There is a row in the UK about the government's explicitly stated strategy of doing little in the way of interventions, with the aim of establishing a heard immunity.

I know that they are being advised by some of the world's top epidemiologists, but there is a growing suspicion that the government is limiting the strategy to one of a number of models provide by them. The model of blunting, or smoothing out the peak of the epidemic while accepting that at least 80% of the population will become infected anyway. In the aim that this degree of infection will generate a heard immunity and subsequently smooth out any following peaks.

Many people consider this a gamble, a risky strategy, which in the light of the lack of understanding of the virus could go horribly wrong in the initial peak of infection.

The charge against the government is that they have been advised about the fragile state of the economy and the critical degree of underfunding and recruitment crisis (Brexit) within the health system. That they are scarred of such collapse during the critical Brexit period and rather have adopted this strategy to put the strain on the risk of hundreds of thousands of old people instead. Well they are all going to die soon anyway.

Make Britain great again.

According to him he is quite concerned, probably more so than any leader before him.

Yes, I agree that he's concerned, about the pandemic, not about his troops though, they are off the radar for now. Oh and also any US citizens in vulnerable countries*. He's displaying the behaviour of someone in a sticky situation way above his pay grade. Let's hope he's got some level headed advisors left, after his purge of people he doesn't like around him.

All he's doing is desperately being all things to all men. Contradicting what he said the last time he spoke, distracting from hard questions, attacking and othering anyone, or administration he can pin a target on. He hasn't even realised that leaders around the world are struggling to comprehend and deal with the magnitude of the crisis. He just sits there with his arms tightly crossed and reacts to events in anyway that he can do with his salesman rhetoric.

Where's the leadership?

Or, do you still not know what I mean by leadership?

* I mean countries with poor healthcare systems, which are poorly prepared for 10% of their population to require hospital treatment in the next few weeks.

He disrespects his office when he ignores the genuine concerns of US citizens in his actions. I already told you this and you ignored it.

I'll ask you again, to what extent is the President concerned for the wellbeing of US troops in what is soon going to become a hell hole in the Middle East and Asia?

I think it's time we brought NOS4A2 in from the cold. He would get so much more out of these discussions if he were in the free world(free thinking world). He's stuck in a straight jacket outside the door.

All he needs to do is give a sign that he's willing.

See I was right Trump has got the virus, he was living it up with Bolsanaro the other day, who was diagnosed yesterday. Off with his head.

Trump can't admit that he needs testing, because it would weaken his machismo. Powerful populist leaders like him and Johnson have to remain invincible alpha males at all times, or they might fall to the level of all those weak marxist and communist leaders over there, on the other side. It's essential for Machiavellian divide and rule.

Off with their heads.

Shame he couldn't coordinate with the EU, just place the blame on them instead.

"Off with their heads!"

Too little, too late. Donald "Pandora" Trump

Quite, I was thinking of the Queen in Alice in Wonderland, " off with their heads, off with their heads".

So no leadership then. Well I agree it's better than the alternative, which we saw today.

I agree entirely, I was thinking about what could happen after the collapse.

Surely it would have been better had the parade not occurred. The city should have stopped the parade.

And should Trump have banned all flights from Europe today, without consulting anyone in Europe?

The record drops in shares in response to his knee jerk reaction are understandable. They realise that with such an imbecile in charge of the country anything could happen.

Should he be recalling his troops from the Middle East? You do realise don't you that the virus will go endemic rapidly in the populations in the region, causing chaos far worse than we've seen so far. Does he really want to leave his boys there to get infected in a hell hole?

You know what, he probably hasn't even given it a moments thought.

Is Trump going to pull the US troops out of the Middle East and Asia? He should do as he will need them on the ground when the chaos starts. Or is he just going to leave them there to die?

He's a very unstable genius.

I think he's already got it.

Currently there are no restrictions for any EU citizen coming into the UK. No checks, no tests. Also the UK is effectively an EU member until 31 December 2020.

The UK doesn't have any flight restrictions. Also if you fly in from an infected area, you are not checked, or tested. There is simply a notice asking you to self isolate.

Yes a good read and I don't reject any of the theory. But I was listening to a virologist yesterday who said that Covid19 matches to a remarkable degree a virus found in Pangolins. He was suggesting that this virus may have combined with a similar coronavirus found in bats. This points in the direction of Chinese medicine, or bush meat trade. There have been many reports over the last few years of the very high price of Mandolin scales on the black market, most going to markets in China. This has become such a lucrative trade that Pangolins in the wild are in danger of extinction.

corporations are dependent on the work of human beings

They are dependent on wage slaves, a large class of subservient, pliant, people.

