Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

Coronavirus - worldwide breaking news, discussion, stats, updates and more

flew into manchester airport last night from cyprus. was surprised that there seemed to be no warnings/advice/instructions wrt to corona virus. also - no hand sanitisers in and out of the control areas - like the bit where you scan your passport into the machine or anywhere else where lots of different people put their hands.
 
UK people: I can't believe the Chinese encouraged 40,000 people to get together for a meal when they knew they were dealing with the outbreak of a deadly virus...
also UK people: Come to our mega dog show, we have hand sanitiser.

Yeah. The Cheltenham Festival is the one that gets me. Over 200k people over several days, with 130k using the train station...people travelling from across the world.

Still the gambling industry is a big deal. Play on, say the government.
 
It’s obvious that there is no plan for the U.K. - yet on yer own here

I disagree, there's quite clearly plenty of planning going on. See the CMO Dr. Chris Witty presenting to Parliament about them for example. I think it's possible to criticize them on various grounds (and it might be even more so to do retrospectively) but saying there's no plan for the UK is not true.
 
Last edited:
There are lots of plans. What I would criticise most is attitudes during normal times, austerity, etc, which means various resources in short supply before we even start, health system that teeters at the best of times.

'yer on yer own here' would be one aspect of some plans - if you are on your own then you wont be infecting anyone! But in many other senses, a pandemic is exactly the time that we need to demonstrate that there is such a thing as society. I see a pandemic edition of 'the big society' is already being planned, they are going on about protecting volunteers normal jobs so they can do their volunteering role full time during the peak of the epidemic. Red Cross etc, figures of 2-3 million people being spoken about in this context on the news last night.
 
Went into the storeroom at work last. One FFP3 mask.

For context it's a hospital based acute medicine walk in/walk out department that has about 10 staff on at any one time, out of about 30 total. We see about 40-50 patients a day. (E2a: we're an entrance point for another department as well, so people walk through us to get there. What with that and patients bringing family and friends with them I'd hazard a guess that 200-300 people have direct contact every day with the surroundings and the people that work or are patients here.)
 
Last edited:
Yeah. The Cheltenham Festival is the one that gets me. Over 200k people over several days, with 130k using the train station...people travelling from across the world.

130k using the train station is peanuts compared to the 5 million passenger journeys on the tube every day.
 
London tube means the virus load will be borne / force contained by us in London.

Mass convergence and then returning home from all over the country means the infection will be spread even quicker to new parts of the country.

It's a bad idea authoritative medical publication the Lancet said it clearly

So far, evidence suggests that the colossal public health efforts of the Chinese Government have saved thousands of lives. High-income countries, now facing their own outbreaks, must take reasoned risks and act more decisively. They must abandon their fears of the negative short-term public and economic consequences that may follow from restricting public freedoms as part of more assertive infection control measures.
 
London tube means the virus load will be borne / force contained by us in London.

You are joking, right?

Mass convergence and then returning home from all over the country means the infection will be spread even quicker to new parts of the country.

Like the mass convergence of commuters into London, and then returning home every day? People commute from here in Worthing to London, despite it taking about 90 minutes each way, as do people from Taunton in Somerset, which only takes a few minutes longer. Others commute in & out on a less frequent basis from right across the UK & beyond.

It's a bad idea authoritative medical publication the Lancet said it clearly

So far, evidence suggests that the colossal public health efforts of the Chinese Government have saved thousands of lives. High-income countries, now facing their own outbreaks, must take reasoned risks and act more decisively. They must abandon their fears of the negative short-term public and economic consequences that may follow from restricting public freedoms as part of more assertive infection control measures.


The 'so far' bit is actually the most important part of that paragraph, because no one knows what will happen once the lock-down finally comes to an end, which currently is due on the 10th March, and if it takes off again.
 
From BBC live updates page:

The health care system in the Italian region of Lombardy is on the brink of collapse, the head of its crisis response unit has said.

"We're now being forced to set up intensive care treatment in corridors, in operating theatres, in recovery rooms. We've emptied entire hospital sections to make space for seriously sick people," Antonio Pesenti told the Corriere della Sera newspaper.

"One of the best health systems in the world, in Lombardy, is a step away from collapse," he said.

The northern region is one of 15 Italian areas that have had measures imposed restricting travel in a bid to contain the outbreak.


