New coronavirus in/from China

[Vortex2]

UK deaths add 350 today 27th April

It seems that the extra deaths since yesterday are 360 .. down from 413.

This could be real or could be 'bumpy' data, as yesterday was Sunday, traditionally a poorly reporting day.

If this descent keeps up, we should expect a loosening of the lockdown in a week or so.

[Vortex2]

Coronavirus 'vanishes' after 70 days with or without intervention, claims professor

Professor Isaac Ben-Israel made the claims about Covid-19 in a self-published article but his calculations have been criticised, as there is no country that can be used as a baseline

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-new ... gn=organic

[Vortex2]

Riddle me this ...

Serious question : if we lift the lockdown, even moderately, how can we avoid a second wave?

We have 1000s of untested travellers flying in every day, there will be reservoirs of infection such as in care homes, mink and cats.

We don't wear masks and anyway many don't give a flying fig about anything.

Surely we will be back at Day Zero quite quickly?

[Little John]

This virus cannot and never could be stopped once it fully got out into the world.

The only exit is and always was herd immunity.

The only way to achieve herd immunity is via a vaccine or via infection and recovery.

Being a member of the Corona family of viruses, Covid-19 is going to be massively difficult to produce a vaccine that works for whatever strain is abroad when it is rolled out.

Meanwhile, in the time it would take to produce a vaccine or enact a whole population level pulsed release, our economy here in the UK would be utterly wrecked, leading to hunger and other economic privatizations of a level that no one alive has any experience of.

Additionally, if the 1918 pandemic is anything to go by, there is good reason to suspect that this virus could hit us in two or three waves of different strains and, again if the 1918 virus is anything to go by, the second and third waves will be far worse than the first in terms of severity of the current strain of Covid-19.

In 1918, those who caught the first strain and recovered - which was anyone who was not elderly or had comorbidities (sound familiar?) were able to easily fight off the second and third wave infections due to having a partial immunity to them obtained during the first wave infection. Meanwhile, anyone who did not get infected in the first wave, was cut down like straw in the wind by the second and third wave infections. And these subsequent waves no longer discriminated by age. They took down the young and fit as much as anyone else.

A terrible mistake has been made and many more people may now die as a consequence.

[Vortex2]

A long way to go ...

Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser has just said that the pandemic has "a long way to run".

He says it is a “big mistake� just to look at what is happening in the first wave.

He says that is why he is very cautious about putting numbers on likely deaths.

I wonder when and how The Man (or The Woman) In The Street will suddenly grasp this?

(I suspect that he wants to shout "Numbskulls, you just don't get it do you? We are in deep do-do.")

[Little John]

A long way to go ...

Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser has just said that the pandemic has "a long way to run" after this first wave ...

I wonder when and how The Man (or The Woman) In The Street will suddenly grasp this?

(I suspect that he wants to shout "Numbskulls, you just don't get it do you? We are in deep do-do.")

They will grasp it if they are told it and they will only be told it if we have a competent political class with a moral backbone.

Which we don't.

[Vortex2]

A long way to go ...

Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser has just said that the pandemic has "a long way to run" after this first wave ...

I wonder when and how The Man (or The Woman) In The Street will suddenly grasp this?

(I suspect that he wants to shout "Numbskulls, you just don't get it do you? We are in deep do-do.")

They will grasp it if they are told it and they will only be told it if we have a competent political class with a moral backbone.

Which we don't.

So I wonder how other countries are informing (or not) their populace that THEY have a long road ahead?

[Little John]

A long way to go ...

Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser has just said that the pandemic has "a long way to run" after this first wave ...

I wonder when and how The Man (or The Woman) In The Street will suddenly grasp this?

(I suspect that he wants to shout "Numbskulls, you just don't get it do you? We are in deep do-do.")

They will grasp it if they are told it and they will only be told it if we have a competent political class with a moral backbone.

Which we don't.

So I wonder how other countries are informing (or not) their populace that THEY have a long road ahead?

Don't know and don't care. My only concern right now is my own country and my own kid's futures and the futures of the rest of their generation.

[Vortex2]

HMG data as at 27 April:

As of 9am on 27 April, there have been 719,910 tests, with 37,024 tests on 26 April.

569,768 people have been tested, of whom 157,149 have tested positive.

As of 5pm on 26 April, of those hospitalised in the UK who tested positive for coronavirus, 21,092 have died.

Small daily case slowdown, bigger deaths slowdown ... but as HMG admit weekend data is unreliable and often understated.

[clv101]

Don't know and don't care. My only concern right now is my own country and my own kid's futures and the futures of the rest of their generation.

