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Coronavirus Covid-19 (Read 681017 times)

mrjonathanr

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#1176 Re: Coronavirus Covid-19
March 27, 2020, 02:06:45 pm
Even I gave up on Trent Bridge when the traverses were chipped to make them easier about a decade back. I used to live in The Meadows so most days I got a quick evening session at Trent Bridge or Lady Bay  until '92. On tax fiddles we just don't know (it's all anecdote here). I'd rather give most the benefit of the doubt.

On a different subject Roy Lilley's weekly blog:

"Next week...
News and Comment from Roy Lilley
As this historic week draws to a close I sense the NHS is holding its collective breath.

Our biggest exhibition centre is being turned into a four thousand bed hospital.  NHS people are being trained up, stepping-up and are up for whatever's next.  

The public are showing their admiration for the NHS by volunteering to help, in their droves.

At eight o'clock last night, did you stand on your door-step and applaud the NHS?  Amazing, an ovation from the nation.  I have to admit, it brought a tear to these dry-old-eyes.

The question we dare not whisper; is the NHS ready?  It depends how you define ready. 

PPE?  You know, when the army are called-in, there really is an issue.  My guess is, this will sort itself out by mid-week.

These are testing times... made more testing by the fact we aren't testing anything like enough people.  Instead of testing we're guessing.  Guessing about transmission rates, geography and all the rest.

I guess the answer to the question, the NHS is ready as it can be but... is the public?

People will end their days connected to a machine, surrounded by anonymous people, trapped behind masks and gowns.  No chance to say goodbye, last memories, a picture on an iPad. 

Tenderness and technology are unlikely companions.

If you love someone, don't waste a moment.  Tell them today... now.

Ventilators?  Normally, people need them for three to five days.  The longer they are in use, the less likelihood of a good outcome.  Covid patients might need them for 11-21 days.  

A lot of people on ventilators, for a long time?  Thirty thousand machines might not be enough.

Are there any plusses?  Yes... 

... we're learning we can look after patients using our smart phones, we know we don't need to spend a fortune on offices, we've all got a kitchen table.  

We know we can, sensibly, share data and no one gets hurt... they are more likely to get hurt if we don't.  

We know we will look back and say, that was a Covid-Change. 

We have weeks of this ahead of us.  We will learn new things about the NHS, about medical science and about ourselves.

What about next week?

We know you will start work earlier and stay later, you'll certainly work harder.  Many of you will working for less and a huge number will be working for nothing... volunteering.

If you are a boss, you will redefine 'visible'.  You will make sure you are seen.  Seen being constructive and helpful and smiling and positive.  Yes, that's your role now.

Attitude is so important.  This is not something 'to get through' this is the new reality, for the foreseeable.  This is about getting into it. The new normal. 

Standards will change but they will only drop as far as you let them.  Set your own.  Be at ease with yourself.

Younger colleagues are the ones to be with.  Tech-native, keep them close they'll have the ideas, the work-arounds.  They'll teach you how to do future-working, today.

As times get tougher, your best allies will be found in teams, collegiate working and mutual respect.

If you've never been a networker, now is the time.  Keeping in touch with friends and family, of course but keeping in touch with professional colleagues through the IHM, the Academy of Fabulous Stuff and all the other great organisations who exist to offer advice, innovation and support.

As the focus is on deliveries there is one thing that only you can deliver, by the truck-load, yourself... it is a mega-load of 'thank-you's' and 'well-done's'.  

There will be backs that need patting, find them.  Not an email.  Make a phone call, better still, FaceTime; personal, a quiet, shared, private moment of calm, thoughtful thanks and well-done.

Remember, you are who you hang-out with.  Avoid the gloom mongers, the nit pickers and the nay sayers.  

Everywhere there are good people, just like you, doing their best and like you they will drop the ball, make a mistake, get something wrong.  

Before you shout, stop and think.  These are tricky times and next time it might be you.

Get some rest, if you can, keep safe because we need you, I'll see you next week...

