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Away from debate about the numbers, I wonder if certain industries will fail to recover from this? I can see international tourism struggling (few airlines left, strict quarantine rules, public antipathy to long-distance travel post-Corona), and fast fashion might fall out of favour as people realise buying £10 tops isn't the be all and end all of modern society. However, I bet collective experiences like the cinema and theatre experience a rapid renaissance when they start re-opening. Ditto coffee shops and swimming pools. You don't know what you've got til it's temporarily closed.

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I had my test results back and they were positive for Covid-19.. So lucky that I just had the mild symptoms!! 

Hope everyone's doing well and keeping healthy! Haven't posted for a few months due to being busy and the lack of football, but had a gradual read through this thread. Crazy looking back at the f

Branson owns an island and a spaceship, but he wants aid from the government and he’s happy to hang his employees out to dry the man is callous. 

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20 minutes ago, RiseAgainst said:

Away from debate about the numbers, I wonder if certain industries will fail to recover from this? I can see international tourism struggling (few airlines left, strict quarantine rules, public antipathy to long-distance travel post-Corona), and fast fashion might fall out of favour as people realise buying £10 tops isn't the be all and end all of modern society. However, I bet collective experiences like the cinema and theatre experience a rapid renaissance when they start re-opening. Ditto coffee shops and swimming pools. You don't know what you've got til it's temporarily closed.

Airlines and the rail network will be bailed out by the government. A few cheap deals will get people back on their holidays. The people that will really suffer if there is no robust economic package in place is the common variety self employed worker. I hope the government get this right. But once again the unemployed will be ok as benefits will continue unhindered. 😕

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Just set up to work from home today. It's a mild annoyance when you work with things that need to be in a specific IP range and technically should never be out of it. Understandably people don't want their equipment outside of specific, locked-down places but it seems stupidly hopeless to get them to relax that in the current climate to allow for work to continue unhindered. Still, like I say, it's a mild annoyance, I still feel like I'm in a safe job and there are people I'm sure just on this board who have much bigger things to worry about. Especially as per the above, the self-employed. Worrying times. 😞 

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On 3/21/2020 at 7:32 PM, Changing Times said:

So to expand on that.  There are have been around 12,000 deaths so far from 300,000 confirmed cases.  This is a fatality rate of 4%, not 11%.  But that is only the confirmed cases.  We already know that people in this country aren't being tested even if they have symptoms, they are just being asked to stay at home.  It's almost certain that around the world there will be lots of people who have had it, had no symptoms at all, and won't have been tested as well as people who have had it with symptoms but haven't been tested, either because they are in isolation, the symptoms were mild, or there is a similar policy to this country.

None of that means this isn't serious, far from it.  It's horrible and it's going to kill a lot of people, sadly.  That's why it's important to try and follow all of the advice being given 👍

Yeah this is kind of the angle I was going for, mate. Like you say, we should still be careful but deaths vs. recoveries if it's just based on those hospitalised is not an accurate portrayal of how it will affect most of society, just those hospitalised. I suppose a better comparison using that kind of statistics would be how often does someone who is hospitalised with flu recover from it.

Numbers are just one thing though. Someone sent a message into BBC Tees this morning about how every bugger went to Redcar beach or Whitby at the weekend and how it was busier than usual... until it hits someone close to them, some people will never bloody listen. You can use statistics to send a grim or promising message but it just won't matter to some until it hits them hardest. That in itself is a really grim thought. 😞

On a lighter note, I was worried about my Granddad not respecting self-isolation but he's been the opposite and been incredibly strict with abiding by it. I worry for him being on his own for long periods (my Nanna passed away a few years ago now) but my family are calling him every day. And for the brightest part of all, his local Sainsburys of all places has been offering services to local regulars, they're now coming round to deliver his paper every day. They post the paper through and then ask him if he needs any other bits and bobs from the shop and they'll go back to the shop and bring them out to him later in the day. Absolutely chuffed with that level of community spirit in supporting the elderly and thought that might cheers one or two up to think about.

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15 hours ago, macapes said:

As of yesterday we were exactly 2 weeks behind Italy.   On March 7th they had 233 deaths.  Yesterday so did we.

UK, 19th - 144, 20th - 177, 21st - 233.

