Yes Paul and last part very tricky to answer as someone who is  between both young and old thing is things very different today. A different world I’ve seen that, for myself most young humans just can’t wait for anything and want it yesterday and I do understand that point  what I have not seen is the suffering of the old like my father in WW2 and what they did for us all as I think about that quite a bit So I really can’t answer what’s fair or not as I can see both sides

 

Turned to the dark side this afternoon and went for a short bike ride... lovely day here.

My impression is that the restrictions are still mainly holding although their are definitely cases of people interpreting things a bit casually. Lots of people out walking and generally being pretty good. Very few (if any) groups of more than 5 people. I would say traffic still around 50% of usual levels.

Slight signs of the Ontario consensus cracking

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/covid-19-coronavirus-update-may-12-1.5565770

As I suspected, Ford wants to give people something to look forward to before the Victoria Day weekend and is preparing to announce something on Thursday, although the medics seem less sure. Luckily(!) this has been an atrocious spring weather wise and even the coming weekend looks cool and wet so the temptation for mass barbecues and so on may be lower.

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What is the truth then?

One hope is that the economic damage itself will act as a natural limiter on social interaction and keep R down. That's the ideal scenario, where R is held down without direct intervention.

 

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Big news breaking tonight. PHE have approved an antibodies test

 

 

 

BREAKING: A coronavirus antibody test kit has been approved by Public Health England (PHE)

Via @Telegraph pic.twitter.com/0hSSNjq7l0

— Politics For All (@PoliticsForAlI) May 13, 2020

A really interesting documentary on Channel 4 right now about the contact tracing in South Korea.

Absolutely fascinating the measures they are taking, including looking at CCTV in restaurants and credit card transactions. Very few significant lockdown measures. 

I can’t see the UK ever following a model like that, but it clearly works. 

Worth a watch on 4OD. 

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​

 Exclusive: First coronavirus antibody test given approval by Public Health England

Quote

 

One hundred per cent ccuracy of test developed by Swiss firm Roche confirmed by experts at PHE's Porton Down facility on May 7. A coronavirus antibody test kit has been approved by Public Health England (PHE), The Telegraph has learned, in a breakthrough that could be key to easing the UK's lockdown restrictions. The Telegraph understands that the Department of Health is in negotiations with the Swiss healthcare company Roche to buy millions of the kits.

The accuracy of the test was given approval by experts at PHE’s Porton Down facility last week.  On Wednesday night, Roche said it stood ready to provide hundreds of thousands of laboratory-based tests to the NHS each week. A Government source said: "We want to get our hands on as many of these as possible." The development of an accurate antibody test has long been seen as key to helping Britain get back to work, with Boris Johnson having previously described such tests as "game-changing"....

 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/13/exclusive-first-coronavirus-antibody-test-given-approval-public/

​

Interesting piece in UnHerd here:

https://unherd.com/2020/05/britain-might-end-up-following-the-swedes-lead/

I was surprised by these opinion poll outcomes:

"...

As for the voters, polls show that the British public has fully signed up to lockdown life. A survey released at the weekend showed that 73% of Brits think protecting lives should take precedence over the economy, compared to just 49% of Germans and 44% of Swedes. Polling since Sunday‘s announcement suggests that voters are split almost exactly evenly on whether or not even those tiny relaxations were too much, too soon. On that evidence, it looks like the Prime Minister went about as far as he could go.

..."

I am with those who now think the economy should be our primary concern.

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https://twitter.com/_MiguelHernan/status/1260625031119409156

Not very encouraging news from Spain's antibody tests. Only 5% of the population estimated to have antibodies. 11% in Madrid.

Click for full size.

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Doesn’t this imply a very high death rate? 

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Something around 1.1 to 1.2% I think at an estimate (from those infected).

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30,000 deaths would suggest a mortality rate of 1.28%. 

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Not good at all.

In other news, anyone interested in the contact tracing challenge ahead should watch this. 

Seen 'The Country That Beat the Virus'? Watch it here on All 4:

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-country-that-beat-the-virus?cntsrc=social_share_ios_the_country_that_beat_the_virus

 

It will be difficult and not very British, but it could be our only hope.

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Interesting comments from Ryan at the WHO:

Ryan said there was lots of "magical thinking" surrounding countries opening back up. He added that there was a "long, long way to go" on the path to returning to normal.

 
 

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A return to austerity after this is over? Not necessarily according to the Bank of England.

https://www.itv.com/news/2020-05-13/governor-of-bank-of-england-andrew-bailey-robert-peston/

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Not sure if mentioned but a study in France suggests the most likely figure for the number of people in France who have been infected is 4.4% (start of the paragraph below shows it is not based on antibody data)

'France has been heavily affected by the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic and went into lockdown on the 17 March 2020. Using models applied to hospital and death data, we estimate the impact of the lockdown and current population immunity. We find 3.6% of infected individuals are hospitalized and 0.7% die, ranging from 0.001% in those <20 years of age (ya) to 10.1% in those >80ya. Across all ages, men are more likely to be hospitalized, enter intensive care, and die than women. The lockdown reduced the reproductive number from 2.90 to 0.67 (77% reduction). By 11 May 2020, when interventions are scheduled to be eased, we project 2.8 million (range: 1.8–4.7) people, or 4.4% (range: 2.8–7.2) of the population, will have been infected. Population immunity appears insufficient to avoid a second wave if all control measures are released at the end of the lockdown.'

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/05/12/science.abc3517

This, plus similar findings from Spain, suggests that there really has not been huge asymptomatic infection. It is bad news. It makes it clear that herd immunity is a catastrophic approach. SK, NZ are the countries to emulate.

Meanwhile, we are governed by idiots with blood on their hands. I am very fearful for where we are heading.

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It's astonishingly difficult to detect any inflexion in the case graph curves when lockdown was introduced - for any country.
That seems to suggest gradual easing is unlikely to make much difference either.

Well actually it suggests the virus is doing a normal bell curve but the released figures are being constantly manipulated for political reasons to justify the lockdown and scare people into not just supporting it but clamouring for it to remain.

Too many things don't stack up like why the virus mainly attacks power centres in the west, like the heart of the EU, the UK and specifically New York - but leaves other parts of the world with similar population density and haphazard health services largely untouched.

All that's different is the way things are being monitored and deaths assigned to cv-19 whether that was tested and proven as the cause or not.
By the end of the year it will be clear enough that there has been a disastrous if not deliberate over reaction.
A totally unnecessary mortal wound caused by media induced mass hysteria.

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We need to launch an effective mass testing and contract tracing strategy fast. One that is bold, and one that works.

The silence is deafening in relation to this. 

Hopefully the snippets we are hearing actually have substance and I am just being impatient. I’m worried this is another disaster waiting to happen. 

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That's just total nonsense from start to finish. Every line.

Asian countries have avoided it because they took the right measures.

Meanwhile, Ecuador, Brazil, and Mexico are in deep trouble.

The idea that this is about power centres in the west? Did you see this tonight?

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

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Not seen that many vox-pops during the last few months but thought this chap was quite funny

 

Remember Owen Filer, the 100-year-old that no-one could quite believe?@robosborneitv caught back up with Owen in the midst of this global pandemic to reflect on his life - and hear his thoughts about this time we are all living through https://t.co/sVkQ7NIw2K pic.twitter.com/6z1vquKhIh

— ITV Wales News (@ITVWales) May 12, 2020

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/may/13/the-country-that-beat-the-virus-review-breathtaking-damning-and-humiliating

 

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