I expect the lack of public toilets will put some sort of limit on how far people travel when out and about come Whitsun next week.

I do understand where you are coming from. However, my attitude is that you defend what you have - we have seen from history what happens to those who don't manage or are unwilling to defend their turf.

In the next 30 years, the population of Africa and the middle east is forecast to rise by about 550 million - I would rather they mostly stayed there.

Chicken & egg thing innit?

The theory I've read into was that when people first began colonising more northern latitudes, they were very likely still predominantly black, with lighter skin an occasional mutation.

The reduced sunlight strength led to a higher incidence of rickets in people with darker skin who were less able to absorb sunlight leading to vit D deficiency. A man with rickets was generally less proficient at running and hunting, whilst those with lighter skin mutations were less affected and became more sought-after mates for women (better providers). With women, rickets can lead to deformities of the pelvic girdle leading to both increased miscarriage chance and birth difficulties. This both lowers the chance of a darker-skinned women successfully reproducing, whilst also in time making them less attractive mates.

So we had both men and women with the lighter skin mutation being more attractive mates, and a higher chance of them being born successfully. Over generations, the lighter-skin gene became the predominant one through natural selection.

Of course, this is just a theory (although I first heard of from Dr Alice Roberts, and she is never wrong ) and there will obviously be more contributing factors - like the lactose breaking-down gene you mention - but it makes logical sense to me as an explanation.

When we went out on Saturday we all needed a wee soon after we arrived. The fallback was to go to a supermarket but we tried a bank of automated-lock (20p) toilets and they were thankfully open.

We have never had 'open borders' for as long as you or I have been alive, so stop being so hysterical.

When in the EU, there was free movement of EU citizens, but we always had control over immigration from non-EU countries. And yet immigration from non-EU countries was perennially higher than immigration from EU countries.

Makes you wonder who's duping who WRT immigration.

Well, the new system being legislated for by the government will make it much more transparent about who is coming here legally under the rules. Then there is still the whole crazy situation about illegals and the broken asylum system to consider however.

When it came to EU FoM - my main gripes were that it led to wage depression in certain areas and that under FoM we were obliged to pay universal benefits to EU claimants.

There is no point trying debate him. Its like trying to argue with someone in a brainwashed cult. 

Mind you, Anosmia is a common feature of Common Cold, too. Had it in February this year.

This is what most experts now agree, though European racists struggle to believe they started out as black. Dr Janina Ramirez also did a recent BBC4 series about this and archaeologists found an ancient site in Germany with artefacts etc, and the tribe was dark skinned

OT, but sadly BBC4 is being shut down later this year

Pots and kettles come to mind.

Of course you do, and they will mostly stay there

If your wife had stayed where she was in the Caribbean, your children would never have been born

I'm not like you. I admit when I have got things wrong. I was wrong about Brexit, Corbyn and lockdown

Except that she came to the UK perfectly legally under the rules at the time. I am not against immigration, it just needs to be properly regulated and controlled under the rules and must be allowed according to the benefit to the settled population.

<<< spits drink over monitor >>>

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Hospitals in Brazil's São Paulo 'near collapse'

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The mayor of Brazil's largest city, São Paulo, has said its health system could collapse as demand grows for emergency beds to deal with coronavirus cases. Bruno Covas said the city's public hospitals had reached 90% capacity and could run out of space in two weeks. He accused those who flouted lockdown rules of playing "Russian roulette" with people's lives.

São Paulo is one of the country's worst-hit regions, with almost 3,000 deaths so far. Brazil's far-right president Jair Bolsonaro has been strongly criticised both at home and abroad for his handling of the country's escalating coronavirus crisis.

On Saturday, Brazil overtook Spain and Italy to become the country with the fourth-largest number of infections. The health ministry reported 7,938 new cases in the past 24 hours, taking the total above 241,000. Only the US, Russia and the UK have higher numbers. The death toll in Brazil over 24 hours was 485, meaning that the total number of deaths is 16,118 - the world's sixth-highest figure.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-52701524

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European countries set to further relax restrictions

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Italy and Spain are among a number of European countries that are further easing their coronavirus lockdown restrictions from Monday. Most businesses in Italy, including bars and hairdressers, will be free to reopen after more than two months of nationwide lockdown measures. Spain meanwhile has slightly eased restrictions on some of its least affected islands.

