COVID-19 Pandemic

[northwestsnow]

24 minutes ago, The PIT said:

Unless you working for the NHS then it wlll be your bosses throwing under the bus and not the Government.

I'm working from home but had to kick up a bit to get it. yet we got people working with heart conditions and there isn't any real need for them to be at work.

The incompetence comes from our Director who knows nope - still swearing all about IT. Nearly everything we can do can be done remotely.

At times today I had four active google hangout sessions, answering emails and doing a phone call at the same time. So I can still do my job at home.

The bosses are saying law is you attend work if you have no symptoms, that trumps the official advice.

So, the HR director claims he is following the Gov , i got told to sit on my own at breaks.

Absolute hogwash.

[Summer Sun]

All schools in Northern Ireland will close to pupils with immediate effect and for staff from Friday.

[northwestsnow]

17 minutes ago, emax said:

Now this I agree with. Yes, obviously the government have some affect, and they still have measures yet to be implemented that will help, but it annoys me that people instinctively blame the government for absolutely everything. There's only so much they can do.

So who do i blame for being thrown under the bus? My employer?

[Robbie Garrett]

2 hours ago, Wiltshire_snow_lover said:

London is braced for a lockdown as the Government prepares emergency legislation to prevent the spread of coronavirus, The Telegraph understands.

Sources close to the mayor’s office say they expect a shutdown of the capital in the coming days. Legislation in the Coronavirus Bill would give the Government emergency powers to “close premises” and “restrict or prohibit events and gatherings” that includes restricting transport networks.

London braces for lockdown as Government prepares emergency Coronavirus Bill

WWW.TELEGRAPH.CO.UK

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London is braced for a lockdown as the Government prepares emergency legislation to prevent the spread of coronavirus, The Telegraph understands.

 

Seen a few pictures of the Army on Twitter.  Rumours spreading from people of a friend of a friend.   Wonder if the easiest way is not to announce it but to do it overnight?

44 minutes ago, Saint coolio said:

The way 2020 is shaping up, my money is on the comet

I said this the other day, but I am sure we can't discuss this on an open forum!?

[Summer Sun]

Le Mans 24 Hours has been rearranged for September from June

[kold weather]

Hearing that the deaths have risen big time in Italy again.

475 deaths today. I'm still waiting to see about cases, but thats horrible news if true.

[Mike Poole]

Statement from Downing Street on the way.  I have come to dread these, can't stop watching, like picking a scab. Clearly something on schools, but what else?  Could be anything, with no notice to prepare.

I'm hating this, may post later on mental health impacts - I think these are underplayed by the generally extravert and confident  people who lead us (of all parties).

[Summer Sun]

1 minute ago, kold weather said:

Hearing that the deaths have risen big time in Italy again.

475 deaths today. I'm still waiting to see about cases, but thats horrible news if true.

Yeah. In Brescia one of the two areas worst hit.

[The PIT]

1 minute ago, northwestsnow said:

The bosses are saying law is you attend work if you have no symptoms, that trumps the official advice.

So, the HR director claims he is following the Gov , i got told to sit on my own at breaks.

Absolute hogwash.

Except they are not.

They are:

Avoid contact with someone who is displaying symptoms of coronavirus (COVID-19). These symptoms include high temperature and/or new and continuous cough

Avoid non-essential use of public transport, varying your travel times to avoid rush hour, when possible

Work from home, where possible. Your employer should support you to do this. Please refer to employer guidance for more information

Avoid large gatherings, and gatherings in smaller public spaces such as pubs, cinemas, restaurants, theatres, bars, clubs

Avoid gatherings with friends and family. Keep in touch using remote technology such as phone, internet, and social media

Use telephone or online services to contact your GP or other essential services

Everyone should be trying to follow these measures as much as is pragmatic.

Can you work from home ?

 

[kold weather]

Just now, Summer Sun said:

Yeah. In Brescia one of the two areas worst hit.

Cases UP 4207...so another large upwards lurch after a levelling out over the last few days. Sad news, we really needed something good from Italy today.

[BornFromTheVoid]

Bill Gates currently doing an AMA (Q&A) on reddit regarding COVID-19, accompanied by some experts from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Proof it's him from twitter

 

[Saint coolio]

Just now, kold weather said:

Cases UP 4207...so another large upwards lurch after a levelling out over the last few days. Sad news, we really needed something good from Italy today.

You shouldn't be so surprised. They completely screwed up their lock-down. Two weeks at least until you see an improvement.

I fear we're about to make the same mistake with London.

[Wiltshire_snow_lover]

another mp some how managed to get tested with out needing hospital...

[Blazerblue]

Spooky! Whilst it would be nice if it did just disappear, kinda don’t want it coming back in a few years. 

[swebby]

5 minutes ago, kold weather said:

Of course, but the phrasing pandemic does have a much bigger impact, its no coincidence that there was a huge upticks in lockdown measures or an escalation of efforts by many different countries (pretty much that evening) once that phrasing was used by WHO. They clearly were slow off the mark in calling it what it clearly always was, a pandemic, anachronism or not.

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck....its probably a duck!

But they do not use that phrase,

PHEIC is the top of the scale, it means exactly what it says a "Public Health Emergency of International Concern" aka a pandemic in old money.  Once they call that, that's it, they have fired their last warning shot, and they did it back in January! Yet our schools are still open, and we are only just considering the fact we have only 5000 respirators?

