With just 102 cases, New Zealand is ordering a full month-long lockdown. This is the hammer. This is intelligence applied to policy. And this will work.

Good on them, I almost moved there a couple of years ago, love the place. I just couldn't get used to all the rugby and beer, no antiques and the lack of culture.

Edit: If you look at Chart 13b - NPI Measures Per Country, you'll see that South Korea had very few travel bans and closures. That's because they were ahead of the virus in their testing and contact tracing

Also, their people are sensible and do the right thing when asked.

But I doubt they have in anyway defeated the virus, only managed to control it. Let's see how it fights back when they try to go back to business as usual.

So the UK is locked down. We're only allowed to leave our houses for food, for exercise once a day, and if we can't work from home and our work is essential.

Yes, except they didn't say only if your work is essential. But only if the nature of your work means you can't work at home.

I miss the days where I was just worried about Brexit.

Yes, bring back the proroguing of parliament, those were the days.

Who is that debt owed to?

To each other.

What they could do is right down their debts and see how many noughts there are and then agree to cross off some of those noughts.

Problem solved.

Teams of experts could easily be assembled to tell the headless chickens what to do about climate change. What gives one crisis traction and the other none? Covid-19 is not a threat to the vast majority of humans, but the lockdowns affect everyone. Why aren't we this selfless regarding other issues like inequality and climate change?

The main difference is that governments think that they have to act immediately and comprehensively to respond to this threat. If climate change was going to happen in the next six months then they would act to the same degree.
Also there is the image of bodies on morgue tables, which doesn't play well with your electorate.

I think at least part of the answer lies in our myths and fears.

Yes, there is an innate fear of pandemic, whereas climate change is some distant idea for many people.

There is a consideration which I am sure was in the minds of the experts and politicians, at the point when more severe restrictions where contemplated. Which is that it would be impossible to avoid social and civil collapse in cities and then in the wider area if no action had been taken and there were many thousands of seriously ill people in tents and sports halls. So I think the measures are more to prevent this collapse than to avoid the death of a few million old and vulnerable people.

Such collapse would inevitably result in many more deaths than one would expect from the virus in isolation.

This is rather tedious.

Yes, its similar in the UK too, I don't know if the figures used in the graph are estimates, or confirmed cases.

I do know who has lost their livelihoods, I have been listening to talk radio, and have heard it directly from them.

The poor are the folk who have just lost their livelihood. The other points are not worth playing ping pong with right now.

I'm surprised that the Iranian curve is not steeper than this, I wonder how much testing is going on there, or if it is a gestimate.

But your point about Chinese crap is one of those slogans. The poor require a basic income to survive. By right wing, I mean countries where there is low regulation free markets and small welfare state. The left wing countries. Have more regulation, unions, more comprehensive welfare state.

Better to give it to the rip off merchants and billionaires instead. The poor can't be trusted with money, they just waste it, by spending it in the real economy. Better to put it in an offshore account where it never gets near the real economy.
NOT.

Well said, its only a problem in the right wing countries. Most European countries are better than that. The UK is somewhere in between, they have pledged to fund 80% of income for employees, but seem to be hanging sole traders and small businesses out to dry.

The politicians are headless chickens following what their experts tell them. There are teams of experts assembled in each (wealthy) country to manage the crisis.

Socially most people will follow the guidelines as best they can, but if a tighter lockdown is required it will have to be enforced. Some countries are already doing this. Once many thousands of extra ventilators have been manufactured and thousands of temporary health workers prepared each country will eventually be able to relax the controls in a managed way.

In terms of nature, yes it might be a collapse of civilisation moment, although gradual, I don't see anything sudden happening. I think more likely is that we will pull through over the next couple of years with improving treatments, maybe a vaccine and a new way of interacting, which was needed actually.

There will be a big bill to pay, but if every country had the same kind of bill to pay. Presumably they could all right it off in tandem.

Oh and by the way, take care when it gets bad where you are, avoid getting a high dose infection.

P.s. I've just seen a report that obesity and Corona don't mix, especially for folk who are borderline diabetic.

Yes, like Boris's idea to shut the schools and restaurants on the same day, when the shops already had empty shelves. Such a stable genius.

