially, they have taken responsibility for enforcement. Compare that with our government who have said lots of meaningless words, failed to provide PPE to the health service and encouraged the press to call out the public for being stupid and inconsiderate.

Originally Posted by: Ulric 

5am run report: the same two dog walkers are out as usual. Grrrrr

Jogger appeared just before 6am. Otherwise okay.

Originally Posted by: Quantum 

Hubby runs at that time and he hasn’t seen a sole for days. 

Originally Posted by: Caz 

I think you should buy him a new pair of trainers, poor old sod! 

Originally Posted by: llamedos 

The first thing the Danish Government did was to close their borders.

This is the real scandal - a complete dereliction of duty by HMG not to have restricted flights from affected regions and not to have introduced port screening and quarantine for arrivals in February.

Originally Posted by: Maunder Minimum 

The Beeb raises an interesting quirk with the figures - minorities are suffering worst from this.

I'd be interested to see whether the stats apply in my borough, too, which is 97% white.... but as there's no hospital with A&E in my borough (despite the popualtion being around 150,000) I guess there's no way of knowing!

"Only 14% of people in England and Wales are from ethnic minority backgrounds, according to the 2011 census.

However, the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre found that 34% of more than 3,000 critically ill coronavirus patients identified as black, Asian or minority ethnic."

Originally Posted by: Retron