Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[teqniq]

Whilst moving a tree right now may not be exactly necessary, arresting the guy is completely OTT imo:



also...good question here:

View attachment 206026

Aaaand they've admitted it wasn't dealt with in a proffessional way:

 

[teqniq]

I too wonder how notorious empath priti patel is doing

here she is

 

[keybored]

notorious empath

 

[treelover]

Aaron Walawalkar

England’s half a million “empty homes” should be opened up to health workers on the frontline of the coronavirus pandemic who need accommodation close to their workplaces, campaigners have urged.

Government data, analysed by Action on Empty Homes, shows England is host to as many as 579,000 vacant properties.

About 226,000 of these are long-term empty homes, 253,000 are second homes and 100,000 are vacant Airbnb lets.

Will McMahon, the group’s director, said at this time of national crisis, every person and company who has a housing resource that can help with the emergency should step up now:

Local councils should ask homeowners to volunteer their second or habitable long-term empty homes for use by essential workers.
Airbnb should be compelled to share the data necessary to identify whole house lets close to hospitals.
Companies that are no longer using staff flats should step forward and offer them for use.
In a national crisis, where lives are at stake, we need everyone to be pulling in the same direction and ensuring that resources, including housing, are available for use where they are needed most.

Absolutely

 

[Petcha]

Jesus. Never actually seen Priti Patel speak for any length of time. What a total fucking idiot. She's not answered a single one of the questions served up to her.

 

[Petcha]

Wow, this is quite a performance. No wonder they've been keeping her away from the cameras. The amount of bullshit spilling from her mouth... yccch

 

[PD58]

Is it me or are the daily briefings growing exponentially in terms of hot air and bullshit...this is up there with the worst of them.

 

[campanula]

Yep, another one I would be happy to see in a hearse

 

[Petcha]

Hancock and Rishi are usually better value than this clown at least. But yeh. I think they're running out of bullshit lines to defend why the fuck we have no tests or PPE.

 

[Petcha]

Nope, can't watch anymore of this. She's just claimed personal credit for extending the visas of immigrant nurses and doctors. The ones she'll be kicking out as soon as is over as part of brexit. As if she's the one doing THEM a favour. Fucking jesus.

 

[A380]

That aerial surveying work has been going on for weeks. It's an outfit that specialises in such out of Liverpool Airport. Several days ago they were conducting a campaign over east London. I think it's just aerial surveying/photogrammetry. But I suppose the missions over urban areas could always be IMSI fishing exercises to model degree of mobility and compliance during lockdown; though I know the main carriers are handing aggregated data of such subscriber movements over to government/researchers for analysis anyway, so unlikely.

Lots of aerial surveying going on just now. I think it's to take advantage of the much quieter airspace. Well that and the contrail spraying planes that have been adapted to distribute the virus obvs.

 

[PD58]

At the end of this crisis someone needs to analyse all these briefings - the findings will be fascinating.

 

[2hats]

I think it's to take advantage of the much quieter airspace.

They usually operate at 8-15kft anyway. Perhaps taking advantage of the weather and relatively clear skies.

 

[TheHoodedClaw]

Was that a question from LadBible? Not a bad question, tbf.

 

[Grace Johnson]

Has to be mapping/survey work flying patterns like that surely?

Yeah I thought they were probably doing maps. The small aircraft like that wouldn't usually be able to fly over the areas they were because of usually busy air traffic so I think they have got a chance to do areas they couldn't now.

 

[2hats]

Yeah I thought they were probably doing maps. The small aircraft like that wouldn't usually be able to fly over the areas they were because of usually busy air traffic so I think they have got a chance to do areas they couldn't now.

Not really a problem as ATC just route accordingly to accommodate survey profiles. Only when on finals does commercial traffic spend much time at those altitudes. General aviation has tailed off but most of that is at yet lower flight levels anyway.

 

[elbows]

William of Walworth I know it was another thread we were talking on earlier about lockdown timetables etc, but since I am adding a UK story I am continuing on this thread instead.

Coronavirus lockdown: When will it end and how?

What is the path to normality as coronavirus leaves countries in lockdown?

www.bbc.co.uk

We cannot simply return to normal after cases peak or even after they are reduced to very low levels.

The best estimate of the proportion of people infected (and potentially immune) in the UK is just 4%. Or to put that another way - more than 63 million are still vulnerable to the infection.

If we just lift the lockdown, then another explosive outbreak is inevitable

The fundamentals of the virus have not changed either - one person infected will, without a lockdown, pass it onto three others on average.

Cutting those infections by 60-70% is what it takes to keep cases down. At the moment that means cutting our human contact by that amount.

If we lift social distancing measures then something else has to come in to suppress the virus instead or at least to prevent people ending up in intensive care.

There is too much else in there to attempt to quote all the bits of relevance.

 

[PD58]

And that, ladies and gentleman, was the Secretary of State for the Home Department...!!!!

 

[Steel Icarus]

Patel really thinks she's ace, doesn't she?

 

[Grace Johnson]

Not really a problem as ATC just route accordingly to accommodate survey profiles. Only when on finals does commercial traffic spend much time at those altitudes. General aviation has tailed off but most of that is at yet lower flight levels anyway.