That is just your TDS speaking here. Trumps initial over-optimistic public statements were bad PR, but at the same time he acted fast and correctly. There is nothing concrete to critiziise here, you are just parrotting the Trump-hating "mainstream" media.

We were discussing the situation in the UK, not the US.

Get a grip.

To me that looks like it'll peak before 100,000 cases.

Hopefully the number of people recovering will out number the number of new cases, but I doubt the number of new cases will stop. It would require everyone to isolate against everyone else, which is impossible. Also there is the risk that the virus will exist dormant in carriers and emerge randomly in the future. So as soon as isolation is relaxed it will peak again.

Perhaps these stop and start episodes will reduce in intensity over time until some longer term strategies are developed. In the meantime, such things as economy's will be a thing of the past.

There is a food crisis in the UK today, the PM announced yesterday that all pubs, restaurants, cafes, etc must close Friday night. Also the schools closed the same day, resulting in panic buying. People who would have eaten out, had to go and buy food to cook and parents went out to buy more food to feed their children out of school. As the shops were already struggling, this resulted in panic buying, which is worst in towns and cities.

Fake news.

I think the quaranteening movement actually can stop the virus from spreading. If all people who have got it are quaranteened for three weeks, the virus will die in them. Some will die with the virus, but the virus in the survivors also will die.

Yes hopefully this is true, but it's not that simple because the virus might go into out of the way parts of the body of some people and become dormant and then emerge again later on.

You can do all the exercises at home anyway. With a bicycle inner tube, a door frame and a hammer.

Makes a change from reading about the pestilential virus threatening civilised life. He's a completely different shape and size. :wink:

I am already thinking of a cartoon in which Cummings is a corona virus.

That is everybody's strategy. We just want it to spread in slow motion.

Yes, everybody knows it will have to spread through the population. But if the UK government wanted it to happen in slow motion, they would lock down London. But they won't. Most supermarket shelves around London are already empty. Many people particularly in the Gig economy are carrying on regardless.

Accidently witty

It tickled me.

Everyone calm down.

I dont think folk here are uncalm. Or do you mean they are exaggerating?

In the UK, London is the hotspot, the Prime minister has instructed Londoners to carry out the required social distancing and self isolating when they have symptoms. But he has not closed all cafes, restaurants, pubs, metro lines etc, or banned people mingling in the streets. But many people are just ignoring the instructions and carrying on as normal. It is clear that the virus is spreading freely around the city.

There are still many who think that the government is allowing the virus to spread, so that the people will develop heard immunity. But this is folly, as it will mean that a large proportion of Londoners will become infected at the same time over the next few weeks. Resulting in a chaotic mess.

Watch this space.

It plays well into his supporters xenophobia, seriously.

Yes, it's divide and rule. Blame someone else and then claim the credit for calling them out. Whenever the shit hits the fan, it's all their fault, I'm the good guy. And then when there's good news I did it, such a stable genius.

How far can we stretch the social contract upholding this reality before it gets ripped apart?

It will have to be stretched until the pips squeak before anything will change. In theory political changes would be able to turn society away from raw capitalism, to some something more social democratic. But in some countries this is being held back by the manipulation of the media and the use of populism, funded by the wealthy, the people invested in capitalism. There are established, even endemic (as in the UK) anti socialist ideologies which are fostered by this manipulation.

But as I see it following the financial crisis of 2008, more and more people have lost faith in the free market and the politics of the privelidged is loosing support amongst the young. In the UK this is becoming an existential battle, almost civil war. With older wealthier people who benefitted from the economic boom of the 1980's and 90's. Against the younger people who have had debt and unaffordable house prices holding them hostage, having to rent with higher and higher rates of rental. Meaning they can't generate their own wealth, while the older people hold onto their wealth.

Perhaps Corona will help to correct this imbalance.

This is the herding instinct

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tkVAUGaEcfA

I've just watched the BBC documentary on Dominic Cummings. He must feel like the most unlucky person in British politics, just as he managed to get into Downing St, the greatest national crisis since the Second World War happened within a few weeks. Sucking all his hard won power away, leaving him in the middle of a national scramble to a war footing in which political advisors have become irrelevant and the grown ups have taken the healm. Johnson likewise has lost control and must rely on the group of specialists and grown ups who actually run things. Be careful what you wish for Boris, Churchill is your idol, your hero, now you have been unceremoniously thrust into his shoes and you will have to deliver that level of leadership, or if you fail, you will be finished.

