I fully accept that we need to ease the lockdown sooner rather than later in order to get the economy moving again. The challenge will be how do we shield the 1.5m in the vulnerable groups that make up 90% of the deaths? Clearly, we are not going to have a vaccine available for public use until 2021 at the earliest so it’s going to be a nightmare for those people.

Originally Posted by: speckledjim 

Rightly or wrongly, in other parts of Europe Britain is increasingly seen as an example of how not to do things. My wife was speaking to friends in Poland last night and they'd read reports about the "horrific" situation in the UK. Also, in The Times this morning: 

Originally Posted by: Brian Gaze 

Not sure beard trimmers would have enough heft for the job! They won't have the "guards" needed for a longer cut even if they were powerful enough.

I bought these,

https://smile.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07M8NJK8C

...but the price has more than doubled since then!

Originally Posted by: Retron 

They are always sold out of clippers in Tesco and Boots. They have beard trimmers. Would that work?

I don't do online shopping as I am worried about fraud. I never use my debit card and I always pay in cash, I'm so paranoid!

Originally Posted by: The Beast from the East 

I've always had a set of Wahl clippers at home for beard trimming. They have all the spacers etc. for haircutting.

I gave in this week and went for the #3 all over. I get my wife to trim to a line at the back and that's it. Takes 10 minutes.

Originally Posted by: Ulric 

I guess he has to exercise much caution in what he says, in view of his public role. The public would be very quick to criticise him were he to say that a vaccine was likely before then end of this year and then that ultimately didn't happen.

Originally Posted by: David M Porter 

I was going for a 70s look and my gf said she fancied the castaway look until I convinced her to cut my hair (I told her she can share the photos on her FB for a laugh). I was expecting the worse, but she did a very good job. I now even think that I may never go back to the barber. 

Originally Posted by: xioni2 

More suggestions that smokers could be at lower risk from corona virus.

French researchers plan to give nicotine patches to coronavirus patients and frontline workers after lower rates of infection were found among smokers - but say it's NOT a reason to take up cigarettes

French researchers are planning to trial whether nicotine patches will help prevent - or lessen the effects of - the deadly coronavirus.

Evidence is beginning to show the proportion of smokers infected with coronavirus is much lower than the rates in the general population.

Scientists are now questioning whether nicotine could stop the virus from infecting cells, or if it may prevent the immune system overreacting to the infection.

Doctors at a major hospital in Paris - who also found low rates of smoking among the infected - are now planning to give nicotine patches to COVID-19 patients.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-8246939/French-researchers-plan-nicotine-patches-coronavirus-patients-frontline-workers.html

Originally Posted by: Brian Gaze 

Not sure beard trimmers would have enough heft for the job! They won't have the "guards" needed for a longer cut even if they were powerful enough.

I bought these,

https://smile.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07M8NJK8C

...but the price has more than doubled since then!

Originally Posted by: Retron 

Completely the opposite to other scientific research I saw an hour ago.

Originally Posted by: NickR 

Yeah but Brian's was from the Mail so it must be right.

Originally Posted by: Northern Sky 

If we can get R0 down to 0.9 then it would only take a little over a month to get down to 100 confirmed cases.

So herein lies the rub. The difference between 0.9 and 0.98 is very small. Essentially for every 100 people, 90 new are infected vs for every 100 98 new are infected. So this means given the current rate of fall it is unlikely the estimate of 0.98 is too far off.

So exactly how close to the precipice are we. Well for every 100 people if 99 behave and infect only 1 other person. It only takes 1 person in every 100 to infect just 1 additional person over the entire infectious period of the disease to screw everything up.

That one idiot ruins it for the rest of us.

Anyway even if we get down to 0.9 is nowhere near enough, it may have impressively fast results but we need to get down to 0.5, not because the numbers respond faster but because its comfortably far away from 1.

Originally Posted by: Quantum 

An astonishing 88% of patients in New York who were put on a ventilator have died. 

Originally Posted by: xioni2 

Let's get the R0 up to 4, infect ~everyone quickly, kill about a million people and get it over with. 

You make some good points, but I don't think we can estimate the current R0 due to the lack of testing. I am also sure that it's much higher in hospitals and care homes  

Originally Posted by: xioni2 

The new case figure should be coming down now.
Since 11th April we have been recording between 4-5k new cases every day. I wonder if this is the norm now with infections occurring in places like supermarkets. If true, without any relaxing this is the bottom figure and wonder what % this will translate into deaths.
Certainly no spike but is a continuation of the flat lines acceptable? Any relaxing may be hard to action if this is the case, unless we change the way we shop still. It's been said 2m's isn't enough and perhaps face masks MUST be worn in these indoor environments.

Originally Posted by: Phil G 

It's in the Guardian too:

French researchers to test nicotine patches on coronavirus patients

Study – which stresses serious health risks of smoking – suggest substance in tobacco may lower risk of getting coronavirus

French researchers are planning to test nicotine patches on coronavirus patients and frontline health workers after a study suggested smokers may be much less at risk of contracting the virus.

The study at a major Paris hospital suggests a substance in tobacco – possibly nicotine – may be stopping patients who smoke from catching Covid-19. Clinical trials of nicotine patches are awaiting the approval of the country’s health authorities.

...

Taking into account the age and sex of the patients, the researchers discovered the number of smokers was much lower than that in the general population estimated by the French health authority Santé Publique France at about 40% for those aged 44-53 and between 8.8% and 11.3% for those aged 65-75.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/22/french-study-suggests-smokers-at-lower-risk-of-getting-coronavirus

Originally Posted by: Brian Gaze 

The irony that I am personally enjoying is that a generation obsessed with non problems like gender pronouns and racial stereotypes actually has to cope with a real problem now. All that jazz handing safe space crap goes out of the window pretty fast when there are real problems to deal with!

Originally Posted by: Quantum