Indeed , (and I didn’t even mention poles ). Sorry I will stop now.

Yes the slight rise today is from care homes and hospitals, we won't see the effect of the relaxation of lockdown for a couple of weeks at least. And what happens with that will be crucial. It almost seems that there's a feeling that it's all over but unless I'm missing something if only 5 -10% of the country have had the virus what is going to stop it spreading through the other 90+% when we all return to work?

I appreciate continuing with social distancing will have an effect but when you see images of people crowded onto tubes and buses I do wonder how we are going to stop a rise in cases?

I also think that if schools are going back we need a much more coherent plan of how it is going to work, there are just so many unknown factors about the virus. 

More racket in the countryside then. What is it about humans and not liking quiet?

Matt Hancock spending a lot of time at the briefing explaining what a brilliant job the Government has done in Care Homes. 2/3 not infected at all. How early they tackled the problem as they knew back in February that they were the most vulnerable, how quickly they got the testing and the protective equipment. Fantastic we did so well. No need to apology for any mistakes like they did in Sweden.

You've gone off the idea of herd immunity then? People want to be treated like adults (?) but a fair % of us behave like children. I mean, wtf is the problem with wearing a mask in public - it clearly (if we all do it) reduces spread. But, nope, for a lot of us 'adults' its all too difficult to do or an infringement of our rights. Idiots!

I bet the damned Spikers are against masks too

Daily slides

R number

Mobility with survey

Testing and new cases

Hospital admissions

People in hospital

All settings deaths with rolling 7-day average

​​​​​​​

.... spin, spin. Jennie Harries " graph shows hospital admissions continuing on a downward trend". When the last three points on the graph she was talking about were up !

Fair enough and thanks for explaining.

My wife is a primary school teacher so I get to see her side of things on that rather than just reading the media rubbish - before they closed the schools there was a comment/view (government or media, can't remember which) that school teachers weren't at risk of the disease as children had next to no risk of dying, which was 'baffling' to say the least.

My view on lockdown is that whilst I'm okay with saying to those at little or no risk you can start to get back to closer to normal, albeit still with social distancing, it's extremely important that those with a higher risk are protected (balancing their rights with the need to shield them, which I know won't be easy). I think one of the issues with this disease is the one you're highlighting and that's people's acceptance of their personal risk and whether it's okay society wise to say 'go back to work' and accept some of them will probably die or become seriously ill. Personally I'm fairly blasé about my dying risk (43, scrawny cycling build, no health problems I know about) but even then I don't like the thought of catching it and getting it bad enough to have complications or lasting ill-health. I know my risk of dying is low enough not to bother me but no idea of my risk of getting lasting health issues.

I think my view that people are dying (and will do) because of lockdown is correct but to what extent I've no idea and I do get the view that given the uncertainties it's better at this stage to lockdown because we know that will save lives (again assuming a vaccine and that the disease will stick around and re-occur rather than fading out - no idea on this though given MERS and SARS were big scares but aren't still flaring up noticeably?). I think the convoluted nature of the incidental deaths thing (cheers Fairweather!) is that if you accept my view they're being caused you still need to look at how many versus how many incidental deaths are being saved - some are exercising more, some not, some are drinking more, some not, some people will be really struggling with the isolation etc. but some will find the escape from daily commute and the fact they can get out for a walk more, spend more time in the garden etc to be making them less stressed and anxious. With lower traffic no only will there have been less pollution deaths but also less RTAs and deaths from them.

I guess in 5-10 years time when this is hopefully a distant memory the evidence will be clearer on the pros/cons of the approach we and others have taken and it can used to better inform our response for the next epidemic.

As a final aside and FWIW whilst I have reservations about how we locked down and its negative impacts, given we did I'd have said easing when we did was probably not the right call and we should have been more cautious and clearly done some better planning ahead of any easing. I'd have waited 2-3 weeks to make sure the death and infection fall was sustained and (liberal views aside) enforced the lockdown more rigorously at that point to make sure the pain of the extension was balanced by the maximum gains. 

(I do feel like I contradict or second guess myself a lot on this subject, probably just as well I'm not making decisions)

..... well they are petrified of saying anything that undermines the government mantra. The Medical Director, NHS, has just described some utopian NHS system where we can just call on our multi disciplinary GP's who are at our beck and call. So why it took a week to get a useless doctor out to my 90 year old neighbour before the crisis I don't know. Still, he's dead now so no worries.

Well, tell that to others, too.

Your interpretation, the media's interpretation maybe different, but you're not an expert.

 Unfortunately I agree with this. My wife has a little experience of one of the university hospitals in London and she tells me it is fantastic. However, get out of town and you will see some utter horror shows. Scarborough hospital is high on the list. Even York hospital looked like a scene from Threads when I visited my auntie in January. 

A 9% drop in one day? Northern Ireland data is still a day behind so i think it is a 9% drop if you include Northern Ireland data for yesterday but not today. General trend is down though.

'Tests for all' in UK care homes by early June:-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52671694

Yup, we have to, if only the protect the idiots and those (so of whom are dying protecting both unfortunates and idiots) who will care for them in hospital.

The next wave of illness will (and its rough justice) probably be more 'the at risk who are idiots' dominated - and there can't be that many of them because, on a more positive note, plenty of those at risk I know are keeping well out of it all.

I didn't see today's briefing. However, IMO they lost credibility when after 7 weeks they suddenly decided the international comparison slide was not valid any longer. Odd that. 

From New Scientist...

UK’s estimated coronavirus infection rate is now between 0.7 and 1

The UK’s coronavirus R value – the estimated number of people each person infects – is now between 0.7 and 1, according to the government’s scientific advisory group for emergencies (SAGE). Five days ago, UK prime minister Boris Johnson said R was between 0.5 and 0.9. The government’s science advisors say the increase is not a reflection of coronavirus restrictions being eased in England this week, but rather due to a lag in the data that is used to model the R value. We won’t know how easing restrictions has impacted the current R value for another three weeks.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2237475-covid-19-news-uk-infection-rate-has-risen-in-past-week/