Exhibition cancellations (not much to do with that anymore!)

[woodenhead]

It's interesting that just as you see the source of your problem that solutions appear as if out of nowhere - the universe always has your back and presents solutions.

 

It seems that one of the issues I was facing actually had a ready made solution written into the code a couple of years ago by ME but marked out due to firewall restrictions that no longer apply.  So turn off one command and replace it with the other and hey presto Woodenhead is a happy man, makes the remaining 4 web pages a doddle to update.

[woodenhead]

29 minutes ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

Everything in life is about Politics or vice versa.

 

Just because people, here or elsewhere, are critical of the Government does not say much about their own party allegiances. Some of the most vocal critics of the UK Government with regard to Covid-19 actions are on the Conservative benches of the House of Commons.

Which is probably a good thing, no Government should be immune to challenge from it's own members and ensures that it cannot simply rely on block voting to railroad through changes.

[Nearholmer]

Here is a list of the top ten worst affected (in terms of deaths per capita) countries, so far.

 

We are Number 10 on this list.

 

A vast host of factors apply, but “politics“ doesn’t seem to be one - there are administrations of all stamps here.

 

 

[andyman7]

1 hour ago, woodenhead said:

I think I have found the source of my anger and it wasn't Covid, it was work related.

 

I've been doing some system migration work over the past week and it was going swimmingly well until Thursday, then I hit some difficulties owing to very old code and it sparked off an imposter syndrome episode that I don't know what I am doing.

 

So my deep rooted imposter syndrome issues surfaced as frustration at the current mess we're in.

 

Now I have figured out where it is coming from I can do something about it, in fact, I am doing something about it, first web page rebuild nearly complete.

It's hard, but we have to try and be kinder to ourselves and other people. Objectively, I can look at my circumstances and recognise that despite the curbs on meeting friends, events I look(ed) forward to being cancelled, reduction in social contact, I still have company, I'm fed and watered and have a pile of modelling projects plus the internet and several hundred channels of TV (of varying quality). But as a species we don't like the sensation of being caged, and if the answer to that is presented as 'if everyone does x this can be over soon', we get angry if we see others not 'doing as they are told', and there is all sorts of opportunity for frustration, rage, anger.

 

Apart from occasionally having to stand back and in old language 'count our blessings', I think a couple of other things are important to help maintain a balance. One is that no country in the world is coming out of this scot free. Australia and New Zealand are effectively prison colonies now, and until there is a long term solution (which may eventually requires a degree of infection to work its way through the less vulnerable population) no-one is going or coming back from there with any ease for quite a while now. Every other country is struggling with trying to keeop some semblance of an economy going whilst attempting to slow infection rates. The second point is as a species we shouldn't allow our sense of tehnological superiority to cloud the fact that this virus is so distruptive precisely because it has evolved to be exceptionally effective. Many people can have it and not know, it is very contagious, and it only delibilitates some of the people it infects, thus avoiding killing off all its hosts. We somehow think it is our fault it keeps spreading but its a natural phenomena. We know that in nature some things mutate and evolve to become super successful, and this impacts on other species. As humans, we just don't like it when it is done to us!

[caradoc]

4 hours ago, Neil said:

First amongst these has to be New Zealand, the stand out performer in managing the impact of CV19. Of course it has a significant natural advantage being an island state, ....... 

 

Having a population a fraction of ours in the UK, in a slightly larger land area, might make a difference. As would being located on the edge of the world with no international transport hubs. 

 

 

[Nearholmer]

Further random thought:

 

I am by no means convinced that differences in compliance with good practices explain the “Covid north-south divide”.

 

The rates of incidence are going up everywhere, and anything that follows an exponential law will always have a gradually steepening curve that appears to “Take off like a rocket” when numbers reach a certain point.

 

My gut feel is that the south is simply a few weeks behind on the same curve, and that the north may be ahead as much because the virus incidence never fell back to quite such a low level in the first place, and because autumn comes ever-so-slightly sooner in the north, as much as anything else.

 

Where I live, in the southern half of the country, adherence to ‘the rules’ has never been perfect. As a small, far from isolated, instance: this morning I took my son to play footy at a match in an area where the incidence is almost twice what it is here*. I was expecting “super-adherence”, and was slightly surprised to see rather flaky social-distancing among home spectators, and  knots of mask-less people huddling together at bus stops that we passed.
 