... and have the best weekend you can.
---------------------------
Contact Roy - please use this e-address
roy.lilley@nhsmanagers.net 
Know something I don't - email me in confidence"

tomtom

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#1177 Re: Coronavirus Covid-19
March 27, 2020, 02:35:56 pm
Fuuuck... just under 3k new UK cases.. and 181 fatalities. Worse than Italy 2 weeks ago...

Oldmanmatt

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#1178 Re: Coronavirus Covid-19
March 27, 2020, 02:51:05 pm
But, look at the US, there’s a ticking bomb.
Quite a few youngsters dying too. Several reports of even teens, with no under  lying conditions.

petejh

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#1179 Re: Coronavirus Covid-19
March 27, 2020, 02:53:00 pm
On tax fiddles we I just don't know (it's all anecdote here). I'd rather give most the benefit of the doubt.

Correction - *you* don't know; and for you it's anecdotes. Some of us *do* know, and for us it isn't anecdotes it's our realm and we do business with these people and/or have been these people.


Interesting to see what happens in the Netherlands.

Nigel

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#1180 Re: Coronavirus Covid-19
March 27, 2020, 03:05:38 pm
Before we all get carried away (i.e. people thinking that the Tories have suddenly move rapidly leftwards and we're about to get permanently nationalised industries and a significant increase in the size of the state; also Jeremy Corbyn crowing that he was proved right etc etc etc), it might be worth bearing in mind that the government's financial measures are a temporary response to an unprecedented threat.
I think that a lot of the government's action has been highly commendable, but I can't see it continuing once we're back to business as usual.

I'm sure you're right, it won't continue on the Conservative's watch. I suspect everyone knows that.

I don't see anyone on here getting carried away or claiming the things you put in brackets (are they?), but in the interests of engaging with it, at least their fiscal and monetary response shows that these things are possible *in principle*, despite their previous protests e.g. There is no alternative (to austerity), no magic money tree etc.

If we look where we are now compared to two weeks ago (relatively normal, economically speaking), we have government money going directly to citizens, restrictions on amount and delay time of UC lifted at a stroke, railways nationalised, and homeless people being forced to be housed by this weekend no less! The fiscal response to coronavirus went from 12bn to 300bn to unlimited over the same two weeks.

If this is commendable in the current context, why not at other times? No doubt the government would like this to be temporary, but I would suggest it may have given the lie to certain ideologies - the chancellor even said (admitted?) "this is no time for ideology".

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#1181 Re: Coronavirus Covid-19
March 27, 2020, 03:22:31 pm
The fiscal response to coronavirus went from 12bn to 300bn to unlimited over the same two weeks.

If this is commendable in the current context, why not at other times?

I don't hold an ideological position and I'm no economist, but I suspect most people's instinctive answer would be 'because it wiped out ours and every other nation's economies to take these measures'.
Habrich and others can debate the details, but if we were to continue with the same measures as the norm, wouldn't JB's point about 'money being illusory' have to apply and every country would have to be on the same page? Otherwise in a global market how would you prevent competitive advantage going to nations who reverted to the economic model of pre covid emergency?

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#1182 Re: Coronavirus Covid-19
March 27, 2020, 03:27:42 pm
The fiscal response to coronavirus went from 12bn to 300bn to unlimited over the same two weeks.

If this is commendable in the current context, why not at other times?

I don't hold an ideological position and I'm no economist, but I suspect most people's instinctive answer would be 'because it wiped out ours and every other nation's economies to take these measures'.
Habrich and others can debate the details, but if we were to continue with the same measures as the norm, wouldn't JB's point about 'money being illusory' have to apply and every country would have to be on the same page? Otherwise in a global market how would you prevent competitive advantage going to nations who reverted to the economic model of pre covid emergency?

Isn’t it all ok as long as you call it “monetary easing” and don’t say “printing money”?

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#1183 Re: Coronavirus Covid-19
March 27, 2020, 03:34:13 pm
Good chart from the FT: Stars show when lockdown started. Lines start at 10th recorded death.


