SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)

Feed Me said:
It’s hard to be objective when lives are destroyed by austerity. I don’t doubt your point about NHS funds being used inefficiently. But there is a clear trend towards serious underfunding of frontline public services in the UK.
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Nobody is ever happy with their government. Before austerity it was the rich getting richer and unjustified wars. It will be something else for whoever replaces this one. The NHS budget per capita is down slightly post recession, after being massively and unsustainably pumped up by Blair/Brown, but it's still far higher than at any other point in the past.

I find it quite odd how the NHS is being turned into some named, living, breathing thing that we must protect like a member of our own families. It's being used to shut down any objective discussion about it. It's a public health service, lots of countries have them, but i've never seen any other personified in this way.
 
11101 said:
Nobody is ever happy with their government. Before austerity it was the rich getting richer and unjustified wars. It will be something else for whoever replaces this one. The NHS budget per capita is down slightly post recession, after being massively and unsustainably pumped up by Blair/Brown, but it's still far higher than at any other point in the past.

I find it quite odd how the NHS is being turned into some named, living, breathing thing that we must protect like a member of our own families. It's being used to shut down any objective discussion about it. It's a public health service, lots of countries have them, but i've never seen any other personified in this way.
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It's a funny aspect of the British character but I quite like it.
 
Dancfc said:
I always look at the little battles, few weeks ago all we had to look for was Italy not rising as badly as usual but now we are starting to see exit plans around us and not to mention Sweden's bold move not as of yet backfiring (touch wood).

I'm very confident some restrictions will be lifted in three weeks here (if nothing else because they have to be or the economy collapses) and If the rumoured traffic light plan is legit we will be able to visit freinds and family again which I can't wait to do.
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Same here, Denmark also planning to release lockdown measures over the next couple of weeks. Great to hear.



SalfordRed18 said:
We're living out an episode of Black Mirror and this just confirms it.
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Yeah it's very, very surreal. Honestly, if people are on the streets singing Happy Birthday to the Queen next week......we have officially sleepwalked into a satirical comedy.


sglowrider said:
I suspect every country are under-reporting. When you don't test at the start, you just don't have a baseline to start your containment strategy. Then you are flying blind.

If you think China is bad, try the UK, US. They denied the issue to start with then get got caught for looking stupid -- and have made it into a political issue as well as a healthcare issue.
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Yeah every country is underselling the death toll and not always deliberately. I think we can safely say that the numbers worldwide are likely to be maybe even triple the figure being quoted at present.
 
Continuing good news from the Faroe Islands. No new cases for 10 days. 12% of population tested.

184 total cases,
171 recovered,
34 remain in quarantine,
0 in hospital,
0 dead.

Only 9 of the infected were over 70 years old.
 
Wumminator said:
Can I just say how wonderful the Caf has been for this whole thing. Having so many European posters updating like this is genuinely riveting reading. People like @Regulus Arcturus Black might get stick, but it's been fascinating to see how countries are handling this.
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Very much this!

Though it’s also made it easy to identify the posters who are determined to be proved right ahead of anything else.

An absolute legend of the local community died of Corona by me yesterday. Anyone from the Saddleworth area of Oldham will know who I am talking about. As more and more people I know are dying from this disease, this thread helps me understand what is happening in the world a little better.
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Didn’t know you were local. Poor bloke was only five years older than me...
 
11101 said:
Nobody is ever happy with their government. Before austerity it was the rich getting richer and unjustified wars. It will be something else for whoever replaces this one. The NHS budget per capita is down slightly post recession, after being massively and unsustainably pumped up by Blair/Brown, but it's still far higher than at any other point in the past.

I find it quite odd how the NHS is being turned into some named, living, breathing thing that we must protect like a member of our own families. It's being used to shut down any objective discussion about it. It's a public health service, lots of countries have them, but i've never seen any other personified in this way.
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I find your first statement depressing. So are we to just sit here and say nothing? I feel as though this is why we see so much apathy from the public towards political events, because it’s just accepted as a given that governments are underwhelming. Well fecking do something about it then. It is still maddening to think about all the Remainers who grumble about the Brexit result, but when you look at the turnout figures it soon becomes clear – they didn’t turn out.

