[tomtom]

Thanks. That’s some good news. We probably only need it for two days a week. I got the impression at drop off today that the school wanted to put something on - and was tryin g to get NHS worker children signed up almost.

[mrjonathanr]

Those children who can mix with their peers will be the lucky ones .

[tomtom]

Those children who can mix with their peers will be the lucky ones .

Yes - that’s well worth bearing in mind.

[Oldmanmatt]

Those children who can mix with their peers will be the lucky ones .

This has just sunk in here, tonight.
The twinigans are supposed to be doing all their year six leaving stuff. SATs (not so much to be morned), they always put on a production, had a big ceremony and prize giving, and a massive “Prom” (which the girls had already bought dresses for etc).
Basically it’s been a big deal at this school and they saw both elder brother and sister do all this cool stuff. Now, it’s not going to happen for them.
They both just clicked that tomorrow will be their last day with their friends if the last six years.
Hit them both like a ton of bricks.

Eldest is just pissed that she was supposed to do her GCSEs a year early and now has to do them with the rest of her year (smart arse, that one. Actually quietly happy she’s not going to get everything her way. I’ve always been worried about her reaction to not being the smartest cookie when she hits uni. She needed a reality check).

Funny how such a small thing has ruptured the illusion of mild adventure and suddenly it’s serious.

[Will Hunt]

Another musing..
Anybody else think that this has the potential (if not already there) to turn into THE moral dilemma that will be studied and dissected for the next hundred years?

i.e.

Situation:
An infection to which humanity has no immunity and no vaccine is rapidly spreading throughout the world. It kills a tiny fraction of people in good health under 50, and an order of magnitude greater fraction of people in poor health over 60.
The only way to prevent mass infection is total isolation.
No health service can cope with the ill-health with mass infection which will result from unimpeded spread of the virus.
No economy can cope with the only way to prevent mass infection.

Do you:
a. voluntarily kill the global economy temporarily, to try to protect the at-risk group from infection?
b. protect the livelihoods of current and future generations, but accept that the at-risk group will die in huge numbers from infection?

Is that about right? Big envelope required.

I consider this a category error - the decision has already been made as a) and always will be.

Human lives are real and cannot be valued in economic terms. Conversely the economy is entirely a product of our imaginations and has no unbreakable link to reality. It won't go away because modern society is dependent on trade. But the current position is no more concrete than a game of monopoly, there are just more players.

I was thinking about this yesterday. I'm not sure it's as simple as this. Imagine if the risk to age demographics was reversed. Children especially vulnerable and the older you get the less risk you're at. We'd have had martial law at the outset.

[Will Hunt]

My elderly neighbour (78) is doing her best with distancing. She's switched on and gets it. Her boyfriend (early 60s) had a conversation with my wife this morning which left her shaking with rage.
These are the various things he had to say.

"Why's your Will telling B to stay at home?"
"They should be able to go out. It's discriminatory against the elderly".
"They've paid their taxes. They're entitled to use the NHS".

Complete failure to comprehend the scale of the problem.

Plenty of old people on our street carrying on like nothing is happening. Yesterday, on our social distancing walk there were young people out climbing as a crew. Old ramblers groups out together. We definitely won't see any behavioural change until the bodies are piling up and it's far too late.

[Johnny Brown]

We'd have had martial law at the outset.

I'm not convinced - once the death toll rises sufficiently you've got martial law. As you observe, until then it seems there's a collective failure of imagination due to the invisible threat.

[spidermonkey09]

"Why's your Will telling B to stay at home?"
"They should be able to go out. It's discriminatory against the elderly".
"They've paid their taxes. They're entitled to use the NHS".

Jesus fucking christ. Did your wife give him both barrels?

[Will Hunt]

"Why's your Will telling B to stay at home?"
"They should be able to go out. It's discriminatory against the elderly".
"They've paid their taxes. They're entitled to use the NHS".

Jesus fucking christ. Did your wife give him both barrels?

Let's just say he got a flea in his ear.

While we're on the subject of dull cunts, there was a vox pop on the news last night of a woman in London saying "we won't change what we're doing because then we're giving in to it". Like it's a terrorist group whose goal is to alter our daily life, instead of a virus whose goal it is to use you as a vector and maybe kill you in the process.

[abarro81]

I was thinking about this yesterday. I'm not sure it's as simple as this. Imagine if the risk to age demographics was reversed. Children especially vulnerable and the older you get the less risk you're at. We'd have had martial law at the outset.

I'm not quite sure of your point here. Presumably for most people with any sort of utilitarian leaning* would consider the question/answer to be quite different in your scenario, so it's not surprising that people would come to a different conclusion?