Oldmanmatt

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#1184 Re: Coronavirus Covid-19
March 27, 2020, 03:40:48 pm
Good chart from the FT: Stars show when lockdown started. Lines start at 10th recorded death.



Yes, I’ve been following. I didn’t share because the FT is paywalled etc. I’m too fucking dim to think of screen shot sharing. 🤦🏻‍♂️

Opened the front door today, for a delivery and felt distinctly odd.
Shall now rename the house “Outside the Asylum” and change my name to “Wonko the Sane”...

petejh

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#1185 Re: Coronavirus Covid-19
March 27, 2020, 03:42:50 pm
Was going to invoke Hobbes and Locke in the discussion about self-employed, as the Covid crisis peels away the layers of government to reveal what's going on underneath and why. See that it's been mentioned today in the guardian. Lockdown's the perfect opportunity for people to read Leviathan and have the opportunity to actually see it playing out for real on the street in front of their eyes.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/27/coronavirus-politics-lockdown-hobbes
« Last Edit: March 27, 2020, 03:51:06 pm by petejh »

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#1186 Re: Coronavirus Covid-19
March 27, 2020, 03:43:06 pm
The fiscal response to coronavirus went from 12bn to 300bn to unlimited over the same two weeks.

If this is commendable in the current context, why not at other times?

I don't hold an ideological position and I'm no economist, but I suspect most people's instinctive answer would be 'because it wiped out ours and every other nation's economies to take these measures'.

Yes that would be most people's instinctive answer, agreed. History will decide on whether this turns out to be true - fact is we aren't yet after the event so no-one actually knows whether it will wipe out our economies or not.

If it doesn't then people might rightfully ask why government can't do more to help the neediest citizens in normal times.

If it does then people might rightfully ask whether the previous economic model was a good one if it is broken so quickly? I recall this was asked in 2007 but nothing meaningful happened. I cant see people swallowing another decade of austerity as the solution to the solution. But maybe too idealistic!

Bit pushed for time so will consider the second part of your post separately.

Nigel

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#1187 Re: Coronavirus Covid-19
March 27, 2020, 03:46:04 pm
The fiscal response to coronavirus went from 12bn to 300bn to unlimited over the same two weeks.

If this is commendable in the current context, why not at other times?

I don't hold an ideological position and I'm no economist, but I suspect most people's instinctive answer would be 'because it wiped out ours and every other nation's economies to take these measures'.
Habrich and others can debate the details, but if we were to continue with the same measures as the norm, wouldn't JB's point about 'money being illusory' have to apply and every country would have to be on the same page? Otherwise in a global market how would you prevent competitive advantage going to nations who reverted to the economic model of pre covid emergency?

Isn’t it all ok as long as you call it “monetary easing” and don’t say “printing money”?

Yes it is. In the same way that we have "negative growth" instead of "recessions".

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#1188 Re: Coronavirus Covid-19
March 27, 2020, 03:48:30 pm
On tax fiddles we I just don't know (it's all anecdote here). I'd rather give most the benefit of the doubt.

Correction - *you* don't know; and for you it's anecdotes. Some of us *do* know, and for us it isn't anecdotes it's our realm and we do business with these people and/or have been these people.


Interesting to see what happens in the Netherlands.

So you know some people who fiddle their taxes..... I presume you know some who don’t.... to say that you know for a fact that most people that pay themselves through dividends are on the fiddle seems a little presumptuous. Maybe in your world but not across the board.
 
I realise it’s mission impossible but there will be quite a lot of very hard working small business owners who do the right by their employees, that currently are about the only people who aren’t getting any assistance from the government. Whilst busting their guts to keep their businesses going and their employees in work.

I just hope they can find a way to distinguish between the tax dodging one man company and hard working entrepreneurs

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#1189 Re: Coronavirus Covid-19
March 27, 2020, 03:54:47 pm
I’m all for applauding those on the front line putting themselves in danger, they are massively heroic.  However, does anyone else see the irony in the general public clapping the NHS when many having only recently voted to continue running it into the ground? :wall:

I'm not sure that trying to make a political statement here is in any way helpful.  Now is the time that hopefully everyone just listens to what the PM,  CMO, etc keep saying and just stay the f*** at home.