Much of ‘the south’, where I live, is now at incidence levels that would have prompted talk of ‘local lock downs’ not long ago, and numbers are still climbing (maybe the rule of six hasn’t had time to work yet). Unless a miracle occurs, many areas will cross the thresh-hold into the new ‘Level 2’ in two to four weeks time.

 

In short, my reading is that there is zero room for smugness, or viewing this as “a northern problem”, in the same way that thinking of it as “a Chinese problem”, an “Italian problem” or a “London problem” Earlier in the year were all wrong.
 

Can anyone point to any objective evidence that the ‘north complied less’?
 

* Which throws up all sorts of interesting questions about the role of ‘grass roots sport’ as a cause of spread. I’ve not heard of it being cited, but there is a lot of close contact in football, and older teenagers seem to be more like adults than children in their propensity to catch and spread. Maybe the fact that all matches occur in a strong, cold wind, and intermittent rain helps!

 

 

Edited October 10, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Neil]

1 hour ago, caradoc said:

 

Having a population a fraction of ours in the UK, in a slightly larger land area, might make a difference. As would being located on the edge of the world with no international transport hubs. 

 

 

 

 I suspect that having world class leadership has made the biggest difference. I've just taken a look at Hawaii, another island which again isn't a major international transport hub.

 

Population:        Hawaii 1.41million          New Zealand  4.88 million

Covid deaths:    Hawaii 165                       New Zealand  25

Covid cases:       Hawaii 13, 461                New Zealand  1,870

 

New Zealand has roughly 3.5 times the population of Hawaii yet 6.6 times fewer deaths. Quality of leadership counts.

[BoD]

7 minutes ago, Neil said:

 

New Zealand has roughly 3.5 times the population of Hawaii yet 6.6 times fewer deaths.

What about population density though?  I don’t know how the population is distributed but New Zealand has roughly ten times the area.

[stan williams]

The majority of the countries listed are some of the poorest and live in overcrowded dwellings, so any illness

will be passed on.

Regarding western culture, viruses are passed on easier when people are crammed into planes, trains and buses

and the reason we always have a high flu rate every year.

Maybe we need to change our culture, more working from home, cut out unessential packed travel and not

reliant on what seems to be our largest industry these days,  hospitality ?

Lets start making and building things again.

Stan.

[Geoff Endacott]

Meanwhile, back to exhibitions. Although Trainwest is still booked for April 2021, we have decided that the club can manage without the income. If things don't improve within the next few weeks we will have to manage without the show. That means there is now the distinct possibility that the next Trainwest exhibition will not be held until at least April 2022. That is a gap of three years.

 

Geoff Endacott

[Neil]

3 hours ago, BoD said:

What about population density though?  I don’t know how the population is distributed but New Zealand has roughly ten times the area.

 

Hard to quantify. New Zealand is a big country but much of the population will self evidently be concentrated in the major cities.

[RJS1977]

On 08/10/2020 at 16:34, woodenhead said:

Well this is worrying and a sign that some information isn't being readily shared.

Further lockdowns coming, this isn't new but the image below was shared in this article.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-54464470

 

People being told in 'Covid secure' workplaces places to turn off contact tracing.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-54465356

 

What is in the missing 42% of the All Ages? -

 

 

I would imagine a significant number of people don't know where they may have picked up the virus. If someone you've been around gets the virus, and then you develop symptoms or test positive, it's a pretty good bet you caught it off them. Likewise if a number of people who have been at a particular venue come down with the virus, it's likely they all caught it there.

 

However if you've caught it off someone asymptomatic, or you've been to a number of places where you could have caught it, it won't be possible to attribute it to a particular source.

 

Then there are almost certainly people who have a good idea where they've picked it up, but they claim they "don't know" because they were doing something 'awkward' (e.g. caught it off somebody else's wife!) or illegal (had a party for fifty people).

 

 

[Andy Hayter]

8 hours ago, gr.king said:

This pretty clearly IS about a fair number of those who might die of Covid-19 can legitimately be said to be not far from death's door anyway.

