Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[killer b]

Nah mate, it'll be over before May 8th because...








... VE Day

nope, we'll all have to stand on our doorsteps waving union flags singing we'll meet again.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Score. Got some eggs. Still no flour though, can you make bread with oats?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Walking around London this week, loads of construction work and road work has restarted this week, and the roads are definitely busier with cars and vans - roofers, scaffolders and others back to it. Lockdown may have been extended, but it is definitely changed this week back to something like it was in the first week. Parks still empty, people still observing social distancing impeccably almost universally. People that is who aren't working. Construction/road workers, as in the first week, not so much.

 

[Supine]

So three weeks time is a bank holiday i think?

there's no fucking way they'll let us loose on a bank holiday.

The mood music from today's breifing is a start to relax some measures at some point. Don't make any expectations that all measures will be relaxed on one day. Most likely schools will open or something while pubs and clubs remain shut for quiet some time.

 

[existentialist]

I think mental health issues will come to the fore now, my friends son,a M/H practioner says it has been unusually quiet, but I reckon now things change.

That is pretty much the canonical view within the mental health practitioner community. There will be a lot of pent-up demand, plus the fallout from a sustained period of strangeness and anxiety.

My lot are gearing up to be able to respond effectively when that happens, but a lot depends on funding, and health boards are not famous for their gung-ho approach to mental health resourcing.

 

[Petcha]

The mood music from today's breifing is a start to relax some measures at some point. Don't make any expectations that all measures will be relaxed on one day. Most likely schools will open or something while pubs and clubs remain shut for quiet some time.

There'll still be utter chaos if they relax social distancing. Even I think letting the British public loose for the first time in 2 months on (a possibly) sunny bank holiday weekend might not be the wisest decision to take. But then this government's not exactly been noted for its wisdom during this!

 

[existentialist]

Score. Got some eggs. Still no flour though, can you make bread with oats?

You'll have to mill them to meal, and what you will get is a very heavy, dense bread.

A trick you could try, if you're urban, is - go to one of those Indian minimarts, and you should be able to get chapati flour - or possibly even white flour, which if it's for flatbreads and the like should be strong enough for breadmaking.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

There'll still be utter chaos if they relax social distancing. Even I think letting the British public loose for the first time in 2 months on (a possibly) sunny bank holiday weekend might not be the wisest decision to take. But then this government's not exactly been noted for its wisdom during this!

No country is just relaxing everything at once. It will still be work from home if you can, some shops but not all to be reopened, pubs shut, no big groups, no gigs, no theatre, etc.

But we'll see. Having started so late, and being so behind on its curve, the UK will have the advantage of seeing how other places fare with their relaxation measures first. I suspect that might even be one of the motivations for this length of extension - it's just about enough time to evaluate any negative impacts of relaxation in other countries such as Austria and Spain.

 

[Numbers]

Walking around London this week, loads of construction work and road work has restarted this week, and the roads are definitely busier with cars and vans - roofers, scaffolders and others back to it. Lockdown may have been extended, but it is definitely changed this week back to something like it was in the first week. Parks still empty, people still observing social distancing impeccably almost universally. People that is who aren't working. Construction/road workers, as in the first week, not so much.

I took a walk out and about for a bit today, holy fuck, social distancing me arse.

Shops only letting 2 people in at a time no chance, 2m between those waiting outside no chance. Local park had groups of people. Streets had groups of kids.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I took a walk out and about for a bit today, holy fuck, social distancing me arse.

Shops only letting 2 people in at a time no chance, 2m between those waiting outside no chance. Local park had groups of people. Streets had groups of kids.

Interesting. Not like that around me. Is this a change from last week? The most noticeable thing for me today was the amount of building work now going. Most of it has restarted from what I can see.

 

[weltweit]

A couple of things I picked up on today wrt Covid-19:

Men are much more likely to die than women.

And BAME people are also more likely to die.

But so far no one knows why.

 

[Numbers]

Interesting. Not like that around me. Is this a change from last week? The most noticeable thing for me today was the amount of building work now going. Most of it has restarted from what I can see.

Didn’t seem to be fully adhered to from the off around here but today was noticeably different.

 

[Petcha]

Interesting. Not like that around me. Is this a change from last week? The most noticeable thing for me today was the amount of building work now going. Most of it has restarted from what I can see.

Yeh, it's nothing like that around me either. You see the odd group of idiot teenagers standing around probably believing they're invincible but that's about it.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

And BAME people are also more likely to die.

But so far no one knows why.

The first thing you need to do is eliminate certain confounding factors - firstly, to correct for social class and kind of housing, second to correct for type of job (BAME heavily represented in transport and NHS, for instance). Have you seen anything that does this?

 

[editor]

Gibberish. And I'm getting fed up finding myself in agreement with Piers fucking Morgan.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Yeh, it's nothing like that around me either. You see the odd group of idiot teenagers standing around probably believing they're invincible but that's about it.

Yeah, that's exactly how I'd characterise things around me. tbh I would probably have been one of those idiot teenagers.

 

[xes]

A couple of things I picked up on today wrt Covid-19:

Men are much more likely to die than women.

And BAME people are also more likely to die.

But so far no one knows why.

Back to ACE2 levels again. I vaguely remember a chart with ACE2 levels by race and that showed that there was a difference between the races and the levels of ACE2 receptors. I have no idea how valid it was, and at the time called whoever posted it several cunts as it was at the time where the fuckwits were saying that it's only affecting Asian people. (because the outbreak was in fucking China, but that had nothing to do with it, noooo)

 

[killer b]

Interesting. Not like that around me. Is this a change from last week? The most noticeable thing for me today was the amount of building work now going. Most of it has restarted from what I can see.

