Corona-virus - Impact of the Health Situation worldwide

[jcredfer]

13 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

A quick poll of friends who will be directly impacted by schools closing tells me that most are up in arms that working parents (in some cases lone parents) will now be forced to stay home which means leaving precious jobs and losing income they cannot afford to lose.  

 

I get the concession to keep vulnerable children and those whose parents are in essential services in class since that counteracts the risk of nursing staff (as one example) being forced into absence for child-care.  But what's good enough for one group should surely be good enough for all?  We now have the situation of some kids continuing education and sitting exams while their peers and classmates have been prevented from doing so.  

 

Exams are cancelled, for all

 

Julian

[Georgeconna]

Interesting Read

 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/18/tip-of-the-iceberg-is-our-destruction-of-nature-responsible-for-covid-19-aoe

[black and decker boy]

14 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

A quick poll of friends who will be directly impacted by schools closing tells me that most are up in arms that working parents (in some cases lone parents) will now be forced to stay home which means leaving precious jobs and losing income they cannot afford to lose.  

 

I get the concession to keep vulnerable children and those whose parents are in essential services in class since that counteracts the risk of nursing staff (as one example) being forced into absence for child-care.  But what's good enough for one group should surely be good enough for all?  We now have the situation of some kids continuing education and sitting exams while their peers and classmates have been prevented from doing so.  

All exams are cancelled, that was part of the announcement 

 

Schools to set home schooling packs for those staying home.

 

 

[jcredfer]

16 minutes ago, Gibbo675 said:

Hi Julian,

 

Not so much disagreement as bemusement.

 

I say this for shutting schools to stop the spread of the virus to then coral those same children in a different location or even sillier the same location under a different name seems to be crackers.

 

Here are some questions for us all to ponder:

 

• With regard essential jobs, how are such schemes and jobs to be paid for if there are no taxes collected should half the country be shut in at home and not earning because they are deemed non essential ?
• Does any one have a clue as to how any of this is going to work because unless money could be "magicked out of thin air" without interest applied to it the amount of future debt will collapse everything before any such scheme might begin.
• Will the banks implement negative interest rates and somehow "magically" fill up our accounts while at the same time buying up all of the formally over priced stocks and shares ?
• What do taxes actually pay for ?
• If currency is "magicked out of thin air" then why do we pay taxes for the benefit of using it ?

 

Unless something happens, of which I don't quite know what, and with regard essential jobs, my job is essential to me for keeping me in chocolate biscuits unless we are actually going to have a complete rejig of the entirety of economic systems of the world.

 

It is my observation that the economic aspect of this whole situation is at least as serious as the heath aspect.

 

Gibbo.

 

The reason the schools are closing is nothing to do with stopping the spread of the virus - as previously explained, it is to do with the fact that the few teachers who have had to self isolate is sufficient for schools to be unable to keep a safe level of supervision for the children.  [One teacher missing = 30 children in need of supervision.]

 

The rest doesn't warrant serious consideration and I hope you weren't really expecting a reply.

 

Julian

 

 

 

[Gwiwer]

1 minute ago, jcredfer said:

my job is essential to me for keeping me in chocolate biscuits

 

My job is a safety-critical one keeping trains moving.  But apparently trains can now move without this safety-critical certified person in attendance because fewer people are travelling.  Hmmm.

 

 

[chris p bacon]

2 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

we share 90% of our DNA with the fruit that is a Banana

 

The Americans class a Banana as a Herb ( or an Erb as they like to pronounce it)

 

I remember Bayleaf the Gardener and Dill the dog, but not a banana. 

[sharris]

2 hours ago, John Tomlinson said:

 

I have a mobile 'phone that is just that, a 'phone on which to speak to someone and could also do texts - except I don't know how to. No internet capacity or GPS as far as I can see, and I top up once every 12 -18 months as I only use it for emergencies and very short conversations. It would be traceable to me via O2 who I bought it from via the number, but presumably that's all?

 

Even if you don't have GPS on your phone, whenever it's switched on, it will regularly be talking to local cell towers (it has to do this so if someone calls you, the call can be routed to a cell in range of your phone) so your location can still be approximately tracked.

[Dunsignalling]

3 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

Given the advice is to self-isolate for 7 or 14 days in most cases ..... 

For more-or less any sniffle that's going around.

 

Testing to rule out Covid-19 will be as necessary as to confirm it, otherwise some might easily be forced to do so two or three times over the next four months. 

