This is so damning for us.

Very interesting update in general.

Far more interesting and informative than the daily updates we get. 

Yes, we are often treated as children here (perhaps many are).

F*ck 'em. Demented freaks that they are.

If by just washing your hands is supposed to be a good deterrent, then I can't see any reason why this product cannot help if it goes anyway towards what it says on the tin.

Virologist behind 'Contagion' film criticises leaders' slow responses.

Professor Lipkin, director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University said: "We (in the US) were slow out of the gate. So was the UK. The people of these nations have paid a price," Professor Lipkin said, blaming insufficient and inadequate testing and tracing for rising fatality numbers.

"Germany put a rapid emphasis on testing and containment and managed the outbreak - there's nothing else to explain why they have such a low death rate."

Just for the record: the UK government is deliberately rewriting history in its ongoing COVID-19 disinformation campaign. My Jan 24 tweet called for caution in UK media reporting. It was followed by a series of tweets drawing attention to the dangers of this new disease. pic.twitter.com/vMozGriWw2

— richard horton (@richardhorton1) April 20, 2020

It will not be possible to eradicate the virus and therefore accompanying deaths from everyday society until either a vaccine has been widely deployed or natural immunity is reached through a majority of the population getting infected (the latter with massive casualty numbers)

The aim of the government - after u-turning on the 'herd immunity' policy - is to manage the outbreak so the NHS wouldn't be swamped, with the resultant surge of deaths.

We cannot remain in this economy-destroying limbo for more than a few more weeks, certainly not until a vaccine is proven and distributed to the majority, so we'll just have to live with a few hundred deaths each day for months.

Amazon are starting to pay their UK employees "danger money". The cynic in me wonders whether they are having staffing problems. Delivery times are out of the park right now with "next day Prime" now often taking more than a week. 

In recognition of their incredible contribution, we’ve increased the pay for employees in our fulfilment centres and delivery roles, adding a further £2 per hour on top of our current starting rate of £10.50 for the London area, and £9.50 for the rest of the UK. In addition, 5,000 new full and part-time positions and delivery jobs have opened across the UK to provide job opportunities for people impacted by the pandemic.

The distortion of the truth by this government (which is dominated by the Brexit mouthpieces from the referendum campaign, who were similarly pathological liars in that) is of an Orwellian level.

And all using our taxpayer pounds to do it.

Rasputin is one evil c**t.

A reminder of the current snapshot of the grim scale

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-deaths-days-since-per-million?country=DEU+GRC+ITA+NOR+SGP+KOR+ESP+SWE+GBR+NZL+AUS

Nice to see social distancing in London...

What a shambles. Still, if numbers are actually going down despite this sort of thing it can only be a good sign...

That's what bothers me the most.

I ordered a small square of polariser film at the beginning of Feb from Amazon, and am still waiting upon it. 

More on the incoming MHS app-ocalypse:

But critics warn this kind of system would be imprecise since some phones detect signals from up to 30m (98ft) away without being able to determine the distance.

Interference can also prevent two phones noticing each other when within 2m.

As a result, the Ada Lovelace study says, many matches would be missed while others would be recorded by mistake.

"Digital contact tracing will be less able to control for variables such as ventilation, direction of wind or environment, factors that are normally central to manual contact-tracing efforts," it says.

"[And] digital contact tracing will be vulnerable to all forms of fraud and abuse - from people using multiple devices, false reports of infection, to denial-of-service attacks by adversarial actors."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52353720

How many deaths a day has SK had to live with, without being in lockdown?

Let's see how many NZ and Aus have to live with when they ease lockdown.

If even you accept those expectations for what is "OK", Saint, then the govt really has done its propaganda job well.

Yougov polling on what people think about easing the lockdown. For all the bluster in some quarters only 5% of people think the government would be correct to start loosening the restrictions now, 88% disagree. Opinion much more varied about whether they should do it in 3 weeks time. Most popular opinion on when to loosen the lockdown is when the number of cases has fallen substantially. 13% of people think we should wait until the number of cases falls to zero (how long would that take?!!!) while 6% think we should until a vaccine is available (again, how long would that take?). 78% of people think that the economy should be favoured for loosening measures rather than free time activities.

 https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2020/04/21/covid-19-lockdown-public-want-gradual-exit-priorit

...they currently have quite strict criteria on when we should start easing restrictions. The median position is "when the number of deaths each day has fallen substantially" - but many are a lot stricter than that 2/nhttps://t.co/qketNHJfS0 pic.twitter.com/SsYt60mdzG

— Chris Curtis (@chriscurtis94) April 21, 2020

You trust Horton, the guy that was, in part, responsible for one of the biggest public health disasters of all time?

And that is not an exaggeration. Horton published the Andrew Wakefield study. This is a study that is still doing damage today, 22 years later. It was almost single handedly responsible for the anti vax movement. Horton basically shirked all responsibility for this astronomically sized foul up.

FWIW I voted to remain, but I also voted for a Conservative administration because the previous Labour opposition (under Corbyn) was even worse, which doesn't say much for UK politicians at all. I truly hope that Keir Starmer rewards his supporters and the Labour party as a whole by demonstrating that there is a constructive alternative.

I'm truly open minded about this, but continually criticising the current administration isn't a solution IMO

Edit: I'm not defending many of the seemingly bad decisions made, I'm just saying don't mix Brexit with Covid and let's get a decent opposition who can demonstrate they're up for the job. 

Right. He cannot claim to be prophetic on any of this, certainly he warned less of the dangers than even someone like I did.

Can people please keep their political tribalism out of this for once. If the government has screwed up then please, by all means, give evidence of it or make the case. But can we please, during this period, try to keep this apolitical. Otherwise any legitimate critism will just be dismissed as tribalism. Some of it clearly is tribalism.

I have not critisized Labour since this began for this reason.

It is far too soon, is it not, to make any judgements?  I could cite Japan as an example of where the virus has got out of control after being quite well managed. The characteristics of the virus haven't changed so it is just as infectious and just as prone to result in hospitalisation and death. That's not government propaganda, its looking at the scientific evidence.

Regarding loosening the lockdown. Essentially we need to prove we have the infrastructure to keep R0 below 1 on a long term basis. So the lockdown can only be lifted if we can prove that we can sustainably keep R0 below 1.

So the sensible solution is to start opening parts of the UK and test whether we can keep them open for a length of time without things getting out of control. The first place, imo, should be the Isle of Wight. I've talked about this before but it is perfect to use to pilot any exit strategy.

• Natural borders, can very easily keep outside flows controlled and ban non essential travel in or out of the island


• 'Cold spot', very low numbers of cases compared to its population density.


• Comparatively low population. A few hundred k. So we would need testing capacity to test everyone on the island but the entire population of the Isle of Wight is a good milestone to aim for.

It is worth pondering how just two individuals can be responsible for the erosion of herd immunity to measles, Mumps and rubella.  Nobody else involved?  Nobody could have prevented it? 

That's to say that his judgment wasn't suspect but if you eliminated everyone who has ever made a serious misjudgement in their lives you'd not have that many left.