Toby maybe brutus's point was awkwardly expressed, but there is still a place for political comment and I don't think we should just pipe down! He does have a point, for instance:

Advice on protective gear for NHS staff was rejected owing to cost

Quote
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/27/advice-on-protective-gear-for-nhs-staff-was-rejected-owing-to-cost?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

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#1190 Re: Coronavirus Covid-19
March 27, 2020, 04:01:01 pm
More in line with this page, are people aware of what is going on in Holland. ... The dutch attitude is very much full steam ahead

... and German states on that side of the country have been screaming at Merkel to close the border for over a week now.

petejh

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#1191 Re: Coronavirus Covid-19
March 27, 2020, 04:02:19 pm

So you know some people who fiddle their taxes..... I presume you know some who don’t.... to say that you know for a fact that most people that pay themselves through dividends are on the fiddle seems a little presumptuous. Maybe in your world but not across the board.


How about just taking a look back to the beginning of the posts about self-employed and reading what I actually said? Instead of attributing to me words I haven't said and then arguing against them.

I agree with you.

I can repeat it here:
Quote
As someone who for the last ten years has employed self-employed subbies almost weekly and who's got to know many of them and their ...ahem approaches to tax... I can fully appreciate the impossible task of trying to come up with fair financial aid scheme for the self-employed in this circumstance.
Consider for e.g. the offshore worker who boasts of earning £50k and is proud of the fact he doesn't pay a penny in income tax or national insurance - like many of these guys, he runs a 'limited company', pays himself a company 'dividend' and writes off all possible profits that he can against  the purchase of (non-existent) 'essential work equipment and plant' along with various other fraudulent ruses. By the way his father's in the local hospital being treated for a heart attack but he doesn't twig that the treatment's paid for by the taxes he's dodging.
Under this government aid scheme this person will get 80% of 0, because he doesn't make a profit right?
If this person ends up in financial hardship I find it difficult to generate much sympathy for his plight. A proportion of these types of guys (nearly always guys) spend their lives doing their utmost not to contribute their share to the welfare net when it suits them, instead squandering their (inflated) wages on toys.

Then on the other end of the spectrum, the person working from home providing some service or trade, making a reasonable living and who declares all their income. They'll get 80% of their declared profits which seems fair (although a 2 month wait for it).

Somewhere in the middle there'll be various tradespeople who do a range of stuff, on a spectrum of fully working for cash to fully declared for tax. There are so many combinations of circumstances it's hard to come up with something fair to all.


Not trying to be divisive, just that I've dealt with a lot of the former types (and was probably guilty of being one to a small degree a long time ago) and it's interesting to see this play out now they're in need of a state-funded welfare net. Lots of expensive toys going cheap on ebay..
« Last Edit: March 27, 2020, 04:07:46 pm by petejh »

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#1192 Re: Coronavirus Covid-19
March 27, 2020, 04:15:32 pm
Could this part of the thread and ongoing conversation please be moved to the CV economics and finance thread?
Thanks Everyone,

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#1193 Re: Coronavirus Covid-19
March 27, 2020, 04:19:17 pm

So you know some people who fiddle their taxes..... I presume you know some who don’t.... to say that you know for a fact that most people that pay themselves through dividends are on the fiddle seems a little presumptuous. Maybe in your world but not across the board.


How about just taking a look back to the beginning of the posts about self-employed and reading what I actually said? Instead of attributing to me words I haven't said and then arguing against them.

I agree with you.

