Yes my mistake

Funny how China aren't there - If any country has fudged the figures THEY HAVE 

Apparantely the UK is ahead of Italy when it comes to releasing the full death stats. UK total deaths represents mortality where COVID was involved up until Mid April. Italy has only covered March. There are suggestions by ONS, and yes they will obviously blow their own horn, that we are ahead of other European countries when it comes to the stats.

I'd also add we are the most densley populated 'large' country in Europe so a high death toll is not that suprising.

While mistakes have been made its far too early to claim we are the worst in Europe. In particular I find it hard to understand how we could be given that our health service has not been overwhelmed as it has been across Europe (particularly Lombardy).

My sister was telling me that the lockdown in Greece has actually resulted in fewer deaths than normal, probably because of the lack of accidents and because they didn't cancel hospital operations.

Will the Sunday briefing give details of how the lockdown will be reduced + how long the current lockdown will go on for until the next review or will it just be the former?

Sunday will be an address to the nation from Boris. I suspect we'll get a proper timetable.

Ikea must have an idea given all stores are reopening in just 12-days time

They suddenly reported 50% extra deaths to what they had 2-3 weeks back. The locals said there were a lot more than that! Seems to be certain regimes are not very open for one reason or another. Come to think of it, we revised our death figure also! I am not getting too hung up about stats as they seem to be under constant revision. Russia is an exception though, 'thoroughly understated'.

Per capita is a step forward but without numbers tested being factored in they are still pretty meaningless. In the end I think the relative increase in excess deaths in percent will be the best comparison between Countries although I am fairly certain we will be near the top of that league as well :-(

Don't know whether this has been posted previously, but evidence of virus mutation and its effects here:

https://metro.co.uk/2020/05/06/europe-hit-coronavirus-mutation-spread-much-quickly-12660321/

Yes, it's a joke. Sad that we have the three most powerful Nations in the World being run by the three most subversive and corrupt governments in the world at the same time. How's your luck!

There is a trend there!

Their logic and judgement was fine scientifically. They knew they wouldn't increase the transmission by their actions. Their moral judgement and perceptive judgement was hopeless. He helped write the rules and they were kept simple because they knew that clear messages work better then having acceptable get out clauses. To not understand that you have to accept them in the same way as everybody else is pretty dumb. People who are in love or been drinking shouldn't be allowed to make big decisions!

I would bloody kiss him if he says we can go fishing again as from Monday ! 

You can add Russia and soon Belarus to that list.

And the answer is ....... Populist Governments !

I've ranted quite alot about journalists over the last few weeks with poor quality, shock style gotcha content. However I want to recommend this from Sky news.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNiAUPREkl8

This is an excellent analysis of the UK death toll for COVID 19. This is the sort of thing that I would like to see much more of. Dispassionate, informative yet also easy to understand analysis.

Please watch this video, explains why the UK may have an inflated death toll relative to other European countries.

Seems various groups are 'accountable' to others. Who is scrutinising the media, or can they just publish what they jolly well like!

I'm a believer in the free press and self regulation. In other words if someone says something stupid I will call them out on it.

The problem is that tech company monopolies mean independent journalism has been stifiled in the digital age.

If I was going to rectify the situation I would not increase regulation on the media but I would break up tech firms like Twitter, Google, Facebook e.c.t. who, control the market, and use deboosting algorithms to control content (like publishers).

Ludicrous that you can't now but as I said in another thread I think they wanted clear messages with no exceptions irrespective of the logic. If they had put in exclusion rules they would have been bent. Who reads the small print?

Or look at it this way. Those fish should be bloody hungry not having truck loads of bait put into lakes. You will be pulling them out by the skip load. When does the fishing season end by the way!

I found it poor and riddled with confirmational bias. First of all dividing by the population is stating "the bleedin'" obvious, as if we hadn't thought of that. Then the X scale lines were drawn with perspective and not horizontally. This made the bar graph relatively lower towards the left. A well known trick to exaggerate an element of a data set  The UK bar looks like half of Belgium when it fact it is 60%. He seemed to have an agenda using words like "some people are fixated on us having a higher death rate than Italy" I agree that excess deaths is a good measure but again until all the data is in the picture will not be clear.

The current coarse fishing close season on rivers, some canals and some stillwaters starts on 15 March and finishes on 15 June. There’s no close season on most canals and most stillwaters.

........ at the moment !

REF: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/coarse-fishing-close-season-on-english-rivers

https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1257825352660877313

Trevor Bedford with a measured look at this. Seems to be a case of 'we're not sure but needs monitoring'. Not more deadly btw but more transmissible.

Pleased to see the lockdown could be eased on Monday.

But why not start the conversation today? People and businesses need time to prepare.

The Government needs to start communicating openly with the people, not just through anonymous briefings to the press.

— Professor Karol Sikora (@ProfKarolSikora) May 6, 2020