My Uncle from Bracknell was rushed into hospital this evening with a virus , he has a very high temperature , certainly doesn't sound good 

Oh I’m very sorry to hear that and send you my best wishes.

The virus being more dangerous for the elderly is hardly breaking news, we knew this in January. 

The lockdown was and is needed to prevent the young giving it to the elderly.

Fingers crossed for him mate. 

I keep wondering about this.  On balance I am a supporter of lockdown but I have about a billion questions on it and I'd like to know if it's as clear cut as sometimes made out.

For example, I've wondered if lockdown is helping more deadly mutations. As I understand it, usually what happens in a viral pandemic is that ill people stay at home and mildly sick people go about their lives and infect others, favouring the milder strain. (In 1918 this didn't happen, as very ill soldiers were shipped out to field hospitals, spreading the disease). Lockdown presumably also restricts this effect. Now this is probably a "noob" question that has been factored in by scientists, but it would be nice to know the answer.

What I'd really like to see is a scientifically literate journalist sit down with someone like Chris Whitty and spend a couple of hours calmly going through the modelling, the scenarios, the different approaches, the confidence levels and so on to get an understanding of how the decisions are made. If this has happened, I've missed it. I think I've mentioned before that I have tried to watch some of the press conferences but there are only so many household objects I can throw at the TV

Thank you - Mum is in bits obviously as is my Auntie who is stuck at home.

Appreciate the comments , Uncle Nev was very fit , ran 5 miles a day , didn't smoke or drink - daughter is in bits too as Neville is her God Father 

Lets hope for good news soon

The R level at 0.5 - 0.9 - Lets take the worse case , is anyone surprised that its still as high as 0.9 ? I have no idea about these things but its perilously close to getting over 1 .

Brave to rush into anything at the moment , IMO  

There's a note at the bottom of the chart saying that they're using the previous day's value from NI due to how or when the data is collated. Seems fair enough to me.

UK data

• Number of tests - 86,583


• People tested - 65,092


• Positive - 5,614


• All settings deaths - 539

The confirmed rate for positive tests has fallen to 8.62%

I thought the key driver for lockdown was preventing health services from being overwhelmed? Therefore, even if lockdown theoretically results in more deaths because it slows the advancement of weaker strains perhaps the models suggest the effect would be overridden by the increased stress on health systems?

New Scientist could possibly grab Whitty or Van-Tam and produce a more in-depth article. It would be interesting.

It all comes back to the late slow and inadequate response in January to mid March which made everything very difficult and more acute than need be, and has led to this high sustained level of cases.  Still over 500 deaths per day for God's sake! Incompetent morons.

The Imperial model the govt has been basing its policy on looks to be seriously problematic:

https://lockdownsceptics.org/code-review-of-fergusons-model/

Have a read of this.

Imperial should be ashamed they have not been honest about this.

I presume that is a reputable source? 😃    

Hope he gets better soon. Where could he have caught it from and how old is he?

Yes, he seriously spends his time reading that sort of drivel.

“My identity. Sue Denim isn’t a real person (read it out). I’ve chosen to remain anonymous partly because of the intense fighting that surrounds lockdown, but there’s also a deeper reason. This situation has come about due to rampant credentialism and I’m tired of it.”

In other words, it’s a load of old tosh and ‘Sue’ doesn’t like ‘credentialism’ because ‘she’ has no credentials!

🤣🤣🤣

We must remember that Q is currently in his manic phase and is therefore the world expert on any subject you care to mention.

God knows , no away from the house or Garden , I have raised the question about the front lawn as its open plan and a path runs in front of it , did he chat with the distance ?

He is 82 but a very good 82 , looks a lot younger , ran each day , not a smoker or a drinker , looks very fit .

You can see some of the threads on GitHub. This is the edinburgh team disputing the differing result come from different random seeds.

https://github.com/mrc-ide/covid-sim/issues/116

If he hasn't left the house, then someone else must have brought it in unknowingly on food items, newspapers, mail, their clothing? Who knows

Is this what ConservativeHome.com is now calling itself?

Also Ulric back when you were laughing at the idea that this was anything other than the flu I was suggesting that this should be taken seriously and social distancing should be implemented. Back then you lot were also critisizing me for not posting enough balance (despite the fact I did post optimistic sources at the time). The fact this website was made by a lockdown skeptic does nothing to change my view that the lockdown should be extended. However, unlike you, and your fellow FBPE conspiracy theoriests I read material from both sides of the argument.