It's really worth trying to understand what's happening in other countries, in others response likely lies very useful lessons for the UK.

The situation is bad, but the degree of badness depends on what actions our politicians can convince society to take.

[Little John]

Don't know and don't care. My only concern right now is my own country and my own kid's futures and the futures of the rest of their generation.

It's really worth trying to understand what's happening in other countries, in others response likely lies very useful lessons for the UK.

The situation is bad, but the degree of badness depends on what actions our politicians can convince society to take.

I am interested in what other countries do. I am not interested in the bullshit that comes out of their politicians mouths.

[UndercoverElephant]

https://time.com/5827804/russia-wheat-food-shortage/

Russia Halts Wheat Exports, Deepening Fears of Global Food Shortages

[Lord Beria3]

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/0 ... n-a27.html

In an email to the police prefect of the Île-de-France region around Paris, Georges-François Leclerc, the police prefect of the Seine-Saint-Denis department, stressed his concern that food riots could break out in his department, the poorest in the Paris metropolitan area. The satirical weekly Le Canard enchaîné reported the content of his email: “The greatest risk I face in the next fifteen days, apart from health risks, is the food danger.�

Leclerc added that if “risks� of food riots threaten the western Val-d’Oise suburbs, they are “at maximum� in the northern and eastern suburbs of Seine-Saint-Denis: “We have 15,000 to 20,000 people in slums, emergency shelters and migrant worker camps who will have a hard time finding enough to eat. The underground economy, theft, the ‘Uber-economy’, and the collapse of temp work have all seen a large, sudden collapse in revenues for precarious workers in Seine-Saint-Denis.�

This follows repeated clashes in the Paris metropolitan area after a policeman in Villeneuve-la-Garenne, a suburb north of Paris, opened his car door right in front of a 30-year-old motorcyclist as he passed by. The man suffered a very serious compound fracture to his leg and is still in hospital, where he has launched a lawsuit against police.

Since then, there have been repeated clashes in Villeneuve-la-Garenne and nearby Nanterre and Gennevilliers between police and local inhabitants, as residents have thrown stones and other objects at approaching police cars, and cars were also burned in Bagneux. Of 700 housing complexes classified as “dangerous� by French domestic intelligence, 65 have seen rioting.

The Seine-Saint-Denis department is densely populated and has a large concentration of workers from immigrant backgrounds. Many workers live from precarious jobs, and even before the pandemic, the unemployment rate was twice France’s national average of 8 percent, while more than one-third of 15-to-24-year-olds were out of work.

What the article doesn't refer to is the fact that quite a number of those living in these grim suburbs operate in the criminal economy.

[Vortex2]

Johns Hopkins now reports 3 million cases globally

... although the real number will of course be higher.

[Little John]

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/0 ... n-a27.html

In an email to the police prefect of the Île-de-France region around Paris, Georges-François Leclerc, the police prefect of the Seine-Saint-Denis department, stressed his concern that food riots could break out in his department, the poorest in the Paris metropolitan area. The satirical weekly Le Canard enchaîné reported the content of his email: “The greatest risk I face in the next fifteen days, apart from health risks, is the food danger.�

Leclerc added that if “risks� of food riots threaten the western Val-d’Oise suburbs, they are “at maximum� in the northern and eastern suburbs of Seine-Saint-Denis: “We have 15,000 to 20,000 people in slums, emergency shelters and migrant worker camps who will have a hard time finding enough to eat. The underground economy, theft, the ‘Uber-economy’, and the collapse of temp work have all seen a large, sudden collapse in revenues for precarious workers in Seine-Saint-Denis.�

This follows repeated clashes in the Paris metropolitan area after a policeman in Villeneuve-la-Garenne, a suburb north of Paris, opened his car door right in front of a 30-year-old motorcyclist as he passed by. The man suffered a very serious compound fracture to his leg and is still in hospital, where he has launched a lawsuit against police.

Since then, there have been repeated clashes in Villeneuve-la-Garenne and nearby Nanterre and Gennevilliers between police and local inhabitants, as residents have thrown stones and other objects at approaching police cars, and cars were also burned in Bagneux. Of 700 housing complexes classified as “dangerous� by French domestic intelligence, 65 have seen rioting.

The Seine-Saint-Denis department is densely populated and has a large concentration of workers from immigrant backgrounds. Many workers live from precarious jobs, and even before the pandemic, the unemployment rate was twice France’s national average of 8 percent, while more than one-third of 15-to-24-year-olds were out of work.

What the article doesn't refer to is the fact that quite a number of those living in these grim suburbs operate in the criminal economy.

Coming to a city near you and me...