Well, I did think that I was doing the right thing by getting some protective gear in very early.

Unfortunately, the purchasing on Amazon became an obsession.

I can hardly get in to my bedroom now for the number of 1970s style snorkel jackets, opera gloves, motorcycle crash helmets and burkas. It turns out that none of them are likely to help on health grounds but luckily they all look surprisingly good on me, especially when I subtly combine them. At least I know what I will be wearing if I am ever let out.

I've got enough freeze dried food like all day breakfast, soft milk granules , powdered egg and jerk chicken for an expedition to climb the Himalayas. In view of the proximity of the best before dates - and note that when it comes to such dates they aren't exactly distancing - I will probably end up having to do one so that it doesn't all go to waste.

With the combat wear and boxing gear I hope to fight off the invisible enemy in my hallway particles. Sadly the .22 rifles and the small so-called nuclear power station got stopped by the only customs official now on the country's borders.

As for the frantic searching for information on Google, all this anxiety has made me dyslexic.

I now know virtually every word on the Twitter page of Ronni Ancona.

Quote: paulted @ 28th March 2020, 8:13 AM

"Fair game" is subjective and dubious to say the least, and also very dangerous. Sure, the likes of Hitler etc. are the dregs of humanity. But the bile directed at for example, Margaret Thatcher, Jeremy Corbyn, Simon Cowell, or Piers Morgan (all people who are marmite figures) is distasteful. These people are not criminals, and have families whose feelings should be taken into account. Get well soon Boris and good wishes to all infected folk

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Agreed.

Several of the world's leading experts on coronaviruses and suchlike are saying this pandemic is no different from flu outbreaks that take place every year.

They see absolutely nothing different about this one (death rates included) and they can't understand why so much fuss is being made about something we've all lived through every year since we've been born.

Apparently, the present situation is the biggest mountain ever to be made out of a molehill.

Rood, Quacks.

The British Medical Association has told medical students not to volunteer on NHS wards to fight coronavirus until they have negotiated a good contract on pay, holiday and pension. So these youngsters are happy to allow retired nurses, close to the risky age group, to take their places. Don't Doctors pledge to save lives ? Whilst Army soldiers earning way less than Drs, ferry their supplies. The army wouldn't surrender like this. BMA are a bunch of vampires.

Quote: Rood Eye @ 28th March 2020, 10:29 AM

Several of the world's leading experts on coronaviruses and suchlike are saying this pandemic is no different from flu outbreaks that take place every year.

They see absolutely nothing different about this one (death rates included) and they can't understand why so much fuss is being made about something we've all lived through every year since we've been born.

Apparently, the present situation is the biggest mountain ever to be made out of a molehill.

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HAY-ULP, PESKY KIDS, COWABUNGA, WHAT'S UP DOC AND SUFFERING SUCCERTASH

NEVER MIND STOPPIN' THE PIGEON, HERE'S THE PISTOL BOLLOCKING STWATISTICS

https://s3.amazonaws.com/lowres.cartoonstock.com/miscellaneous-health_and_safety-pin-safety_pin-notice_board-safety_officer-nfkn1958_low.jpg

SLIPPED

Well, it's way too early for me to walk around with a placard saying "I told you so" - if it was half a mile away from where I live I would in any case be sent back home - but it was slipped out on Radio 4 this morning without fanfare (you could easily have missed it) that the number of deaths if we are luckier could now be 5,200. This is new scientific opinion.

BANDIED

It is worth bearing in mind here that 5,200 is somewhat different from the figure of 260,000 which was being bandied around for days and days barely more than a week ago. The scientists say that this is all to do with the measures of self-isolation which have been put in place and nothing about just drumming up fear. Others might disagree and be won over to my arguments about parallel political and economic agendas. The new environmental economics will now be ushered in without concerns about rebellion or even revolution based on a rather looser form of this strict behavioural change.

PARK

As a non scientist I am going to make a prediction here based on various sums I have done in less than a quarter of an hour. That prediction is actually (a little) more pessimistic. I think the number of deaths will turn out to be between 12,000 and 20,000. The nearest meaningful figure I know to either of those figures is 19,000 which is the number of deaths in Britain from influenza during several years of the decade we have just left (while in some other years it has been tens of thousands higher although none of us was ever clearly told). That is the sort of flu ball park even WITH a flu vaccine!

OF

"The math". Of the 114,000 who have been tested, 14,000 have tested positive. That is one in eight and it looks very scary. With positive tests set to double in three days and then double again in another three days and again and again and so on, it will look scarier still. But you have to bear in mind that almost all of the 114, 000 were seriously ill in hospital with coronavirus type symptoms and it turns out that 100,000 don't have a coronavirus. That of itself makes it look very different. Then you go to Germany where the death rate of only those who have tested positive is 0.5% whereas in Italy it is as much as 4%. That's because Germany are testing everyone under the sun and they are picking up with those huge numbers of tests that nearly all positives have mild or moderate symptoms. Italy on the other hand has tested smaller numbers. They are the extremely unwell so it is a higher percentage. Essentially it is a lot of stats smoke and mirrors.

NOTWITHSTANDING

Currently the NHS anticipates it has capacity for 33,000 beds to cope with people showing severe symptoms. It will be inundated so that we will have story after story of the tens of thousands who it is unable to accommodate. Most of those will remain alive. Some sadly won't do. But that figure is pretty huge and what is increasingly becoming alarming is how many deaths will occur in people who are seriously ill with other conditions. Those who in other times would have had one of those beds.If they start boasting how low they have kept the number of coronavirus deaths down to, they must be reminded that those consequential deaths will need to be added to the tally, notwithstanding any overlap.

