Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!

[peteblue]

My daughter (apprentice hairdresser) was furloughed on the 21st March. Got paid today but received her full apprentice wage up to the 21st March but none of the 80% furlough money for the period 21st to 31st. She was told that this would follow in due course when received from the government. I’m really not hopeful she will see this money anytime soon. Fortunately she lives at home with us and apart from her mobile phone contract has no ongoing financial commitments( well apart from the money she owes me for her car insurance) Others will not be so lucky so will need these payments to start coming through pretty quickly.

She will get it, it only starts at the back of April though. the Hairdresser should be able to afford it as they will get either a £10k or £25k grant via the Council in April (hopefully), but it depends on their cash flow.......

 

[BlueToff]

My daughter (apprentice hairdresser) was furloughed on the 21st March. Got paid today but received her full apprentice wage up to the 21st March but none of the 80% furlough money for the period 21st to 31st. She was told that this would follow in due course when received from the government. I’m really not hopeful she will see this money anytime soon. Fortunately she lives at home with us and apart from her mobile phone contract has no ongoing financial commitments( well apart from the money she owes me for her car insurance) Others will not be so lucky so will need these payments to start coming through pretty quickly.

https://twitter.com/MartinSLewis

https://twitter.com/paullewismoney

Two good profiles to keep track of there, mate

 

[peteblue]

But all of a sudden you are claiming we have a fragile economy.

Very strange.

No, I am wary of destroying our economy. The worst that Brexit could do was a couple of % drop in GDP, at the moment millions are not working because of Covid19 and we haven’t a clue when they will go back. Our borrowings will far exceed the financial crash and no one will even notice it when Brexit arrives at the end of the year.....

 

[Catfish Blues]

The government/NHS England don't ask for 'consent' when releasing figures for 'deaths due to'.

We've been through this before.

Standard ONS stats on deaths are sourced from registered deaths, which are a matter of public record. Some, if not most of the stats being collated on COVID-19 related deaths are coming direct from hospitals, before the death has been registered.

The above is fact, what follows is conjecture on my part ...

To lessen the possibility of double counting deaths, when collecting info from hospitals, you'll need something to uniquely ( or near uniquely ) identify the deceased, which would typically be NHS Medical Number or NI Number, or, at a pinch Forenames, Surname and Date of Birth. Because that information uniquely identifies someone, the family will almost certainly have to consent to it being shared, or, to be more accurate, the ethics of the situation mean it's best practice to do so.

@tsubaki and @roydo ^^^

 

[Goat]

No, I am wary of destroying our economy. The worst that Brexit could do was a couple of % drop in GDP, at the moment millions are not working because of Covid19 and we haven’t a clue when they will go back. Our borrowings will far exceed the financial crash and no one will even notice it when Brexit arrives at the end of the year.....

Cool, but at least we wont have to turn ice-rinks into morgues.

 

[Kenshin]

I don't think we'll ever get true data, at least not for a long time. The problem is now due to the high risk of infection, if you go in with a severe flu which can give pneumonia etc they're gonna put you straight in the ICU and treat it as a corona case and if you unfortunately die it's most likely going to be put down as corona. Highly doubt they've the capabilities/ resources/ time to test every respiratory death. Add in dodgy/ unreliable tests on top of that and it's a nightmare for true figures etc

Nah the true figures right now are always wrong.

How can you say how many cases there are when most cases are sat at home isolating. Or whether you have them or not to begin with.

How many cases aren't the virus , or have no actual role in deaths but are attached based on a post mortem test?

There are far more people with the virus in this country alone than the statistics say , it's obvious. The only statistics we can truely get behind is the number stagnating and lowering in hopefully the near future.

 

[BlueToff]

Back of my mind is convinced there is more to the hospital cases than we actually know.

I've said it earlier but how many cases who have the respiratory issues are smokers for example? That would indeed play a part.

I'm not saying all hospital cases are connected , anything can happen to anyone and sometimes there isn't a reason to explain it. That's why I'd imagine for quite a few people it would be terrifying to go through it for seemingly no reason.

