Weston Super Saint

What do you mean by 'done', Jesus wept? Do you mean treated / cured - given that there is no known cure, surely 'nothing is being done'? Yes, I appreciate that the curve is being flattened, as highlighted in the link to the Guardian, but that is not the same as 'eradicating' the virus, or is it? Once the lockdown is lifted the infections will rise once more and we will start a new curve, or have we 'beaten' it now?

I would like to issue a formal apology for any confusion that has occured due to my inclusion of the word 'transmission'. I intended to use the word 'infection' as previously written but must have had a brain fart. 80% is of course a figure that has been mooted by the Chief Medical Officer : https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/12/coronavirus-as-many-as-10000-in-britain-may-already-have-it-says-pm Please accept my sincere apologies for any confusion caused and my thanks to Doctoroncall for picking up the error. I'd also like to thank Shurlock for picking the error up - oh, wait, no, he just jumped on someone else's bandwagon as usual.

The figure quoted was dumbed down on the BBC - presumably so that dinlos like you could understand it

According to Imperial’s Ferguson he puts infectivity at 2.6 and possibly as high as 3.5 https://healthmedia.blog.gov.uk/2020/04/19/response-to-sunday-times-insight-article/ That'll be £1.50 please

Well, they would say that wouldn't they. They were forewarned, so these are clearly foreseeable failings! The whole bally lot of them should be shot!

It's been on this thread for many weeks - I originally saw it on the BBC website on one of their 'live' news feeds. The claim was quite clear that 4 out of 5 people will contract the virus in the absence of a vaccine. I've not seen it debunked anywhere, but I don't have a link to the quote as it was on a live feed. I believe it was also repeated in a daily update speech.

You're very welcome Odd that one of the very first words that Maajid uses in that clip is 'hindsight'....

Commuters pictured on April 8th in Taipei. Seems like exemplary practice....

ooopppsss, somebody forgot the script.... Daily new cases : April 11 = 3 April 12 = 3 April 13 = 5 April 15 = 2 April 18 = 3 April 19 = massive jump to 22! Not sure what happened to April 14, 16 & 17 though. Data taken from here : https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/taiwan/ Who knows, maybe the April 19 figure will be adjusted by tomorrow

Of course I do - every PM in history has screwed up in some way shape or form, certainly enough to take a good mauling. This isn't the thread to discuss it though.

Nice post, very informative. Interesting to note the timeline. They seem to have reacted at the beginning of March following their spike at the end of Feb. Being a lot closer to China than we are, it certainly seems strange that the Times and some of our lot are calling for the Prime Minister's head regarding a meeting on the 24th of January and not locking the country down any sooner! Also interesting to note that they are saying PPE should be stockpiled (on the 5th of April) but our lot are expecting the UK Government to have been soothsayers and to have sorted this on the 24th Jan and the following five weeks!

So many 'experts' on here, so anyone know the answer? I suspect a lot of people (even on here) will be shocked to discover that even when the lockdown is lifted, the virus will still be in existence. I imagine those same people will have a meltdown when lockdown part 2 is instigated.

Even the Prime Minister has a 'legal' right to a holiday..... He took it at a time when there was no 'pandemic', no 'emergency' in the country and was briefed by those that work for him / the Government. There are numerous things that the Prime Minister should take a beating for, but taking his legally owed holiday isn't one of them!

Was that the 'working' or the 'holiday' part of his 'working holiday'?

How are you going to stop the deaths when the virus has a transmission rate of 80%? Do you lock the whole country down indefinitely until a cure / vaccine is created?

He was on a 'working holiday' in the UK at the time. He was still in touch with the Government and was still being briefed and making decisions on a daily basis....

According to the Guardian : https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/19/michael-gove-fails-to-deny-pm-missed-five-coronavirus-cobra-meetings The WHO didn't declare a pandemic until 11th March.

It's not a rhetorical question, I don't know the answer. Is it a requirement that the PM attends all Cobra meetings? The one in question - from the Times article - happened on the 25th of January. There wasn't a single death recorded in the whole of Europe at that time. If it IS a requirement for the PM to be present and he didn't attend, then there is only one logical conclusion to be drawn...

Is it a requirement for the PM to attend each and every Cobra meeting or is it possible for Senior Ministers to hold / chair them?

Are the mulitiple tests due to NHS / other key worker testing - obviously a negative test last week doesn't necessarily mean they are still negative, so any sign of a temperature / cough and they are back to be re-tested....

You seem to be forgetting that the virus is expected to infect 80% of the population. You seem to be under the impression that had the Government acted sooner then that figure would be reduced! Until a reliable, working vaccine has been developed, 80% is the stark reality. The Government 'could' have locked the whole country down in January when the first case in China was reported, but what would that have achieved apart from decimating the economy further? We could also keep the country locked down until next January, we could close the borders completely and not let a single soul in or out of the country, but again, what would that achieve with a virus with such a high infection rate? Eventually we will have to re-open the country and unless we wait long enough for the virus to have completely disappeared (incredibly unlikely to happen), then we will start our infection curve at that point, which puts us back to square one! Alternatively we can keep the country locked down and not let anyone or anything in or out until a vaccine has been developed, at that point it would still take many months to vaccinate the entire country and ensure the programme is effective. On the whole, I think the Government (and of course their various 'specialist' advisore) have done a good job, given the potency of a virus that cannot, at the moment, be eradicated. They have to balance the speed of the spread against the economic cost.

So, just so I'm clear, you stated that the Government should have followed the 'warnings from the WHO' and that because they didn't they ****ed up. I then showed that not only did we follow the 'warnings from the WHO', we did so BEFORE they even declared a pandemic. Because of that, I'm deluded! Seems like a logical argument to me!

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending20march2020

That could be the case. Could also be that the amount of testing that Germany has done has 'skewed' their figures. In the UK, testing has predominantly been carried out in hospitals on people who are sick with the virus symptoms - i.e to confirm they have the virus. We haven't been testing the young, fit people who have the symptoms - presumably because most recover with little other problems and those that don't and end up in hospital will be tested anyway. In theory then, we could have ten times the number of confirmed cases (if we tested everybody) whilst our death rate would remain unchanged, which would only serve to lower our percentage. Who knows, maybe it's a combination of the two....

Jesus wept! These are not hard figures to interpret! Germany has roughly the same amount of confirmed cases as Italy. They know this because they have tested people, LOTS of people. Germany have OVER 10% less people who have been CONFIRMED TO HAVE THE VIRUS that have died compared to ITALY. Why is that - I'll give you a clue, it's NOT because they have tested more people! Potentially the answer could be genetics as we know that the virus has a higher death rate for BAME, but I doubt that would account for 10%. More likely it is to do with recording - I recall from the early days of the virus that Germany stated that if people were dying with underlying causes, the underlying causes were recorded as the reason for the death, not sure if they are still doing this and cannot find anything to verify this. It's not a conspiracy theory, the figures are plain to see for everyone!