New coronavirus in/from China

Vortex2 · Post by **Vortex2** » 18 Mar 2020, 13:13

Probably just people using their mobile phones ... but I have noticed maybe more cars than usual pulling into the gateway which leads to our house and land ....

Hopefully they are not 'casing' the site or noting where our chickens are running about, close to the roadside ...

Post by **clv101** » 18 Mar 2020, 13:34

All state schools in Wales to close from Friday
All state schools in Wales are to close from Friday, the Welsh government has announced.

Schools policy in the UK is devolved to national governments and assemblies, meaning that individual governments can make those decisions.

Kirsty Williams, the Welsh education minister, said:
â€œToday, I can announce we are bringing forward the Easter break for schools in Wales. Schools across Wales will close for statutory provision of education at the latest on 20 March 2020.

â€œI have been clear up to now that the continuity of education and the wellbeing of our learners has been at the heart of my decision making. This will always be the case.

â€œFrom next week, schools will have a new purpose. They will help support those most in need, including people involved in the immediate response to the coronavirus outbreak. I am working with my colleagues in the cabinet, with government officials and our partners in local government to develop and finalise these plans.

â€œThe key areas we are looking at are supporting and safeguarding the vulnerable and ensuring continuity of learning. We are looking in detail at how we can support and safeguard all those who benefit from free school meals and children with additional learning needs. I will make sure you are kept up-to-date.â€�

The move in Wales means that a decision on schools in England must be imminent, as Boris Johnson said today. Hundreds of schools in England are already closed or partially closed because of staff shortages.

Over to you England!

Vortex2 · Post by **Vortex2** » 18 Mar 2020, 14:05

HMG : 2626 cases today 18th march

My model is still over-estimating a tiny amount due to the recent change in HMG measuring method.

However the latest exponential fit is getting back on track nicely, with R*R=0.995

It's really quite amazing that in real life we can get a fairly clean exponential curve.

I predict 3813 tomorrow .. but in reality I expect it will be a tad less, as my model re-syncs.

(Don't forget that the real count is between 6 and 20 times higher due to hidden cases, and then higher still due to a roughly 6 day reporting delay. My calculations, using an 8.3 scale factor, suggest 115,992 infected cases in reality today))

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 18 Mar 2020, 14:09

clv101 wrote:
All state schools in Wales to close from Friday
All state schools in Wales are to close from Friday, the Welsh government has announced.

Schools policy in the UK is devolved to national governments and assemblies, meaning that individual governments can make those decisions.

Kirsty Williams, the Welsh education minister, said:
â€œToday, I can announce we are bringing forward the Easter break for schools in Wales. Schools across Wales will close for statutory provision of education at the latest on 20 March 2020.

â€œI have been clear up to now that the continuity of education and the wellbeing of our learners has been at the heart of my decision making. This will always be the case.

â€œFrom next week, schools will have a new purpose. They will help support those most in need, including people involved in the immediate response to the coronavirus outbreak. I am working with my colleagues in the cabinet, with government officials and our partners in local government to develop and finalise these plans.

â€œThe key areas we are looking at are supporting and safeguarding the vulnerable and ensuring continuity of learning. We are looking in detail at how we can support and safeguard all those who benefit from free school meals and children with additional learning needs. I will make sure you are kept up-to-date.â€�

The move in Wales means that a decision on schools in England must be imminent, as Boris Johnson said today. Hundreds of schools in England are already closed or partially closed because of staff shortages.
Over to you England!

Unbelievable. This leaves only England lagging behind the whole of Europe. Complete vacuum where there should be leadership.

Boris Johnson is coming out of this looking terrible. I thought he would be quite good in a crisis, but he's actually useless, because he can't think of anything but protecting money interests.

Post by **clv101** » 18 Mar 2020, 14:15

UndercoverElephant wrote: Boris Johnson is coming out of this looking terrible. I thought he would be quite good in a crisis, but he's actually useless, because he can't think of anything but protecting money interests.

What was it, over the last few years, that suggested to you he'd be good in a crisis? He's a serial bluffer, hopeless at detail and a coward... Also known for telling lies. All terrible traits for crisis management.

Vortex2 · Post by **Vortex2** » 18 Mar 2020, 14:20

clv101 wrote:
UndercoverElephant wrote: Boris Johnson is coming out of this looking terrible. I thought he would be quite good in a crisis, but he's actually useless, because he can't think of anything but protecting money interests.
What was it, over the last few years, that suggested to you he'd be good in a crisis? He's a serial bluffer, hopeless at detail and a coward... Also known for telling lies. All terrible traits for crisis management.