The measures follow consistent drops in the number of daily recorded deaths. On Sunday, Italy recorded the fewest daily deaths since it entered lockdown in March. It said 145 people had died with the virus in the previous 24 hours. This marked a significant drop from its highest daily death toll, which was more than 900 on 27 March.

Restaurants, bars, cafes, hairdressers and shops will be allowed to reopen in Italy, providing social distancing is enforced. Catholic churches are preparing for the resumption of Mass, but there will be strict social distancing and worshippers must wear face masks. Other faiths will also be allowed to hold religious services.

In Spain, some areas are also seeing restrictions ease.

The country has a four-phase system for reopening, which authorities are applying at different speeds in different regions. Most of Spain moved into phase one last week. Up to 10 people are allowed to meet together, provided they wear masks and socially distance, while bars and restaurants can open outdoor seating at half capacity. Cinemas, museums and theatres are also opening at reduced capacity.

Some Spanish islands that have not been badly affected by the outbreak moved into phase two on Monday - allowing shopping malls to reopen and gatherings of up to 15 people. Barcelona, Madrid and parts of the north-west however remain in phase 0. Most restrictions will remain in place, but some small shops will be allowed to reopen on Monday and funerals can be held for groups of up to 10 inside and 15 outside. This has been dubbed "phase 0.5" - an intermediate step in these regions.

Elsewhere in Europe:

 

• Belgium is to begin reopening primary and secondary schools under strict conditions on Monday, with museums and zoos also opening their doors - albeit only to those who book online, to limit numbers


• The famous Acropolis reopened in Greece, and secondary school pupils are returning to class


• Restaurants, cafes and pastry shops restart business at reduced capacity in Portugal


• Poland's beauty salons and hairdressers reopen, as well as restaurants and cafes

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52701621

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I would rather we educated people to control population growth and got rid of bigoted governments like the USA and other regimes whose borders (or expanding versions) are based on religious and other dogma.

No way?!! Is that true?? It is pretty much my go to channel.

 https://www.theweatheroutlook.com/twocommunity/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1201227#post1201227

What I need to do now is find where I referenced the information from! 

Unfortunately nowadays it just seems full of stuff that was shown on BBC2 several years ago. 

I am really not, provided it is always properly controlled and done in the interests of the settled people of this country.

I believe this to be very, very important and significant and I suggest it is worth people having a look:-

https://covid.joinzoe.com/data#levels-over-time

It is based on 3.5 million people in the UK saying if they think they have symptoms. Now that may not be as accurate as a test (or possibly more so?) but it will be consistent over the period of time. The pattern of the graph is exactly what you would expect and follows official data.

There is a week to ten day lag as it is symptoms recorded. it clearly shows the dramatic drop on April 1st a week or so after lockdown and a dramatic fall gradually slowing. As I feared it started to level out a week or so ago (so two weeks ago in effect) and now showing a very slight rise. The government keeps saying new cases are falling but their own graph wasn't really showing that on new admissions. I would expect this to some extent as we have not changed markedly what we have been doing so it would reach a specific plateau, especially if R=1. The worry is the background level seems relatively high still to me. This would also imply that in a couple of weeks time the daily deaths may level at around 100-150.

What do others think?

The uptick at the end, following a stagnation, is indeed worrying - all being equal, it would suggest R is hovering around or just above 1, which obviously isn't good!

This is also very similar to the pattern of the number of new cases being detected, which has also plateaued at about 3500 a day.

This would suggest that if anything the restrictions should be tightened again, unless we're happy to have that many cases around (it's far higher than France, Spain, Italy etc).

100-150 a day in terms of deaths might be optimistic, at least outside of the lower totals reported on Sunday and Monday due to the weekend...

I’d argue, ‘it is accepted that during the summer months, sunshine does provide adequate levels of Vitamin D’.