Cant disagree with any of this

I'm worried about Boris though. He seems half the man he was and has been got at by the medical lobby. Sunak is pushing the other way and hopefully he will win the argument

Hi there. I'm from the NHS and I've got this straight jacket ready for you.

Sport should return from the 'bottom up'
From the BBC news ticker:
"Sports should return from the "bottom-up not the top-down" when the coronavirus lockdown lifts, according to a public health adviser to the World Health Organization.
Dr Brian McCloskey, former public health director for London 2012, said community sport could be the first type of sport to return.
That comes after:
The chief doctor at football's world governing body Fifa warned against restarting the interrupted 2019-20 campaign
France's top two football divisions were ended when Prime Minister Edouard Philippe banned all sporting events until September
Tokyo 2020 President Yoshiro Mori said the Games would be "scrapped" if they could not go ahead in their new dates starting in July 2021".

It's been all about the Premier League, but there are a lot of other sports people participate in golf, tennis etc. The exercise is good and shouldn't be too hard to get these going, although I can imagine the clubhouses will be closed!

Been speaking with a client this morning who supply garden centres. They're getting orders from GC's who say they are gearing up for reopening in two weeks.

https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2020/0429/1135508-restrictions-work/

An interesting piece on easing lockdown measures. Prof. McConkey mentions that "the strongest predictor of a society's health is its wealth". A wrecked economy will cost lives too.

The UK and Ireland are at similar points on the curve, although our outbreak doesn't seem to have been quite as severe as your. My own view is that any easing of the measures should be minimal for now. I don't see that 2 weeks more of the current lockdown will be crucial one way or another from an economic point fo view. However, it is essential that proper plans are in place to ease the restrictions thereafter. Testing needs to be ramped up(we're at 60,000 per week currently - on a per capita basis this would be equivalent to about 750,000 per week in the UK). A wide tracing system is also needed. I am more optimistic than many here. This whole situation will look an awful lot better in a months time(though obviously, I'm not saying that it will all be over by then either). However, even my optimism will fade if we're not geared up to keep on top of the virus once the current phase ends.

I am not sure about a housing crash, although there should be a large correction to help kids get on the ladder. While in the 'old days', there was a lot more peaks and troughs in house prices, for the last twenty years or so there has been a steady increase in prices. The govt's have intervened with many 'help' schemes in the past for buyers, but this has only helped to prop up the house prices which have never been allowed to naturally settle to their level. I suppose the one thing that might buck the trend is a steep rise in interest rates after 'enjoying' many years of low rates which have helped keep prices up as well. I can't imagine though there will be much if any rise in rates soon.

Gets your mind thinking Lionel with the numbers you mention, how on earth can we let anything like the numbers arriving at our airports resume. It's like we need to have a limit on numbers arriving, and these people dealt with and processed properly not to allow more spread.

The Telegraph's had a load of moaning landlords in its finance pages recently - the one today: "I own 25 houses and I'm losing £4K/month, woe is me". (I suspect he doesn't actually own them, rather the bank does. If he did actually own them, sell one and job's done!)

These landlords invariably hoover up the cheap, low-end houses to rent out. There are lots on Sheppey, they buy up the 2-up, 2-down terraces and either rent them out entire or split them into two miniscule flats. The end result is the £140K starter homes aren't available to people who want to get on the ladder - which isn't good.

If those landlords continue to have difficulties they'll have to sell off some stock which should, in theory, mean newcomers to the ladder should find more affordable houses on offer.

I really hope that happens Darren. They should restrict people to having 3 properties at the most as they are taking stock meant for first time buyers. I hate the words investment and property used in the same sentence. Homes should be for living in, not making easy money out of.

From an article in The Times:

"

Boris Johnson was so badly affected by coronavirus because he is “significantly” overweight, a doctor said yesterday.

Aseem Malhotra, a cardiologist, said that risk of death from the disease increased ten-fold if the patient is obese.

...

“People with obesity also seem to spread the virus for a much longer period of time and also clearly get sicker. If you notice Chris Whitty, Matt Hancock and other members of the cabinet who got the virus, [they] did not get it as badly and they are essentially pretty slim.”

...

He explained that in Britain, more than half the population is classed as obese or overweight and that could be one reason the country had been hit so hard by the virus."

In my view, the Government needs to push a healthy living strategy hard - proper diet, exercise and keeping BMI at reasonable levels. This can be pushed in schools too, with mandatory "wellness" lessons, including dietary advice and exercise.

Blimey, thought that wasn’t expected for a few months. Hope it’s ok (may be premature due to the stress of him being in intensive care). 

Gets him out of PMQ’s again too!

Yep no finger pointing on this one!

IIRC Prince Charles also contracted the virus around the same time that Boris did, and yet he seemed to be OK after spending a week in self-isolation despite being some 15 years older than the PM. Prince Charles in pretty slim though, so that could lend some support to what you say above.

