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

Why wouldn't tradesman be allowed to work at people's houses in an entirely safe manner? If you think lockdown is over in Manchester, have you ever see peak traffic, on the road or public transport, in recent years? It's still very quiet.

I've had two painters in my flat this week and after they were finished they went to their next job. But the rules are different here and it's up to the companies if employees work from home or not (tradesmen obviously can't).
 
Currently active cases fell in Italy by 3,106 which is the biggest decline in a single day. 4693 people were discharged or healed which is the biggest number in a single day since the crisis began. Italy are going to relax certain restrictions on Monday so the numbers might go back up or might not but hopefully not.
 
Boris is struggling a bit for breath after each sentence in the press conference right now.
 
Why wouldn't tradesman be allowed to work at people's houses in an entirely safe manner? If you think lockdown is over in Manchester, have you ever see peak traffic, on the road or public transport, in recent years? It's still very quiet.

There's a bit too much curtain twitching going on in the UK, with people feeling the need to comment on the movements of other individuals.


I agree. People need stuff fixed and it can be done with care.
 
For your post above. What’s the reason for this, why will central government not devolve power? Personally I’m convinced that this is big contributor to the issues we’ve faced tackling this virus.
We don't really have the power structures in place in the UK to do it at any level more granulated than England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. We have a more unitary system of government, whereas other countries like Germany and the United States exist as federal states. Most of Europe is like us though.

Devolution was supposed to change this to an extent, but GM actually got very little power to make most of its own decision-making about key matters. Ultimately the mayor of GM, Andy Burnham still has virtually no power over the public transport here and all of our NHS organisations have to report to NHS England and implement its priorities, rather than focussing on more local ones. Working in these structures, I can tell you that it is frustrating.
 
Currently active cases fell in Italy by 3,106 which is the biggest decline in a single day. 4693 people were discharged or healed which is the biggest number in a single day since the crisis began. Italy are going to relax certain restrictions on Monday so the numbers might go back up or might not but hopefully not.

Already happened, or at least Italians seem to think it has. It's like a normal day in my town and has been all week. :mad:
 
Ekkie's reliable data confirms 391 for England, so the 473 is likely to be correct, thankfully.

I'm guessing like all other 'scoops', people working at the DHSC or similar are selling stories.

We're not seeing the spike at the moment, which is why I'm remaining positive. Every day this week we've been 100-150 better off than the same day the week before; 200-250 on Tuesday, which is huge. It's the additional care home deaths that are going to create the spike it seems, which is understandable and of course, sad news.

BBC announce 391 for England earlier on in the live updates

Whatever the final figure for UK today, it's good news we're in the 400-600 range in terms of hospital deaths in this 5th week of lockdown.
 
So now we have said this what are the chances people continue to relax even more and we get a second peak?
 
We don't really have the power structures in place in the UK to do it at any level more granulated than England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. We have a more unitary system of government, whereas other countries like Germany and the United States exist as federal states. Most of Europe is like us though.

Devolution was supposed to change this to an extent, but GM actually got very little power to make most of its own decision-making about key matters. Ultimately the mayor of GM, Andy Burnham still has virtually no power over the public transport here and all of our NHS organisations have to report to NHS England and implement its priorities, rather than focussing on more local ones. Working in these structures, I can tell you that it is frustrating.

What are the mechanisms to change this going forward and how likely is it to happen? I know Burnham is always banging on about power to run the transport similar to TFL.
 
How the feck did Boris completely misunderstand that question on tourism from the public?
 
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Does anyone know the scientific reason why the UK has at no stage imposed a (self) quarantine on international arrivals?

Perhaps the belief is that lockdown has essentially enforced this quarantine (I disagree), but I don't understand why it wasn't imposed in the earlier stages of the transmission. There's no getting around the fact that this is how the spread began.
 
Does anyone know the scientific reason why the UK has at no stage imposed a (self) quarantine on international arrivals?

Perhaps the belief is that lockdown has essentially enforced this quarantine (I disagree), but I don't understand why it wasn't imposed in the earlier stages of the transmission. There's no getting around the fact that this is how the spread began.
Boris said we would be 'taking it on the chin' as a supernation. They grossly underestimated its effect
 
Does anyone know the scientific reason why the UK has at no stage imposed a (self) quarantine on international arrivals?

Perhaps the belief is that lockdown has essentially enforced this quarantine (I disagree), but I don't understand why it wasn't imposed in the earlier stages of the transmission. There's no getting around the fact that this is how the spread began.
It could have been a mistake early on, but once the level of infection within the population is close to the level of infection in travellers coming to the UK, it would serve no purpose unless it is part of a tight track and trace model. Why obsess over international travellers any more than those travelling regionally or locally?

I think we've been screwed since January in eventually requiring a lockdown, as we don't have the infrastructure needed to run such a vast track and trace model as many Asian countries do. We saw our tracking and tracing become overwhelmed very quickly. We are currently building that infrastructure now, and you'll likely see greater scrutiny on international travellers once we have our domestic situation under control.
 
