Do we need news reporters standing outside the deserted Houses of Parliament, a care home at  6 o'clock in the morning giving live reports etc? 

Onwards and upwards - will this be Peak Week?

Different strategies now starting to emerge. Macron has said France will stay in lockdown for another month:

France to remain in strict lockdown for another month

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/13/macron-france-remain-strict-lockdown-for-another-month

Here in the UK there is growing pressure to ease restrictions and get the economy going again, although the lockdown will stay in place for now. The problem is the majority of people are fearful of the corona virus and strongly support the lockdown. Therefore, the messaging has to be changed with talk of an "exit strategy" apparently banned because it is alarming.  

Ministers told to plan gentle path to recovery with ban on alarming talk of coronavirus 'exit strategy'

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/04/13/ministers-told-plan-gentle-path-recovery-ban-alarming-talk-coronavirus/

Morning all.

Some of you may remember the Twitter thread written by the historian Dr Elaine Doyle, basically slamming the UK response and comparing it to Ireland.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/13/experts-divided-comparison-uk-ireland-coronavirus-record?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

A good critique of it here. 

It seems that certain members of HMG are determined to bring shame upon this country. Is this what taking back control looks like?

Dominic Raab ‘gave promise to China he would not politicise virus’

China has said that it secured a guarantee from Dominic Raab that the coronavirus outbreak would not be “politicised”.

The foreign secretary was also said to have agreed with Beijing that the source of the virus was a “scientific issue” that required a professional assessment.

The leading hypothesis in the international scientific community is that the pandemic originated in the “wet markets” of Wuhan, a city in Hubei province where live wild animals are sold. However, China has sought to dismiss the claim and has been found by Britain’s intelligence agencies to be disseminating disinformation online about the origins of the pandemic, The Times understands.

A statement detailing a recent phone call between Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, and Mr Raab was published yesterday on the website of the Chinese embassy in London. It said Mr Wang had “pointed out that ‘alarmingly, some people are attempting to politicise the epidemic, label the virus and stigmatise China’”.

It said: “Mr Raab expressed the UK’s firm opposition to politicising the outbreak and fully agrees with China that the source of the virus is a scientific issue that requires professional and science-based assessment.”

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/huawei-boss-warns-uk-against-halting-5g-rollout-during-the-coronavirus-crisis-rmtlcqz65

Coronavirus: Older people being 'airbrushed' out of virus figures

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52275823

I'm concerned that as the pressure to get the economy going starts increases there will be moves to change the way deaths are reported. At the moment the concerns focus on older people dying in care homes or their own houses. 

I think it's too early to know how right or wrong the UK strategy has been. When you look at cases per 100,000 of population the UK is miles behind Spain, Italy, Belgium, Holland the US and others. Is this just due to the level of testing? Sweden are even further behind with only 107.

It's difficult to make sense of the figures because the way they are reported differs so much. This is not a defence of the UK strategy btw, just that I'm keeping an open mind at the moment. 

Deaths per million is a better indicator. At the moment we're doing better than Spain and slightly worse than Italy. 

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

Agree with this. I think the only safe basis for comparison would be to look at excess deaths per week. Looking at the numbers and trends over several weeks would be a much better indicator both of the Covid-19 deaths but also any uptick due to neglect of other conditions/excess demand on healthcare services.

Even then we can only draw tentative conclusions at this stage because this has a long way to run, sadly.

This I agree with. On the radio this morning they were again talking about the prospect of deaths being measured in the hundreds of thousands in the UK (presumably other countries too) due to Wave 2 and 3.

The inevitable consequences of idiocy - peole on my local Facebook groups were going on about chopping kitchen rolls in half and flushing them.....

People flushing wet wipes and kitchen roll down loos has led to a surge in drain blockages during the Covid-19 lockdown.

