love* in the time of plague (and by love* i mean brexit* and other dreary matters of uk politics)

welcome to the resistance, big IDSy!

Amazing how irrelevant this has made the entire Cameron and Osborne project, everything swept away almost overnight except the decade's worth of needless suffering.

Part of the annoyance is the sense of these rules being temporarily suspended purely for the preservation of the status quo, and the thought that as soon as possible this will be the excuse for a swingeing set of payback measures aimed squarely at the already impoverished

I don't know how the last decade didn't illustrate to the electorate enough what a set of evil cunts the tories are and how much self-interest they had in stopping them. But a lot of them will directly find out what a catastrophic mistake they've made by voting cunts in the next 5 years.

Not gonna link to the old soak, but Frances Barber’s having a normal one on Twitter this morning...

The new delusional centrist wheeze is getting all the former living PMs together in some kind of Five Doctors meets Constructicons-Form-Devastator meets Travelling Wilburys situation to resolve the crisis, as if anyone in the world thinks that this situation would benefit from the input of Theresa May right now.

“Deport the virus”

playing fantasy national govt of unity football in an age of cholera and death. Their brains have melted.

Ironically this really would be a good time for an actual government of national unity but good luck persuading Boris of that one.

Not Theresa May - they clearly are looking for DADDIES.

the first rule of Govt of National Unity club is: fuck Jeremy Corbyn!

if daddy john major finds a way to make the cricket season happen i won't complain

*FPs self*

playing fantasy national govt of unity football in an age of cholera and death. Their brains have melted.

now that schools aren't really schools anymore i guess they'll have to stay open throughout the easter holidays?

That would be logical given the circs yeah

not sure how will this is going to age

No 10 says there is 'zero prospect' of a big lockdown of London - as we've been reporting there might be tightening of restrictions but remember that is VERY different from other suggestions of travel bans or the kind of total lockdowns some other countries have pursued

— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) March 19, 2020

(also if you're still counting Andrew, confidence in the execution crumbled a good while ago)

When you look at the numbers of cases and growth trajectories I don't understand why everyone isn't following the cue of Japan.

because we believe in freedom

Random leftists shooting this down within seconds

We deserve better than policies which do the bare minimum and don't help everyone, and not just during this pandemic.

We need:
🔺 Universal basic income
🔺 Suspend rent and utility bills
🔺 Nationalise essential services

That's it, that's the line. https://t.co/pm3RoFT4uU

— jt (@jennby__) March 19, 2020

BTW I'm in the pub and it's heaving

(also if you're still counting Andrew, confidence in the execution crumbled a good while ago)

Yeah, I feel sorry about this now - looking back you were just the target for a freakout that I needed to have. Sorry.

The worldometers graph for the UK is not calming at the moment

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/

The stat I just heard on WS was it's killing one person every ten minutes.

Globally of course.

Some science press briefing highlights:
1. Whitty: "it's improbable" there will b #coronavirus vaccine in 6 months
2. Plea for young people to take social distancing seriously
3. Mortality rate in UK looks higher than other countries cos of lack of community testing in UK

— James Illman (@Jamesillman) March 19, 2020

That's from Health Service Journal by the way.

Meanwhile a friend with a long-scheduled birthday party in a pub is telling everyone in the chat that it’s still on, come along

tbf the government is not taking social distancing seriously, why should we?

I went to tesco to get some bread and milk, seems the panic-buying is if anything going up a gear, even saw people with trolleys full of toilet paper again, how long is this phase going to continue?

there were queues outside all the supermarkets I passed today, and boots was serving people in a long line from a hatch

I went to tesco to get some bread and milk, seems the panic-buying is if anything going up a gear, even saw people with trolleys full of toilet paper again, how long is this phase going to continue?

Sainsbury's supposedly started allocating the first hour to older and disabled people from today but predictably this seems to have been disregarded today judging by what was left in the second hour. No sign of items being limited or any safety gear for staff.

Kind of crazy that supermarkets don't seem to have had any panic buying protocol ready or provisions for increasing hygiene.

I've seen some pure joker stories doing the rounds. The guy who had a full trolley of Iron Bru. The one buying £49 worth of Petits Filous fromage frais, if true it would mean they aren't doing two item limit on all goods.

On my way to the store I say a guy with three big packs of toilet paper that went bouncing all over the wet street. Maybe he has a large family but it was comically poetic.

3. Mortality rate in UK looks higher than other countries cos of lack of community testing in UK

hmmm

Woohoo!! #UniversalCredit #chefskiss pic.twitter.com/bLIw5IXPrh

— Greggs Truther (@invisibleste) March 19, 2020

if UC have to put all resources into processing new clients rather than sanctioning/harassing existing ones as seems to be suggested by a few people on my TL now, then at least some people are catching a small break during this horror show.

how do you eat £49 of petit filous before they expire?

went to local sainburys local (at about 14:00 which was probably my mistake) and it was the emptiest i've seen it. no fruit or veg but, amusingly, lots of brightly coloured easter eggs. i'm ok for a while (went to get salad and a couple of other perishables) but i am kind of relying on there being things to buy when i need to buy them again.

Our society must fall back on normality which is totally great and not already killing people

_3. Mortality rate in UK looks higher than other countries cos of lack of community testing in UK_


hmmm

Say you have someone who went through Angel station while infected, coughed into their hand on the way off the train, had their hand on that escalator rail while standing on the way out and unknowingly passed it on to people who made the same journey and touched the same rail?

So currently if this person then develops severe symptoms, is tested, and turns out positive, they may be testing the family and contacting any colleagues or anyone else? But ideally, in a containment situation, they’d try to catch anyone who went through Angel station that day and stood on the right? Potentially those people will have been exposed, some would have become infected, and therefore spread the disease when they travelled onwards. Obviously we’re beyond that now. This is how they’ve been handling it in Singapore iirc.

Germany: 12,853 cases / 34 deaths
UK: 2,626 cases / 103 deaths

Ratio that.

— Matthew Tempest (@MattTempest) March 19, 2020

Difficult to see how the government could come back from a higher death toll than Italy when they had every opportunity to do things differently. Every bungled announcement or briefing is going to come back to bite them.

Also judging by those numbers Germany is just testing way way more people?

The Germany numbers being reported on Worldmeter are saying 100% of the current cases are “mild”, whereas they’re probably only confirming you here if you’re sick enough to go to hospital.

Germany has more beds and ventilators too

BREAKING: 'The government is giving public health officials, police, nurses, doctors the power to detain potentially infection persons.'

A new, 329-page emergency legislation to tackle the #coronavirus outbreak has been published.

More on this story: https://t.co/SeVZN6TXKX pic.twitter.com/QkrpVlGbz8

— Sky News (@SkyNews) March 19, 2020

when we getting that sweet sweet helicopter money

xp the ventilators don’t mean anything if you don’t have the staff trained to use them

Sure, there is a lot of underlying stuff that the UK doesn't have.

iberia laying off 90% of staff for three months. base rate at 0.1%. IKEA closing all UK stores indefinitely. bit wild out there lads