Africa as a continent really is fucked, sad hard truth there. It'll be the real Coronavirus battleground when it gets there. In a way we'll be the lucky ones when it's all said and done.

It'll be interesting to see how the USA fares in recent weeks, if they truly have hit their peak that is. Trump is pulling a gigantic gamble and if it fails it'll be it for him.

Only one nation has impressed me through all this, Germany. Perfect blend of keeping the economy going and looking after citizens.

As for us, I really doubt we can do more than three weeks lockdown, we're already financially strained as is, sooner or later I genuinely think herd immunity will have to be the way forward. That's not even taking into account the civil unrest that'll occur too.

They should of done a regional lockdown and they actually said earlier that was planned.

I get your points but it will be worse in long run if people say fuck it? Arnt all the morgage, rent and credit are payments on hold for three month as I know mine is?

And just to add we are all in same boat I haven’t seen my parents since the 7th February but the next time I do see them I want to be not clouded under if I will give them a virus that might kill them so I can see them time and time again after that

I am just trying to get what you are advocating here basically people will get pissed off and say fuck it and go out etc in another three weeks time to save economy. Basically saying fuck it to the at risk people and basically increase the death rate.

Ok well if so how do we stop idiots doing this;
- 1 keep a freeze on mortgages etc until another three months
- 2 keep the restrictions in place
- 3 use this time to see how Spain and Italy come out of it

Won’t this present the issues you are saying? Apart from being bored and selfish. I am not calling you this btw

I think this hits the nail on the head about not jumping into wasting time and money instantly onto the “tests”


The first problem with antibody tests is there aren't any that work at scale, but even if they did there are potential issues.
There are no guarantees that if you have antibodies against the coronavirus that you are completely immune.
And even if your antibodies do protect you from becoming sick, then you may be able to harbour the virus in your body and pass it to others.
There will be many challenges before immunity passports - when if you pass the antibody test you can go back to life as normal - will be practical.
This is the problem with a virus that has only been around for a couple of months - there is still too much we do not understand.
However, the main appeal of antibody testing is to find out how many people have really been infected with the virus.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52335210

What is does highlight is how negligent and reckless even any thought of herd immunity was when ‘the science’ even now aren’t entirely clear about what we’re dealing with.

Keeping the freeze on mortgages keeps the wolves from the door but just sends the issue a bit further down the line with interest.

This isn't about that. The economy doesn't recover by delaying mortgage payments. That wont help protect peoples jobs.

I wasnt saying just 3 more weeks. Another three on top of that would probably be ok. But add 6 more months onto that then most jobs will be gone. And they wont be back for years.

The only jobs that will be left will be the NHS. People wont even be able to afford elsending their kids to uni. It will be like the 60s when only the rich kids went there.

This cannot go on past the end of May.

It will go on as long as it has to.

The tragic irony is if the UK took the measures it should have (and still aren’t) and others countries did straight away but didn’t because they put the economy before the preservation of human life the economic impact would have been lesser as we’d have been out of it faster.

And compo you keep saying follow the rules and talk about the selfish idiots.

Ok there a few selfish idiots but that's nothing compared to the multiple thousands the government are allowing to not follow the rules. Like all the unchecked flights. NHS staff working without PPE and then taking public transport home.

Do you not think the majority locked in in tiny flats see this and think sod this if the government only seem to be making these rules for the already underprivileged?

Government ministers going to second homes.

Construction sites being told they have to open.

Supermarkets open and making a fortune

The list of none lockdown people is massive

Window cleaners out in force. Numerous houses around near me getting skips delivered.

And yet a single person sitting on a park bench gets fined.

Surely you can see their anger rising?

Anyone getting angry is a moron.

The World still has to function. Supermarkets for example need to stay open as people have to eat. But the UKs token gesture ‘lockdown’ is riddled with contradictions.

Jesus Christ ! people starting to go stir crazy after a month without Greggs and Wetherspoons, having to endure days and nights sat in front of the tv eating frozen pizzas and drinking copious amounts of Fosters and John Smiths whilst getting paid 80% of their wages.

What the hell happened to us? well actually I could answer that.

What a bunch of self obsessed , soft , drama queen fannies the British have become.

Sorry. Dont agree. People are going to be very very worried about their own financial futures. Nobody sitting there in a comfortable financial position has the right to call others worried a moron.

People have a right to be angry. Four weeks ago the science told us herd immunity was the way. Two weeks after that a lockdown was the way. The government are hiding behind the science but are now blaming the science.

And yet 15,000 a day fly in unchecked.

To say people getting angry are morons is moronic in itself.