ITA, 5th - 148, 6th - 197, 7th - 233

We are mirroring their growth, just 2 weeks behind.  It doesn't mean we catch up in two weeks, it means in two weeks expect 700 deaths a day, whilst who knows where ITA will be.

They went on lock down 2 weeks ago tomorrow. We haven't learned.

Well done...just conveniently ignore all the very valid reasons I've given and continue your blinkered focus on copying other countries.

I'll just reiterate your opinion is very much at odds with the country's top medical experts.

Just heard on the midday news that in France they've already issued over 90,000 - yes NINETY THOUSAND - penalties (around €130 each) to people ignoring social distancing protocols or otherwise violating their lockdown procedures.

So doing as you suggest won't necessarily work either, given we've still got plenty of idiots failing to heed the government's repeated pleas for compliance.

All it'll likely result in is lots of people being fined and I doubt the prison system has the space and resources to deal with more  offenders.

That said, the government hasn't ruled out "more stringent measures". Be interesting to see exactly what they are and whether they have any effect.

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I mean if you're willing to ignore social distancing so much so that you want to take on a €130 penalty every time you do it then you must be bloody rich. What on Earth is a government supposed to do other than call in actual physical force when people don't listen to the extent of softer, financial based measures? People. Are. ***. Stupid.

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1 hour ago, RiseAgainst said:

Away from debate about the numbers, I wonder if certain industries will fail to recover from this? I can see international tourism struggling (few airlines left, strict quarantine rules, public antipathy to long-distance travel post-Corona), and fast fashion might fall out of favour as people realise buying £10 tops isn't the be all and end all of modern society. However, I bet collective experiences like the cinema and theatre experience a rapid renaissance when they start re-opening. Ditto coffee shops and swimming pools. You don't know what you've got til it's temporarily closed.

I think a lot of smaller businesses that operate on a week-to-week basis could fold permanently. The "gig economy" will crash hard and may take a while to grow back. The self-employed are in a world of hurt right now. Even large businesses like airlines, major chain stores are being hit hard. Supermarkets and stores with established online & home delivery services are about the only exception.

I think there will be a big economic hit...even with all the assistance the government is offering. Probably at least on a par with 2008. They are having to borrow BIG...and will have to repay all that money at some point.

I really hope we see the end of "fast fashion" purely for the environmental impact it has.

For those businesses that do survive, I'm pretty sure they will see a massive upturn, as soon as restrictions are lifted.

 

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8 minutes ago, wilsoncgp said:

I mean if you're willing to ignore social distancing so much so that you want to take on a €130 penalty every time you do it then you must be bloody rich. What on Earth is a government supposed to do other than call in actual physical force when people don't listen to the extent of softer, financial based measures? People. Are. ***. Stupid.

Exactly.

The next logical step is to call in the police (or more likely the military) to physically bar people from moving around, which will almost certainly lead to more aggro. Not to mention putting military personnel at increased risk.

Do you really want to introduce potential sources of Covid-19 into the prison system...even assuming there was room for them?

Only alternative would be to set up detention camps...grouping large numbers of potential health risks together...

In Italy, the population seem to be acting more sensibly and are complying with their lockdown...probably because they've been scared by the sheer number of deaths.

I think the government knows we're rather more bolshy / stupid over here...which is probably why they've tried to delay it as long as possible.

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I'm not sure we're more bolshy than the Italians. Friends of mine spend a lot of time over there, and say Britain is a more compliant and respectful-of-authority society than the devil-may-care Italians. But I do think a lockdown will quickly set citizens against the state, and in the social media age, all it takes is a few single mothers being arrested/fined for trying to take their ADHD toddlers to a closed park, and social media will go up like a tinderbox.

Unless death rates continue to spike, any lockdown will have to be pretty short-lived, because protectors will quickly come to be seen as oppressors. The collective national interest argument and self-policing might hold til after Easter, but I don't see it enduring beyond then. Let's hope the powers that be use these next four weeks wisely to get all the new ventilators running and bring the retired NHS workforce back into the fold.

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13 hours ago, sackrobson2 said:

But that’s the point, you are adding in new people to dilute the results. Imagine nobody else contracts the virus. The denominator remains at 300k, the numerator increases significantly. So of the 300,000 people who have it now, a lot more than 4% of them will die. That was my point, I’m not arguing about other stuff. 
 