*I'm naively assuming that this covers most non-highly-religious people, but may be entirely wrong on this front

[spidermonkey09]

Client in America who clearly buys into the whole 'British stiff upper lip' wank said to me on the phone yesterday 'even during the Blitz the shops and theatres stayed open and now they're shutting them for a virus.' The different being, of course, that one couldn't catch the Blitz...

[Will Hunt]

I was thinking about this yesterday. I'm not sure it's as simple as this. Imagine if the risk to age demographics was reversed. Children especially vulnerable and the older you get the less risk you're at. We'd have had martial law at the outset.

I'm not quite sure of your point here. Presumably for most people with any sort of utilitarian leaning* would consider the question/answer to be quite different in your scenario, so it's not surprising that people would come to a different conclusion?

*I'm naively assuming that this covers most non-highly-religious people, but may be entirely wrong on this front

I think the point was that JB seemed to be saying that all life was sacred and there was no question about wrecking the economy if it saved lives. Yet, clearly people aren't really following the advice. A couple of friends of mine went to the pub last night: "it wasn't busy and we'd rather keep the business going". But if there were images on the TV of dying children instead of the elderly and infirm then people would be more inclined to listen I think.
In itself I think that's self evident, but it seems contrary to what JB said.

[Oldmanmatt]

My elderly neighbour (78) is doing her best with distancing. She's switched on and gets it. Her boyfriend (early 60s) had a conversation with my wife this morning which left her shaking with rage.
These are the various things he had to say.

"Why's your Will telling B to stay at home?"
"They should be able to go out. It's discriminatory against the elderly".
"They've paid their taxes. They're entitled to use the NHS".

Complete failure to comprehend the scale of the problem.

Plenty of old people on our street carrying on like nothing is happening. Yesterday, on our social distancing walk there were young people out climbing as a crew. Old ramblers groups out together. We definitely won't see any behavioural change until the bodies are piling up and it's far too late.

Yes.

Today is the first time I felt angry.

Yesterday I spent juggling money to arrange loans, so I can pay my staff as normal and call it “holiday” for as long as possible (or at least until I can make head or tail of the Government’s aid package).
I spent time cancelling customers direct debits and shutting down payments before they’re drawn (I know some of our regulars have been laid off already).
I dealt with a SEN school, who use us for their 6th form students, every week and are not shutting down, but now are struggling to provide much for their students. They were genuinely upset that we couldn’t accommodate them. Fair play, they’re as lost as we are.

I had to deal with upset kids, last night (as I mentioned before) and I know that that probably seems very minor, but it’s huge for them. They already lost all their clubs, sports and activities and it’s not as if we can just let them roam the streets and hang out with their mates, aka defeating the whole purpose of the shutdown.

Then I had to pop out (alone and because we refuse to buy threemonths worth of food now) and the place was absolutely crawling with over 65’s. Cafés, shops, sat on the benches in the pedestrian precinct. Bloody meeting up at the church hall for a coffee morning!

Why are we bothering?

I want to let rip with some long rant about “fucking Boomers”, because I actually have had some niggling, teeth grinding, views of my parents generation for several years; but I imagine many here don’t need the obvious laying out.

And if I hear/read on more of them banging on about the “Blitz” and/or “Dunkirk” spirit, I will lose it.

I am 49 years old. My Grandmother (last surviving grandparent) was ONLY 15 YEARS OLD AT THE END OF THE WAR.

[Johnny Brown]

I agree that we value young life above old. I'm not convinced that means the lower value placed on old life is anywhere close to the much lower value place on money. In desperate times people say things like 'it's only money, we'll get through it'. They don't say 'ah well it's only death'.

It's clear that lots of people, perhaps even a majority, are just blithely ignoring the facts and will do until the bodies are being trucked out. At which point they'll complain that nobody warned them.

[Offwidth]

225000 cases, 9277 deaths and 81000 recovered world wide still is so far away from what people are saying will happen, so i am still trying to sort out real stuff and look on the bright side.

For the nth time it's nothing to do with the number of deaths right now, its to do with the fast growth in infections and the significant numbers of those needing critical care... if it gets out of control it will firstly overwhelm our hospitals as it did in Wuhan and Italy, and then without a lockdown it would likely eventually kill getting on for 1% of the populaltion. It's way more serious than seasonal flu.

A sobering article on what might happen in the third world:

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/mar/20/worlds-most-vulnerable-in-third-wave-for-covid-19-support-warn-experts

[teestub]

Seems to business as usual in the Dales: roads busy, lots of motorcycle routers and campers/motor homes, lots of old folk driving about and the start of the spring ‘car rally’ season (saw a Sierra Cosworth rally yesterday which I’m sure 3T would have loved). Not stopped in town but drove through and still tonnes of people knocking around the shops.

