UK Politics: Drawing Priti Patterns

[mormont]

If you're on minimum wage, working 40 hours per week, my back-of-the-envelope calculation is that you'll get around £275-280 a week from this scheme depending on your age.

But compare that to the amount the government would have to pay that person in Universal Credit: £250-320 per month basic, plus their rent, an allowance for each child, more again if they have a disability, and they may be exempt from council tax too. So dumping all those workers on UC would probably cost the government immense amounts of money too: depending on a range of factors, it could be about the same cost. And it practically speaking could not be done. It would swamp the system. Not doing this would be a false economy.

[Werthead]

8 hours ago, Mosi Mynn said:

Call me crazy, but I am impressed by both Rishi Sunak and Matt Hancock.  They come across as genuine and caring people, and are very well spoken.  Shame about Boris, who could not maintain any kind of statesmanlike presence, but at least someone has had the sense to always flank him with experts.

Yes, they're both doing quite well. It appears the Tories not only drained the well dry of good politicians, they also managed to somehow drained it of totally useless idiots (well, almost, given that Cummings, Patel and Gove are still floating around) and now we've warped around to some reasonably effective people rising to the top. It might also have helped if Hunt had been as solid in his recent NHS announcements and in his committee role as when he was actually the minister.

I think broadly speaking the government's response has been okay, but not great. They really haven't understood the need to get ahead of the curve, and instead keep tracking us behind or on it. If we'd done what we're doing now three weeks ago, we could have dramatically halted the spread of the disease. If we'd done a total lockdown two weeks ago, the death total might be considerably lower than is now looking like the case. In fact, we only have 3 days to put a full lockdown into place to continue matching Italy's figures (i.e. extremely horrible but not utterly devastating). Every day we delay past that will make our figures likely higher.

One good piece of news is that the private health sector in the UK just effectively (if temporarily) ceased to exist. All private healthcare provision was just seconded to the NHS, which can use its staff, equipment and facilities. That should increase the NHS's overall capacity to deal with the crisis by a quarter to a third (with a heavy caveat that the number of staff might still be a logjam). That would make the NHS capable of dealing with the crisis quite a bit ahead of Italy, assuming they can actually deliver what they're promising, get the staff in and keep them healthy.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

On 3/18/2020 at 10:45 AM, maarsen said:

I doubt cows get Covid-19. They will still produce milk every day. Why stock up?

Milk and bread when combined make an amazing Manna like substance that can sustain life on its own for decades.  That’s why we buy it in the South when it snows.

:firm nod:

:|

[Which Tyler]

http://buzzfeed.com/alexwickham/10-days-that-changed-britains-coronavirus-approach

[DaveSumm]

How exactly are we defining ‘lockdown’? It’s a term that gets banded around a lot, but I’m not really sure what it means. Italians still go to work. So just being outside at all, unless you’re going to work or shopping? That’s exactly what I’m doing now, and most people I know.

[Mosi Mynn]

13 hours ago, Werthead said:

Yes, they're both doing quite well. It appears the Tories not only drained the well dry of good politicians, they also managed to somehow drained it of totally useless idiots (well, almost, given that Cummings, Patel and Gove are still floating around) and now we've warped around to some reasonably effective people rising to the top. It might also have helped if Hunt had been as solid in his recent NHS announcements and in his committee role as when he was actually the minister.

I think broadly speaking the government's response has been okay, but not great. They really haven't understood the need to get ahead of the curve, and instead keep tracking us behind or on it. If we'd done what we're doing now three weeks ago, we could have dramatically halted the spread of the disease. If we'd done a total lockdown two weeks ago, the death total might be considerably lower than is now looking like the case. In fact, we only have 3 days to put a full lockdown into place to continue matching Italy's figures (i.e. extremely horrible but not utterly devastating). Every day we delay past that will make our figures likely higher.

One good piece of news is that the private health sector in the UK just effectively (if temporarily) ceased to exist. All private healthcare provision was just seconded to the NHS, which can use its staff, equipment and facilities. That should increase the NHS's overall capacity to deal with the crisis by a quarter to a third (with a heavy caveat that the number of staff might still be a logjam). That would make the NHS capable of dealing with the crisis quite a bit ahead of Italy, assuming they can actually deliver what they're promising, get the staff in and keep them healthy.

I don't envy the government and the experts at all.  It's inevitable that they will make some mistakes.  But I think they are trying to intelligently deal with this.  It's very difficult to plan for, and they have to be very flexible and reactive as the situation changes so quickly.  So far, I think they're doing OK.

The support for the NHS should of course be the priority.  With the exception of PPE, they seem to be dealing with this as well as they can.

[ljkeane]

Huh, I was considering going to Snowdonia to do a bit of walking as an activity I could do while maintaining social distancing. It looks like a few other people might have had the same idea.

[Werthead]

12 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

How exactly are we defining ‘lockdown’? It’s a term that gets banded around a lot, but I’m not really sure what it means. Italians still go to work. So just being outside at all, unless you’re going to work or shopping?