 

John

Edited March 18, 2020 by Dunsignalling

[jcredfer]

30 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

 

My job is a safety-critical one keeping trains moving.  But apparently trains can now move without this safety-critical certified person in attendance because fewer people are travelling.  Hmmm.

 

 

For some reason, the quote in your post has me as the person saying [ quirk of the Quote button apparently]

 

Quote my job is essential to me for keeping me in chocolate biscuits Unquote

 

It certainly was not me that wrote that comment.

The person making that quote was in fact Gibbo 675 - having made that correction, I agree with your comment.

 

Julian

 

[Ron Ron Ron]

59 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

A quick poll of friends who will be directly impacted by schools closing tells me that most are up in arms that working parents (in some cases lone parents) will now be forced to stay home which means leaving precious jobs and losing income they cannot afford to lose. ......

 

You only have to look at how the situation has escalated in Italy and Spain....

If the same were to happen here (and I'm not saying it will), those friends will no longer be "working parents" and yes, they will effectively be "forced to stay at home".

 

As for train services, a Sunday service level during the week will not be necessary.

 

 

.

 

 

[Dunsignalling]

1 hour ago, Gwiwer said:

I have never said the virus would disappear.  The context was that the rate of infection would be such that, taking current government advice to self-isolate for 7-14 days if symptoms appear then that would allow schools to re-open after Easter.

 

 

 

What about all the teachers who get symptoms just before that? They aren't all going to conveniently get them in the next fortnight.

 

The epidemiologist interviewed when HMG was taking some flak for deciding schools should remain open as long as possible stated that, once they did close they would need to remain so for a minimum of four months to have any mitigating effect on the circulation of the virus.

 

With closure beginning this weekend, that takes us almost exactly to the start of the summer holidays.

 

John

[Dunsignalling]

3 hours ago, John Tomlinson said:

I've wondered about this.

 

I have a mobile 'phone that is just that, a 'phone on which to speak to someone and could also do texts - except I don't know how to. No internet capacity or GPS as far as I can see, and I top up once every 12 -18 months as I only use it for emergencies and very short conversations. It would be traceable to me via O2 who I bought it from via the number, but presumably that's all?

 

Can you actually buy a 'phone anonymously, or is that just something in the movies, and if so how do you do the top ups?

 

I realise this is off topic, just interested.

 

John.

You don't even need to do that. Just a new p.a.y.g sim card in your existing phone plus supermarket top-up cards will get you there.

 

John

[Gibbo675]

39 minutes ago, jcredfer said:

 

The reason the schools are closing is nothing to do with stopping the spread of the virus - as previously explained, it is to do with the fact that the few teachers who have had to self isolate is sufficient for schools to be unable to keep a safe level of supervision for the children.  [One teacher missing = 30 children in need of supervision.]

 

The rest doesn't warrant serious consideration and I hope you weren't really expecting a reply.

 

Julian

 

 

 

Hi Julian,

 

Nice of you to attempt to patronise me by way of ridiculing the questions I posed.

 

Adam Smith:

 

Labour was the first price, the original purchase - money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all wealth of the world was originally purchased.

 

Adam Smith:

 

The real tragedy of poor is the poverty of their aspirations,

 

Yuri Besmenov:

 

Marxist ideology is being pumped into the soft heads of at least three generations of American students without being challenged or counterbalanced by the basic values of Americanism. Most of the people who graduated in the 1960's are now occupying positions of power in government, civil service, business, mass media and educational system. They are programmed to think and react to certain stimuli, in a certain pattern. You cannot change their minds even when you expose them to authentic information.

 

Yoda:

 

You will only find what you bring in.

 

I do like the last one,

 

Gibbo.

[Kris]

3 hours ago, Bernard Lamb said:

Just been playing "Who blinks first" with Ryan Air.

SWMBO was due to fly to Berlin tomorrow.

Ryan Air last week offered a free change of date, but what is the point of re-booking for early May?

If they cancelled she would get a refund. If the government advised against travel she would get a refund.

We decided to decline the re-booking option and wait. Yesterday the government advised against travel and Shengen started a lock down on entry. Just after 14.00 Ryan Air offered a refund.

Funnily enough SWMBO was actually on the phone re an insurance claim at the moment the Ryan Air email popped up.

I find it interesting with the different dates of closure that are cropping up ranging from a month to the end of April to the end of May to indefinitely.

Bernard

Still playing that game with Norwegian. Given the offer of cancelling and getting their "cash points", hmmm maybe not. Sounds like fairy gold to me. I expect Norwegian will go bust before the end of this. 