The data won't be available for a long time yet , if at all. There has to be some sort of connection with respiratory cases that turns the virus from a mild cold to a full blown serious health issue. For older generations / health issues it's down to a weak immune system. But how does a virus that thrives in a weak immune system also affect a small minority of health young people when the majority don't get those symptoms ? Has to be a factor there somewhere, otherwise the virus would act the same way to everyone as noone has any immune system to deal with the virus.

100%

Each person can just be different though I think, too.

In general, every virus will affect someone with a weaker immune system more. But of course that doesn't mean somebody who is perfectly healthy can't get it badly.

However, there is 'getting it badly' and then having to be hospitalised - two completely different things.

 

[BlueToff]

There was always going to be a lock down we just don't know for how long. Maybe when all these measures are in place and we see how nhs is coping it'll speed up the relaxing of them quicker than we think at least partially relaxing them ie letting more people back to work. Maybe staggering starting hours and finishing hours especially in citys to stop overcrowding on trains and tubes

Which is exactly what I've said. That doesn't mean you do nothing to mitigate it though.

Don't you agree that if more money and preparation had gone into the NHS in Jan/Feb then it would be in a better position to 'cope'?

But yes on the rest of your post I agree. It will be small steps when possible.

 

[Neiler]

They have gone through Ebola though haven’t they ?
Can’t be right.

Why Sub-Saharan Africa needs a unique response to COVID-19

High levels of disease and malnutrition coupled with fragile healthcare systems means Africa should focus on aggressive measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

www.weforum.org

 

[tsubaki]

Doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

The Indian government has to be one of the worst democratic countries in the G20 for being massively out of touch with how their decisions affect their population.

We were there a few years ago when, at something like two hours notice, they effectively withdrew any medium to high denomination notes ( 500 rupees and above I think it was .. so about £7 ).

Caused chaos for a few weeks with huge queues outside banks with people ( including the elderly ) waiting for hours to exchange their old notes for new ... whivh of course they didn't have anywhere near enough.

Fantastic country, lovely people, but a heartless and corrupt govt which makes the idiots we have in charge over here seem like intelligent and caring human beings.

/ rant over

TBF since Modi took over you can add evil to heartless and corrupt; not many world leaders can boast they've coordinated a pogrom nowadays after all or have such deep links to a group that is as crazy as the RSS.

It is sadly not amazing that he still gets a far better press than Trump, even though he is clearly far worse a human being.

 

[LouReedwalkonthewildside]

An ice-rink in Milton Keynes will be turned into an emergency mortuary "in a matter of days", in order to cope with a rise in coronavirus-related deaths, a local authority has said.

 

[Blues Harp]

Perhaps we will be like this hopefully when we get rid of the politicians?

 

[Death]

Hmmm it appears a major proportion of essential workers are valued at minimum wage.

 

[tsubaki]

We've been through this before.

Standard ONS stats on deaths are sourced from registered deaths, which are a matter of public record. Some, if not most of the stats being collated on COVID-19 related deaths are coming direct from hospitals, before the death has been registered.

The above is fact, what follows is conjecture on my part ...

To lessen the possibility of double counting deaths, when collecting info from hospitals, you'll need something to uniquely ( or near uniquely ) identify the deceased, which would typically be NHS Medical Number or NI Number, or, at a pinch Forenames, Surname and Date of Birth. Because that information uniquely identifies someone, the family will almost certainly have to consent to it being shared, or, to be more accurate, the ethics of the situation mean it's best practice to do so.

@tsubaki and @roydo ^^^

This bit isn't likely - for counting inside hospitals you'd need that data, but not for returns to central Government. All they'd appear to need for these daily stats is the number of deaths over the relevant period, how many of them had underlying conditions and the ages, which the hospitals could send in easily.

None of that would need consent (and isn't for any other circumstance) but if you wanted to be far more concerned with confidentiality than they are for anything else, you could remove the ages from the published data and it would be completely anonymous.

 

[Toast]

George Allagiah the bbc news presenter has had it.
Stage 4 cancer and 60 rounds of Chemo.

and he’s got over it !

Fair play fella. Good luck.