In hindsight I think they should have chosen a better letter than R for the infection rate considering Boris says it every fourth word anyway.
 
Just to recap: a grand total of zero questions at today's briefing about the government meeting Matt Hancock's testing figure. What a sorry state of scrutiny.
 
I agree. People need stuff fixed and it can be done with care.

Indeed, I had no hot water for a week during the early stages of the lockdown. The fact a plumber came, fixed the issue and maintained a safe distance whilst still putting himself at risk was amazing. I gave him a good tip and he went on to the next urgent job. Without that I would have had months with no hot water.

Electricians, plumbers and the like are at the top end of essential for house owners.
 
Well, sure. If you start from the position of "going in and out" and having two have "two or more tradesmen travelling together" then you are setting them up to fail. There's plenty of sole traders or small groups of workers, who can complete jobs whilst practising social distancing from each other and their clients.

There has never been any directive in the UK to stop tradesman working in the private homes of others, as far as I am aware:


People seem to be think we are trying to reduce the risk of transmission of the coronavirus to zero. That is not the goal and never has been. We're essentially trying to limit the rate of transmission by eliminating as much unnecessary social contact as possible. What we each define as "unnecessary" will differ however, hence conversations like this.

Ok, so your rules are a little more lax - and vague - than ours. And I know we’re not trying to reduce transmission to zero. We’re trying to reduce it to a point where we can ease the restrictions safely. The clearer the instructions and the better they’re followed, the earlier these measures can be reversed.

That’s the great irony in what’s happened in the UK. The week or two of faffing around in March - talking about the risk of lockdown fatigue if measures implemented too early - have probably ended up increasing the total duration of your lockdown. Likewise the people getting pissed off and starting to get out and about more than they should be. The end result is just a delay in getting back to (relative) normality.
 
Indeed, I had no hot water for a week during the early stages of the lockdown. The fact a plumber came, fixed the issue and maintained a safe distance whilst still putting himself at risk was amazing. I gave him a good tip and he went on to the next urgent job. Without that I would have had months with no hot water.

Electricians, plumbers and the like are at the top end of essential for house owners.

For emergencies, absolutely. It wouldn’t be ideal if they’r cracking on doing as many jobs as normal.

I’ve had a personal experience of this. There’s a dripping tap in my kitchen. I need to replace the tap but it’s plumbed in in a really awkward location which will be a mighty faff to get at. I’ve been meaning to get a plumber round to do it. But that’s not an option right now.
 
Boris said we would be 'taking it on the chin' as a supernation. They grossly underestimated its effect
Seems so. Even in the early "herd immunity" approach (if it existed), it would've been wise to somewhat control the spread. As someone mentioned earlier, international arrivals introduce a massive variable for modelling the local system.

It could have been a mistake early on, but once the level of infection within the population is close to the level of infection in travellers coming to the UK, it would serve no purpose unless it is part of a tight track and trace model. Why obsess over international travellers any more than those travelling regionally or locally?

I think we've been screwed since January in eventually requiring a lockdown, as we don't have the infrastructure needed to run such a vast track and trace model as many Asian countries do. We saw our tracking and tracing become overwhelmed very quickly. We are currently building that infrastructure now, and you'll likely see greater scrutiny on international travellers once we have our domestic situation under control.
Agree on the tracking. But I don't see how quarantine would've served no purposed until community cases vastly outweighed international cases - it's a straightforward way of isolating cases from critical countries (China, Italy, Iran, later Spain) and others while forcing a personal lockdown on only relatively small numbers of the population. Not that it would've prevented national lockdown, but any practical improvement of the initial conditions would reduce the length of lockdown.

I know it's easy to say this in hindsight, but it seems like such a fundamental tactic, even if just a precaution while gathering more information about transmission and severity. An unnecessary gamble was taken IMO.
 
think we've been screwed since January in eventually requiring a lockdown, as we don't have the infrastructure needed to run such a vast track and trace model as many Asian countries do.

In terms of manpower (although the technology is a different thing) it was pretty obvious to me that as the government are paying them for a period of time that furloughed staff could be asked to help with contact tracing and other critical jobs needed at the moment. Most of this could be done from home and a lot of the people will be highly educated, computer literate and a useful governmental tool.
 
For emergencies, absolutely. It wouldn’t be ideal if they’r cracking on doing as many jobs as normal.

I’ve had a personal experience of this. There’s a dripping tap in my kitchen. I need to replace the tap but it’s plumbed in in a really awkward location which will be a mighty faff to get at. I’ve been meaning to get a plumber round to do it. But that’s not an option right now.

Agreed, I would hope that if an electrician is called up to change a hallway light fitting or similar that they just say no unless it is immediately dangerous. It would be interesting to know if that's happening or not in England.
 
So how do we think the lockdown will end?

Will they just tell us next week and start it on rhe following Monday or will they give us a few weeks heads up with it starting say 1st june
 
Does anyone know the scientific reason why the UK has at no stage imposed a (self) quarantine on international arrivals?