[Ron Ron Ron]

5 minutes ago, Kris said:

.......I expect Norwegian will go bust before the end of this. 

 

They are one of the most obvious candidates to go bust, unless they're rescued by the Norwegian government.

 

.

[Dunsignalling]

2 hours ago, John Tomlinson said:

Funny you say this.

 

A couple of friends of ours in their '70's living locally - south Lincolnshire - reckon they had this last November. Given that both are professional biologists, one has a PhD and spent his working life in research, I am inclined to take them quite seriously. They hadn't been anywhere near China either. So you may be right, and the story we're being given about a food market in Wuhan is not the whole story, or possibly even part thereof.

 

John.

Interesting.

 

I, my next door neighbour, and a couple of friends had something that was a dead ringer for what's currently being described about the first week in December. I smelt a rat over the alleged starting date when the description of the Covid symptoms first began to circulate but put it down to coincidence. 

 

It was ruddy horrible while it lasted, but it didn't really feel like flu (and we'd all had the jab anyway) all over the worst in time for Christmas but not fully back up to speed until new year.

 

John 

[autocoach]

The California state governor has indicated we should expect schools to remain physically closed until June.  E-Classes for core subjects in high school subjects are expected to be implemented shortly so graduation will not be affected for those with sufficient motivation (and unfortunately resources) to pursue their secondary school education without too much interruption.  The national college admission testing services are working on online versions but how they will counter massive cheating/substitutes taking tests is unknown. 

 

I am in the legally enforceable  "Shelter in Place" order part of  Northern California and it is only the second day.  I think I can last until next week without additional groceries. Of course there are delivery services but they are expensive and I don't want anyone else picking out my tomatoes. 

 

Grocery stores are cutting back on shopping hours to restock  overnight and hiring anyone who will work (now unemployed waiters and waitresses should apply) as with the restaurant/bar shutdown about 1/3 of the food distribution system has been closed, possibly for  better nutrition results except so many don't know how to shop or cook or in many cases have a living space with a cooking area. Restaurants are allowed to offer take out and fast food outlets have always had drive through to go service. 

 

We will adapt.  We wish we could just go to bed one night and wake up in the morning with everything back to February 1 ,2020 as though it had never happened.  I just have to remember that I was born in the middle of WW 2 in southern China (my father was part of the British Consular staff) and we survived. 

Edited March 18, 2020 by autocoach

[John Tomlinson]

1 hour ago, Gibbo675 said:

Hi Julian,

 

Not so much disagreement as bemusement.

 

I say this for shutting schools to stop the spread of the virus to then coral those same children in a different location or even sillier the same location under a different name seems to be crackers.

 

Here are some questions for us all to ponder:

 

• With regard essential jobs, how are such schemes and jobs to be paid for if there are no taxes collected should half the country be shut in at home and not earning because they are deemed non essential ?
• Does any one have a clue as to how any of this is going to work because unless money could be "magicked out of thin air" without interest applied to it the amount of future debt will collapse everything before any such scheme might begin.
• Will the banks implement negative interest rates and somehow "magically" fill up our accounts while at the same time buying up all of the formally over priced stocks and shares ?
• What do taxes actually pay for ?
• If currency is "magicked out of thin air" then why do we pay taxes for the benefit of using it ?

 

Unless something happens, of which I don't quite know what, and with regard essential jobs, my job is essential to me for keeping me in chocolate biscuits unless we are actually going to have a complete rejig of the entirety of economic systems of the world.

 

It is my observation that the economic aspect of this whole situation is at least as serious as the heath aspect.

 

Gibbo.

I'd rather be talking about your wonderful Freightliner models, but sadly events have overtaken us!

 

I'm still trying to get my head around this stuff, but one answer may be inflation. From the mid '60's to the late 80's this functioned as an effective wealth tax by delivering a negative rate of return on capital, so that the real value of one's assets in terms of purchasing power was eroded. To give an example, the borrowing of Local Authorities to finance housing schemes such as the high rise blocks that were demolished quite quickly after proving a social disaster, was covered by reducing the real value of that borrowing through price inflation.

 

That might be some of the answer, as I say I'm still trying to get my little brain into gear!

 

John.

[JSpencer]

The old and infirm should stay isolated while the young all develope complete immuinity. Now lets test the theory.

 

Young meaning less than 60, approx  50 million people. Korean are Princess Cruise data whereby it was possible to test and measure entire communities infected both give a death rate of 1% better than 2%+ in China.