It looked pretty busy out today to me, lots of (small) groups. I don't think I'm in a position to assess this very accurately though, and I'm certainly in no position to assess whether people in a small group live together or not.

 

[Petcha]

The first thing you need to do is eliminate certain confounding factors - firstly, to correct for social class and kind of housing, second to correct for type of job (BAME heavily represented in transport and NHS, for instance). Have you seen anything that does this?

BAME are also disproportionately represented in type 2 diabetes and heart disease (which is possibly related to 'social class') . Neither of which exactly help dealing with their recovery.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

You'll have to mill them to meal, and what you will get is a very heavy, dense bread.

A trick you could try, if you're urban, is - go to one of those Indian minimarts, and you should be able to get chapati flour - or possibly even white flour, which if it's for flatbreads and the like should be strong enough for breadmaking.

Probably won't go anywhere far as I am on the danger list, and I don't want to ask the wife to go anywhere out of her comfort zone (which is currently tesco metro and waitrose).

 

[weltweit]

The first thing you need to do is eliminate certain confounding factors - firstly, to correct for social class and kind of housing, second to correct for type of job (BAME heavily represented in transport and NHS, for instance). Have you seen anything that does this?

I think the BAME thing is international, I have seen news items on this from New York, Chicago and other places in the US. The men dying more than women I heard on the UK radio today, don't know if it is international.

Back to ACE2 levels again. I vaguely remember a chart with ACE2 levels by race and that showed that there was a difference between the races and the levels of ACE2 receptors. I have no idea how valid it was, and at the time called whoever posted it several cunts as it was at the time where the fuckwits were saying that it's only affecting Asian people. (because the outbreak was in fucking China, but that had nothing to do with it, noooo)

If you come across it again please post it. You don't recall which publication it was do you?

 

[little_legs]

I took a walk out and about for a bit today, holy fuck, social distancing me arse.

Shops only letting 2 people in at a time no chance, 2m between those waiting outside no chance. Local park had groups of people. Streets had groups of kids.

Sounds familiar. The majority of people in my area don’t give two shits about social distancing. I get the impression that people are either completely oblivious or actually don’t know what’s going on.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

BAME are also disproportionately represented in type 2 diabetes and heart disease (which is possibly related to 'social class') . Neither of which exactly help dealing with their recovery.

It is related to social class, among other things. Most chronic illnesses are.

I don't know the answer, but all these things need to be eliminated first before you can see whether race is a causative factor, because on the face of it, given the enormous variation in genetic makeup of 'BAME' (much more varied than within the 'white' population), that's not the first answer I'd be suspecting to be true.

 

[existentialist]

Probably won't go anywhere far as I am on the danger list, and I don't want to ask the wife to go anywhere out of her comfort zone (which is currently tesco metro and waitrose).

Ah, OK. It is frustrating - both times I've been to Tesco the flour shelves have been bare. I've got about 750g of Lidl white bread flour left, and that's my lot. Oh, and the chapati flour - I might try baking a loaf with that, just out of curiosity.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I think the BAME thing is international, I have seen news items on this from New York, Chicago and other places in the US. The men dying more than women I heard on the UK radio today, don't know if it is international.

afaik men dying more than women is universal everywhere. Probably is something to do with a genetic difference, given how it is a pattern across cultures.

But I'd be very surprised if black people in the US were not being hit harder by this on average than the general population if you're only measuring people by their race, for purely non-genetic reasons.

 

[Wilf]

Lovely spring so far though

Yeah, must admit I've been on more walks in the sun than I ever did at this time of year. All round the streets here, so a bit monotonous, but still. All of which has been good for my dodgy joints/conditions. So far at least the MH toll for me personally hasn't been as bad as I expected. Not great being stuck in and having no sense of direction (I'm working from home, but that's just same old shit in a different package, not a sense of direction), but I expected it to be worse.

Same time, there will be lots of people who are too scared to go out, haven't got their carers, experiencing very bad MH. And indirectly, that's another way in which the crisis plays out along class lines. My Mum's stuck in a care home with a potentially fractured hip and the 111 doc won't let her into hospital for an xray*, along with having Parkinson's and dementia. So that's not so great.

* Maybe for good reasons.

 

[cupid_stunt]

I took a walk out and about for a bit today, holy fuck, social distancing me arse.

Shops only letting 2 people in at a time no chance, 2m between those waiting outside no chance. Local park had groups of people. Streets had groups of kids.

No idea where you live, but this is the complete opposite to what's happening here, in Worthing, even the smallest shops are operating a 'one out, one in' policy, and everyone outside are at least 2m apart.

 

[weltweit]

Gibberish. And I'm getting fed up finding myself in agreement with Piers fucking Morgan.

Some rather tougher questions than Hancock gets at the daily press briefing.

Why has no one asked Hancock how many tests were done today?

 

[weltweit]

afaik men dying more than women is universal everywhere. Probably is something to do with a genetic difference, given how it is a pattern across cultures.

But I'd be very surprised if black people in the US were not being hit harder by this on average than the general population if you're only measuring people by their race, for purely non-genetic reasons.

They are, NY Chicago and New Orleans all have had press reports citing these differences in death rates. Sometimes the articles have tried to explain in terms of prevalent underlying health issues like high blood pressure or diabetes or socio economic factors .. some articles just mentioned the stats and didn't try to explain them.

 

[Petcha]

Some rather tougher questions than Hancock gets at the daily press briefing.

Why has no one asked Hancock how many tests were done today?

These guys get a very easy ride at the daily press conferences. The US media gives Trump more shit at his than the kittens Raab has to deal with.