Coronavirus

[pauld]

Now the US is disbanding it’s coronavirus taskforce will the UK be far behind?

Looks like the move is on to merely ‘manage’ the pandemic then actively vanquish it.

If the US do indeed do that, then they have pretty much given up on "actively vanquishing" it. Trump seems to take the view that the damage to the economy is harming his chances of winning the election in November more than 10s of thousands of people dying.

[flammableBen]

Good bit on More or Less about Hancocks 100,000 test target. Weren't going to hit it, so fudged the numbers by counting tests that hadn't been done but had been posted out, both to Hospitals and to Homes (40,000 extra). Obviously not all these will be used (especially as they forgot to put return labels in with loads of the home ones). Not only that, but no response on if they could be counted again when they eventually do go through labs, which originally the only thing they were counting.

Basically finding a way to twist his "Tests available" vs. "Tests done" word play he'd played a week or two ago into the stats.

[horlock07]

https://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2020/05/06/closing-down-criticism-no-10-s-campaign-to-silence-the-outra

[mystical_goat]

PMQ's on now, Boris' first time facing Starmer.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/live/bbcparliament

[horlock07]

Whoop 200k tests a day by end of month,  how will the Royal Mail cope.

[mystical_goat]

Thank god those postal tests are only doing one way journies!

[Ardiles]

PMQ's on now, Boris' first time facing Starmer.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/live/bbcparliament

He was floored by Starmer, with Hancock looking on bewildered & open-mouthed.  It will make no difference, of course.

[horlock07]

He was floored by Starmer, with Hancock looking on bewildered & open-mouthed.  It will make no difference, of course.

Thing is all his inherent shitness is laid bare without the baying crowd to play up to, what struck me most was how matter of fact he was about the deaths and not a hint of empathy or apparent sorrow.

[Ardiles]

Even Cummings is going to struggle to bullshit the government out of this one.  The article is behind a paywall, but you can see from the headline that even the Telegraph is losing patience.

Telegraph: Britain Criticised around the World for 'Complacent' and 'Calamitous' Coronavirus Response

[Barry Scott]

Even Cummings is going to struggle to bullshit the government out of this one.  The article is behind a paywall, but you can see from the headline that even the Telegraph is losing patience.

Telegraph: Britain Criticised around the World for 'Complacent' and 'Calamitous' Coronavirus Response

Behind the paywall for anyone interested.

https://archive.fo/Cty9D

[Flashheart]

Behind the paywall for anyone interested.

https://archive.fo/Cty9D

Ooh.

That's well snazzy.

[StfcRusty]

what struck me most was how matter of fact he was about the deaths and not a hint of empathy or apparent sorrow.

Aping Trump in more ways than one then

[StfcRusty]

Even Cummings is going to struggle to bullshit the government out of this one.  The article is behind a paywall, but you can see from the headline that even the Telegraph is losing patience.

Telegraph: Britain Criticised around the World for 'Complacent' and 'Calamitous' Coronavirus Response

I'll save LL the time:

But, but, but ... Corybn would be worse and Diane Abbott would be in charge of death numbers so we'd be reporting 30 million deaths 

[Mister Lorenzo]

It's always struck me that playing "top trumps" over what seem like some very headline numbers that perhaps aren't accurate, measured the same, or haven't been fully scrutinised yet does nobody any favours.

It doesn't feel like something for anyone to be trying to score points on.

[Mister Lorenzo]

I'd say as a gross metric the numbers show we aren't doing particularly well.

However, the figures are woolly; France didn't count deaths in community and is sporadic on care homes, Italy haven't released last months excess death figures (which are about 60% higher than just the covid deaths) and they didn't include care homes either, Spain doesn't yet include care homes, different reporting methods are used and different testing regimes means some are 'assumed covid' and others don't assume. [We assume +ve in many more cases].

If we look at it from a propagation point of view, I think population density puts us at a disadvantage [something to bear in mind for the future...]; France has the same population but twice the space; in a way the population is already slightly 'socially distanced' on a macro-scale.

Paris is denser than London...yes, but there is another factor - Paris has 2M, Berlin 3M, London 7M... More targets, squeezed closer together = high vulnerability to transmission.

Other factors such as smoking, age distribution, elderly cohabiting %age, rate of obesity etc will also play into it if we want a level playing field, but these I would say are more or less equitable.

Figure those factors in and we may still be found to be doing a poor job, however I genuinely think that we were more exposed and the differences are not quite as stark as first impressions would tell you.