Again. It's not what's happening today that's the issue.its what's coming down the track for millions of people

I haven't seen or said anyone is going stir crazy just now. But take this another 3 months down the line and see what it's like then. When the 80% stops. And firms just make them alm redundant.

And to be brutally honest anyone well off whose job isn't under threat or anyone already retired shouldn't really comment about those facing financial strife

The only countries to come out of the other side of this or start to are the ones who that have applied strict lockdown measures.

Your attitude is contradicting yourself and why the UK has got itself into the absolute mess it’s in. In other places the government say stuff and people listen.

These are the harsh choices people have to make in times like these though. As a nation we have had it relatively easy since the early 60s and I see signs of people used to getting what they want becoming restless.

I have said before, its always been a choice between Profit and People , we need an economy but we also need to keep people alive and out of the two, keeping people alive should always trump the economy and going to work.

I believe one day something like this but on a bigger scale will see off the human race , but it wont be any Pandemic that does it, it will be the humans themselves through failing to work together and eventually turning on each other.

The dystopian future is here.

Thanks horden. Someone pass me the rope. Lol.

I accept the contradictions point. But surely that's our contradictory governments fault?

I take issue with you thinking this is my attitude. I am discussing what I believe will happen further down the line. It wont be me doing it but I believe it will happen.

And in small doses already is.

Talking of our government, I thought this piece was interesting.

https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2020/04/1 ... 8m-3-vzq8s

Brilliant article and very funny in places.

Loved it as it reads exactly like I think.

Well there you go. You all seem to agree in one way or another that we're in big shit. A rare unanimous bunker moment.

[quote="PJPoolie"][

The only countries to come out of the other side of this or start to are the ones who that have applied strict lockdown measures.

would the majority in this country have stuck to more severe lockdown measures. the government needs to go as far as they think people will and do not want to create civil disobediance due to their measures. as a nation i do not think we like to be told to do stuff but encouraged to do so.

A lot of this depends on which sector you work in. A huge amount of manor construction projects are there due to major investments made by overseas billionaires and corporations. It's highly possible these will continue to be there as they might see it as a major opportunity post coronavirus.

You have to believe the economy will recover eventually.otherwise we all might as well put a bullet throughour skulls now.

The doomsday scenarios only happen if lockdown is long term.i believe many people think this now.

It may well be more sensible for the elderly to keep the lockdown in place until a vaccine is found but in reality for the sake of the next couple.of generations a few risks might have to be taken. Cruel and harsh but true. Whether we like it or not.

Is it wrong to want all the celebrities doing videos now to crawl under a rock somewhere and die?

Depends on the type of video. I don't see anything wrong with Lady Gaga raising 35 mil for front line workers.

Thats not the ones I am referring to. It's the look at me everybody ones. Saying we are all in this together.

I said right at the start that's its a shame we cant just lock the vulnerable folk down, make sure systems are in place to sustain them and the rest of just crack on. There have been folks die who were not classed as vulnerable but were there enough of them to suggest any of us are in any more danger of death than we were before (from the usual stuff like accidents, undiagnosed conditions etc...). I would suggest no. Brutal way of looking at it but these are the times.

Second wave infection's Compo.any thought's on it ?..