A mum from Canterbury was horrified when Southern Water workers pulled five bin bags-worth of wipes from a drain near her home.

https://www.kentonline.co.uk/canterbury/news/surge-in-drain-blockages-amid-covid-19-lockdown-225441/

Some of the main supermarkets across the country are extending opening hours from today after the Covid-19 panic buying

Morrisons are opening 7am to 8pm Monday to Saturday and will open 6am to 7am for NHS workers

Aldi are opening 8am-10pm Monday to Saturday

Asda superstores are opening 8am-10pm instead of 8am-8pm Monday to Saturday

Tesco 6am-10pm Monday to Saturday with priority access for NHS workers on Tuesday, Thursdays and Sundays

Sainsbury's are not extending opening hours and will continue to open 8am to 8pm Monday to Saturday

"One point eight seven million tests today; so that’s one million eight hundred and seventy thousand million"

What is it with hard right-wing sociopaths and counting?@lbc #c4news #NewsNightpic.twitter.com/p6V9O42Ps3

— I Am Incorrigible FCA (@ImIncorrigible) April 14, 2020

Isn't that assuming the UK won't get a similar headline to France before the end of the week?

Absolutely. The temptation to overanalyse every statistic that comes out only leads to false hope or worry. It is essentially impossible to get an accurate picture on a daily basis.

This is worrying. Indications that a second wave hits very quickly after lockdown measures are eased. Suggests we may have to keep the economy closed until either an effective treatment or vaccine becomes available. The alternative could be to accept (in the UK) 500,000 more deaths.

Hokkaido re-declares state of emergency after second wave

It looks like Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido is starting to experience exactly what many epidemiologists had predicted; after the successful suppression of an initial outbreak, the relaxing of restrictions has led to a second wave.

Hokkaido was the first place in Japan to be hit badly by the virus. In mid-February the governor declared a state of emergency, schools were closed and people were urged to stay at home. The shutdown hit in the middle of the ski-season, the worst possible time. I was there myself at the beginning of March and the ski resorts were completely deserted. But it worked, and by the middle of March the infection rate had fallen to a handful of infections a day.

At the end of March schools re-opened and life in Hokkaido began to return to some sort of normality. But now just two weeks later a new state of emergency has been declared. By the end of last week new infections had climbed to between 15 and 20 a day which is higher than during the first wave in February. Schools have again been closed and people asked to stay at home.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52275989

​

British drugs company launches trial for Covid-19 treatment

Quote

 

A British drugs company has confirmed it plans to launch global clinical testing of a drug which could treat the extreme immune response triggered by Covid-19 in severely ill patients. Cambridge based pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca said it is rushing through testing for its drug Calquence - which is currently used to treat some blood cancers - after encouraging early clinical results suggested that suppressing the inflammation caused by the immune response could reduce the respiratory harm caused by coronavirus. This could mean patients suffering from symptoms of the virus might not require ventilation and could cut the number of deaths from Covid-19, according to the company.

This will be the group's fastest ever trial launch, which is set to start within the coming days across the US and some European countries. 

Jose Baselga, executive vice-president of oncology research and development at Astra, said: "With this trial we are responding to the novel insights of the scientific community and hope to demonstrate that adding Calquence to best supportive care reduces the need to place patients on ventilators and improves their chances of survival.

"This is the fastest launch of any clinical trial in the history of AstraZeneca."

 

https://www.lbcnews.co.uk/uk-news/british-drugs-company-launches-trial-for-covid-19/

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Wet wipes and baby wipes have always been a problem, and tampons and condoms

If you live in a block of flats, I suppose you wouldn't really care what you flush but in a private house I am always very careful and check my manhole once a month

Deaths per capita are a poor way of comparing places in the early stages of an epidemic. As the weeks pass they become a better indicator.

Do you use a mirror or can you bend round far enough to see?

ONS are supposed to be publishing care home data today

I might be wrong about this, but I think that Germany too has been rather less badly hit by Covid-19 than the UK has been, both in terms of deaths from it and their overall number of confirmed cases.

A fellow university student had a brilliant holiday job for his local water company. They gave him an air rifle and he spent the day popping "tied" condoms that had begun to self-inflate and block the sewage farm filter[s].

It almost beats my first summer job digging out a seaside cafe that was being constantly buried by a sand dune - we had use of the owners series 2 landrover! And we got paid for it! We'd have paid him!  Ah - those 60s days...

Roger

I have a periscope