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

Air travel for leisure seems so irrelevant right now, and with uptake of Zoom etc alot of flights for business meetings now must have questionable justification.

The industry is floundering and that plea from the Heathrow boss is one of desparation.

The number of jobs at stake in and linked to the aviation industry is huge, which will have big impacts as a result.

... that we know of!

I was more referring to the period of farting around when Cheltenham and other similar events were going ahead and PM was shaking as many hands as he could around the local A&E or off on his hols.

My director flying to Doha for a conference about sustainability and spaffing on about it in social media in mid Feb wasn't a good look then, and definitely hasn't aged well since either... Hopefully that kind of erroneous rubbish can just get live streamed in future.

Six that we know of.

I agree to the extent that past experience tells us that rapid, imperfect action is often better than slow-but-perfect action in these instances, but it's really important to remember that (i) for all our talk of the blitz spirit we are a fairly liberal-inclined country that value our freedom and therefore police enforcement would only work to the degree that we consent to it, and (ii) even for those of us that are more likely to fall in line with government guidelines (myself included) "lockdown fatigue" is a real thing. Alongside epidemiological advice, one of the things that the government was told was "don't implement lockdown too early, because people will only comply for so long". What we're seeing right now is exactly that; the government guidelines are lagging slightly behind what people are already doing.

Back to 'normal ' 2021 ...

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It's probably not multiplied either. Because a city with 20,000 cases is not twice as bad as one with 10,000 cases - they only differ by a couple of days of unmitigated growth. You wouldn't put double the effort into containing the virus in those places, you would put essentially the same effort in. What they really mean is:

COVID alert level = f(R, number of infections)

but people in the UK have incredibly poor maths education and a) don't know what a function is b) won't realise that a metric where 10,001 could mean anything from 10,000 + 1 to 9,997 + 4 is unbelievably daft.

Indeed, the + isn't meant to be taken literally, but there was probably no other way to put it on a slide that the majority would understand, so + was picked.

It was probably picked on purpose to be a distraction from the other parts of the message (which is mostly that the Government is shirking responsibility for the whole thing by putting the onus on the people to do what they think is 'common sense' rather than being told explicitly not to do a bunch of things that are going on all over the place and will only increase.)

Those Nightingale hospitals are going to be very busy in 14-21 days time.

I think these are fair points.

The time for criticism on many issues is now - for example: the Tories ineptitude when it comes to describing and implementing their own policies, or the state the NHS was in when this hit, or the potential for political decisions informing scientific proposals, or... But trying to make retroactive predictions or provide historical counterfactuals based on imperfect data and diverse cases is a waste of time. But there will be plenty of opportunities to do so in the future.

Imho.

Hard to believe he wrote this having sired four children , oh the ironing!

Am an genuinely wondering (as I'm sure many many are) how and if I'll get to see my parents again. Both around 70 and both with not great health (dad has MS and mum is constantly with some sort of pneumonia). They're only 400 miles away, but the other side of the Irish Sea. So involves either a flight or a ferry crossing. Taking my wife and 1yo daughter on either of those seems completely alien. I did book our xmas flights a while ago as Easyjet had a sale on and it was a moment of optimism/desperation. 95% expecting to cancel those or have them be cancelled. I could go myself, but then I'd be leaving my family here with no real/easy means of getting about/getting supplies as my wife doesn't drive and I wouldn't want them to use public transport if they can avoid it. I would also never forgive myself if I brought it with me/us as they are pretty well isolated from it living in rural NI.

They have support, my sister and her partner are close by. But I'd like to see them as much as I can before it's too late. And I'd like them and their granddaughter to have a relationship. There is no "need" for us to see each other (again, no reliance on either side for day to day support), but that's not the point.

I suppose this should be in the Covid Mild Bitching thread, if such a thing exists.

There's imperfect data then there's their own scientists' predictions. They were told on 21 Feb that 1.3 million deaths was a reasonable worst-case forecast. Where they're most sharply criticised is in their politicisation of science and trying to float her immunity as a solution, and I think that's very valid.

https://bylinetimes.com/2020/05/01/the-coronavirus-crisis-government-anticipated-more-than-a-million-covid-19-deaths-but-refused-to-take-action-for-three-weeks/

https://bylinetimes.com/2020/04/20/weekly-update-20-april-a-national-scandal-timeline-of-the-uk-governments-response-to-the-coronavirus-crisis/

Dont know if this has been posted - interesting look at where infection is more likely to come from. Certainly not peer reviewed but indicative

https://www.erinbromage.com/post/the-risks-know-them-avoid-them

Sort of here https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/344985/

Seriously, who should be flying right now anyway? What part of “essential travel only” doesn’t he understand?

https://www.instagram.com/p/CACmRlrD6QM/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

Nah, they're desperately selling ahead to get money in the bank now to cover current losses. It's potentially storing up a bigger problem for the future as the money won't be there to refund these folks when the airlines finally collapse.

Schofield lands some blows

https://twitter.com/alanmearns1/status/1259773450903859200?s=09

It was https://www.lfgss.com/comments/15268822/
and worth repeating to a wider audience.

As someone who lives in south London under the flight path it's an absolute joy not having planes every minute coming in for landing. I'm about 15miles away too so pity the poor folk who are even closer

“lockdown fatigue" is a real thing.

Citation needed!

Alongside epidemiological advice, one of the things that the
government was told was "don't implement lockdown too early, because
people will only comply for so long”

This was debunked. It came from government and Whitty, not the behavioural advisors.

Whitty cited his experience of patients and antibiotic courses. It didn’t come from the behavioural studies because they don’t support the idea.

“lockdown fatigue" is a real thing.

Citation needed.

Me. And all the people sat out in the parks in Hackney this weekend.

This was debunked. It came from government and Whitty, not the behavioural advisors.

Source?

When people aren’t given clear direction they do their own thing.

I’ll try and find it...

Reading glasses on...

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/our-plan-to-rebuild-the-uk-governments-covid-19-recovery-strategy

I admit it seems unlikely, but Vietnam isn’t China where they routinely lie about things like this. I’m more inclined to believe them.

What are you basing this on? Gut instinct, first hand experience, research, NGO reports etc?

My experience in both countries having traveled there on leisure and work I’d say the RSF has it spot on. They’re both terrible.
https://rsf.org/en/ranking