Sure there could be such adverse effects, but they are not necessary concomitants of civilizational collapse. The one worry would be decommissioning of nuclear facilities.

I think the unpredictable effects would be due to the degree of chaos and the efforts of vigilante groups to survive. So a large degree of chaos might make any attempts to contain or decommission nuclear facilities impossible. Also vigilante groups could ravage our remaining ecosystems for short term gains, or survival.

I do agree with your suggestion that air travel would have to be stopped for an extended period. Indeed, if one area has endemic virus and another has managed to eradicated it. Then there can be no air travel between them for the foreseeable, and strict controls on other forms of travel. The implication being that for business to continue as usual to any degree, all countries will have to allow the virus in and manage it as best they can.

Notwithstanding the long term affects will depend on efforts to come up with an effective vaccine.

Ugh, terrible place.

I know, I'm closer to Norwich fortunately.

It is remarkable how quickly it has spread across the world. My nearest documented case is in Ipswich about 30 miles away, but I expect there are people infected without knowing closer than that already. We only have about 400 cases in the UK as of today, but they are evenly spread out across the whole country. Once those have had time to incubate, there will be a rapid increase. I see reports that our health minister tested positive yesterday.

Injecting more money into the system will cause inflation, particularly if there is a shortage of available goods in the market.

They will go to a war footing, prices would be fixed to a degree and there would be some means of rationing.
For example in Italy yesterday, there were reports of people queuing outside supermarkets, at least one metre apart, to buy food. They weren't allowed into the shop, the attendants would bring out the food individually and some items were restricted, or rationed.

The idea that reducing the human population would collapse the ecosystem is also absurd; as I see it the real situation is precisely the opposite. (Collapse the present economic system (if reduced radically over a short period) yes).

I can't speak for Boethius, but if there is a collapse of civilisation, there could be some quite adverse effects in the short term, like mass fires, nuclear explosions, wreckless destruction of ecosystems.

I agree with this, I don't think that western governments were prepared for such an outbreak. Appropriate contingency plans had not been developed and so were not going to be imposed. Also I suspect that the virus was spread beyond China to a number of locations before western governments knew about it. Where were the CIA, or MI6 when the first cases were emerging in China? It required strict limits on travel from that early stage.

Hopefully this pandemic will be a wake up call for the future, as worse virus's may come along in the future.

How will the airlines, who, I often hear, are already struggling, fare?

I know, there are many businesses which are already on the edge, prior to the effect of the virus. I don't expect economic collapse though, governments will just print money and bail critical businesses and services out.

financial experts are saying that if there are economic effects, they will bounce back after the epidemic, as the crisis is not a structural one within the economy, but an external source. Provided an effective vaccine is found everything will be back to normal in around 18 months.

What does "step up to the plate" mean? What exactly do you want him to do that he has not done?

All he needs to do as President is show leadership, hold press conferences in which he spells out the situation, the risks and what needs to be done, pulling the people together in a spirit of cooperation and unity in fighting the threat. It's not difficult. But instead, I just heard him muttering something about flu and how great he is.

Yes, I sort of agree, but should we just accept a few million deaths? And then get back to life as normal?

I mentioned the common cold because an effective vaccine has not be found to prevent it. So the it might be the same for Coronavirus.

I'll be fine by the way, I live in a remote place, with some land and a secure income. I'm just holding on for the ride.

And, it's not like every country in the world is not working on a vaccine. Ya?

Most predictions are that it will be at least 18 months before a vaccine is being administered. The tsunami will have come and gone well before that. Also, if the virus is related to the Cold, there might not be an effective vaccine.

that curtailing all international travel would have on economies. Effects which would arguably be so great that governments would have no hope of propping up all those who would otherwise become bankrupt. You seem to be blithely ignoring the inter-connectedness and fragility of the global economic system.

I agree, but I expect this will happen anyway in a couple of months from now. The UK government is already preparing financial help including grants to prop up such companies when they become unviable. It is going to be a Herculean effort,a war footing if we are to pull through without economic collapse.

Addressing population levels, I agree and I think we have reached a point of vulnerability to pandemics, economic instability, climate and ecosystem instability. It looks like nature will provide a correction.

The market reaction to this disease is disproportionate...

I thought that the market volatility today was due to a row between Saudi and Russia over oil prices. Which in turn was symptomatic of increasing uncertainty and volatility in economies around the world.

There are two horns to the dilemma we are facing. One, we should make every effort, or there is a moral imperative, to prevent large numbers of deaths. Two, we should protect economies, from damage, or collapse. Which entails letting those people die.
So which is it, save lives, or save economies? I think we know the answer to this choice.

