Chat about Novel Coronavirus - 2019-nCoV - COVID-19

Some angry cunts in here. Go for a ride.

I imagine in a couple of weeks people won’t even be considering it an option.

The number of people who actually ride bikes is vanishingly small.

Yeah, that's because they ride vicariously through the hardriders in ACH, who make up more than their share of the mileage for them. :) Oh, and ultra-racing. It's so much more comfortable to watch a dot than do it in person.

It's so much more comfortable to watch a dot than do it in person.

Cheaper too to be fair

Icecream truck trundling merrily down my street.

You replied

Compared to its size, and I think compared to every other major social event, e.g. festivals, ambulance and medical requirements are minuscule

And I was agreeing

Icecream truck trundling merrily down my street.

Amsterdam a ghost town. Bars/Restauarants/Cafes/Coffeeshops shut by order. Many shops shut, includin the Bijenkorf, the big department store. Food shops had a blip of low stock but seem to be back at 85% around me (bizarrely eggs are in short supply). Supermarkets generally have 1.5m marks on the ground to show you where to queue.

People wondering how many NYC taxi drivers have an overseas medical qualification that’s not recognised that could be really useful.

Is that a personal attack on me?

Our private nursery has reduced fees to 30% of your monthly costs for children that can’t attend. But have also acknowledged that some parents might not be able to pay that given their personal circumstances so have asked people to pay what they can afford. I’d mentally prepared myself to be paying the full costs so think I’ll be contributing more because we’re very happy with the place.

It also appears that my wife is considered to be a key worker as she’s a university lecturer who is conducting Skype lectures to students from the bedroom. So the little one might be going to nursery, if the university HR team can get there shit together and confirm this to the nursery.

As has been mentioned a few pages back I get the impression that the nursery are happy to have a very broad interpretation of key worker

Sorry, I misread that completely. For some reason, I thought you were saying the opposite. D'oh.

Never seen the food bank bin at morning lane Tesco so full. So that's something.

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Going on a group ride goes against the government advice, where they state exercise is fine with people you're living with ie. Not social diatanced from. But doing so with others is not.

Have you got a link to this? I've not seen any specific guidance.

I think at the moment, it's largely a personal judgement call. We have cancelled our club runs (obviously) but are encouraging members to carry on riding their bikes. Personally I think solo or in a pair is fine. For social distancing to work, it has to be sustainable and as @user48524 points out the NHS want healthy people who will shrug off this virus without medical intervention.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicatio­ns/covid-19-stay-at-home-guidance/stay-a­t-home-guidance-for-households-with-poss­ible-coronavirus-covid-19-infection

All information can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus

That's guidance for self-isolation - i.e. if you have symptoms of the virus, think you may have it or if someone in your house has symptoms. Aren't we talking about social distancing (i.e. well people without symptoms)?

And yeah I've seen that page I posted it in reply to your question six days ago  🤣

From guardian ticker:

NHS to get thousands more beds, ventilators and extra healthcare staff
The NHS has struck a deal with private hospitals to provide thousands more beds, ventilators and extra healthcare staff from next week to aid in the fight against coronavirus.

The extra resources, which include nearly 20,000 staff, will also help the NHS deliver other urgent operations and cancer treatments.

The deal with independent hospitals is thought to be the first of its kind and will include the provision of 8,000 hospital beds across England, nearly 1,200 more ventilators, more than 10,000 nurses, over 700 doctors and over 8,000 other clinical staff.

Matt Hancock, the health secretary, said:

This is great news for the hospitals and staff doing everything they can to combat coronavirus.

Under the agreement, the independent sector will reallocate almost its entire national hospital capacity to the NHS and will be reimbursed at cost.

Sir Simon Stevens, the NHS’s chief executive, hailed the deal with the private sector, saying:

We’re dealing with an unprecedented global health threat and are taking immediate and exceptional action to gear up.

The NHS is doing everything in its power to expand treatment capacity and is working with partners right across the country to do so.

David Hare, the chief executive of the Independent Healthcare Providers Network, said:

We have worked hand-in-hand with the NHS for decades and will do whatever it takes to support the NHS in responding to this pandemic.

This significant additional capacity across the country will be a major boost to the NHS’s efforts to treat those patients that need hospital care over the coming period and the independent sector stands ready to maintain that support for as long as needed.

@Fox

With regards to life outside the home ... the WHO have been saying stay 2m from people.

I guess cycling with cohabitants, whilst having it’s own risks, won’t make a large difference to contagion.

I've so far been good and not done any panic buying, but after yesterday couldn't help thinking not panic buying was the bad idea.

After spending close to 3 hours yesterday visiting 4 supermarkets and my 2 local corner shops, and finding them almost completely stripped, I found it very alarming and did suddenly find myself wondering which of my bikes I'd chose to pack a small ruksak and get the fuck out of London on.

In the end I managed to stock up on fresh food in Brixton market to last about a week, the only place with rice, but still no pasta anywhere that I could find. I'd not been overly concerned about the virus so far, but seeing how things have gone to shit in just 2 weeks, yesterday was a reminder how fragile city life can be. I did all my shopping attempts by bike and am fit, well, and highly mobile and a pretty creative cook, so really it was just an inconvenience, but the thought of a pensioner being faced with that as routine, it goes from anxious to pretty terrifying. The amount of extra travel and exposure needed just to get basic foodstuffs seemed to completely laugh in the face of restricted movement attempts, and London and Londeners are going to be proper fucked very fast if food supplies are that restricted.

My local corner shop had a new supply of pasta in today, and it was being rationed to one pack per customer, along with some other products. They said they'd had loads of abuse from customers already today feeling they should have more. People go feral pretty bloody quickly when food becomes scarce.

So food availability in the capital is my primary concern at this stage, which seems fucking nuts in 2020 but here we are. The thought of cycling getting restricted makes me more anxious about even being able to achieve an escape from the city by bike. Is our imminent future dressing all in black with no lights trying to escape under the cover of darkness, trying to dodge military broom wagons, like Mexican's trying to cross into America.

In the mean time I'm gladly shopping in Brixton and supporting the little guys as much as I can, but if they start running low I'll be getting very twitchy about getting the fuck out of Dodge ASAP.

It is lovely and sunny and perfect bike riding weather today though, so I was at least enjoying that while I still can.

Icecream truck trundling merrily down my street.

If there was one industry, other than perhaps haulage, staffed solely by people who give zero fucks about anything, it's ice cream truckers.

Marie Kondo must be losing her shit right now

But no bog roll to wipe with

Just caught up on the last few pages. So much confusion is showing understandably. We've gone from 'shaking hands is fine' and the official press conferences crowded with people into a room, to an almost lock down situation with complicated and changing nuance. Think we will look back and think we were to slow to react and adjust behaviour, take it seriously.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

In Italy the reasoning against cycling was that any accident would put further strain on medical services. I think it that is the argument for light exercise only.

So food availability in the capital is my primary concern at this stage

I wouldn't stress too much then. Apparently buying in the last week has been akin to Christmas shopping. It's no surprise, then, that things are gone. But (most) people will reach their stockpiling capacity soon, and it was reported that that production of most stuff is up by 50% to cope.