I agree with your second paragraph wholeheartedly. It’s the same reason someone like me ridiculing the ‘Clap for the NHS’ is treated sacrilegiously. Irrespective of the emotional aspect of the debate, it’s clear that our health service is underfunded and under resourced though – various first hand accounts in the current climate testify to this point.
 
Feed Me said:
It’s hard to be objective when lives are destroyed by austerity. I don’t doubt your point about NHS funds being used inefficiently. But there is a clear trend towards serious underfunding of frontline public services in the UK.
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Worth remembering that during the 72 year lifetime of the NHS, only 27 have been under a Labour government. So that’s 45 years under the Tories. It’s only really in the last ten years of Tory rule that there’s been serious ideological challenge to the NHS ethos.

Also that the cash for setting it up in the first place came from the US in the form of Marshall Aid. The rest of the Marshall money was thrown away in a vain attempt to prop up what was left of the British Empire.
 
Feed Me said:
I find your first statement depressing. So are we to just sit here and say nothing? I feel as though this is why we see so much apathy from the public towards political events, because it’s just accepted as a given that governments are underwhelming. Well fecking do something about it then. It is still maddening to think about all the Remainers who grumble about the Brexit result, but when you look at the turnout figures it soon becomes clear – they didn’t turn out.

I agree with your second paragraph wholeheartedly. It’s the same reason someone like me ridiculing the ‘Clap for the NHS’ is treated sacrilegiously. Irrespective of the emotional aspect of the debate, it’s clear that our health service is underfunded and under resourced though – various first hand accounts in the current climate testify to this point.
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Lots of truth in this. The NHS deserve massive respect but why should WE be the ones showing them it when the government has treated them with nothing but disdain for donkeys years? Why is the onus on US? Why is a 99yr old bloke doing laps of his garden seen as the bastion of supporting our NHS when the government can't even supply these heroes with the most basic protective equipment to do their job? It's like being in an episode of some satirical dark comedy show. It's almost bordering on the ludicrous.

It infuriates me that so many people aren't even questioning this. It's really indicative of the lobotomised nature of much of our society to be honest.
 
11101 said:
I find it quite odd how the NHS is being turned into some named, living, breathing thing that we must protect like a member of our own families. It's being used to shut down any objective discussion about it. It's a public health service, lots of countries have them, but i've never seen any other personified in this way.
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Noticed that too. People always refer to "our NHS" as if it's a close friend. It's a little odd to personify a public service in that way. Germany's system doesn't even have a name and it's partly private which may have worked to our advantage in this crisis.

In other news, Germany's infection rate is now down to 0.7.
 
Alabaster Codify7 said:
Lots of truth in this. The NHS deserve massive respect but why should WE be the ones showing them it when the government has treated them with nothing but disdain for donkeys years? Why is the onus on US? Why is a 99yr old bloke doing laps of his garden seen as the bastion of supporting our NHS when the government can't even supply these heroes with the most basic protective equipment to do their job? It's like being in an episode of some satirical dark comedy show. It's almost bordering on the ludicrous.

It infuriates me that so many people aren't even questioning this. It's really indicative of the lobotomised nature of much of our society to be honest.
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Welcome to the Tory government, and I wouldn't be surprised if they used the economic hit as a reason to continue underfunding and underpaying the NHS.
 
Alabaster Codify7 said:
Lots of truth in this. The NHS deserve massive respect but why should WE be the ones showing them it when the government has treated them with nothing but disdain for donkeys years? Why is the onus on US? Why is a 99yr old bloke doing laps of his garden seen as the bastion of supporting our NHS when the government can't even supply these heroes with the most basic protective equipment to do their job? It's like being in an episode of some satirical dark comedy show. It's almost bordering on the ludicrous.

It infuriates me that so many people aren't even questioning this. It's really indicative of the lobotomised nature of much of our society to be honest.
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Bang on. You have worded this better than me. Thank you.
 