Known young cases have 0.2% death rates in China but the might be lower still, 0.1% of which 4 times the number are those which end up in hospital. This equates 200,000 young people in hospital of which 50,000 die.

Now it could be just a tenth of that but 20,000 young people is a lot to treat (a good few weeks in hospital). The numbers are either overwhelming in the short term or tiring if drawn out over a year. We need more doctors, nurses, hospitals, a lot more to cope. The old staying isolated over a year is not great either.

 

[phil-b259]

A friend sent this round a closed Facebook group. Worth remembering the old saying “it’s always darkest before dawn and all that.

 

Some positive news to announce among all the doom and gloom

 

-China has closed down its last coronavirus hospital. Not enough new cases to support them.

 

- Doctors in India have been successful in treating Coronavirus. Combination of drugs used: Lopinavir, Retonovir, Oseltamivir along with Chlorphenamine. They are going to suggest same medicine, globally.

 

- Researchers of the Erasmus Medical Center claim to have found an antibody against coronavirus.

 

- A 103-year-old Chinese grandmother has made a full recovery from COVID-19 after being treated for 6 days in Wuhan, China.

 

- Apple reopens all 42 china stores,

 

- Cleveland Clinic developed a COVID-19 test that gives results in hours, not days.

 

- Good news from South Korea, where the number of new cases is declining.

 

- Italy is hit hard, experts say, only because they have the oldest population in Europe.

 

- Scientists in Israel likely to announce the development of a coronavirus vaccine.

 

- 3 Maryland coronavirus patients fully recovered; able to return to everyday life.

 

- A network of Canadian scientists are making excellent progress in Covid-19 research.

 

- A San Diego biotech company is developing a Covid-19 vaccine in collaboration with Duke University and National University of Singapore.

 

- Tulsa County's first positive COVID-19 case has recovered. This individual has had two negative tests, which is the indicator of recovery.

 

- All 7 patients who were getting treated for at Safdarjung hospital in New Delhi have recovered.

 

- Plasma from newly recovered patients from Covid -19 can treat others infected by Covid-19.

 

 

[LBRJ]

3 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

 

My job is a safety-critical one keeping trains moving.  But apparently trains can now move without this safety-critical certified person in attendance because fewer people are travelling.  Hmmm.

 

 

 

But (rightly or wrongly) there has always been different degrees of "Safety Critical" - depending on how they want to play it.....

 

Thats why the RMT have been in dispute for ages about some TOCs thinking the most SC post of all dont matter all that much reeally..well not if you have flag wavers on the platforms and drivers in the cab and all that stuff....

[robmcg]

Well, super-cures and imminent vaccines are now all over such as Vogue and similar magazines, so we must prepare for the avalanche of conspiracy theories.

 

AY Mod - A load of silly conspiracy theories edited out. 

 

I also believe the world is flat.

 

edit; I studied philosophy at uni.  How can I be wrong?  I need a humour icon here but cannot find one. 

 

Note this post could perhaps should be deleted, for this will PROVE I'm right.  Of course it could be aliens....    I must ask my friend.

[AY Mod]

1 hour ago, robmcg said:

Note this post could perhaps should be deleted, for this will PROVE I'm right

 

As I asked several weeks ago that people do not post conspiracy theories you seem to have made a self-fulfilling prophecy, please don't waste my time. 

 

I will go back and delete your rubbish later. 

[Hal Nail]

11 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

 

As I asked several weeks ago that people do not post conspiracy theories you seem to have made a self-fulfilling prophecy, please don't waste my time.

I think it was tongue in cheek in response to the previous posts to be fair!

Edited March 19, 2020 by Hal Nail

[Joseph_Pestell]

2 hours ago, Lantavian said:

 

But if you owned a house and had a mortgage, inflation made you richer.

 

Say you bought a house in 1960 for £3000, and your mortgage payments were £25 a month, and you were earning £75 a month.

(These are not actually figures, they're to illustrate my point.)

 

Mortgage payments were one-third of your income.

 

With inflation of 3% a year, your salary would be £150 a month by 1985, but your mortgage, assuming interest rates stay the same, would still be £25 a month ... which is only one-sixth of your salary.

 

Of course in real life, interest rates go up and down. Inflation on average was far higher than 3% in the 1960s and 1970s. The value of houses rise too. Lots of other variables.

 

But on the whole, inflation makes home owners richer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Only if they have a fixed rate mortgage. That was the norm back in the 70s. Most people these days are, I believe, on trackers. So inflation is no help at all.