Main Coronavirus / Covid-19 Discussion Thread

[Raleigh Chopper]

I think that Coronavirus patients will be moved to Nightingale hospitals to allow the patients with other problems to go into hospital as there treatment has either been postponed or they have just not turned up to the hospital because of lockdown.
This should hopefully also still leave capacity for a 2nd wave should this happen.
And it might well do if the idiots who are getting fed up with lockdown stop going out, there are still far too many people out and about, they just don't seem to get that this virus is still unknown, no vaccine and highly contagious.
We are also miles short of 100,000 tests per day, testing and total lockdown is how the successful countries have dealt with it and we are just not testing anywhere near enough to relax any measures.

 

[Weststander]

I do not think the govt want a high 2nd peak like that nor expect it. Jeremy Hunt mentioned earlier that all the historic data of epidemics supports protecting the workforce at the expense of the economy in an initial phase actually gives much more benefit to the health of the economy in the long term. I would be surprised if the govt was anything but cautious in relaxing lockdown measures, as getting it wrong would precipitate a more damaging 2nd peak.

Exactly.

Things will start to reopen from mid May, in stages.

 

[Weststander]

I wonder if that includes people like me as a one man band who has ceased trading because I can't go in other people's houses.
I have not packed it in but I have definitely ceased until I'm allowed to sensibly do so.
There must be thousands like me.

It does.

Behind the ‘a quarter of businesses” headline, is THE key word temporarily.

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

That public question was a complete waste of time wasn’t it....

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

I wonder if that includes people like me as a one man band who has ceased trading because I can't go in other people's houses.
I have not packed it in but I have definitely ceased until I'm allowed to sensibly do so.
There must be thousands like me.

I wonder how many have taken earlier retirement as well?

Need a breakdown really of how they got to that number.

 

[Bodian]

This should hopefully also still leave capacity for a 2nd wave should this happen.
And it might well do if the idiots who are getting fed up with lockdown stop going out, there are still far too many people out and about, they just don't seem to get that this virus is still unknown, no vaccine and highly contagious.

One of the things about the last few weeks is that people partly haven't gone out because 'there's nothing open'. Now McDonalds, B&Q, Greggs, Burger King, KFC, John Lewis are all starting to re-open, it will inevitably lead to more people out and about. And tradesmen are definitely getting back to work more round here.

It's a bit like pre-lockdown, where some high street shops started to close of their own accord, the PL cancelled the day and so on. I suspect the Government will be fairly relaxed about it - as it saves them having to make any actual decisions on re-opening, it will gradually happen by default until it gets to the point where they say 'the rest may as well open now'.

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

That public question was a complete waste of time wasn’t it....

It was loads more useful than reporter after reporter repeating 'When are we going to relax the lockdown' in a whiny voice.

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

It was loads more useful than reporter after reporter repeating 'When are we going to relax the lockdown' in a whiny voice.

Pretty much the same question!

 

[mwrpoole]

I think that Coronavirus patients will be moved to Nightingale hospitals to allow the patients with other problems to go into hospital as there treatment has either been postponed or they have just not turned up to the hospital because of lockdown.
This should hopefully also still leave capacity for a 2nd wave should this happen.
And it might well do if the idiots who are getting fed up with lockdown stop going out, there are still far too many people out and about, they just don't seem to get that this virus is still unknown, no vaccine and highly contagious.
We are also miles short of 100,000 tests per day, testing and total lockdown is how the successful countries have dealt with it and we are just not testing anywhere near enough to relax any measures.

I've read on the BBC I think, that the Nightingale's can only deal with patients who only have breathing difficulties, and no other complications. Many of the hospital patients requiring ICU have added complications which means they need to stay in hospital. Whether that will change or not I don't know.

 

[Weststander]

It was loads more useful than reporter after reporter repeating 'When are we going to relax the lockdown' in a whiny voice.

Usually from a miserablist shite-stirrer who’d be the very first to ask rhetorically:

“Prime Minister, you eased lockdown too early costing lives, are you now going to apologise to the public?”.

Thankfully going by NSC, and many radio phone ins, most people don’t seem to believe that it’s all going so swimmingly that lockdown should be eased at this moment, or the country straight-jacketed into a timetable. The effects of the pandemic are partly beyond human control, let’s take it carefully in stages to be decided.

 

[Solid at the back]

I've read on the BBC I think, that the Nightingale's can only deal with patients who only have breathing difficulties, and no other complications. Many of the hospital patients requiring ICU have added complications which means they need to stay in hospital. Whether that will change or not I don't know.

I think that's just Birmingham NEC that can only deal with those not needing ICU. I believe London is fully equipped

 

[oldboyroy]

One of the things about the last few weeks is that people partly haven't gone out because 'there's nothing open'. Now McDonalds, B&Q, Greggs, Burger King, KFC, John Lewis are all starting to re-open, it will inevitably lead to more people out and about. And tradesmen are definitely getting back to work more round here.

It's a bit like pre-lockdown, where some high street shops started to close of their own accord, the PL cancelled the day and so on. I suspect the Government will be fairly relaxed about it - as it saves them having to make any actual decisions on re-opening, it will gradually happen by default until it gets to the point where they say 'the rest may as well open now'.

Absolutely this. God knows what will happen when pubs are allowed to reopen with social distance measures.

 

[Poojah]

It seems many developed countries will soon be rolling out contact tracing apps, either proprietary or third-party ones like the one being developed by Google and Apple. Given the role contact tracing had to play in South Korea’s success in quelling the virus, I’d hope this kind of technology could play a big role in getting us somewhere a little closer to what we know as ‘normal’.