Ta. Didn't know that

 

[Petcha]

And that, ladies and gentleman, was the Secretary of State for the Home Department...!!!!

Her performance is going down a storm on twitter. Methinks she won't be doing another one of these.

 

[Sue]

I fucking hate these 'fuck you' non-apologies. FFS.

'Patel, when pressed to apologise to NHS workers over a lack of personal protective equipment, couldn’t quite do it. She said:

I’m sorry if people feel that there have been failings.

After being asked twice if she would apologise to NHS staff and their families over the lack of “necessary PPE” that has been linked to NHS workers becoming infected and dying, she said:

I’ve been very clear in what I have said and I’m sorry that people feel that way.'

Coronavirus UK live: Priti Patel – 'I am sorry if people feel there have been failings' on PPE - as it happened

Home secretary gives daily Downing Street briefing on day UK’s death toll rises 917 to 9,875

www.theguardian.com

 

[Petcha]

I fucking hate these 'fuck you' non-apologies. FFS.

'Patel, when pressed to apologise to NHS workers over a lack of personal protective equipment, couldn’t quite do it. She said:

After being asked twice if she would apologise to NHS staff and their families over the lack of “necessary PPE” that has been linked to NHS workers becoming infected and dying, she said:

Coronavirus UK live: Priti Patel – 'I am sorry if people feel there have been failings' on PPE - as it happened

Home secretary gives daily Downing Street briefing on day UK’s death toll rises 917 to 9,875

www.theguardian.com

This bit's pretty good too.

Patel, asked where she had been in recent weeks, said she had been working “virtually every single day” on a range of policy areas related to the pandemic.

Whether it’s through the visa changes that I’ve brought in over the last three weeks or whether it’s the work of the Border Force where we were absolutely prioritising medical equipment, these are the changes that I have been working on.

'virtually every single day'... Er, maybe you should be working every single day on the biggest crisis facing the country since the second world war??

 

[SpookyFrank]

Is it me or are the daily briefings growing exponentially in terms of hot air and bullshit...this is up there with the worst of them.

Tomorrow's is gonna be done by Ronnie Pickering.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

This bit's pretty good too.



'virtually every single day'... Er, maybe you should be working every single day on the biggest crisis facing the country since the second world war??

Use of 'I' is instructive as well. The first instinct is self-justification and self-aggrandisement. They can't help it.

tbh the answer I'd most like to hear from Patel would be 'I've made myself scarce - was just getting in the way.'

 

[editor]

That's the spirit!

Group drives 109 miles to Beachy Head because they 'heard the view was nice'

A CAR-LOAD of people travelled more than 100 miles down to the Sussex coast after hearing the view was “nice”.

www.theargus.co.uk

 

[editor]

The Sun is getting its shitty arse handed to it on that Twitter thread

 

[Labourite]

Those are reported deaths over the last few weeks - most of them will be from two or more days ago. Still not good at all, but we're still at the point where most of the people in those figures will have caught it pre-lockdown.

So the answer to your question is the slightly unsatisfactory one that their failure to get a grip on this a month ago or before is the direct cause of today's figures. Things may actually have started easing off by the time they have all the PPE in place, all the new hospitals open, the testing ability ramped up, the ventilators in place, etc. They should be well prepared in a month's time for the situation they found themselves in three weeks ago.

ETA: Because of the lack of testing, we really had no idea exactly (or even vaguely) how bad things were here three weeks ago at lockdown. Only now are we getting the answer to that question.

Could not agree more. The number of deaths will be a lot higher and the daily figure of course excludes deaths in care homes.

I just can't believe that anyone would want to clap Boris Johnson. It's his failure to test enough people, to ensure there are enough ventilators, and to provide an adequate number of PPE for NHS workers, that have left the UK staring down the barrel at being one of the worst countries in the world for coronavirus deaths. It's also the Tories, who since 2010, have cut the NHS and social care down to the bare bones, creating the conditions where services have been unable to cope with this pandemic.

 

[Labourite]

And Owen Jones hits the nail on the head as ever with this tweet yesterday. Why is the media not asking the government tough questions?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Could not agree more. The number of deaths will be a lot higher and the daily figure of course excludes deaths in care homes.

I just can't believe that anyone would want to clap Boris Johnson. It's his failure to test enough people, to ensure there are enough ventilators, and to provide an adequate number of PPE for NHS workers, that have left the UK staring down the barrel at being one of the worst countries in the world for coronavirus deaths. It's also the Tories, who since 2010, have cut the NHS and social care down to the bare bones, creating the conditions where services have been unable to cope with this pandemic.

Yep. France has started adding those now. From looking at France and elsewhere, we can probably add about a quarter to the stated UK figure for care homes. And then there will be the additional deaths of people without C19 who couldn't get the appropriate treatment or service. Parts of Italy have had increases in overall death rates more than double the stated headline figure of deaths from C19 in hospital. I see no reason why it won't be the same story here, sadly.

Your second paragraph is spot on in every regard. This is the thing we need to try to hold them to account for.