I agree lots of other people have it we don’t know about so the real number is then reduced but we just have no idea what that number is. 
 

I also agree death rates seem to be massively diffeeent for healthy younger people than old people or people with pre existing conditions. But I’m sure a lot of people on this board fall into the higher risk of death categories so that’s probably not very reassuring. What we all have to do is try to slow it down and hope a vaccine can be produced ASAP. That will be the game changer. It’s *** but we have to stay home and try to protect the more at risk people. 

 
 

Sorry, I didn't mean it like adding new people to dilute results.  The countries that have a high death rate, like Italy, seem to be odd outliers to me.  I'm not a health expert but I do like messing around with some maths now and again.  I mentioned in that post the data I'd seen about Italy and the fact that there was an unusually high proportion of older people who are apparently contracting the virus there - 75% of the cases are people over the age of 50.  Even with a relatively older population than most countries, those numbers don't make sense to me (that doesn't mean that they don't make sense at all of course, they just don't to me).  Contracting the virus should be relatively random over large numbers of people and it doesn't seem to be in Italy for some reason.  To me this either means that the data I've seen is incorrect (making the post pointless), there are far more people in Italy with the virus than they realise but a lot don't have symptoms/it's very mild or there really is some odd quirk where older people have gotten it first before many younger people.  If it's the latter then with more cases you would expect the number of infected healthier people better able to fight the virus to grow far more rapidly and thus the mortality rate will decrease as more cases are added.  If it's that there are already more cases in Italy, then the mortality rate is already lower than we realise.

All that I objected to was your statement that the death rate in this country would be higher than 4% and that it would be higher than that worldwide.  You can't say that with any certainty and to me it's wrong to do so as it's a scary enough time as it is.  The experts seem to disagree with that and I think we have to trust them on this.

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4 hours ago, RiseAgainst said:

Away from debate about the numbers, I wonder if certain industries will fail to recover from this? I can see international tourism struggling (few airlines left, strict quarantine rules, public antipathy to long-distance travel post-Corona), and fast fashion might fall out of favour as people realise buying £10 tops isn't the be all and end all of modern society. However, I bet collective experiences like the cinema and theatre experience a rapid renaissance when they start re-opening. Ditto coffee shops and swimming pools. You don't know what you've got til it's temporarily closed.

I think tourism will see a resurgence as once we get over this people will be desperate to travel again, both domestically and internationally.  The biggest issue for all businesses will be less disposable income available, although a side effect of not being able to do anything could mean people actually save a bit extra in the meantime.  I think that what you might see is a similar thing to what happened post WWII but more quickly rather than the lag into the 1950's.

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3 hours ago, wilsoncgp said:

Yeah this is kind of the angle I was going for, mate. Like you say, we should still be careful but deaths vs. recoveries if it's just based on those hospitalised is not an accurate portrayal of how it will affect most of society, just those hospitalised. I suppose a better comparison using that kind of statistics would be how often does someone who is hospitalised with flu recover from it.

Numbers are just one thing though. Someone sent a message into BBC Tees this morning about how every bugger went to Redcar beach or Whitby at the weekend and how it was busier than usual... until it hits someone close to them, some people will never bloody listen. You can use statistics to send a grim or promising message but it just won't matter to some until it hits them hardest. That in itself is a really grim thought. 😞

On a lighter note, I was worried about my Granddad not respecting self-isolation but he's been the opposite and been incredibly strict with abiding by it. I worry for him being on his own for long periods (my Nanna passed away a few years ago now) but my family are calling him every day. And for the brightest part of all, his local Sainsburys of all places has been offering services to local regulars, they're now coming round to deliver his paper every day. They post the paper through and then ask him if he needs any other bits and bobs from the shop and they'll go back to the shop and bring them out to him later in the day. Absolutely chuffed with that level of community spirit in supporting the elderly and thought that might cheers one or two up to think about.

Sadly, there are morons everywhere who seem to think that they can do whatever they like.  Of course, should they or one of their loved ones catch the virus then they will be the loudest complainers about the government and everybody else but themselves.  The truly stupid thing is that if everyone does this for a few weeks then the whole situation will improve for everyone.