All businesses with fact-to-face contact closed apart from anywhere that sells food and medicine: pharmacies, supermarkets, corner shops etc.

Fast food businesses, restaurants and takeways switch to a home delivery service only and ensure processes are in place to protect both workers and customers. Customers should be asked if they are self-isolating and processes put in place to leave food on the doorstep, then retiring before the customer picks it up etc. Thank fuck the virus doesn't spread through food contamination (aside from the initial pangolin-to-human contact; also, don't eat pangolins).

Banks shut apart from maybe one teller to provide money to elderly people who don't have internet banking and no way of accessing it. If you're under the age of 60 and still not doing Internet banking, set it up now (even if only temporarily and then shut it down after the crisis is over).

All businesses that can operate on remote working do so. All businesses that can operate on remote working but whinge they can't are forced to do so (call centres are particularly being arseholes about this).

No unnecessary travel or contact. No going round to your friend's for a cup of tea. No play dates for the kids. Absolutely no fucking house parties. No holidays, it doesn't matter if it's really remote (in fact, that's a really bad idea because if you've been infected and need medical attention, going somewhere with only one hospital for 20 miles in any direction which may already be overwhelmed is moronic).

Outdoor travel, walks, walking the dog etc are fine but everyone has to remain at least 2 metres apart from one another at all times.

All of the above being enforced by the police.

It could get more extreme, with a curfew in place enforced by the military. Technically the absolute bottom-case scenario would be forcing everyone to stay at home with no movement whatsoever (apart from health care workers) for 3 weeks, with the government distributing food as needed. That would burn the virus out in under a month but is likely completely impractical. Italy or Spain may try it as their cases escalate past the medium-case scenarios (Italy's current trajectory, which Britain is following exactly, will take it well north of 20,000 dead which is the ceiling set by the UK government).

Quote

 

That’s exactly what I’m doing now, and most people I know.

 

Great, but that's what a lot of people are not doing. I have friends today who are talking about the importance of self-isolating, avoiding unnecessary travel etc and have then obliviously gone around to their parents' for Mother's Day and got angry when it was suggested this was not a good idea. Scotland has issued a travel advisory telling people to stay at home and stop driving into the countryside.

[williamjm]

2 hours ago, ljkeane said:

Huh, I was considering going to Snowdonia to do a bit of walking as an activity I could do while maintaining social distancing. It looks like a few other people might have had the same idea.

While getting outdoor exercise I think it's probably best to avoid places that would normally be popular locations for it. I heard that the National Trust have decided to shut down their gardens and other outdoor properties because they were worried about them being too busy to do social distancing.

[Sophelia]

22 minutes ago, williamjm said:

While getting outdoor exercise I think it's probably best to avoid places that would normally be popular locations for it. I heard that the National Trust have decided to shut down their gardens and other outdoor properties because they were worried about them being too busy to do social distancing.

Went to a nice big local Victorian cemetery, which was not crowded at all (well, not with living people) with a friend (we travelled there separately and kept at a distance).  Discovered afterwards that this cemetery was created during the 1830s cholera epidemic because the other cemeteries got full up.

[williamjm]

4 hours ago, Sophelia said:

Went to a nice big local Victorian cemetery, which was not crowded at all (well, not with living people) with a friend (we travelled there separately and kept at a distance).  Discovered afterwards that this cemetery was created during the 1830s cholera epidemic because the other cemeteries got full up.

Boris seems to be saying today that he wants to avoid a complete lockdown but that would depend on people behaving sensibly.

I went for a walk this afternoon on the local common and there were a reasonable number of people there (probably about the number you would expect on a typical sunny Sunday afternoon in March) but as far as I could tell everyone seemed to be keeping more than the require distance between them. I think most people can follow the rules, but it only takes a small minority to ruin it for the rest of us.

In other news, as I suggested in an earlier post the Scottish Government has announced ferries to the islands would only take local residents and essential travel to try to head off the problem of idiots trying to going on holidays.

[Heartofice]

35 minutes ago, williamjm said:

Boris seems to be saying today that he wants to avoid a complete lockdown but that would depend on people behaving sensibly.

I went for a walk this afternoon on the local common and there were a reasonable number of people there (probably about the number you would expect on a typical sunny Sunday afternoon in March) but as far as I could tell everyone seemed to be keeping more than the require distance between them. I think most people can follow the rules, but it only takes a small minority to ruin it for the rest of us.

I think the majority of people are taking this all pretty seriously and not ignoring the advice. But then you see these examples where thats just not happening. Only today there were videos of markets in London being open with people milling about in tight spaces. Then videos of Richmond park, obviously lots of people went there thinking it was quite a nice day, shouldn't have to bump into people. Except it was really busy, and some were queuing up for coffee and tea at the rest stops and bumping into each other in car parks. 

Thats all annoying, but then there is are the other situations where it's not out of stupidity but necessity. Seeing customers queueing outside supermarkets waiting for them to open, or pressed together at checkouts, you realise the measures aren't always working. 