I think we need to be more pro active in discussions but I also think we have to remember government is meant to represent the people not dictate to it. Our response should have come from the people who should be able to scream shut the border.... One reason I wanted Brexit, was border control. Now we don't have it but I think keep it simple. If you close the borders, there's no pandemic. It's as simple as that and we as a nation could be helping ourselves and other nations. We can talk about the underlying roots of the problem but people need to stop reacting and start thinking because most governments are in debt. So they are not fully working for the people and btw for those who struggle to work things out, the idea of conspiracy theorist was to shut down those who were telling you of those who have put their agendas before what's good for humanity

And yes the NHS is an example of the attitudes of people who have been conditioned to be indifferent. We see however many dead, and it's shocking but there is a disconnect emotionally. If we saw it for ourselves, people would absolutely hold governments to account more but it's all me me and me. Healthcare workers are important but we also need survival skills. We also need to question big corporation who throw away good food when some are starving. We have this model that is a failure and we as a nation should hold corporations/government to account. We trust them to do what's best for us. Right?
 
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Alabaster Codify7 said:
Lots of truth in this. The NHS deserve massive respect but why should WE be the ones showing them it when the government has treated them with nothing but disdain for donkeys years? Why is the onus on US? Why is a 99yr old bloke doing laps of his garden seen as the bastion of supporting our NHS when the government can't even supply these heroes with the most basic protective equipment to do their job? It's like being in an episode of some satirical dark comedy show. It's almost bordering on the ludicrous.

It infuriates me that so many people aren't even questioning this. It's really indicative of the lobotomised nature of much of our society to be honest.
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You are right and the Government should be getting absolutely slaughtered for the response so far. I think many people are thinking 'this is not the time' and perhaps they are right in that we need to stick together and make the best of this awful situation to get through it. Once this is all over there needs to be a public enquiry and people put under severe scrutiny and the necessary changes implemented. It's a national scandal and to our utter shame that the UK has made such a mess of this and how the NHS has been underfunded and brought to the brink by Tory austerity and mismanagement. All of this needs to come out and I hope the level of outrage will be of the same level as the current level of respect being shown to our NHS front-line staff.
 
Pagh Wraith said:
Noticed that too. People always refer to "our NHS" as if it's a close friend. It's a little odd to personify a public service in that way. Germany's system doesn't even have a name and it's partly private which may have worked to our advantage in this crisis.

In other news, Germany's infection rate is now down to 0.7.
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I also refer to "our car" and "our house." I am not on speaking terms with either of them. "Our" refers to ownership.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Development timelines for medicines usually a fraction of timeline for vaccines. Mind you, development timeline for vaccines usually 8 or 9 years.
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Thanks - I had just assumed the clinical trials etc would take a year or so unles it was a pre approved drug for something else - good therapuitc drugs would potentially alleviate signifigant stress from health services so fingers crossed some progress can happen there fairly rapidly - though as you allude to it seems people are already working at rates not previously thought practical .
 
Simbo said:
What do I need proof of?

I've posted links various times in this thread to the reports issued by the Chinese medical community. By 14th Jan they'd told the world pretty much everything we needed to know, just 2 weeks after first concerns were raised in a few hospitals in Wuhan about a few cases of pneumonia. Given the scale we're talking about with a country that large and everything else they've got going on, I don't think realistically that they could have done much better, no.

Once they identified it they managed to trace the first case back to 1st Dec (it didn't start in the wet market), but that is retrospective analysis. It'll likely be traced back further after more work is done, that don't mean 'China' knew about it and covered it up from these dates, as some people seem to think.
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You seem to have made your mind up.

I have checked back as far as I could and couldn't see any links on your previous posts.

I read a bit about Li Wenliang and it appears the Chinese authorities accept he was correct and they shouldn't have punished him. They have issued a veiled apology to his family but its too late. He died of a different strain of SARS which in itself is being investigated. He was one of only eight doctors who had identified a new illness and a report in the Guardian explains that his warnings went back to early December 2019. This would indicate there was at least one Chinese doctor issuing warnings over a month before the 14th Jan.

The fact there were other doctors corroborating his findings leads me to believe there is more to this story than meets the eye and it is naïve to believe the Chinese are not capable of making serious errors. It is reported today that President Macron believes there is more to come from this story and that it is naïve to think the Chinese have handled this better than us.

