I don't have the stats (or more importantly an understanding of the stats) to know one way or another but I'm not sure why I wouldn't take the views of a Professor of virology seriously? I'm certain he has a degree of expertise that is greater than either yours or mine. So as I say, I'll keep an open mind.

UK "slow response" makes top item on CBC this morning https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/uk-coronavirus-1.5554837

Some possible signs of good news in Ontario and a small amount of re-opening https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/covid-19-coronavirus-ontario-may-4-update-1.5554273 . A huge proportion of cases have been in care homes.

The weather was good this weekend (22c), traffic levels getting closer to normal IMO. It's a like an unofficial gradual lockdown release - almost as if there is a tacit acceptance of travel as long as people keep to social distancing and avoid gatherings. Might be short lived though - In standard  Canadian spring tradition we have snow forecast for Friday which is going to look odd falling on people's pools that were in use a couple of days ago!

I've ordered a private antibody (ELISA-based IgG) test. It'll be coming tomorrow or Thursday, but because of the need to return the blood sample quickly, I probabbly won't be taking the test until Monday.

I'll be interested, then, to see if the headteacher at work's thoughts are correct (she remains utterly convinced I had covid-19 in late March).

No, you shouldn't take his opinion seriously when the facts prove him wrong. The fact that his opinion is also an outlier compared to other virologists is another red flag. This is not being open minded. 

Deaths by region to 5pm yesterday in England

• East Of England - 2,504


• London - 5,231


• Midlands - 4,266


• North East And Yorkshire - 3,018


• North West - 3,230


• South East - 2,513


• South West - 988

Nonsense. The facts vary massively from place to place and could be dependent on a whole host of factors. Professor Streek has the IFR at 0.36 although he thinks it may be closer to 0.24 - 0.26%. 

He's not alone with that assessment and as he is a professor of virology at the university of Bonn I think it's absurd to blithely dismiss his opinions.

If boyfriend had it and she had classic symptoms too from a couple of days later it's hard to believe otherwise unless his positive test was wrong instead - equally likely 

At this rate property developers will soon be offering to buy Gatwick for a fiver.

Where are you buying from?I 've got nothing better to spend my money on the moment and the Mrs still thinks we may have had it.

With the north terminal there being closed, makes you wonder if and when that would reopen with other airlines reducing their flights as well.

Just thinking about a guy I know we contact to minibus us to airports and functions such as weddings. No business for them at the moment and god knows how many taxi drivers there are round the country with no business.

I ordered it from here:

https://bluehorizonbloodtests.co.uk/

They don't specify exactly which test it is, other than it's one of the CE-marked ones (which means it's one of Abbott or Roche, last time I checked).

It's expensive, but on the other hand I've missed four trips to the wolf centre... which together would cost a lot more than that test!

I agree completely with everything you say Joe. The death toll in this country is truly dreadful.

Back I early-mid March around the time the crisis began to develop in this country, I can clearly recall at least one member here in one of the early coronavirus threads predicting that the UK would end up with a similar number of deaths from Covid-19 as Italy by the time the outbreak reached its peak here. Sadly, it seems that their words have been borne out.

As well as NZ, it seems that Germany has generally done a better job of controlling the spread of the disease and keeping the number of deaths to a rather lower level than the UK has seen and they have at least as big a population as the UK does. For me, the fact that both Germany and NZ acted much quicker in terms of taking the necessary steps to protect their people from the worst of the virus as much as they could is likely a major factor in why their respective fatality tolls have been so much lower than that of the UK.

 The price of £99 seems reasonable for a reputable antibody test. I suspect the only problem they will have is keeping up with demand.

"Test at least 21 days post exposure to COVID-19/onset of symptoms."

It's actually the opposite - a minimum of three weeks.

As antibodies peak after 2 weeks, it makes sense - the more antibodies, the better the accuracy will be.

I suspect this is an example of a correlation being viewed as a cause, Gandalf, when it is more complex than that.

On a happier note - 3 swifts overhead here today!

Roger

Daily slides

Transport

Daily tests

New cases

Estimated hospital admissions in England

People in hospital

Critical care beds

Deaths with rolling 7-day average

I don't think you even read what I wrote. I am not talking about the CFR, I am saying it's a fact that 0.22% of the total NYC population has died so far. Even if 100% of New Yorkers had been infected, that would give a CFR of 0.22% so far. 

The Swedish professor might have meant a CFR of 0.1% in Sweden (still unknown and unproven), but what I am saying is that the facts are showing that other countries and health care systems will have much higher mortality rates, so he should make that distinction when he makes those wild claims.

Is this so difficult to understand? Can't you see that 1 in 440 New York residents have died so far? 

Italy

• 1,075 new cases 


• 236 deaths 

Excluding Northern Ireland AGAIN

Regional data for new cases today in England

The 7 English regions 

• London +252 (1.0%) 25,240


• Midlands +295 (1.4%) 21,226


• North West +340 (1.6%) 20,768


• North East and Yorkshire +396 (2.0%) 19,629


• South East +243 (1.4%) 17,999


• East of England +162 (1.4%) 11,239


• South West +86 (1.3%) 6,657

The 10 local areas with the highest cases

1. Kent +63 (1.8%) 3,544


2. Lancashire +42 (1.4%) 2,962


3. Birmingham +26 (0.9%) 2,954


4. Hampshire +28 (1.0%) 2,915


5. Essex +35 (1.3%) 2,699


6. Surrey +21 (0.8%) 2,647


7. Hertfordshire +32 (1.3%) 2,411


8. Sheffield +28 (1.2%) 2,248


9. Cumbria +19 (0.9%) 2,007


10. Staffordshire +21 (1.1%) 1,843

The 10 local areas with the lowest cases

1. Rutland +1 (4.5%) 22


2. North East Lincolnshire +1 (0.7%) 137


3. Isle of Wight +2 (1.4%) 145


4. Torbay +1 (0.5%) 209


5. Hartlepool +9 (4.3%) 210


6. Bath and North East Somerset +2 (0.9%) 217


7. Bracknell Forest +4 (1.8%) 222


8. North Somerset +1 (0.4%) 257


9. Calderdale +4 (1.5%) 259


10. Windsor and Maidenhead +2 (0.8%) 261

Regarding the effectiveness of the lockdown, a new study claims to show that the lockdown in Italy has worked well with the R values below 1 everywhere now. They estimate the percentage of the population in Lombardy that got infected at 10-17% and their modelling shows that without a test-trace-isolate strategy, a release of the lockdown will result in a second surge of infections and deaths.

Their estimated mortality rates are 1-1.4%.