That's nice about the local shop and your Granddad.  I think (and hope) a lot of places are doing something similar.  They will hopefully know the regulars and be able to give them a hand in a way that local councils might not be able to.

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21 minutes ago, RiseAgainst said:

I'm not sure we're more bolshy than the Italians. Friends of mine spend a lot of time over there, and say Britain is a more compliant and respectful-of-authority society than the devil-may-care Italians. But I do think a lockdown will quickly set citizens against the state, and in the social media age, all it takes is a few single mothers being arrested/fined for trying to take their ADHD toddlers to a closed park, and social media will go up like a tinderbox.

Unless death rates continue to spike, any lockdown will have to be pretty short-lived, because protectors will quickly come to be seen as oppressors. The collective national interest argument and self-policing might hold til after Easter, but I don't see it enduring beyond then. Let's hope the powers that be use these next four weeks wisely to get all the new ventilators running and bring the retired NHS workforce back into the fold.

I frankly find it hard to believe that the most easily outraged people in this country will start a war against the government because they can't do social things that hinder the NHS and its ability to function. I think we'll sooner hit a point where someone dies because they don't have access to a ventilator or a doctor, or it will kill someone close to them, and more and more people start to realise they're *** idiots for thinking that talk was mere scaremongering.

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5 minutes ago, Changing Times said:

Sadly, there are morons everywhere who seem to think that they can do whatever they like.  Of course, should they or one of their loved ones catch the virus then they will be the loudest complainers about the government and everybody else but themselves.  The truly stupid thing is that if everyone does this for a few weeks then the whole situation will improve for everyone.

That's nice about the local shop and your Granddad.  I think (and hope) a lot of places are doing something similar.  They will hopefully know the regulars and be able to give them a hand in a way that local councils might not be able to.

I mean, I'm of the mind that the NHS is underfunded and understaffed (and staff are underpaid) vs. the challenge they face day in, day out and our current political leaders have little intention of solving that problem. That's a viewpoint I've held for some time and something I hope we can change.

But even saying that, it does make me feel somewhat uneasy that some on the left are already happy to blame this lack of resources to deal with the worst affected patients on the current government and its handling of the NHS. I will not be shocked at all to see the likes of Corbyn and McDonnell blame this problem on the Tories because they will be made an easy target. It borders on a mild happiness for some that the NHS is coming under so much stress that it can be so publicised and so easily used to attack them. When, as you say, the main culprits that are going to cause the greatest stress during this particular period is not government, it is people. And if those same people happy to point the finger at the government during this period are also happily going about their lives like nothing has changed and that there's nothing to worry about, they can get in the sea.

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26 minutes ago, wilsoncgp said:

I frankly find it hard to believe that the most easily outraged people in this country will start a war against the government because they can't do social things that hinder the NHS and its ability to function. I think we'll sooner hit a point where someone dies because they don't have access to a ventilator or a doctor, or it will kill someone close to them, and more and more people start to realise they're *** idiots for thinking that talk was mere scaremongering.

I wasn't suggesting there'd be a war over social things. I was suggesting people's patience with (and respect for) the current national closure will dwindle the more it drags on and affects daily life and household income. And eventually, that will begin to manifest as resentment, then hostility, then increasingly brazen breaches of whatever is being imposed on us all. Yes, some people have yet to accept the gravity of the current situation, but I don't think we're all going to become more accepting of being confined to our homes as the weeks roll past, as you suggest.

My dad is over 70 and my mum has bronchiectasis, so they will shortly be told to self-isolate for 12 weeks. As of today, they cannot get an online groceries delivery slot from any supermarket. They can survive on freezer meals for a while, but if weeks become months, they will start to become very angry about being unable to go to the shops and obtain food, rather than having to ask me to risk my own safety by going out for them. And they're a retired couple with no kids at home, no jobs to worry about, public sector pensions, a lovely home with a nice garden and a profound love of iPads. They're the antithesis of party animals, and they're certainly not impatient or self-centred people.

My dad is a retired chemist, so he and my mum are acutely aware of the risks of Covid-19 to her health, but she's already discussing how long they'll be willing to accept being locked down, and it's not even happened yet. I suspect similar conversations will be happening behind closed doors up and down the land this week.

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