I can repeat it here:
Quote
As someone who for the last ten years has employed self-employed subbies almost weekly and who's got to know many of them and their ...ahem approaches to tax... I can fully appreciate the impossible task of trying to come up with fair financial aid scheme for the self-employed in this circumstance.
Consider for e.g. the offshore worker who boasts of earning £50k and is proud of the fact he doesn't pay a penny in income tax or national insurance - like many of these guys, he runs a 'limited company', pays himself a company 'dividend' and writes off all possible profits that he can against  the purchase of (non-existent) 'essential work equipment and plant' along with various other fraudulent ruses. By the way his father's in the local hospital being treated for a heart attack but he doesn't twig that the treatment's paid for by the taxes he's dodging.
Under this government aid scheme this person will get 80% of 0, because he doesn't make a profit right?
If this person ends up in financial hardship I find it difficult to generate much sympathy for his plight. A proportion of these types of guys (nearly always guys) spend their lives doing their utmost not to contribute their share to the welfare net when it suits them, instead squandering their (inflated) wages on toys.

Then on the other end of the spectrum, the person working from home providing some service or trade, making a reasonable living and who declares all their income. They'll get 80% of their declared profits which seems fair (although a 2 month wait for it).

Somewhere in the middle there'll be various tradespeople who do a range of stuff, on a spectrum of fully working for cash to fully declared for tax. There are so many combinations of circumstances it's hard to come up with something fair to all.


Not trying to be divisive, just that I've dealt with a lot of the former types (and was probably guilty of being one to a small degree a long time ago) and it's interesting to see this play out now they're in need of a state-funded welfare net. Lots of expensive toys going cheap on ebay..

Thanks! Sorry I hadn’t seen that. I’ll get back in my box

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#1194 Re: Coronavirus Covid-19
March 27, 2020, 04:20:30 pm
More in line with this page, are people aware of what is going on in Holland. ... The dutch attitude is very much full steam ahead

... and German states on that side of the country have been screaming at Merkel to close the border for over a week now.
The belgians even more so. I have a business there as well and we are on full lockdown there. Our offices are 60km apart and operating in two diferent worlds at the minute.

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#1195 Re: Coronavirus Covid-19
March 27, 2020, 04:47:12 pm
Could this part of the thread and ongoing conversation please be moved to the CV economics and finance thread?
Thanks Everyone,

And there is now a Politics CV19 thread. Well done Gollum.

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#1196 Re: Coronavirus Covid-19
March 27, 2020, 05:21:08 pm
 :offtopic: Complete aside. Can somebody with their feet up on 80% to some sort of data dump of all the timestamps of posts on this thread. Then plot a graph so we can see whether this thread has followed an exponential growth curve?

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#1197 Re: Coronavirus Covid-19
March 27, 2020, 06:25:18 pm
Pete, I think you're right that other viruses (like flu and SARS type viruses) do show this behaviour. But I don't think it's yet been demonstrated in COVID-19 (or rather, I haven't seen it demonstrated).

At the risk of sounding like a total pedant, the current virus we are battling with is "SARS"*, it's called SARS-Cov-2. It is colloquially called "Coronovirus" as it's a novel coronovirus and was given the temporary name 2019-nCoV. The WHO don't want to uses SARS in the name to avoid confusion with 2003 SARS.

COVID-19 is the disease** caused by the virus, and is just "Coronavirus disease 2019" abbreviated.

*SARS = Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
** I want to say "condition" but my wife, a Consultant Oncologist, says "Disease" is very much the correct term.

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#1198 Re: Coronavirus Covid-19
March 27, 2020, 08:44:39 pm
Well.

I had been feeling almost peaceful, at home, quiet and viewing the world as if from outside.

Polly (Mrs OMM) just got a call from her distraught cousin (she’s close with them). Distraught because her 13 year old daughter had just died. She had a long standing heart condition and had a heart attack earlier this evening.
The thing is, she was staying with her dad, who is separated from Polly’s cousin, but only lives a little under a mile away in the next village.

Here’s the thing, no visiting the funeral home. Almost nobody will be allowed to attend the funeral. No chance for family to rally round or race up to lend support. She’s sat at home, with her teenage son.
Suddenly, isolation sucks.
 

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#1199 Re: Coronavirus Covid-19
March 27, 2020, 08:52:36 pm
Nothing will console for the loss of a child. Very sorry to read that.

 

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