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Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

I wouldn't mind getting Coronavirus. Apparently they put you up in a hotel in Brighton for a couple weeks and they even let you use a Playstation so I hear. Sounds good to me.
 
Slight derail but there was this excellent interview in the New Yorker with the Frank M Snowden who has written a book about pandemics

How pandemics change history

with an interesting observations that
Diseases do not afflict societies in random and chaotic ways. They’re ordered events, because microbes selectively expand and diffuse themselves to explore ecological niches that human beings have created. Those niches very much show who we are—whether, for example, in the industrial revolution, we actually cared what happened to workers and the poor and the condition that the most vulnerable people lived in.
 
Not that I would voluntarily go to this particular hospital (it has a woeful reputation and my personal experience was not good)

Statement from NCIC March 4th 2020:
"The Trust can confirm that member of hospital staff has tested presumptive positive for Covid19 following a trip to northern Italy.

On returning from the trip the member of staff sensibly self-isolated and did not come into work or have any contact with patients.

We can assure the public that the risk remains low. The Trust is operating normally and there is no need to cancel any appointment


So that implies someone is "at home" in the area, probably with the virus.
Lovely. Lots of potential here ...
They could live anywhere within a 50 / 60 mile radius.
 
yes they should be told to leave the room. Being aware of cough/cold type symptoms and the chance of not spreading them should be enough for them to make their excuses and leave.
At one point Chris Whitty coughed into his had whilst speaking. It can't be helped. The important thing is cover your mouth and wash your hands as soon as possible.
 
Government has reversed their decision not to give location details of new cases (Guardian)

Here's the link.

Speaking to the Commons health committee he said: “I think we had a bit of a communications fumble on this one. We are intending to provide geographical information.

“We are intending to have some delay of about 24 hours to be absolutely sure we’ve got the details right. I think we do intend to continue with these geographical things. And in fact, in due course, will use maps and other things to enhance that.”


He did go on to say it would continue to be at county & city level, not specific communities, so not a lot of help.
 
Here's the link.




He did go on to say it would continue to be at county & city level, not specific communities, so not a lot of help.
Thanks for the link.

I think there's a balance to strike between providing info to the public and the risk of identifying individuals. Not sure how useful it would be to know, e.g., what street newly diagnosed cases live on.
 
Even more generalised location info is of potential help and way better than none. It will be interesting to see if the level of detail changes over time, what the maps are like etc.

The idea that a 24 hour delay is just to ensure they've got the details right is unlikely to be the whole story there. They want a bit of wiggle room, and are likely thinking of the stages where increases in particular areas tend to tell a story the public might respond strongly too, and the authorities want a head-start on that sort of reaction.
 
Thanks for the link.

I think there's a balance to strike between providing info to the public and the risk of identifying individuals. Not sure how useful it would be to know, e.g., what street newly diagnosed cases live on.

Yeah, I think Singapore publicly shared info about where cases worked and where they lived, but thats a surveillance state with a very different level of control over people, and different expectations about what the public might do with that info.

I dont think street level data will be all that useful for us during large outbreaks anyway.
 
need a thread on the profiteers, name and shame
I really hadn't thought go it that context...although I see where you're going with it.
I'd merely made a sort of Portmanteau of coronavirus & prorogue to express Johnson's good fortune in finding an emergency that may 'require' the inconvenient democratic scrutiny of Parliament to be suspended.
 
How did the 1918 Spanish Flu change society, not sure that it did in that case, the Plague certainly did.
I'd imagine that historians would find it very difficult to isolate the societal impacts of the 1918/19 influenza epidemic from the world shattering events that had immediately preceded it.
I will say that It's always shocked me that a good number of the graves in many CWGC sites mark the year of death as 1919, though.
 
How did the 1918 Spanish Flu change society, not sure that it did in that case, the Plague certainly did.

This exemplifies how responses to the flu reflected gulfs in understanding. The 1918 pandemic struck a world that was entirely unprepared for it, dealing a body blow to scientific hubris, and destabilising social and political orders for decades to come.
 
OK, I'll ask...why have the shops been cleared of bog-roll?
Not a single sheet in my Lidls.
What's that all about, then?
 
OK, I'll ask...why have the shops been cleared of bog-roll?
Not a single sheet in my Lidls.
What's that all about, then?

One factor is that people saw shortages of toilet rolls in other countries being reported for weeks on end.

Another is they take up a lot of shelf space so their absence is more visually dramatic and there are more obvious limits to how many are on the shelves and taking up store room space.
 
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