A discussion of how politics can constrain the actions of the WHO can be found here

Policy Debate | International Responses to Global Epidemics: Ebola and Beyond

JOURNALS.OPENEDITION.ORG

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Initial Contribution | The Ebola Wake-Up Call: The System’s Failings in Responding to Outbreaks by Monica Rull Ebola is an extreme example of the collective failure to identify, respond to and cont...

 

 

[kold weather]

Just now, Saint coolio said:

You shouldn't be so surprised. They completely screwed up their lock-down. Two weeks at least until you see an improvement.

I fear we're about to make the same mistake with London.

Shocking really. I had hoped we would start to see the 5 day mean start to tick down to show signs the lockdown was working...but your right, it may need a full blown Wuhan shutdown with no one allowed out to finally break it.

319 deaths in Lombardy alone, the red zone of the virus.

Won't take long to get upto China's numbers if this keeps up for much longer in Italy. 

[jtay]

22 minutes ago, Mark88 said:

At least the government have realised the herd immunity strategy was reckless and have started taking this outbreak seriously. Hopefully they will learn lessons about giving clarity and next time something like this happens legislate against panic buying and hoarding. Frankly it should come with a prison sentence some of the scenes in shops have been a disgrace.

I'm not sure that they have. The way that I read the imperial report, and based on what Sir Patrick Vallence said yesterday,
it sounded to me at least (what do I know) that they are prepared to turn the taps on and off with these restrictions.

That way they get up to near NHS ICU capacity and then lock us down, i.e. schools, etc in an attempt to calm things down.
Then when new cases reduce and NHS capacity increases with new ventilators, beds, they let us go again (not the older folk, so say back to where we are right now) so cases will pick up again later in the year and then, lock us down again. It seems that they're desperate to avoid a rampant peak in Autumn/Winter. Aren't we all.

Doing this at a regional (with London/Midlands ahead of the rest) and a national level, will be some juggling act.

Edited March 18, 2020 by jtay

[Summer Sun]

Italy report 4,207 cases and 475 new deaths in Italy.

Total now 37,513 with 2,978 deaths

[northwestsnow]

5 minutes ago, The PIT said:

Except they are not.

They are:

Avoid contact with someone who is displaying symptoms of coronavirus (COVID-19). These symptoms include high temperature and/or new and continuous cough

Avoid non-essential use of public transport, varying your travel times to avoid rush hour, when possible

Work from home, where possible. Your employer should support you to do this. Please refer to employer guidance for more information

Avoid large gatherings, and gatherings in smaller public spaces such as pubs, cinemas, restaurants, theatres, bars, clubs

Avoid gatherings with friends and family. Keep in touch using remote technology such as phone, internet, and social media

Use telephone or online services to contact your GP or other essential services

Everyone should be trying to follow these measures as much as is pragmatic.

Can you work from home ?

 

I cannot work from home unfortunately, i work on a production line ..

[Zak M]

Just now, Summer Sun said:

Italy report 4,207 cases and 475 new deaths in Italy.

Total now 37,513 with 2,978 deaths

That's their biggest increase in 24 hours right?

[Dami]

our boy Boris is late.

Edited March 18, 2020 by Dami

[Gael_Force]

Maybe the toilet rolls will be needed after all.

Quote

We tried to answer very simple questions. I am probably the virologist who saw the most patients here in Germany. We went from house to house and to every infected person in the district of Heinsberg, particularly affected by Covid-19, and asked the people. We recorded the symptoms and thereby discovered new ones, took air samples, smears from doorknobs, cell phones and remote controls, we even collected toilet water samples

.Almost all infected people we interviewed, and this applies to a good two thirds, described a loss of smell and taste lasting several days. It goes so far that a mother could not smell the full diaper of her child. Others could no longer smell their shampoo, and food began to taste bland. We cannot yet tell exactly when these symptoms will appear, but we believe a little later in the infection.

The typical Covid 19 patient shows only mild symptoms. A Chinese study from the metropolis of Shenzhen also comes to the result, which has found that 91 percent of those infected show only mild to moderate symptoms, with a dry, irritable cough, and possibly a fever. With us there was also a loss of smell and taste. Diarrhea also occurred in our infected people in 30 percent of the cases, which is more common than previously thought.

Virologe Hendrik Streeck über Corona: Neue Symptome entdeckt

WWW.FAZ.NET

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Hendrik Streeck ist wahrscheinlich der Virologe, der die meisten Patienten in Deutschland gesehen hat. Ein Interview über neue Covid-19-Symptome...

 

[swebby]

12 minutes ago, northwestsnow said:

The bosses are saying law is you attend work if you have no symptoms, that trumps the official advice.

So, the HR director claims he is following the Gov , i got told to sit on my own at breaks.

Absolute hogwash.

Ask them for a written full risk assessment, with reference to your underlying health condition and government announcements at the time of your request, and their corporate negligence policies/insurance.

[Summer Sun]

5 minutes ago, Wiltshire_snow_lover said:

another mp some how managed to get tested with out needing hospital...

"I was tested on the last day the NHS was still conducting community testing."

[kold weather]

2 minutes ago, Zak M said:

That's their biggest increase in 24 hours right?

Yes in both deaths and cases. I haven't seen the latest critical numbers, but safe to say that has shot up again I suspect.

In terms of deaths, Italy is probably at most 2 days away from overtaking China's reported death total.