Even the tory press rounding on Johnson now

Copied from todays TIMES newspaper

Coronavirus: 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Boris Johnson skipped five Cobra meetings on the virus, calls to order protective gear were ignored and scientists’ warnings fell on deaf ears. Failings in February may have cost thousands of lives
On the third Friday of January a silent and stealthy killer was creeping across the world. Passing from person to person and borne on ships and planes, the coronavirus was already leaving a trail of bodies.
The virus had spread from China to six countries and was almost certainly in many others. Sensing the coming danger, the British government briefly went into wartime mode that day, holding a meeting of Cobra, its national crisis committee.
But it took just an hour that January 24 lunchtime to brush aside the coronavirus threat. Matt Hancock, the health secretary, bounced out of Whitehall after chairing the meeting and breezily told reporters the risk to the UK public was “low”.
This was despite the publication that day of an alarming study by Chinese doctors in the medical journal, The Lancet. It assessed the lethal potential of the virus, for the first time suggesting it was comparable to the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, which killed up to 50 million people.
Unusually, Boris Johnson had been absent from Cobra. The committee — which includes ministers, intelligence chiefs and military generals — gathers at moments of great peril such as terrorist attacks, natural disasters and other threats to the nation and is normally chaired by the prime minister.
Johnson had found time that day, however, to join in a lunar new year dragon eyes ritual as part of Downing Street’s reception for the Chinese community, led by the country’s ambassador.
It was a big day for Johnson and there was a triumphal mood in Downing Street because the withdrawal treaty from the European Union was being signed in the late afternoon. It could have been the defining moment of his premiership — but that was before the world changed.
That afternoon his spokesman played down the looming threat from the east and reassured the nation that we were “well prepared for any new diseases”. The confident, almost nonchalant, attitude displayed that day in January would continue for more than a month.
Johnson went on to miss four further Cobra meetings on the virus. As Britain was hit by unprecedented flooding, he completed the EU withdrawal, reshuffled his cabinet and then went away to the grace-and-favour country retreat at Chevening where he spent most of the two weeks over half-term with his pregnant fiancée, Carrie Symonds.
It would not be until March 2 — another five weeks — that Johnson would attend a Cobra meeting about the coronavirus. But by then it was almost certainly too late. The virus had sneaked into our airports, our trains, our workplaces and our homes. Britain was on course for one of the worst infections of the most deadly virus to have hit the world in more than a century.
Last week, a senior adviser to Downing Street broke ranks and blamed the weeks of complacency on a failure of leadership in cabinet. In particular, the prime minister was singled out.
“There’s no way you’re at war if your PM isn’t there,” the adviser said. “And what you learn about Boris was he didn’t chair any meetings. He liked his country breaks. He didn’t work weekends. It was like working for an old-fashioned chief executive in a local authority 20 years ago. There was a real sense that he didn’t do urgent crisis planning. It was exactly like people feared he would be.”
Inquiry ’inevitable’ One day there will inevitably be an inquiry into the lack of preparations during those “lost” five weeks from January 24. There will be questions about when politicians understood the severity of the threat, what the scientists told them and why so little was done to equip the National Health Service for the coming crisis. It will be the politicians who will face the most intense scrutiny.
Among the key points likely to be explored will be why it took so long to recognise an urgent need for a massive boost in supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE) for health workers; ventilators to treat acute respiratory symptoms; and tests to detect the infection.
Any inquiry may also ask whether the government’s failure to get to grips with the scale of the crisis in those early days had the knock-on effect of the national lockdown being introduced days or even weeks too late, causing many thousands more unnecessary deaths.
An investigation has talked to scientists, academics, doctors, emergency planners, public officials and politicians about the root of the crisis and whether the government should have known sooner and acted more swiftly to kick-start the Whitehall machine and put the NHS onto a war footing.
They told us that, contrary to the official line, Britain was in a poor state of readiness for a pandemic. Emergency stockpiles of PPE had severely dwindled and gone out of date after becoming a low priority in the years of austerity cuts. The training to prepare key workers for a pandemic had been put on hold for two years while contingency planning was diverted to deal with a possible no-deal Brexit.
This made it doubly important that the government hit the ground running in late January and early February. Scientists said the threat from the coming storm was clear. Indeed, one of the government’s key advisory committees was given a dire warning a month earlier than has previously been admitted about the prospect of having to deal with mass casualties.
It was a message repeated throughout February but the warnings appear to have fallen on deaf ears. The need, for example, to boost emergency supplies of protective masks and gowns for health workers was pressing, but little progress was made in obtaining the items from the manufacturers, mainly in China.
Instead, the government sent supplies the other way — shipping 279,000 items of its depleted stockpile of protective equipment to China during this period, following a request for help from the authorities there.
Impending danger The prime minister had been sunning himself with his girlfriend in the millionaires’ Caribbean resort of Mustique when China first alerted the World Health Organisation (WHO) on December 31 that several cases of an unusual pneumonia had been recorded in Wuhan, a city of 11 million people in Hubei province.
In the days that followed China initially claimed the virus could not be transmitted from human to human, which should have been reassuring. But this did not ring true to Britain’s public health academics and epidemiologists who were texting each other, eager for more information, in early January.
Devi Sridhar, professor of global public health at Edinburgh University, had predicted in a talk two years earlier that a virus might jump species from an animal in China and spread quickly to become a human pandemic. So the news from Wuhan set her on high alert.
“In early January a lot of my global health colleagues and I were kind of discussing ‘What’s going on?’” she recalled. “China still hadn’t confirmed the virus was human-to-human. A lot of us were suspecting it was because it was a respiratory pathogen and you wouldn’t see the numbers of cases that we were seeing out of China if it was not human-to-human. So that was disturbing.”
By as early as January 16 the professor was on Twitter calling for swift action to prepare for the virus. “Been asked by journalists how serious #WuhanPneumonia outbreak is,” she wrote. “My answer: take it seriously because of cross-border spread (planes means bugs travel far & fast), likely human-to-human transmission and previous outbreaks have taught overresponding is better than delaying action.”
Events were now moving fast. Four hundred miles away in London, from its campus next to the Royal Albert Hall, a team at Imperial College’s School of Public Health led by Professor Neil Ferguson produced its first modelling assessment of the likely impact of the virus. On Friday, January 17, its report noted the “worrying” news that three cases of the virus had been discovered outside China — two in Thailand and one in Japan. While acknowledging many unknowns, researchers calculated that there could already be as many as 4,000 cases. The report warned: “The magnitude of these numbers suggests substantial human-to-human transmission cannot be ruled out. Heightened surveillance, prompt information-sharing and enhanced preparedness are recommended.”
By now the mystery bug had been identified as a type of coronavirus — a large family of viruses that can cause infections ranging from the common cold to severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars). There had been two reported deaths from the virus and 41 patients had been taken ill.
The following Wednesday, January 22, the government convened its first meeting of its scientific advisory group for emergencies (Sage) to discuss the virus. Its membership is secret but it is usually chaired by the government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, and chief medical adviser, Professor Chris Whitty. Downing Street advisers are also present.
There were new findings that day with Chinese scientists warning that the virus had an unusually high infectivity rate of up to 3.0, which meant each person with the virus would typically infect up to three more people.
One of those present was Imperial’s Ferguson, who was already working on his own estimate — putting infectivity at 2.6 and possibly as high as 3.5 — which he sent to ministers and officials in a report on the day of the Cobra meeting on January 24. The Spanish flu had an estimated infectivity rate of between 2.0 and 3.0, so Ferguson’s finding was shocking.