"Get it over quickly" makes sense only in the useful-idiot framework of reasoning

Agreed, but the issue then becomes how does a country remain free of the virus when other countries have pandemics, or it is endemic? Surely there would have to be multiple travel bans. I realise that this might not be so much of an issue once a good vaccine has been produced, but there is no certainty that this will save the day.

Going back to the apparent welcoming of the pandemic, this is also evidenced in the lack of provision for asymptomatic subjects and the spread via them. It seems that it had been accepted from an early stage that the pandemic can't be avoided and that it is better to preserve economies than fight its spread dramatically.

It was explained today by the UKs chief medical officer that the greatest risk in the UK is if the health service becomes overwhelmed. So the strategy is to ensure that the peak infection occurs during the summer when the health service is best placed to cope ( as there is usually a seasonal flu epidemic in the winter months, which puts an added strain on the health service). This is a risky strategy, but they don't see any alternative, either that prevents an epidemic, or that prevents a winter peak in infection, which is regarded as catastrophic.

I saw someone being interviewed in South Korea today, who had been told by doctors who are treating infected people, that there are some people who carry the virus with no symptoms, including no increase in temperature.

Spot on.

The government has a critical negotiation to complete in record time with both the EU and the US, as the UK will leave the EU transition period in December, deal, or no deal. They don't want to take their eye off the ball with this, their own survival as a government is critical to this, because if they are voted out of office by a no confidence vote, the opposition could get into power and rejoin the EU. This is what is most important to the government.

The pandemic is a detail, which will only clear out about 1% of the dead wood. It's of little concern, just like, the floods and climate change.

And everything I've described is basically admitted. Boris Johnson just came out and said "well, it's going to spread anyways". Yes, it will spread anyways, but there are massive difference in outcome depending on if something is done to slow it down or not. By saying "it's going to spread anyways", implying "so let's get it over with", he is thinking about the stocks and not the people; he is saying in no uncertain terms, "it's better to sacrifice a lot of people so global business can get back to normal as quickly as possible".

Johnson (Cummings) is like a rabbit caught in the headlights, as is Trump. The experts are telling him that we can't stop it, I expect they are saying that we should stop air travel, as well. It looks like the government is not stopping air travel, or other measures because they don't want to damage the economy. They don't seem to be taking the delay strategies seriously, I agree, they are thinking about the stocks and the money.

Also they have probably calculated that the virus will kill off a lot of older, ill people, which will solve the bed blocking problem in the NHS and save money. They are a hard right populist government which is only looking to the moneyed benefactors and friends. They don't want to jeopardise the Brexit project and will happily loose a few hundred thousand citizens and get it over with quickly, while safeguarding their ideological project.

I am hearing now that there is a military type triage operation in Italy brutally dividing the patients into those seriously at risk, from those with a good chance of survival. They prioritise respiratory equipment for the category with a good chance of survival and affectively let the serious cases die. They have got to this stage with only around 7,000 cases so far.

Whoossh, the sound of the stock market this morning. The recession is upon us already. Let's see how bad it is a week from now, or a month.

@fishfry suffers from a particularly virulent form of LDS (left derangement syndrome). Red man = bad. Reading his posts at least gives an insight into how the powered and privileged have convinced much of the country that everything not in the interests of a tiny wealthy elite is "socialism" Mao! Stalin! Castro! :scream: There is no vaccine for that except the ability to think.

Sounds like the UK these days.

"Downplaying" is a loaded word. The president is supposed to be optimistic; if he was not, you would bash him for spreading panic.

Optimism is probably the wrong approach too. My point is he's going to have to step up to the plate now.

I agree this is the Corona virus thread. So take your antitrump cackling to the TDS thread, where it belongs

This wasn't supposed to happen, Trump was going to secure his place in history as a successful president. But now we have a global crisis greater than the financial crisis of 2008, perhaps as serious as the Second World War. Now as president it is his duty to step up to the plate and show presidential leadership. Will he perform, or will he shy away and attempt to downplay the seriousness of the situation, out of fear?

I don't see why you think governments are "in no way equipped" to handle it. What do you think will happen?

I agree with dclements, for example the Italian health service is already struggling and they only have about 6,000 cases so far. It has become such a crisis that they have quarantined about 16,000,000 people and closed many institutions.

Which situation? The ME or Corona? His natural reflex is to to be optimistic. And he gets bashed for that. But the "mainstream media" would bash him even more if is sounded alarmist. Damned if he does, damned if he does not.

This is the Coronavirus thread.
Trump should do the right thing, not worry about his image, or the election.

Punshhh And you.

I don't think I've got it, although I have had a tickly throat and a sore nose. I live in isolation already, well except when I go to Morrisons. So I am planning to wear my beekeeping costume and surgical gloves to go shopping.