The Coronavirus thread.

[obscure]

I still don’t quite get why so many people are so desperate to get out the house. While I will be taking advantage of the unlimited exercise change today so I can take a few walks each day. I am at the moment just glad that I am in a job that can be done from home so wont have to face the horrors of public transport (it was already getting bad pre lockdown I hate to think what it will be like now).

 

[Covrich]

I still don’t quite get why so many people are so desperate to get out the house. While I will be taking advantage of the unlimited exercise change today so I can take a few walks each day. I am at the moment just glad that I am in a job that can be done from home so wont have to face the horrors of public transport (it was already getting bad pre lockdown I hate to think what it will be like now).

I would say anxiety and mental health being big ones.. Taking poercautions and all that

 

[Covrich]

WIth the notion that no vaccine will ever come and we have to learn to live our lives in new normals with some better ways of treaing and co existing ect I do wonder what will happen with things such as dating and such in the future that is certainly going to be a different dynamic

 

[Rodcx500z]

Shocking pictures this morning on public transport

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Blimey, I wouldn't get on any airplane run by him - Turn on, tune in, drop out (of the sky).

Timothy Learys dead, no no he's outside looking in.

 

[MyQul]

Shocking pictures this morning on public transport

Links?

Mrs MQ reported the buses were packed when she went out for a run early doors. I'm cycling in today so will look at what the buses are like as I go past them

 

[dad_of_jon]

You really wouldn't want them. After just 20 minutes I felt like I had a mixture of thrush, e coli, ebola, and just a hint of covid 19....

I'll pass then

 

[obscure]

Shocking pictures this morning on public transport

I remember a few weeks back a comment from a few of the train operators that if they where to observe social distancing you would be looking at maybe 10-15% capacity and of course this is assuming it is spread out through out the day, their is no way rush hours trains can operate and keep any semblance of social distancing with even a fraction of people returning to work.

I work in central Oxford,which is both one of the most expensive cities to live in and one of the most anti car, meaning that the overwhelming majority of people where I work live outside of Oxford ruling out walking or cycling (4.25 hour walk or 1.25 hours by bike for me going by google maps) and so take public transport, parking is both difficult to find and when you can expensive. Thankfully most people myself included don’t need to be in the office. The government has left it up to companies to determine if people need to come in, and clearly some jobs cannot be done from home but you would think that for example call centers could with a little thought switch to home working. The aim should surely be to keep as many people as possible off public transport to try and ensure that those who really need it can travel safely. At the end of the day I can be as efficient working from my house as I am at the office so have no business at the moment traveling just for the sake of sitting in a chair in a office and doing exactly what I am doing from home. (well possibly not taking a short break to post on home brewing forums if I was in the office).

 

[simon12]

 

[obscure]

You know the worse part is that in normal times I would call that pretty quiet for the London Underground.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I also note the Government's new slogan is Stay alert. Control the virus.Save lives. So what happened to the Protect the NHS part from the last slogan. Arn't they interested in the NHS anymore?

Don't be daft. It's because at the moment it looks like more lives will be lost through people being scared to go to hospital for all the non-Covid things that can kill you, the idea that individuals can "protect the NHS" by not bothering them with minor lumps etc will cause more deaths in the long term through eg cancers being detected too late.

It's almost like this stuff is complicated...

 

[simon12]

More vitamin D stuff if you haven't heard enough

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Shocking pictures this morning on public transport

Beware clickbait though - for balance, here is London Bridge station at 8.30 this morning :

Although undoubtedly there is an element of selection here, LB serves City office workers, who are mostly able to work from home. A lot of people in "hands-on" jobs will be more likely to travel by bus.

As always - it's complicated.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

A member of the Chilcot enquiry has tried to write an account of the UK response to Covid-19 so far :
https://www.iiss.org/blogs/survival-blog/2020/05/the-uk-and-covid-19
His summary on Twitter is as follows :
Two factors reduced the sense of urgency in January. One was past experience: we had avoided SARS in 2003 while ‘swine flu’ had turned out to be a ‘damp squib’.3/13

Another was reassurances coming from country where C-19 outbreak had occurred (China), leader of the country that historically led international responses (US), and organisation responsible for keeping the world informed (WHO).4/13

Whatever the quality of prior planning the UK response was shaped by available capacity in a system designed for efficiency rather than resilience. This meant UK had to ‘flatten the curve’ because NHS would not be able to cope with projected peaks. 5/13

From early February the clear advice was that the UK would be hit by the virus at some point. The issue was how hard and when. Until 12 March advice conveyed the impression that there was time to develop and implement effective responses. 6/13

Benefits of implementing number of measures at once recognised in terms of impact but doubts about compliance. Instead of moving immediately to a stringent response advice encouraged a more graduated approach. 7/13