I find it implausible that there will be no restitution for this one way or another. Too many people have either died, been ruined or just deeply effected. Like a war it will be remembered and the victims should be remembered. With those memories will be thoughts of justice and how to prevent such a tragedy ever happening again. I know you see this as blame but it's beyond blame.

Lessons must be learnt and I just wonder if the Chinese people will have a Tiananmen Sq moment. It may not happen next week or next month but the full ramifications of this event haven't yet crystallised.
 
balaks said:
You are right and the Government should be getting absolutely slaughtered for the response so far. I think many people are thinking 'this is not the time' and perhaps they are right in that we need to stick together and make the best of this awful situation to get through it. Once this is all over there needs to be a public enquiry and people put under severe scrutiny and the necessary changes implemented. It's a national scandal and to our utter shame that the UK has made such a mess of this and how the NHS has been underfunded and brought to the brink by Tory austerity and mismanagement. All of this needs to come out and I hope the level of outrage will be of the same level as the current level of respect being shown to our NHS front-line staff.
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I doubt it - the outrage at grenfell had largely subsided by the time its got to court... I think by the time an enquiry looked into this it would probably be during the middle of the inevitable huge recession (with added brexit calamity) - it would get some cut through but i suspect not as much as we feel right now it should
 
Pagh Wraith said:
Noticed that too. People always refer to "our NHS" as if it's a close friend. It's a little odd to personify a public service in that way. Germany's system doesn't even have a name and it's partly private which may have worked to our advantage in this crisis.

In other news, Germany's infection rate is now down to 0.7.
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Excellent news. Love it, keep bringing these glimmers of positivity into the thread please, fellow CAF'ers around Europe.



balaks said:
You are right and the Government should be getting absolutely slaughtered for the response so far. I think many people are thinking 'this is not the time' and perhaps they are right in that we need to stick together and make the best of this awful situation to get through it. Once this is all over there needs to be a public enquiry and people put under severe scrutiny and the necessary changes implemented. It's a national scandal and to our utter shame that the UK has made such a mess of this and how the NHS has been underfunded and brought to the brink by Tory austerity and mismanagement. All of this needs to come out and I hope the level of outrage will be of the same level as the current level of respect being shown to our NHS front-line staff.
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I know and it hard to disagree with that.
I just hope people's memories are longer than I think they will be. Once we're out of this I hope people are paying attention when Boris refuses to give NHS staff a pay-rise again and aren't too distracted by going to the shop to upgrade their iPhone.
 
Wumminator said:
I read somewhere that soles of shoes can have a massive impact on spreading different versions of a virus. If people sneeze or cough when walking near a road and then it lands on the road, people can then pick it up off the bottom of their shoe. I'm not saying that is what is happening here, but you can sort of see the logic.
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Well, it won't do any harm of course - and if there's some truth in that, it could help. And it lets people see that the Comune is taking measures.

The units of local government in this country vary in size from huge cities to little villages, and when it's the latter it seems very easy to get things sorted out. They have been very proactive with closing down anywhere you can sit or gather, they've been distributing masks and as I mentioned yesterday, there is a very active police presence. Funding was quickly made available for people who are in difficulties because of not being able to work, and the shop just keeps a tally for folk who need to chalk things up (to be paid by the Mayor's office, so people don't have to wait for it to filter through to them).

One thing that's helped tremendously is that the (single) GP has made it possible for us to just ask the pharmacist for our repeat medications, with no paperwork having to be shown apart from your health services card. Everyone knowing everyone else can have its advantages.
 
balaks said:
You are right and the Government should be getting absolutely slaughtered for the response so far. I think many people are thinking 'this is not the time' and perhaps they are right in that we need to stick together and make the best of this awful situation to get through it. Once this is all over there needs to be a public enquiry and people put under severe scrutiny and the necessary changes implemented. It's a national scandal and to our utter shame that the UK has made such a mess of this and how the NHS has been underfunded and brought to the brink by Tory austerity and mismanagement. All of this needs to come out and I hope the level of outrage will be of the same level as the current level of respect being shown to our NHS front-line staff.
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And yet we all know that the reality is that Boris will be hailed a Churchillian like hero when he returns to our screens on a daily basis having fought his way bravely through the disease with the help of his NHS angels.
 