 

That is what we are supposed to believe and it is certainly true that the elderly have a much higher likelihood of succumbing to the virus.  However it is worth noting that around 50% of the deaths so far have been with people aged below 65 years - in the UK and also in France.

 

So if you think the virus is simply culling the weakest, it might be worth re-thinking that idea. 

[Erichill16]

Evening All,

I'm not regular on this topic but I’ve seen mention of ‘people’ bending if not breaking rules regarding the Covid outbreak. 
I own and work in a retail pharmacy and what grates with me is the number of people who don’t wear a face mask and play the I’m exempt card. We have ‘substance users’ who don’t give a sh!t but know they can get away with not wearing ( or purchasing) a mask but just saying ‘I’m exempt’. They come in everyday and there’s nothing I can do. They’re putting me, my staff and other customers at risk. 
Rant over, I’ll go and find a modelling thread.

Robert

 

[The White Rabbit]

Perhaps it's worth redefining 'weakest'. I'm not claiming to be any sort of expert, but it seems to me it exploits those with at least one of a number of sets of particular circumstances, not all of which are immediately apparent as what the average person would regard as medical vulnerability. That would explain why some very fit and (at least superficially) healthy people have been killed or crippled with it, as well as the unsurprising cases, the old, infirm, obese etc.. On the basis knowledge is power, if we could identify more about the virus, we'd be able to target it more effectively and make 'better' decisions about how to fight it. 

 

Apart from the issue of political decision-making, two things particularly concern me - it seems it might be an 'agile' virus and adapt relatively quickly, making a human response (including an effective vaccine) more difficult and secondly, the 'long' cases, where people struggle to recover. At best, it means we have a particularly nasty bug on our hands, at worst, we have one which cripples rather than kills, ruining lives and giving states the tough choice of allocating scarce and expensive medical resources to care/cure (?) or letting victims struggle by on their own and increasing numbers of people becoming completely disillusioned with our political system and either disengaging with it or seeking radical solutions. 

 

I see plenty of people breaking (not just bending) the rules. Including some of our neighbours, who were ostentatiously sanctimonious about the clapping for carers and who criticised myself and anyone else who did not participate, whatever their reasons, but who are now blatantly mingling between households, despite being in a local lockdown. But such attitudes are always going to inhibit an effective response (and I fully appreciate the jury is well and truly out on what that is)! 

 

Risk is part of life but there's no point in taking unnecessary risks. I have a couple of [provisional] exhibition invites for early 2021. Both are from people I would not wish to let down and would want to support if possible. Both are organised by individuals I believe are responsible and have good judgement. Difficult times for many at the moment but exhibition managers are in a particularly unpleasant place at the moment. 

[Nearholmer]

2 hours ago, Andy Hayter said:

However it is worth noting that around 50% of the deaths so far have been with people aged below 65 years - in the UK and also in France

Andy

 

Are you sure that figure is right? It seems a very high % to me.

 

Yes, having checked it is way too high. From ONS "Coronavirus Roundup" dated 6 October 2020: The majority of deaths involving COVID-19 have been among people aged 65 years and over (47,200 out of 52,856).

 

 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/articles/coronaviruscovid19roundupdeathsandhealth/2020-06-26#coviddeaths

 

I make that c11% below 65yo, rather than 50%.

 

A count in the USA up to late July gave c20% below 65yo. I can't readily find the figure for France, but I'd be really amazed if it was 50%.

 

This is worth a read (unless you are a chap over about sixty, in which case it is so full of uncomfortable truths it is best avoided) https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02483-2

 

Kevin

 

 

Edited October 10, 2020 by Nearholmer

[F-UnitMad]

Back to the subject of Exhibitions just for a bit - in years to come at Shows, when complaints of "there's nothing moving" are voiced in front of layouts, the standard reply forever more will be "It's set during the Covid lockdown in 2020"....

[john new]

Why pubs are a problem.  Seen this lunch time whilst on my daily walk - group of 7, no distancing. Also representing the equivalent frontage to a medium size layout, therefore why shows will be a problem.

 

Edited October 10, 2020 by john new
Punctuation corrected

[AY Mod]

11 minutes ago, F-UnitMad said:

It's set during the Covid lockdown in 2020

 

Same goes for all the coaches with no passengers.

