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

Confront them with total of daily tests, if available, as I've experienced here in Italy that days with lower new cases are generally associated with days where less tests have been carried out.
Especially during the first couple of weeks.

*tamponi means swabs

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I think he's a twat, but I'm not making an exception because I have it on good authority from a friend who has edited a flagship UK news programme for a long time that he is already very ill anyway. So this won't be good news for him.

already very ill anyway

I've not heard this before. What ails the Classic Dom?

It has been mentioned up thread somewhere, but how much of an issue is air safety going to be once/if things ever return to how they were before?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52084003

Presumably all these grounded planes are going to spring all kinds of leaks and defects.

They’ll get binned or refitted where necessary.

Having to build and rebuild a whole bunch of them would be a great problem for the industry to have.

It was reported months ago that he needs an operation that requires a general anaesthetic and potentially wouldn't leave him able to return to work but he agreed to postpone it until Brexit was complete, I assume this is what is being referred to

Edit - found a link
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/dominic-cummings-could-quit-boris-johnsons-government-if-hes-unable-to-cut-down-hours-1345990

Charlie Brooker once described Trump as "'How hard can it be?' in a suit". One of the things his base admire him for, even the minority who are academics.

Planes come with a manual which has a list of things to do if you expect your aircraft to be sitting idle for a week/month/year and what you need to do afterwards before flying. It will be lots of extra work for ground crew but is basically BAU. Given returning to previous flight levels will take months or years it isn't going to be an issue.

I am not usually one to take pleasure in the misfortune of others but for Dominic Cummings I definitely make an exception

'If that means some pensioners die, too bad.' - D Cummings

I don't take pleasure in it, but I find it hard to send him good wishes either.

As an EU furrin' in Northern Ireland I get nothing but government slagging, seeing many deported next year if they don't change the law and economic damage for my adopted home from his "win".

Still no use in him suffering, better he gets a change of heart right?

He's really not a people person eh!

Looks like there's a pretty clear weekend suppression effect to me. I'd expect it to go up again today

This...

There will be many ups and downs in this journey

From Guardian ticker

One in four NHS doctors are off work sick or in isolation
Around one in four NHS doctors have been signed off from work sick or in isolation, the head of the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) has said.

Professor Andrew Goddard, president of the RCP, told the PA news agency that about 25% of doctors are off work, either because they have contracted coronavirus or because a family member or housemate is ill. He said:

At the moment, we think it’s more doctors self-isolating with family members, though there are some off sick themselves.”

This is really impacting a lot in emergency departments and London is in a much worse position than elsewhere at the moment, but it will come to other places.

Birmingham is also struggling.”

My two neighbours (mother and daughter) are both Oncology nurses. They have both just come out of 14 days' isolation and the mother has been drafted straight to Nightingale.

Why are things always more complicated than they appear? Now you made me feel bad about having said that. I stand by it though, ill health is no excuse for being a complete dick who exploits people’s fears and anxieties. I don’t think that morally we can always draw a line between someone’s professional and private lives.

Data on the number of cases is here if anyone wants to poke about with it

https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/documents/Historic%20COVID-19%20Dashboard%20Data.xlsx

What an absolute fucking weapon. And yet he’s exactly the sort of loudspeaker that gets airtime.

He actually asked if the journalist wanted to compare cv’s. I’d guess their cv’s contain exactly the same degree of medical expertise. WAC.

Isn't this to take the strain of the NHS? In Sweden SAS is doing the same with their cabin staff

Makes complete sense to me. They don't have a job to go to but are qualified to help out at hospitals, why wouldn't they?

It was the speed at which they laid staff off originally, now using the company name in a positive vain and getting credit and us picking up the bill.

Of course it is a good thing, but if publicised as "Laid off staff from Virgin and Easy Jet volunteer for Nightingale" has a more positive ring.

When i see Branson giving something back to the NHS instead of taking it i'll be happier

Last year, it won a cash settlement from several NHS trusts when it took court action over a children’s services contract in Surrey, with details of the £2m payout only revealed recently in their accounts.

Video of social distancing on North Acton train platform this morning
https://twitter.com/itvlondon/status/1244570789044723718

Not really sure how you can avoid it happening if people need to get to work

It's interesting in that geography isn't assigned until 09 march. And cases were recorded from January.

Exactly what’s happened at my place, which is deemed an essential service. We made a killing in the weeks leading up to the shut down, now four of us have been stood down so the owner’s son is running the place for 4 hours a day, so they’ll save on our wages while running on the bumper crop we earned leading up to the shutdown.

I can see why they did it, but I do think it’s taking advantage of the system. Meanwhile I’m at home doing nothing, I’ll get paid 80% of my usual salary but I’m as bored as arseholes and frankly I’d rather be at work.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/30/england-public-health-coronavirus-cuts-regional

This is worth having a read.

In honesty, without knowing what you do, I don't see that as taking advantage, there's an element of damned if you do, damned if you don't.

We sent staff home a few weeks back but have some staff on various forms of state-assisted wage refund. One was on temporary redundancy (not sure how it works, but broadly what it sounds like and you MUST take them back) but now is on sick as she's tested positive, a bunch of others are on special parental leave as they have partners who work in healthcare or are also working from home and the rest are working from home as close to normally as possible. We make sure that they earn their full salary by topping up the statutory in the case of the temporary redundancy but we have to pay out the people on parental leave and then reclaim 80% from the government.

Given the lack of certainty about how the economy develops, we'd be silly to continue to pay people without getting the rebates on offer. In the long run, we may not have needed them but I reckon circa 20% of staff are not working for a variety of reasons so it provides a buffer against a certain amount of our business going away before we NEED to do something far more disruptive which we absolutely don't want to do.

they've done another study on Hydroxychloroquine in France and again appears to be beneficial at reducing viral load and hospital stay to a median of 5 days. Still only on 80 patients but says clinical improvement in all but two which, although not a large-scale trial seems promising.

https://www.mediterranee-infection.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/COVID-IHU-2-1.pdf?fbclid=IwAR2yKLqUxKnmjx6WsmXaao0z2wgNj3TUdW_vZ9l1CBYGNCsCE3CwczILxm0