[duncan]

Happy to report one 80-something gets it but but my Mum takes most of her medical advice from me rather than social media.  We've collectively decided she's safer where she is than joining any of her offspring. Hope her local shops stay stocked with some kind of food.

By the way, once this is all over and the over-70s (apart from my Mum) have been culled, when do we have the Brexit recount?!


In other news, we (medical school) have just had a circular begging for anyone with good molecular biology lab. skills to volunteer to help with testing as the hospital lab. is very stretched. It read rather like Shackleton's mythical job advert...

[Smith42]

STAY IN THIS WEEKEND!  BE PART OF THE SOLUTION< NOT PART OF THE PROBLEM.

Read this from Italy where they have one of the best health services and more ICU beds than the NHS!

4/ I myself watched with some amazement the reorganization of the entire hospital in the past week, when our current enemy was still in the shadows: the wards slowly "emptied", elective activities were interrupted, intensive care were freed up to create as many beds as possible.

5/ All this rapid transformation brought an atmosphere of silence and surreal emptiness to the corridors of the hospital that we did not yet understand, waiting for a war that was yet to begin and that many (including me) were not so sure would ever come with such ferocity.

6/ I still remember my night call a week ago when I was waiting for the results of a swab. When I think about it, my anxiety over one possible case seems almost ridiculous and unjustified, now that I've seen what's happening. Well, the situation now is dramatic to say the least.

7/ The war has literally exploded and battles are uninterrupted day and night. But now that need for beds has arrived in all its drama. One after the other the departments that had been emptied fill up at an impressive pace.

8/ The boards with the names of the patients, of different colours depending on the operating unit, are now all red and instead of surgery you see the diagnosis, which is always the damned same: bilateral interstitial pneumonia.

11/ Cases are multiplying, we arrive at a rate of 15-20 admissions per day all for the same reason. The results of the swabs now come one after the other: positive, positive, positive. Suddenly the E.R. is collapsing.

13/ Someone already to be intubated and go to intensive care. For others it's too late... Every ventilator becomes like gold: those in operating theatres that have now suspended their non-urgent activity become intensive care places that did not exist before.

[northern yob]

There’s so much information on what we (the first world) are doing to try to contain the impact of all this. I’ve seen absolutely nothing about what is happening in the 3rd world. If things are going to be as bad as seems apparent, I dread to think what the impact will be in the barrio’s of South America and the slums of India.... it’s truly terrifying.

[Muenchener]

Just saw on twitter - so completely true & authoritative, obvs - that Lima is on lockdown and Peruvian Patient Zero has recovered. Hmm.

[Snoops]

In Italy, they didn't differentiate between patients who had COVID.
They put everyone on ventilators on a first come first served basis.
This mean't all the ICU were taken by mainly older patients with commorbidities, who would of been very unlikely to make it anyway.

The result of that decision was patients who would of benefited from ventilation couldn't gain access, in affect had/have to wait for someone to die who was already ventilated. This has significantly increased the mortality rate in Italy.

There have never been enough ventilators/ICU capacity for a normal flu season in UK, every winter, every day, every hospital decisions are made as to who should be given access (Level 2/3 care) and who is (old and 'crumbly') and should not have invasive support (because there isn't enough for everyone)...these patients get supportive measures and are made comfortable, they might pull though..usually they don't.

You just don't hear about it in the news.
Yours an NHS surgeon

[SA Chris]

Sub Saharan Africa it will be devastating. Hopefully as little travel goes on it will be contained, but information won't be well disseminated and there will always be things like food delivery that will risk spread of the disease.

[SA Chris]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=TPpoJGYlW54&feature=emb_logo

not sure if this has been shared before, but interesting background as to how this all came about

[abarro81]

"It was agreed that a policy of alternating between periods of more and less strict social
distancing measures could plausibly be effective at keeping the number of critical care
cases within capacity. These would need to be in place for at least most of a year. Under
such as policy, at least half of the year would be spent under the stricter social distancing
measures. "*

Unsurprising given recent statements and the Imperial paper, but confirms that current plan is for this to be the long haul. Lord knows how any business affected (walls, cafes, bars etc) is supposed to plan around this?


*From here: https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/scientific-advisory-group-for-emergencies-sage-coronavirus-covid-19-response

see
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/873729/06-spi-m-o-consensus-view-on-behavioural-and-social-interventions.pdf

[tim palmer]

I guess the hope is an easily upscale-able testing scheme, or vaccine will be arrived at which will truncate the timetable