In the UK schools are closed now until further notice, as the government faces a rapid increase in infection, ove the next two weeks. These will be people who were infected prior to the social isolation measures introduced earlier in the week, who will develop symptoms following a few days of incubation.
Apparently London is a hotspot. The problem in London is that there are many people who either can't work at home, or can't afford to stop work, as they survive hand to mouth. This morning the tube( metro) was packed full of commuters, even during the social isolation measures. I suspect that the virus is spreading widely across London right now and there are still a lot of people still moving around to keep working.
Also health workers are not being tested, or not being provided with sufficient safety equipment. There are many health workers self isolating for 14 days, with some symptoms, but are not being tested.

why Mars?

I expect he was thinking of Total Recall.

And you’re right that we should get that support. It remains to be seen if we will. Shockingly, even Republicans seem to be considering a temporary Universal Basic Income as a possible solution

Yes in the UK there is talk of universal income. It will be the easiest way to help people, as it is becoming evident that what ever funding methods that are proposed, many people fall through the net.
It is equally shocking here as the party in government and their base tend to be the privileged and hard working, who look down on the poor and disadvantaged (while actively making them disadvantaged).

Which country are you in?
You should get financial support from your government and for your company.

Peculiarly I am going to be ok, I have just secured a big contract for a years work. Which will go ahead regardless, unless my clients die, they are retired though. Even without that contract I will be financially secure. My concern is more for some vulnerable parents.

I've already found the way it will be referred to.

Before Corona, BC.
After Corona, AC.

Mentions Ibuprofen. But I'm finding conflicting advice online tbh.

I keep hearing doctors saying that Ibuprofen shouldn't be a problem because it is a mild anti inflammatory and doesn't suppress the immune system. But there has been a scare in France, so as a precaution people are being advised to use paracetamol instead.

Interesting, I have been having this kind of dream (not the same subject, but a similar theme) for months now. In my dream death was about 5ft high, a simple pillar shape, but moved like a person walking and I sensed it as a being. There was a similar darkness, like light couldn't escape, so you are not actually looking at something, but an absence of something, all light is sucked in. There was a distortion similar to what you describe as gravity. It was like I was on a fairground waltzer spinning, and I was straining to see something I was spinning away from. There was a deep sense of negativity. Not evil, but an extinguisher of some kind, a harbinger of death, of endings, things coming to an end.

This gravity effect, I have realised is caused by a spell of sleep apnea/paralysis in which one tries to move, but can't, because the body is asleep. I find that some of my most inspirational, or prophetic dreams fleetingly happen during this struggle.

I used to interpret dreams many years ago, but lost interest when the idea of divination became an irrelevance for me.

I don't think there's a choice now, unless you choose some kind of oblivion*. We're all swept up in this.

* I'm drinking Russian cognac as I write

How is the pandemic perceived in Russia?

Somehow, I doubt the Russians will deport you and they can't really accuse you of intending to stay beyond your visa.

You can return to the UK and self isolate for 7 days, then live with your parents and help them self isolate.

So death is a he? How sexist. :-)

Which way, discriminatory against women, or men?

I realised that when I was typing, for for artistic effect I decided to go with he.

Yes, that's what happened. I do need to qualify this, it was a dream, so imaginary, also I can't be entirely sure that it was death who walked in, but all the emotional triggers were tripped. I have encountered this before, so am familiar with the signs.

I do have a history of premonitions in dreams, I think this was a premonition, but it is not clear at the moment if it was, or what it indicated.

Are you saying that since the number of known cases in US now is 4,500 and deaths 88, that if we multiply the knowns by 5 to 10 and divide 88 by that, that the real death rate is likely between 0.2% and 0.4%?

These figures don't show the true figure, firstly some of the infected people who are going to die, haven't died yet, they're still in life support. Secondly the Hospitals haven't been overwhelmed yet. So the patients are getting the best intensive care at the moment. But later on scarce resources will be triaged and given to those patients who have more of a chance of survival and those who don't will be left to die, with minimal treatment. So the mortality rate will go up.