I added just a few European countries that are doing quite well (there are many)

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-per-million-7-day-average?country=CZE+DNK+GRC+ITA+NOR+POL+KOR+ESP+SWE+GBR+USA+DEU

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-per-million-7-day-average?country=BEL+FRA+DEU+ITA+ESP+CHE+GBR+USA

Do we think these curves are symmetrical - the number of deaths will take as long to subside as they did to build up, or are they skewed - the number of deaths will fall away quickly once the measures take effect? This will be critical to the decision about how long lock-down should last.

If they’re not driving far then that sounds fair enough to me. If you need petrol you can pay at the pump avoiding everyone. 

I'm all for employee rights, but I'm hearing some bloody annoying stories of people taking the p*ss.

My missus works in admin for the NHS. It's only a small team she works on - 4 people. The manager's father (almost 90) died in February (not through CV); she's been off sick since then - two months. I know the death of a parent hits hard, but that is ridiculous, especially given how hard-pressed the NHS is at present. Worse, the manager's daughter is a nurse (and trained ICU nurse to boot) and she's been off the same length of time - because her near-90 year old grandfather has died. FFS!!! Then there is another team member who is now entering her 5th week of 'self isolation' because first she had a cough, then just as she was due back, her husband developed a cough, and this week after the expiry of another 14 days, her son's developed a cough so she says she's taking another 14 days.

My missus - who's not been there a year - apart from taking a day's hol off to extend Easter weekend, hasn't missed a day through this. Her other colleague lost her husband in January to a sudden heart attack and has an 11 year old lad (and two daughters in their 20's) and whilst she took 6 weeks off in the aftermath, this is pretty understandable in the circumstances, and she has returned and worked since.

That's awful and terribly sad to read. Apologies if you have discussed before on the forum and I missed it.

I thought the Fail was a tad naughty emphasising that 10% have NO underlying medical conditions! However, you make an important point IMO. Any of us could have medical conditions which have not yet been diagnosed.

That's sounds okay to me as well, but an hour's drive is okay, if you walk for two?

Sounds utterly ridiculous. I know people take things in different ways - in my case I've ended up doing more development work behind the scenes on TWO and posting here more often - but that seems extreme to me.

an hour does feel a little extreme

Jesus - that manager either needs firing or forced counselling, one or the other!

I mean... I lost my dad at 36, when he was 67. It followed two months of hell, watching him getting worse and worse from lung cancer... and there were several trips to hospital, for which I took annual leave.

The school gave me 3 days' compassionate leave when he died. Bear in mind I lived with him, so not only was the grief strong, but I had to deal with all the paperwork (he died in the Westcountry, so I had to drive 4 hours there and back... twice, as the paperwork wasn't ready the first time). I then came back to work to get a rollocking because a laptop had died during a pupil's exam... as if I could have done anything about it! I was utterly fuming.

Two of those three days were spent going back and forth to the Westcountry, the final day's leave was spent for the funeral (just down the road from the school - I arranged the wake to coincide with lunch at the school, and some of my friends popped in from work).

It all seemed a bit harsh to me, but I survived...

And she should also get a severe telling-off. The rules are that if you self-isolate due to a cough, you go back 7 days after the cough started, regardless of anyone else in your house developing symptoms. It could be argued that's too soon, but that's the way it is.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/874011/Stay_at_home_guidance_diagram.pdf

People like that give the public sector a bad name.

Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) records first Covid death

Good question - to be honest I have no idea... I suspect the error bars on all the points on these graphs must be huge and a statiscian would have difficulty making any predictions. Extrapolating can be dangerous - as my favorite geek comic explains better than I ever could

By the time the UK or Canada lifts lockdown there will be more data from Italy, Spain, Denmark etc. to compare which might give some indication.

But if the politicians (or the scientists) say they are confident about the effects of extending or releasing lockdown, I'm pretty skeptical. Difficult message to sell to the public: 'we don't really know, but this is our best shot based on some uncertain models'.

Quite simply, if the pre-lockdown R0 figure (number of other people one infected person infects) is, for example, 2.6, then for the infections to drop away as quickly as they came, the R0 figure needs to become the inverse; 1 divided by 2.6, which is 0.38.

Chris Whitty, I think, said that they believe the R0 figure is now somewhere between 0.5 and 1. Even if it were 0.5, it will take longer for the number of new infections and deaths to subside than they built up. If the R0 figure is now 0.8, then it will take nearly 4 times longer for the disease to die out.

Of course the R0 figure is dynamic and can change, is affected by immunity within the population if that is changing, and would also be affected by any relaxation or tightening of the lockdown.

Most are in that category but the experience in our winter night shelters in a fairly run down area is that they usually do follow the strict rules else they get banned. Many are just victims of mis-fortune created by themselves or in some cases like abused women who have run away, somebody else. One or two are very well educated people formerly in high powered jobs. Stuff happens.

Edit: In the interests of accuracy just checked with my wife and this year's stats were 26% drug abuse, 49% mental health problems so less than I thought.

Up tick in motor vehicle usage back to levels pre holiday weekend

Cases flattening and maybe decreasing

People in hospital with Covid-19 down 3% nationally

Deaths remain on the same track as previous days

Entirely due to it, I'd say. You can see the dips for previous weekends, as well as the four-day dip for the holiday. The midweek traffic has been remarkably consistent.

It's good to see people are generally staying home.

This underlying condition thing seems a bit of a broad brush to me and seems to be there partly not to scare the public, giving them a comfort blanket. I mean are currently healthy smokers put down as having an underlying condition? I am a healthy 70 year old but have a heart rhythm condition called atrial fibrillation which is a very common complaint in the elderly. It doesn't affect my daily life and isn't enough to get the special letter. But it can make me very slightly breathless and it could affect ventilation I guess. So if I died would I go on  that list?

Edit. Apologies - just seen other references to smokers.

What a twit and what a waste of a question

There can't be many places where you can't get to a better place to exercise in ten minutes than in your street I wouldn't have thought. So I agree the last paragraph is still unnecessary. People shopping is the real killer based on my experience at Asda click and collect this morning though!

Raab’s five tests for the easing the lockdown in 3 weeks time are:
1). NHS can cope across the UK
2). Sustained fall in daily death rates

3). Rate of infection decreasing

4). Supply of testing and PPE able to meet demand 

5). No risk of a 2nd peak
——-
4) is going to be a problem and 5) I would say is impossible.

I’d say yes AF can be a  very dangerous heart condition if left untreated as yours is treated and managed the risk is greatly reduced like medicines like metoprolol to control the heart rate 

we can’t call heart conditions the so called normal at any stage of life weather that’s young or elderly.

Relatively speaking.