Penna said:
One thing that's helped tremendously is that the (single) GP has made it possible for us to just ask the pharmacist for our repeat medications, with no paperwork having to be shown apart from your health services card. Everyone knowing everyone else can have its advantages.
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Our town has two pharmacies, and it is awesome that the pharmacist can prescribe meds himself during lockdown. I don't know if this is common practice in my country (SA) during this time. My wife got antibiotics two days ago without even going to the GP. I guess it could also be dangerous, but it makes sense to do it this way.
 
It seems to me that this clapping lark is partly due to respect for key workers - the human sentiment - but also a lot because of politicians wanting to self-serve. I'm sure there was a leaked memo from Boris during his election campaign which said that he saw supporting the NHS of huge importance to his tenure. We also kinda saw a preface to it with the big red bus and 300m figure when the NHS was used as a weapon against being in the EU.

The sad thing is that it's working. It's a smokescreen making the government look better when they should be held account for their imbecilic decisions.
 
blue blue said:
You seem to have made your mind up.

I have checked back as far as I could and couldn't see any links on your previous posts.

I read a bit about Li Wenliang and it appears the Chinese authorities accept he was correct and they shouldn't have punished him. They have issued a veiled apology to his family but its too late. He died of a different strain of SARS which in itself is being investigated. He was one of only eight doctors who had identified a new illness and a report in the Guardian explains that his warnings went back to early December 2019. This would indicate there was at least one Chinese doctor issuing warnings over a month before the 14th Jan.

The fact there were other doctors corroborating his findings leads me to believe there is more to this story than meets the eye and it is naïve to believe the Chinese are not capable of making serious errors. It is reported today that President Macron believes there is more to come from this story and that it is naïve to think the Chinese have handled this better than us.

I find it implausible that there will be no restitution for this one way or another. Too many people have either died, been ruined or just deeply effected. Like a war it will be remembered and the victims should be remembered. With those memories will be thoughts of justice and how to prevent such a tragedy ever happening again. I know you see this as blame but it's beyond blame.

Lessons must be learnt and I just wonder if the Chinese people will have a Tiananmen Sq moment. It may not happen next week or next month but the full ramifications of this event haven't yet crystallised.
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it's like a kid crunching one nite before the exam, and blamed that other kid why he only tells him about the exam 2 months ago, when he knew it 2.5 months before.

Wait, he scores better than us, he must be cheating. No way he can be better than us.

Do you see how hard he studies? He must be cheating. He must be, how naive of you to think otherwise
 
Feed Me said:
I find your first statement depressing. So are we to just sit here and say nothing? I feel as though this is why we see so much apathy from the public towards political events, because it’s just accepted as a given that governments are underwhelming. Well fecking do something about it then. It is still maddening to think about all the Remainers who grumble about the Brexit result, but when you look at the turnout figures it soon becomes clear – they didn’t turn out.

I agree with your second paragraph wholeheartedly. It’s the same reason someone like me ridiculing the ‘Clap for the NHS’ is treated sacrilegiously. Irrespective of the emotional aspect of the debate, it’s clear that our health service is underfunded and under resourced though – various first hand accounts in the current climate testify to this point.
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I just don't agree that the NHS is particularly underfunded. It could be better, but we spend roughly the European average on healthcare. In terms of outcomes, there was no marked improvement when Blair doubled the expenditure in the 2000s, we continued to move on the same trajectory, just as everybody else did. Most of it went on ill advised projects and added complexity. The overall spending is not the problem. How it is spent is the problem, and this personification of the NHS is designed to shut down any talk of that.
 
11101 said:
So my understanding of their lack of sensitivity is that these tests may return a false negative, but there's no chance they will return a false positive? So they would be fail safe in a way - nobody who hasn't had it is going to be sent out thinking they're immune.
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Oh, they will return plenty of false positives. There is no way around that. There are surely thousands of people right now in who have been tested positive but do not carry and have not carried the virus in the past. Even, if your test is quite good, like 99% (which none of the tests will reach in practice), you will have loads of false positive especially because the prevalence is so low.