Quote: Rood Eye @ 28th March 2020, 10:29 AM

Several of the world's leading experts on coronaviruses and suchlike are saying this pandemic is no different from flu outbreaks that take place every year.

They see absolutely nothing different about this one (death rates included) and they can't understand why so much fuss is being made about something we've all lived through every year since we've been born.

Apparently, the present situation is the biggest mountain ever to be made out of a molehill.

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Comparing flu and coronavirus death rates is facile and predominantly done by professional contrarians who need an angle to push their agenda/brand.

Oh well, in that case, I think I might remain cautious and continue to avoid interaction with the great un(mouth)washed.

Quote: Rood Eye @ 24th March 2020, 5:15 PM

Perhaps we should run a sweepstake where we all pick a date upon which the death toll will reach 1000?

I have a feeling anyone who picks a date after the end of this month is being optimistic.

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The death toll is now 1019.

My Daily Address to the United Kingdom

MARY

So tonight several hours after I posted, Professor Powis said that "every one of us has a part to play" if the UK is to keep the death toll under 20,000. That 20,000 figure bears absolutely no resemblance to the 5,200 on Radio 4 this morning or the 260,000 that was frequently mentioned earlier in the month. The BBC website refers to a similar claim from scientists of 20,000 a week ago but then at that time they were also talking in terms of around 8,000. What the 20,000 figure TODAY does match up to is precisely what I said earlier today. It would be fair to suggest that these people may well be at least in part responding to social media vibes and that their figures have as much do with political strategy as they do science. I may know as much as they do on this point and probably so do you even though we aren't surrounded by databases.

MUNGO

There is with the predicted increase in deaths today the evidence of us still being on the upward slope towards the peak. It was always going to be so. Still, new factors will be introduced, rightly, and they will muddy the waters. Testing for coronavirus is about to be rolled out to front line medical staff so in view of the nature of their work expect the figures for positive tests to rocket. Note that these are tests for coronavirus. They are not tests specifically for Covid-19 and hence will pick up on any coronavirus any of them has ever contracted. The majority of coronaviruses are experienced as a slight cold so in many cases when they thought they had a slight cold in, say, the last century actually they may have had a coronavirus that wasn't Covid-19. Of course, many positives will have Covid-19 but we won't know who exactly.

MIDGE

Politicians and media types continue to use these terms as if they are equivalents. They are not. So watch the wording of what the scientists say very carefully. Mostly concentrate specifically on what they say about Covid-19. Or SARS-2 which is suddenly the new name for it and will be useful to be rolled out if the figures around Covid-19 turn out to be rubbish. If necessary to save political face, that label of "Covid-19" will be chucked rapidly in the dustbin in favour of "SARS-2".

CRYSTAL TIPPS

As for the dramatic increase in the coming week of positive tests because of tests on medics, what will this say about the population as a whole? Well, the figures for who already has it or has had it may not be as high in percentage terms for Joe Public but the belief now is they are already much higher than was thought. I might have it already. You might have it already.It has been spreading quicker than expected and in most with small impacts. Many may never know they had it.

ALISTAIR

One of today's clearer background noises was that the NHS is now expected just about to manage whereas a week ago it was, we were told, on the verge of collapse.Even if the toll does reach 20,000 scientists say today that half of those are people who would have died before the end of the year anyway. That conveniently can enable them to say that the deaths were kept to just under 10,000 and paint social media commentators like me as an amateur scaremonger for having a bottom line figure of 12,000. Whatever, I am sticking with it. I have been consistently right so far. Someone has to be.

A bit of googling this afternoon reveals that flu-deaths over the past five years in England alone have varied from almost 30,000 in the worst year to fewer than 1700 in the least bad.

On average, about 17,000 people have died from flu every year over the last five years.

Apparently, COVID-19 has the potential to be more destructive than seasonal flu but, at the present time, it is not doing more damage because has not (yet?) become as widespread.

Trump is doing his best to keep it going.
After signing some bill he gave out pens to all his acolytes jammed behind him.

Quote: Rood Eye @ 28th March 2020, 7:14 PM

A bit of googling this afternoon reveals that flu-deaths over the past five years in England alone have varied from almost 30,000 in the worst year to fewer than 1700 in the least bad.

On average, about 17,000 people have died from flu every year over the last five years.

Apparently, COVID-19 has the potential to be more destructive than seasonal flu but, at the present time, it is not doing more damage because has not (yet?) become as widespread.

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The figures I found for a rather longer time period were 19,000 to 55,000. But I won't quibble. We are very much singing from the same hymn sheet. The difference between my 19,000 and your 17,000 is hardly massive and my upper figure highlights that we have had times beyond the last five years when the position was considerably worse than 30,000. On that first figure, I expect the discrepancy is no real discrepancy and that mine includes Scotland, Wales and N Ireland, that is, if my figure was also an average for the last five years which it may have been. I won't go back through all the paper.

Quote: john tregorran @ 28th March 2020, 7:17 PM

Trump is doing his best to keep it going.
After signing some bill he gave out pens to all his acolytes jammed behind him.

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I'M sure that will save lives - not. This is a ?man ? Who should be strung up by the balls for what he's doing to his country. Sorry, Da Butt, you"ve backed a real loser here.

Americans value free will above all other things I think.No one is going to tell them what to do to save themselves.

Hope their free will helps them to fend off the virus. I doubt it.