All I know is that I went to the hustings at Cheltenham with the intent of voting for him as PM.

However I found Hunt to be a very lucid speaker who came across as a fairly decent guy.

Then my favourite Boris arrived. Within 20 second my "creep alarms" were overloading. His eyes freaked me out ... dark lumps of coal. Shuddder ..

I found him so disturbing that I left halfway through his talk ... yet the Tory faithful were heaping adoration on him like hypnotised zombies.

Make of that what you will.

Vortex2 · Post by **Vortex2** » 18 Mar 2020, 14:59

Here is my current estimate of risk when going out and about.

This is based on a steady exponential increase of cases, with no adjustments for the effects of recent isolation / separation activities.

The Truth may be very different!

(Sorry about the poor image quality .. getting a spreadsheet in a clean image format is surprisingly awkward)

UPDATE: This data assumes that people stay infectious - which isn't true of course. This means that the values are worst case.

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 18 Mar 2020, 15:13

Just seen an advert in my reddit feed from GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 offering jobs to speakers of Mandarin.

Mean Mr Mustard II · Post by **Mean Mr Mustard II** » 18 Mar 2020, 15:15

Now past time that we have a cross-party war cabinet. Actually directed by relevant experts, with politicians employed as needed to convey the messages, rather than dilute and prevaricate.

As we know for certain that half the population are of below average intelligence, and Boris does relate to many of them, he still can play a useful expert PR role as the gutter press journo he is. Communicator to some, if he can ditch the clown act, and yes, definitely no expert decision maker.

Not a fan of Tories at all, but Jeremy Hunt has an excellent CV to manage this crisis, being long connected to overseas and senior health professionals through his past roles. If it were a war cabinet, he'd be included for sure.

Formal political structures need to give way to expertise - seems Boris already knows that.

Mean Mr Mustard II · Post by **Mean Mr Mustard II** » 18 Mar 2020, 15:20

Vortex2 wrote:Here is my current estimate of risk when going out and about.

At that rate, if we are talking repeated close contact accumulated risk, hairdressers and barbers need to close now.

On that topic, I got myself some electric clippers with the attachment thingys a few weeks ago from Argos, as part of my emergency gadget acquisition drive. Yet to try it, but if it all goes horribly wrong, I'm indoors anyway. .

Also the thermometer, blood pressure reader and cuff, and pulse oxymeter. Though you'd probably be lucky to find those now.

Due to the discussion this morning, was prompted to get the new printer refills in.

And we belatedly checked the bread flour. One large bag had weevils in, and so we had a keep calm mild panic on, and put in a fresh order. The granary online shop is now open limited hours, to cope with demand. Plenty of product, but their bottleneck is order processing. As for the weevils we found, there were two types. Large ones, and small ones, which were the lesser of two weevils.

Post by **clv101** » 18 Mar 2020, 15:21

Agreed, the situation has gone far beyond party politics.

boisdevie · Post by **boisdevie** » 18 Mar 2020, 15:30

Bedrock Barney wrote:If the UK is to be in total or near total shut down for 6 months or so, the economic impact is going to be catastrophic. We are seeing all of future projects on hold. We have heard today that a local architectural firm has just laid off 4 staff and we are only at the beginning of the lockdown.

From our perspective, we have decent cash reserves and can weather the storm but I know we are the exception to the rule. Unemployment numbers will soon be as exponential as the virus numbers (despite the platitudes being issued by the government)

I've been talking to lots of very nervous people in the contruction industry over the last 3 days. Projects are continuing on site but perhaps for not much longer. You obviously can't work from home if you are a carpenter, plumber, bricklayer!

I'm a handyman and self-isolating since yesterday. I do have reserves and realise that I'm very much in the minority.

fuzzy · Post by **fuzzy** » 18 Mar 2020, 15:39

Shame carpenters bricklayers or plumbers didn't save their considerable wages.

Vortex2 · Post by **Vortex2** » 18 Mar 2020, 15:41

the thermometer, blood pressure reader and cuff, and pulse oxymeter. Though you'd probably be lucky to find those now.

Got all those : the non-contact thermometer involved a friendly punch up in Boots with a guy who had grabbed the last two. The oxy thing I got on the web about a week ago,

Mean Mr Mustard II · Post by **Mean Mr Mustard II** » 18 Mar 2020, 15:42

Here's our source for large volumes of bread flour etc if still needed. Note the current limited online ordering hours. We've used them for many a year.

https://www.wessexmill.co.uk/