Incredible read.

We have one dumb government

I don't normally get involved with politics but after reading that article I am bouncing.
So many warning signs ignored that has resulted in thousands of more deaths than was predicted.
20000 wasn't it about 5 weeks ago.
Well 15500 hospital deaths n 7500 in care homes and this killer virus Dosent look like ending bfor Xmas unless u believe in miracles.

Then there's this awful lifestyle of lock down.
Plus the mass unemployment on its way when the government runs out of funding which they will claw back from the taxpayer for a longtime if ya lucky enuf to still have a job or r still alive.
Boris OUT.

Kept it short but if ya think I'm out of order then there's a saying about a monkey and a fuck.

And now the BMA backing calls for doctors to refuse to treat patients without the correct PPE.

I wonder if they should be shot as well?

[quote="Watching from afar"]And now the BMA backing calls for doctors to refuse to treat patients without the correct PPE.

be interesting to see how quickly PPE would come for them if they carried the threat out. just because you are in the medical proffesion doesn,t mean they have to put their lives at risk. if your work needed special pritective gear to do it you would not be allowed to work without it.

They would slaughter them. And take the heat out of Hancock.

Just been watching a video of the lockdown protests in America. Some interesting philosophies there for sure.

America needs to look at what happened in Philadelphia in 1918 when the spanish flu was on the go.

Watching the Rolling Stones.......if there is anything to motivate you to follow the guidelines and keep these guys alive this is it.

It's looking probable that France will overtake Spain in deaths this week and that UK will all but catch up.
That's really not a good place to be and we have to hope for an amazing reversal in the trend, no matter what the reason for it.

Well Raab certainly batted away the Cygnus question from the Telegraph today. After being told that the Cygnus drill in 2016 suggested that 10’s of thousands of lives would have been lost had it been real and later asked had he read that report, he said ‘I have read lots of reports’ End Of!!

"Will you publish the cygnus report"

"No."

Oh well that's alright then

Absolutely shocking response, at the end of all this they should be hauled over the coals over this. It cannot end here

Cygnus exercise may have been carried out under national security if it wasnt you can apply using the freedom of information act if you want to see it.

I wrote that ten days ago. The UK has now leapfrogged both France and Spain. Only Italy and USA currently have more CV deaths that the UK.
Soon, terribly, it will be only the USA that has more.

What seriously can be done to get the UK out of this catastrophic situation?

if only anyone knew the answer then they,d be a real saviour of the country. its a question of going round and round in circles. its obvious the lockdown cannot go on for ever as its obvious the lockdown cannot be removed.

It leaves you utterly speechless. I know what my opinion of this is, but I would love to hear the tories that are on the sote as to their view.

Another thing I noticed is Russia galloping up the ladder with regularly 6000+ new cases a day. I also noticed that their small death rate makes even Gemany's look sorry.
But they have made 3.5 million tests.

We've been given a pretty clear calendar here. It phases out the quarantine over seven weeks starting Monday, taking us to late June.
It seems pretty well thought out, although it's always open to revision in the event of a relapse.
There will still be restrictions, however, and businesses will not be able to realise their full potential.
Remember, we have a fair a way to go even to catch up with existing, less strict quarantines like the UK's.