I mean yesterday I got really irritated at someone who stood right next to me in a queue in a shop , and I had to give him a stare to make him move back. This is just the way it is these days.

[DaveSumm]

It’s possible the measures we’ve taken already bring the R0 down below or at 1 and we’ll see cases plateau, it’s worth remembering that while China’s reaction was much stronger, they’ve also completely eliminated new cases and I suspect this isn’t Boris’s plans. Maybe he’d rather keep the numbers cruising around the limit of NHS capacity and take as few distancing measures as possible.

[williamjm]

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

Thats all annoying, but then there is are the other situations where it's not out of stupidity but necessity. Seeing customers queueing outside supermarkets waiting for them to open, or pressed together at checkouts, you realise the measures aren't always working. 

I mean yesterday I got really irritated at someone who stood right next to me in a queue in a shop , and I had to give him a stare to make him move back. This is just the way it is these days.

I'm not sure I see any easy ways to make grocery shopping safe, at least until they can increase the number of deliveries. I've just had to accept that it's going to have to be the most risky I do. The smaller shops might be a bit safer in terms of being exposed to fewer people and probably being in the store for a shorter amount of time, but the idea of guaranteeing a 2 metre space around everyone in there doesn't seem possible.

There are probably some improvements to the process, for the queuing outside shops they could try to do some queue management to try to space people out, although perhaps they don't have the staff for that.

[Werthead]

Seeing some photos from Italy where shops have put circles down on the floor spaced 2 metres apart to show people where to stand, even with them going out the door and down the street.

Insane scenes at a supermarket this morning where the supermarket opened at 8am for the NHS staff hour and ordinary people basically forced their way into the shop and the NHS workers (many coming off-shift) decided to leave because the risk of them contaminating other people was too great.

I think a vigorously enforced lockdown is the only way forward for us. The idea that the Blitz spirit would take hold everywhere and everyone would comply voluntarily is clearly completely false. Even if it's 5% of people being arseholes and not complying, that's still 3.4 million people behaving recklessly and endangering everyone else.

I did see one optimistic news report suggesting that food shortages are because a surprisingly large percentage of the population only buys their shopping weekly or even less than that, and the current shortages may statistically may be more down to those people switching to getting enough food in for a month rather than mass hoarding, and shelves should start filling up again as the adjustment period ends (interesting if there was any evidence of that from Italy, Spain and other countries ahead of us, although I don't think they were going as mad on the toilet paper hoarding as us in the first place #bidetpower). Hoarding is clearly happening but perhaps not as widespread as it looks, and of course there is the excellent point that quite a large chunk of the population doesn't have the physical space to store months' worth of food.

[Raja]

Pretty scathing letter here by The Doctors' Association.

 

[Which Tyler]

10 hours ago, williamjm said:

I'm not sure I see any easy ways to make grocery shopping safe, at least until they can increase the number of deliveries.

Even in normal times, supermarkets are ****ing disgusting places.

Eqully, in terms of transmission; it's not so much the social distancing - it's the use of hands. Social distancing is primarily a way to stop anyone coughing / sneezing on you, and to reinforce the "no contact" rules. There is still a risk from normal breathing, but it's pretty miniscule, and about 0.5m, not 2m (quite honestly the risk from a sneeze 5m away is probably greater than the risk of breathing from 0.5m). Social distancing REALLY matters if someone coughs or sneezes though.

But trolleys, basket handles, freezer doors, picking up fruit, squeezing and picking a different one, reaching past one cereal to grab another - or as one "gentleman" did whilst next to me on Friday - sneezing into his hands, and then grabbing some loose rolls without tongs.

 

It's gloves, not facemasks you need in the supermarket. Petrol pumps as well for that matter, and any communal door handle.

[Heartofice]

I haven’t been wiping down anything I buy in supermarkets and now I’m freaking out 

[DaveSumm]

9 hours ago, Werthead said:

I did see one optimistic news report suggesting that food shortages are because a surprisingly large percentage of the population only buys their shopping weekly or even less than that, and the current shortages may statistically may be more down to those people switching to getting enough food in for a month

This is what I’d assumed, I keep waiting for it to catch up when everyone’s finally got enough food. Of course, saying people need to self isolate for 7 days meant they needed 7 days plus their normal shop. Then the government fairly casually doubled it, which means we need twice that now. Even without any hoarding I think everyone in the country suddenly requiring 3 weeks of food at the same time explains it.

I have dozens of local restaurants that have switched to takeaway, with sensible measures to limit contact when you pick it up. Hopefully people lean on them and they can stay busy.

[Which Tyler]

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I haven’t been wiping down anything I buy in supermarkets and now I’m freaking out 

As long as you HAVE been protecting yourself from the trolley/basket handle, then you SHOULD be okay - as not many people pick stuff up, and replace it (apart from fruits), but the accidental contacts build up, store staff should be well sanitised whilst stacking the shelves anyway.

Besides which, there's no point freaking out about something that's been and gone - just take extra precautions going forward.