Agreed in principle, even though because of age I'm deemed to be at risk. But the worst of all worlds would be to relax the rules only to have to re-impose them. That would create so much confusion that the whole idea of lockdown would be thrown into disrepute.

A very difficult balancing act

This is pretty much my thinking too. If the test-trace-isolate strategy is executed reasonably well, then together with social distancing I think we have a good chance of keeping it under control and relaxing many of the restrictions. 

They could ban fast food ads for a start. They seem to be on every bus stand, McDonalds or KFC mostly.

Takeaways and chips shops are everywhere too and so cheap. Why would you pay £3 for a healthy wrap from Pret when you can get chicken and chips and a coke for the same price?

Twenty years? Have you forgotten the financial crash a decade ago?

No I haven't. It was such a small correction that prices recovered pretty quickly.

There are landlords and landlords. From the other side, my brother-in-law and wife quite properly planned to depend on the rent from a property they own for their pension. Granted it's a commercial property, but the principle is the same. Their tenant has now informed them that he will be taking a 3-month rent holiday, which knocks out three-quarters of their income.

Again, a friend in Chichester has been providing student houses for some 20 years - and not exploitatively, given that the students are happy to renew their leases every year. The situation again removes a similar proportion of his income as almost all the students have gone home with no immediate prospect of return. 

In this case the students have got to live somewhere, so he's providing a necessary service. I think, at least for the Chichester area, you should be directing your fire at the property developers who are hooked on providing 4-bedroom houses with nice gardens, with prices way out of reach of new entrants to the property market,

It seems sycophant Peston has forgotten he already has about 6 or 7 kids whom he never sees

Having babies change us. Near-death experiences change us. @BorisJohnson has the full set. So will he become a very different PM from the one the UK voted for in December?

— Robert Peston (@Peston) April 29, 2020

UK wide, not quite.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/global-financial-crisis-lehman-brothers-property-house-prices-uk-housing-market-a8538176.html

"The average UK property’s value plunged by 20 per cent over 16 months, while transaction levels slumped from 1.65 million in the decade up to the crisis to 730,000 in the year to June 2009. It took six years for prices to return to pre-crash levels"

EXCLUSIVE: Scientists at @dstlmod will test whether a product found in insect repellent can also kill the strain of #coronavirus that causes #COVID19. Citriodiol is known to destroy certain types of coronavirus. It’s already being issued to some troops
👇https://t.co/Lk8QEjzSB3

— Deborah Haynes (@haynesdeborah) April 29, 2020

Not to mention the ones who never made full term

It will be a worrying time for the care home sector, in terms of economic viability. 

Once they were a bit of a cash cow for investors. There was a private home sector catering chiefly for mostly comfortable-off pensioners, alongside a massive public sector provision.

From the early 90s onwards, there was a programme of this public provision being privatised as councils were pressured (by restrictive central funding) into outsourcing. It started slowly, but built quickly in the 00s. By 2010, a clear majority were in private hands.

By 2019, only 3% of care home beds were provided by LAs, with the private sector providing 84% (the remainder by the voluntary sector).

The reasons were simple. Local authority homes employed permanent staff on nationally-agreed pay scales, with the same T&Cs and pension and holidays and sick leave, etc as other local authority staff. It was a decently-paid and secure vocation for those working there.

By outsourcing, the private providers would have freedom to decide their own pay rates and T&Cs. The result has been a downward shift in pay and T&Cs, the proliferation of temporary contracts and agency workers, and the steady increase of foreign workers.

Local authorities would assess the finances of those entering care homes and pay for all or part of the care when financial criteria were met. The rates paid to care homes were set. For those with too great an income or assets, they had to pay full whack to the provider. 

Big profits were made by the sector, and the involvement of private equity (around 15-20% of beds are with PE-owned providers) helped drive this.

But problems started post-2010 when local authority budgets began to be slashed by central government. Councils drew in the purse strings and found ways to reduce what they paid private providers.

Some gave gone bust, including a few big players, and the residents have had to endure declining levels of care quality as staff numbers were cut and staff turnover led to under-experience and demotivated carers.

Brexit was already going to be a cliff edge, losing a high proportion of staff as they are unwanted, dirty foreigners.

But the impact on care home residents of this coronavirus pandemic - and the scandal is still emerging; when the smoke eventually clears, there's going to be serious implications and allegations - is going to hit private sector providers in two ways. Firstly, they are losing 'existing customers' as they are dying by the thousand. Secondly, there's going to be a reticence to go into these homes in case there's further 'waves' that kill more thousands (whilst the government seems to shrug its shoulders as they build PR stunt temporary hospitals).

I can a whole new approach being needed for how we care for our elderly.