And some dodgy machine translation of an article about what the Italian Society of Anesthesia said:


FIFTEEN ethical principles for admission and discharge of patients in the time of Coronavirus. Knowing that the Italian healthcare facility may not be able to accommodate them all and therefore will have to make choices.

Among the 15 extraordinary criteria, which concern all intensive patients and not only patients infected with Covid-19 infection, we read that it may be necessary to limit the age of entry for example: reserve resources that could be very scarce for those who it has first of all more probabilities of survival and secondly to whom can have more years of life saved.

UK equivalent was the talk in the press in recent weeks of the 'three wise men' system.
 
The 'lock-down' is nowhere near ending on March 10 I don't know where info is from. It's a region by region shift down in controls. Shandong being the latest to go from top-level to second top

If it takes off there once again, then strict measures will be-applied again, I would imagine, back to top level.

Your point about the tube I take, all the more reason for such commuters to be shifted to telework first and everyone else possible too, and all major events to be stopped or delayed immediately.
 
From BBC live updates page:




And some dodgy machine translation of an article about what the Italian Society of Anesthesia said:






UK equivalent was the talk in the press in recent weeks of the 'three wise men' system.

Bye bye Tory voters.

Here a US article that has relevance here too, gog workers with no sick pay:https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/08/uk/coronavirus-gig-economy-gbr-intl/index.html
 

“What happened with the news leak has caused many people to try to escape, causing the opposite effect of what the decree is trying to achieve,” said Roberto Burioni, a professor of microbiology and virology at the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University in Milan. “Unfortunately some of those who fled will be infected with the disease.”

I'm starting to get the sense that it will actually be fairly typical for news of large lockdowns of large population centres to either leak some hours in advance, or to be seen coming.

Mind you, as I've said before the purpose of such lockdowns is not just to stop the spread going from there to elsewhere, its to dampen the spread within the area thats being locked down. And the sight of some people fleeing in the final hours is still nothing like as alarming as people coming and going in a normal way every day.
 
flew into manchester airport last night from cyprus. was surprised that there seemed to be no warnings/advice/instructions wrt to corona virus. also - no hand sanitisers in and out of the control areas - like the bit where you scan your passport into the machine or anywhere else where lots of different people put their hands.
I'm a bit surprised at this point that there aren't notices and announcements in all the public transport internal to the UK too tbh. Just travelled by train and by bus and there's nothing to even encourage people to wash their hands when they get home. It's one thing trying to avoid panic, but there is such a thing as not taking enough precautions.
 



I'm starting to get the sense that it will actually be fairly typical for news of large lockdowns of large population centres to either leak some hours in advance, or to be seen coming.

Mind you, as I've said before the purpose of such lockdowns is not just to stop the spread going from there to elsewhere, its to dampen the spread within the area thats being locked down. And the sight of some people fleeing in the final hours is still nothing like as alarming as people coming and going in a normal way every day.
Yeah, I don't think the fact that some people will flee is that important to the strategy, as long as it's not a mass migration. It's something you have to take into account but it doesn't contradict the point. By the time you are doing lockdowns you're operating on statistical principles anyway rather than trying for a perfect seal.
 
For all China's faults (and the fact that this is state-sponsored propaganda) what shines through in this video and what WHO fulsomely applauds that once the scale of the problem was brutally revealed they approached the problem with ruthless efficiency and organization. I fear that we won't have the resources or the discipline to follow likewise but I'm ready to volunteer to do my bit whatever that might be.

 
Yes that could be a factor.

Our population isn't exactly sprightly in the UK (haven't looked up comparators though)

Age is one of those ticking time bombs throughout the developed countries.

Education, birth control and let’s be frank here a contempt for childcare and policies keeping the youth poor mean there’s less kids.

Which is why our governments are so open towards immigrants :hmm:
 
For all China's faults (and the fact that this is state-sponsored propaganda) what shines through in this video and what WHO fulsomely applauds that once the scale of the problem was brutally revealed they approached the problem with ruthless efficiency and organization. I fear that we won't have the resources or the discipline to follow likewise but I'm ready to volunteer to do my bit whatever that might be.



That Channel is state sponsored, (eta, you said that, sorry) I saw that documentary a few days ago and was impressed, but figured that it'll be a few steps away, at least, from the truth. It was the chap I'm full hazmat with sweat pouring down the inside of his goggles saying how happy he was that did it for me.
 
Back
Top Bottom