EDIT: Sorry, my bad, apparetly they apply a second test after a positive result, which should greatly reduce the amount of false positives.
 
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11101 said:
Nobody is ever happy with their government. Before austerity it was the rich getting richer and unjustified wars. It will be something else for whoever replaces this one. The NHS budget per capita is down slightly post recession, after being massively and unsustainably pumped up by Blair/Brown, but it's still far higher than at any other point in the past.
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Is your implication that governments should not be criticised because "nobody is ever happy"? Or is it an attempt to shut down debate? If not, then it is a throwaway comment that has no relevancy to what our aim should be which is continuous improvement and refining of governance.

I think when the UK responsehas been singled out for criticism by the WHO, in the midst of a viral outbreak, we have a pressing need to criticise the government!
 
11101 said:
I just don't agree that the NHS is particularly underfunded. It could be better, but we spend roughly the European average on healthcare. In terms of outcomes, there was no marked improvement when Blair doubled the expenditure in the 2000s, we continued to move on the same trajectory, just as everybody else did. Most of it went on ill advised projects and added complexity. The overall spending is not the problem. How it is spent is the problem, and this personification of the NHS is designed to shut down any talk of that.
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That’s actually a fair point in reference to the New Labour years. Pretty much summed up the phrases red tape and inefficiency. You are also spot on with your take on NHS personification. It’s a lot harder to talk about harsh truths when it’s “a close friend or family member” as opposed to a faceless entity.

I am off to do some research on NHS funding during the last decade, so not going to come back to you on that yet.

Edit: That said, on New Labour, I don’t recall many frontline NHS staff so consistently critical about working conditions. Again, I plan to do some research to validate / disprove that view.
 
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Fluctuation0161 said:
Is your implication that governments should not be criticised because "nobody is ever happy"? Or is it an attempt to shut down debate? If not, then it is a throwaway comment that has no relevancy to what our aim should be which is continuous improvement and refining of governance.

I think when the UK responsehas been singled out for criticism by the WHO, in the midst of a viral outbreak, we have a pressing need to criticise the government!
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To be honest, I'm just expressing frustration that what should be (and was) an informative thread has been littered with political squabbling for the last 500 pages.
 
Pagh Wraith said:
Noticed that too. People always refer to "our NHS" as if it's a close friend. It's a little odd to personify a public service in that way. Germany's system doesn't even have a name and it's partly private which may have worked to our advantage in this crisis.

In other news, Germany's infection rate is now down to 0.7.
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0.8 in Belgium now. As long as we can hold it under 1, it's "dying out", right? Without the measures it would've been between 2.0 and 3.0 here apparently.
 
11101 said:
To be honest, I'm just expressing frustration that what should be (and was) an informative thread has been littered with political squabbling for the last 500 pages.
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Crisis of our lifetime and yet some don't think there should be any political debate around it :wenger:

I'm sorry but the correlation between political opinion expressed within the current event forums over the last couple of years and those who don't want any governmental scrutiny seems to paint a very clear picture of intention.
 
Feed Me said:
It’s hard to be objective when lives are destroyed by austerity. I don’t doubt your point about NHS funds being used inefficiently. But there is a clear trend towards serious underfunding of frontline public services in the UK.
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I certainly agree on the underfunding of frontline public services. They need to stop giving so much funding to people with vested interested and profiting themselves and simply increase the minimum salary for nurses etc. I feel any party that does this in their next manifesto has a high chance of winning votes.
 
Fluctuation0161 said:
Is your implication that governments should not be criticised because "nobody is ever happy"? Or is it an attempt to shut down debate? If not, then it is a throwaway comment that has no relevancy to what our aim should be which is continuous improvement and refining of governance.

I think when the UK responsehas been singled out for criticism by the WHO, in the midst of a viral outbreak, we have a pressing need to criticise the government!
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Indeed.
This government loves to feed us what appear to be wonderful statements which rarely turn out to be factual.

But my biggest criticism at the moment is the almost complete lack of trust of the people by the government.

They tell us that we can't be trusted to be told the exit strategy from the lockdown because we will be confused.

Proves they think we are all dim idiots who are incapable of processing information....
 
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