Perhaps the belief is that lockdown has essentially enforced this quarantine (I disagree), but I don't understand why it wasn't imposed in the earlier stages of the transmission. There's no getting around the fact that this is how the spread began.
Control of borders innit. Can do what they like
 
Seems so. Even in the early "herd immunity" approach (if it existed), it would've been wise to somewhat control the spread. As someone mentioned earlier, international arrivals introduce a massive variable for modelling the local system.


Agree on the tracking. But I don't see how quarantine would've served no purposed until community cases vastly outweighed international cases - it's a straightforward way of isolating cases from critical countries (China, Italy, Iran, later Spain) and others while forcing a personal lockdown on only relatively small numbers of the population. Not that it would've prevented national lockdown, but any practical improvement of the initial conditions would reduce the length of lockdown.

I know it's easy to say this in hindsight, but it seems like such a fundamental tactic, even if just a precaution while gathering more information about transmission and severity. An unnecessary gamble was taken IMO.


Unfortunately the half term holiday in England was from Monday 17 Feb to Friday 21. If you include the weekends this means a large portion of the country was holidaying abroad from the 15th to the 23rd Feb. In many cases in Spain, Italy and France. Would not have been possible to quarantine or track and trace that number of U.K. residents let alone tourists into the country. Timing of the pandemic and the first school holiday period of 2020 combined to create a perfect storm for transmission of the virus. If you wade through the early posts you will even find entries from contributors that had booked/planned breaks abroad in early March who were still intending to travel.
 
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Can you go into this
They started by saying that they have studied effects on children from past events such as Ebola outbreaks.
Concerned about children from neglected areas, for smaller children impact on social development and for older children they have seen that some children simply don’t come back to school, gave the example of African girls.

There is currently no conclusive evidence about kids transmission of infection to adults or that kids are immune.

Studies show that classrooms could be safer environment than travel, exercise, or general community.

Recommendation is that class sizes do not exceed 15 and that all safety measures are put into place (document that could be downloaded is available)

Recommend that only primary and day care is opened initially so that transmission spread is controlled more than if secondary and university level were opened too.

Ended with a study by Dutch and French modellers - France had to redo model after their government unexpectedly announced schools reopen 11 May.

A load of questions were asked which they didn’t get to, follow up to answer those next week.

Pretty much local decisions and community decisions need to be made at local levels to include local contexts

https://www.unicef.org/reports/key-...sease-covid-19-prevention-and-control-schools
 
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For emergencies, absolutely. It wouldn’t be ideal if they’r cracking on doing as many jobs as normal.

I’ve had a personal experience of this. There’s a dripping tap in my kitchen. I need to replace the tap but it’s plumbed in in a really awkward location which will be a mighty faff to get at. I’ve been meaning to get a plumber round to do it. But that’s not an option right now.
The plumbers and sparkies are working here for emergencies but two blokes can't travel in the same vehicle, they have to have their permission forms with them and they're being stopped constantly, according to our pal who's a builder here. As you say, you can't call them for a dripping tap. Our kitchen strip light died about a month ago and I've had to set up spare standard lamps in there as a make-do.
 
Just to recap: a grand total of zero questions at today's briefing about the government meeting Matt Hancock's testing figure. What a sorry state of scrutiny.
Boris kept congratulating UK for the amazing job we've done in lockdown, as if we've endured the toughest set of personal constraints and delivered the best results in the world.

Don't get it as, virtually every nation in the world had to go into lockdown, and most were more physically restrictive and financially more difficult, especially in poorer countries where daily labourers have to still live cheek by jowl and are close to starvation.

Our 'lockdown' has been the one of the most relaxed, with vast majority of people retaining majority of their income, and that has delivered one of the highest death rates in the world .... but yeah, well done team UK!
 
Just to recap: a grand total of zero questions at today's briefing about the government meeting Matt Hancock's testing figure. What a sorry state of scrutiny.

To be fair DHSC are claiming 82k tests were carried out on 54.5k people yesterday. Obviously that ain't 100k but it's still a big improvement if it continues.
 
To be fair DHSC are claiming 82k tests were carried out on 54.5k people yesterday. Obviously that ain't 100k but it's still a big improvement if it continues.

People just want the same questions asking time and time again it seems, if it was 99,999 someone would still want a journalist to ask what happened to the missing one.

As you rightly point out things are really improving on the testing now, which can only be taken as a really good thing.
 
Californian Governor, Gavin Newsom, to close all CA beaches, effective tomorrow. A lot were already closed but Orange County had been keeping the county beaches open. I was at the beach yesterday myself and it was quiet enough. Still, there were what looked like groups of unrelated kids hanging out together.
I figured this might happen after upwards of 50,000 people were reported at Newport Beach's beach during the heatwave last weekend.
Feckers! I knew they'd spoil it for all.

On more CA C-19 related information: the city of LA is offering free testing for all.
 


Is it really that dangerous once you get admitted to hospital? Christ.