Weston Super Saint

To be fair, in the real world, those things happen to people around the world all the time. Does that mean that people's beliefs should never be challenged?

WTF is an 'essential' sexual activity involving 3 or more people if only the 'non-essential' ones are banned

Not convinced death rates are particularly revealing either, given that they don't discern between people dying from underlying causes and those dying specifically from the virus. Also, how is it possible to determine the percentage of 'serious' cases when no-one is being tested - just seen an advert on TV from Prof. Whitty stating that if you have symptoms, DON'T go to your GP, DON'T call 111, just log on the NHS website to check whether you've forgotten what the symptoms are to remind yourself! You can call 111 if the symptoms get worse, so presumably millions of people will get the symptoms but no-one will know!

Probably not accurate at all, given that those figures state 6300 people died on Wednesday and Thursday, so given the current trajectory would estimate around 4300 on Saturday using those figures, which would be more than the reported figures of actual deaths to date! https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51989183 Again, the biggest issue is with how the deaths are reported - in most cases it looks like they are reported as having died from Covid 19 if they test positive for the virus post mortem. In Germany they have been reporting (not sure if they still are), the 'underlying causes' as the reason whether they test positive or not which has kept their figures low. Given that there is a natural mortality rate this would seem sensible as clearly the more people who get infected and spread the virus, the more people will test positive post mortem....

For the overwhelming majority of the population it is. Doesn't change the fact that it can be deadly for a small percentage of the population and we are now in a process of protecting those people....

Not sure our great British public have got the message about 'social distancing'! The beach at Weston was packed today when I rode past - the pier was closed - and there were queues at pretty much every kiosk and takeaway flogging fish and chips. The golf course looked packed as well but presumably the golfers were all outside only and the club house, bar and changing rooms were all closed? It did seem a bit weird having everyone 'exercising' in the same place at the same time! One car parked up and four 'runners' got out so they could run along the beach which seemed odd, presumably they all came from the same area if they shared the same car, so why not go running locally?

Send him this link, might go some way to cheering him up.... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51989183

What a load of scaremongering pony! If the virus was transmitted as described in that article, then we would have seen a biblical spike following Cheltenham races which were attended by 60-70,000 people per day - has there been any reports of that happening?

I'm not sure I understand this if I'm honest. It seems to suggest some kind of apocalypse happening in A&E to the extent that an A&E consultant (who presumably has seen pretty much everything there is to see), has become withdrawn and shocked by what can only be assumed is the result of the virus. Sounds horrendous and certainly judging by this account something which we should all be terrified by. On the other hand, the NHS 111 website is suggesting that the symptoms include a raised temperature and a cough, which frankly doesn't sound like something that will terrify the nation. The second to last line in the statement suggests it is a choice between saving the young and the old, yet all the evidence to date states that most younger people are affected far less severely than the old. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/self-isolation-advice/ I get that the virus affects older people in different ways shutting down respiratory systems, but I'm assuming that is a frequent occurence for many illnesses and not something that would 'shock' an A&E consultant.

Apparently, they didn't include this in their original research / mapping, not entirely sure why not! https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51979654

Source?

Is it because we generally have a healthier lifestyle than the fat ****ers that live in the US so haven't needed as many ventilators? I've not heard of a ventilator shortage before now, so presumably we've had more than enough for our needs to date - not sure it's an item you'd want to stockpile is it?

Indeed. The thousands of lives saved will doubtless be forgotten! Fortunately, the Labour supporters are very happy to have a huge hike in taxes!

Hopefully we can scrap HS2 and the stupid tunnel under the stones now and use the money earmarked for that more sensibly!

Imagine the food that has been ordered by pubs and restaurants up and down the country ready for Mother's Day which is now going to be wasted! Hopefully the big companies will see sense and donate this to the local charities / food banks etc.

Covfefe

Did you miss the very similar conclusion drawn by the Germans?

Ideal if your mortgage is BOE + 0.17%

Perhaps the Telegraph were mistaken? Currently on BBC Live feed : https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-51955509

Just had a call from my brother, he's heard that toilet rolls are running out - you heard it here first folks!

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1255634/coronavirus-uk-public-health-england-uk-cases-nhs-covid-19-latest Professor Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer for England, has previously stated the figure, that four fifths of the UK population could become infected with the virus, was the worst-case scenario. But the briefing states that 80 percent of Britons are "expected" to contract the virus.

https://tass.com/world/1128867 Head of the Robert Koch Institute Lothar Wieler confirmed the 60-70% prediction. "We do not know how fast this will happen," he said. "The slower the better." Earlier, several German experts stated that one in three Germans might contract the virus. The Bild daily reports that Merkel had voiced similar predictions during a closed parliamentary session.

No idea! I read it and the statistic has stuck. It is a virus whose infection rate effectively doubles every five to six days - a lot of people have very minor symptoms, some have none. I'm guessing we'll never truly know the scale as not everyone that has symptoms is being tested, let alone those that haven't got / haven't noticed any symptoms.

BBC - it was on the live feed... I'm sure it's also in one of the articles but there are that many of them....

Jesus wept! Are you still in denial about the virus? It has been stated numerous times and from numerous countries that between 60 and 80% of the population will be infected and 'fall sick'. That is regardless of the schools being closed or not!