[AY Mod]

2 minutes ago, john new said:

Why pubs are a problem.  Seen this lunch time whilst on my daily walk - group of 7, no distancing.

 

 

These youngsters disobeying all the rules....

[john new]

1 minute ago, AY Mod said:

 

These youngsters disobeying all the rules....

 

The youngsters can't afford pub prices any longer.

[Andy Hayter]

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Andy

 

Are you sure that figure is right? It seems a very high % to me.

 

Yes, having checked it is way too high. From ONS "Coronavirus Roundup" dated 6 October 2020: The majority of deaths involving COVID-19 have been among people aged 65 years and over (47,200 out of 52,856).

 

 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/articles/coronaviruscovid19roundupdeathsandhealth/2020-06-26#coviddeaths

 

I make that c11% below 65yo, rather than 50%.

 

A count in the USA up to late July gave c20% below 65yo. I can't readily find the figure for France, but I'd be really amazed if it was 50%.

 

This is worth a read (unless you are a chap over about sixty, in which case it is so full of uncomfortable truths it is best avoided) https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02483-2

 

Kevin

 

 

I stand corrected.

 

[burgundy]

5 hours ago, RJS1977 said:

 

I would imagine a significant number of people don't know where they may have picked up the virus. If someone you've been around gets the virus, and then you develop symptoms or test positive, it's a pretty good bet you caught it off them. Likewise if a number of people who have been at a particular venue come down with the virus, it's likely they all caught it there.

 

One article that I read recently was advocating greater effort in "backward tracing", to identify where people might have picked up the virus, rather than "forward tracing", to identify who that person might have passed it to. The point was that there was something like an 80:20 rule - where 20% of those spreading the virus were responsible for 80% of the onward transmissions. Find those 20%, some of whom might be asymptomatic, and you make a bigger impression in reducing the onward transmission. 

Best wishes 

Eric   

[70000 Britannia]

On 09/10/2020 at 13:01, Nearholmer said:

The thing that hasn’t happened yet, and God forbid that it should, is a very visible over-whelming of the hospitals.....
....  I have a feeling that hospitals were overwhelmed in a practical sense in the worst hit areas in the Spring, but that we were somewhat protected from the full story...

 

I can imagine that the key front-line operations would have endured horrendous, unrelenting pressure - made worse by some outrageous bull-s******* by certain ministers and oft-perceived fag-packet strategies.  Whilst a [seemingly] teetering scaffold of govt. activities got the country to a reasonable position in late June, we all know it was at an unforgiveable cost driven by wholly questionable practices: e.g. failure to test poor souls being despatched from hospitals to care homes; early fantasy tales about testing capability/PPE, etc.

 

However, the result thus far is that this (5th largest GDP) country has some abysmal COVID statistics and certain players will surely feel the scruff of their collars in due course. We all know which sector of society was effectively thrown on the bonfire 'early-doors'.  That puts our situation, as a railway community, into perspective: we are left with simply having to tread water, not knowing when Tony Hancock and his cohort will turn up with a leaking inflatable, to drag us to some dry land, so we can pitch a tent and play trains!

 

The massive question has to be, are we confident that the seemingly close-knit enclave running the shop, are capable, or interested, in what the local authorities and general population will take on board.  Will they be able, to inspire people (the many responsible and the irritating idiots) to buy in to their next few months requirements?

 

I want to have confidence that our politicians will, collectively, pull their fingers out: to engage with local regions in a meaningful dialogue, and communicate [to everyone] in a credible manner.  We need to do our bit to ensure that the NHNS is able to become the NHS again.

 

Now is the time to forget party politics and for Parliament to go on a type of war-footing.

 

If this week's message (moment of truth) is balanced, coherent, and credible, we might be forgiven for believing that an exhibition could happen in twelve months time.

[John M Upton]

45 minutes ago, 70000 Britannia said:

If this week's message (moment of truth) is balanced, coherent, and credible, we might be forgiven for believing that an exhibition could happen in twelve months time.

Unfortunately, all we ever seem to get from the so called Prime Minister is wibbering often contradictory gibberish, waffle and statements that are clearly made up either on the spot or jotted on the back of an old fag packet moments before broadcast.

 

I expect nothing less or more than that tomorrow...