It does beg the question though, why didn’t the world already have a contact tracing app that could have been rolled out as soon as the virus surfaced? Now granted, in times when there wasn’t a pandemic, I didn’t spend much time thinking about pandemics. But surely there were people out there that were being paid to do just that. I don’t know how much the development of such an app costs, however it must be a tiny, tiny fraction of the economic cost we are facing now.

We invest billions every year into our military defence, not necessarily because we are at war but because we might be at some unknown point in the future (and I assume the level of investment deviates in line with the perceived risk). This virus is novel, but pandemics are not a new phenomenon. Why were so many world powers so completely unprepared for this?

 

[lost in london]

It seems many developed countries will soon be rolling out contact tracing apps, either proprietary or third-party ones like the one being developed by Google and Apple. Given the role contact tracing had to play in South Korea’s success in quelling the virus, I’d hope this kind of technology could play a big role in getting us somewhere a little closer to what we know as ‘normal’.

It does beg the question though, why didn’t the world already have a contact tracing app that could have been rolled out as soon as the virus surfaced? Now granted, in times when there wasn’t a pandemic, I didn’t spend much time thinking about pandemics. But surely there were people out there that were being paid to do just that. I don’t know how much the development of such an app costs, however it must be a tiny, tiny fraction of the economic cost we are facing now.

We invest billions every year into our military defence, not necessarily because we are at war but because we might be at some unknown point in the future (and I assume the level of investment deviates in line with the perceived risk). This virus is novel, but pandemics are not a new phenomenon. Why were so many world powers so completely unprepared for this?

I think that might be why the Government is about to be dragged through the courts to reveal the outcome of the Cygnus drill in 2016 - what were they told then that they didn't act upon?

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

Pretty much the same question!

On the surface. The media imo were pretty disrespectful and rude choosing to ignore repeated answers inorder to further their agenda. Her question was human, personal and relatable.

 

[Weststander]

Absolutely this. God knows what will happen when pubs are allowed to reopen with social distance measures.

When that happens, along with cinemas, football stadia and full restaurants, shirley there’s a vaccine, or it’s been proven that having antibodies protects against covid19 (and the vast majority of the population have them).

Without either of those, all settings will be ideal for coronavirus to spread rapidly.

 

[Raleigh Chopper]

One of the things about the last few weeks is that people partly haven't gone out because 'there's nothing open'. Now McDonalds, B&Q, Greggs, Burger King, KFC, John Lewis are all starting to re-open, it will inevitably lead to more people out and about. And tradesmen are definitely getting back to work more round here.

It's a bit like pre-lockdown, where some high street shops started to close of their own accord, the PL cancelled the day and so on. I suspect the Government will be fairly relaxed about it - as it saves them having to make any actual decisions on re-opening, it will gradually happen by default until it gets to the point where they say 'the rest may as well open now'.

I agree with all of that and I have thought the same.
Five Guys is opening but my Tesco frozen burgers are surprisingly delicious and far better than anything McDonald's serves up.
I heard today that there is a possibility of Junior schools opening in the near future, what about all the parents taking them to school.

 

[beorhthelm]

It does beg the question though, why didn’t the world already have a contact tracing app that could have been rolled out as soon as the virus surfaced?

privacy, no way anyone in western european country would sign off on this "just in case" for fear of being cast as a apperatus of stasi style population control.

We invest billions every year into our military defence, not necessarily because we are at war but because we might be at some unknown point in the future (and I assume the level of investment deviates in line with the perceived risk). This virus is novel, but pandemics are not a new phenomenon. Why were so many world powers so completely unprepared for this?

we also invest billions in healthcare, many more billions than military. we were preoccupied with heart disease, cancers, respiratory diseases, diabetes, dementia, etc, etc to focus on pandemics of unknown cause and consequence.

 

[Machiavelli]

It seems many developed countries will soon be rolling out contact tracing apps, either proprietary or third-party ones like the one being developed by Google and Apple. Given the role contact tracing had to play in South Korea’s success in quelling the virus, I’d hope this kind of technology could play a big role in getting us somewhere a little closer to what we know as ‘normal’.

It does beg the question though, why didn’t the world already have a contact tracing app that could have been rolled out as soon as the virus surfaced? Now granted, in times when there wasn’t a pandemic, I didn’t spend much time thinking about pandemics. But surely there were people out there that were being paid to do just that. I don’t know how much the development of such an app costs, however it must be a tiny, tiny fraction of the economic cost we are facing now.

We invest billions every year into our military defence, not necessarily because we are at war but because we might be at some unknown point in the future (and I assume the level of investment deviates in line with the perceived risk). This virus is novel, but pandemics are not a new phenomenon. Why were so many world powers so completely unprepared for this?

Exceptionalism?
Distraction through you-know-what?
Austerity?

 

[LamieRobertson]

It seems many developed countries will soon be rolling out contact tracing apps, either proprietary or third-party ones like the one being developed by Google and Apple. Given the role contact tracing had to play in South Korea’s success in quelling the virus, I’d hope this kind of technology could play a big role in getting us somewhere a little closer to what we know as ‘normal’.

It does beg the question though, why didn’t the world already have a contact tracing app that could have been rolled out as soon as the virus surfaced? Now granted, in times when there wasn’t a pandemic, I didn’t spend much time thinking about pandemics. But surely there were people out there that were being paid to do just that. I don’t know how much the development of such an app costs, however it must be a tiny, tiny fraction of the economic cost we are facing now.

We invest billions every year into our military defence, not necessarily because we are at war but because we might be at some unknown point in the future (and I assume the level of investment deviates in line with the perceived risk). This virus is novel, but pandemics are not a new phenomenon. Why were so many world powers so completely unprepared for this?

Not an answer but related..apols if fixtures

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52441428