Government did start with decent testing programme. Once attempts to trace contacts faltered and eventually abandoned because of sheer number of random cases so did testing strategy. London as global hub and largest city in Europe cause of a lot of UK’s problems. 8/13

Graduated approach suited the government’s predilections but did not work because a) public anxiety and reports of what other governments doing. b) Imperial study of mid-March showing threat to NHS coming in much faster than anticipated. 9/13

Herd immunity was never central to strategy but poor communications (designed to explain why cocooning elderly but not large gatherings) gave impression that was. 10/13

High risk to NHS led government to move quickly to a full lockdown. By framing the issue as a problem of ‘saving the NHS’ however insufficient attention was paid to problems in social care sector.11/13

These problems made worse as people moved out of hospitals back into care homes. Situations in both health and social care sectors were aggravated by problems with PPE and testing.12/13

I've been influenced by my experience with Chilcot Inquiry: need for reliable account; watch out for hindsight; when taking advice (scientists/intelligence/military) interrogate it; watch out for groupthink; unintended consequences as important as intended./End

It's complicated...

 

[marshbrewer]

Be careful, @Northern_Brewer , you're coming dangerously close to taking a calm and facts based rational approach to the while situation, which won't do at all!

 

[Chippy_Tea]

More vitamin D stuff if you haven't heard enough

As most members will know by now i have been taking vitamin D since i watched his first video on the subject, what i do not understand is if a highly regarded professor agrees with whet this guy is saying why haven't we been told to take it by the government.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Beware clickbait though - for balance, here is London Bridge station at 8.30 this morning :

Did the station open at 09:00?

 

[Chippy_Tea]

A member of the Chilcot enquiry has tried to write an account of the UK response to Covid-19 so far :
https://www.iiss.org/blogs/survival-blog/2020/05/the-uk-and-covid-19
His summary on Twitter is as follows :
Two factors reduced the sense of urgency in January. One was past experience: we had avoided SARS in 2003 while ‘swine flu’ had turned out to be a ‘damp squib’.3/13

Another was reassurances coming from country where C-19 outbreak had occurred (China), leader of the country that historically led international responses (US), and organisation responsible for keeping the world informed (WHO).4/13

Whatever the quality of prior planning the UK response was shaped by available capacity in a system designed for efficiency rather than resilience. This meant UK had to ‘flatten the curve’ because NHS would not be able to cope with projected peaks. 5/13

From early February the clear advice was that the UK would be hit by the virus at some point. The issue was how hard and when. Until 12 March advice conveyed the impression that there was time to develop and implement effective responses. 6/13

Benefits of implementing number of measures at once recognised in terms of impact but doubts about compliance. Instead of moving immediately to a stringent response advice encouraged a more graduated approach. 7/13

Government did start with decent testing programme. Once attempts to trace contacts faltered and eventually abandoned because of sheer number of random cases so did testing strategy. London as global hub and largest city in Europe cause of a lot of UK’s problems. 8/13

Graduated approach suited the government’s predilections but did not work because a) public anxiety and reports of what other governments doing. b) Imperial study of mid-March showing threat to NHS coming in much faster than anticipated. 9/13

Herd immunity was never central to strategy but poor communications (designed to explain why cocooning elderly but not large gatherings) gave impression that was. 10/13

High risk to NHS led government to move quickly to a full lockdown. By framing the issue as a problem of ‘saving the NHS’ however insufficient attention was paid to problems in social care sector.11/13

These problems made worse as people moved out of hospitals back into care homes. Situations in both health and social care sectors were aggravated by problems with PPE and testing.12/13

I've been influenced by my experience with Chilcot Inquiry: need for reliable account; watch out for hindsight; when taking advice (scientists/intelligence/military) interrogate it; watch out for groupthink; unintended consequences as important as intended./End

It's complicated...

Great post NB.

 

[Gerryjo]

Wow Seagate. them and western digital those were only 2 hard disk drives I bought. I managed to avoid IBM Death Stars etc....
I'm on kingston & crucial ssd drives these days.

I'd imagine they are used to containment with the need for clean room facilities

You're not far wrong due to the amount of gases and chemicals used and the work machines do on a nanoscale especially when you can fit up to 100,000 read/write heads on a wafer/disc 200mm round and 5mm thick.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Did the station open at 09:00?

Trust me, it's normally rammed then - although the real peak is at 7-7.30. It's the fourth-busiest station in the country with 61m passengers per year compared to Carlisle's 2m and Penrith's 0.6m.

One other factor is that buses are free in London at the moment to avoid people getting close to the driver - one might suppose it might be better to get people off buses and onto trains where at least the driver is in a separate cab.

It's complicated.