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

I think the Treasury will blink on bailing out universities, if not necessarily all of them. UK HE is one of the only marketable brands the country has and it's an important engine of soft power. If, as i suspect, this is going to be a multi-year disruption, though, it's going to be extremely expensive.

jesus that lammy article. trying to work out how he squares

Addressing issues of poverty and brutal unfairness because of class are not sufficient. It seems to me, that you still have to have an account of the nation; that’s really important.

with

I recall with joy and humour my first pints in the Farmers Arms in Peterborough. At a certain point in my life I had gone to watch ‘the Posh’, which is Peterborough United, not Spurs! I spent some of my life as a lawyer in California, and pined for Ribena, Walker’s crisps, the kind of grey sky and nature of England. What I mean is that Englishness, it seems to me, is quite important.

Walker's fucking crisps. He's completely clueless.

so the hashtag #ProudToBeEnglish is trending this morning and as a company which has been on the streets of london meeting y'all daily for several centuries I can assure you this is not the hill you want to die on

— Henry Sotheran Ltd (@Sotherans) April 23, 2020

this thread is ok

like, this is fucked, that thing probly cant stnd up on it's own honestly cruel pic.twitter.com/hdNKPw43zL

— NHS SUSAN (@despairgenie) April 23, 2020

Oh right, it's St George's Day is it? That explain, and the fact that he's got a book coming out, explains the Lammy idiocy.

I genuinely can't work out if this is parody or not

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/spectator-writers-in-lockdown-by-the-people-stuck-with-them

Just imagine being locked down with any of those people. It doesn't bear thinking about.

Reader, they married them in the first place

Idly wondering how long it will take for Toby Young's new puppy to realise he's a cunt.

Some people reading this will think, “I bet he changes his tune if he gets the virus.” In fact, I’ve got the virus. I became symptomatic seven days ago, have been bedridden ever since and am now anxiously waiting to see if the disease spreads to my lungs. I’m 56 with no underlying health conditions, so my odds are good. But if the Government follows my advice, and it turns out that by the time I require urgent care the NHS cannot accommodate me, I won’t regret writing this.

...

Toby spent the first week of lockdown in bed convinced he had coronavirus. He didn’t. He is a complete hypochondriac at the best of times and this pandemic has sent his anxiety levels through the roof. He was so worried about catching it that the stress led to a bout of shingles which is what actually laid him up. But Toby was convinced and started taking hydroxychloroquine, vitamin C and anything else he’d read might alleviate symptoms. There was also a lot of temperature-taking, as well as doing some ridiculous breathing test that has now been discredited.

amazing

lol!

so there’s still a chance that he’ll die from the ‘rona then, fuckin’ yassss

It's what he would have wanted

Aww, that was the best thing ever. Ever.

Reminds me of "Ruttling Orange Peel" from the Rutles "All you need is love"

will have to start a thread for right-wing Herd Immunity hawks that end up dying of the Rona thread, just for the death lols

"What are you laughing at?"

Well...

(actual LOL, yes.)

any RIP's leads to instant thread-ban!

That's properly amazing

there was a guy on the news last night - you could tell he was an expert because he had a very complicated looking machine behind him - who was still promoting the herd immunity thing. he said it only works once you get about 80% with it. he said if a vaccine wasn't found the government should allow people back to work in a controlled way specifically so that everyone would end up getting it.

left unsaid was that letting people back to work in the controlled way he's talking about - in a way that wouldn't overwhelm ICUs - wouldn't result in 80% of the population getting it AT THE SAME TIME which is presumably what's needed??

but in any case i find it perfectly wild that there are still very serious experts putting this stuff out there and not being questioned about it

Why would that be what's needed, Tracer, I don't understand?

what's needed for effective herd immunity, i mean

not that i think it's a good idea!

Right, but why would that (80% of the population all having the virus at the same time) be what's needed for effective herd immunity?

unless I have completely misunderstood the concept, which is probably quite likely, what about herd immunity requires 80% to have it at the same time? I thought it's that 80% of people have had it already at some point so are immune to it now. why would they all have to have it at once?

80% of 67m uk residents is 53.6m

mortality rate of 3.5% means 1,867,000 people dead from the ‘rona in the uk

sure, let’s fuckin’ go full judge death on this, people need to get back to their hairdresser asap

CP - there is no evidence that immunity lasts for more than a few months

yeah just in general on its face it's insane

If there's no evidence that immunity lasts for more than a few months then herd immunity doesn't work as a goal full stop. Whether 80% of the population get it at once or in a more controlled manner is irrelevant.

I think you might be jamming concepts together here, Tracer - the whole idea of herd immunity is based on immunity being semi-permanent. If it's only limited (and there's not much evidence of that - there's not much evidence of anything at the range of 'more than a few months') then herd immunity isn't a goer.

if immunity only lasts a few months wouldn't it also mean a vaccine would only work for a few months?

My favourite herd immunity commenter was an impressive sounding consultant cardiologist who had himself recovered from C-19 and uncategorically dismissed it as " a nice idea, but complete nonsense" in a very "don't waste my time with this bs" manner.

is there any circumstance where deliberately engineering a situation in which 90-95% of the public are exposed to the coronavirus is 'a goer'???

if there was an angry god of diseases that could only be appeased by 1m + victims it might be a goer!

Insisting on herd immunity to see if that Tory polling dips below 50%, as a treat.

that could be the Starmer Surge!

Lol the five tests!

How will the UK get out of lockdown?
 
The UK government has set out five tests that have to be met before restrictions are eased
 
So, what are the tests and how close are we to meeting them?
 
[Thread]
 https://t.co/h1R8IpNoCC

— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) April 23, 2020

The idea is, I presume, that unless we keep everyone stuck in their homes forever, it's going to happen sooner or later because viruses don't just disappear, especially one that's this contagious. It's the idea that we allow it to ravage the whole country at once that's irresponsible and dumb.

The best argument for the lockdown is that it buys us time, not until a vaccine, but until drugs can be found that reliably reduced the severity of the infection. If any of these ongoing drug trials are found to significantly reduce the death rate then the idea might be a goer. Until then it just isn't.

If there's no long-term immunity AND no vaccine then as a species we're probably just fucked.

Most people survive covid, but yes I think Capitalism might have found its match.

"Ensuring supply of tests and PPE can meet future demand"

This will be a new approach for them.

if immunity only lasts a few months wouldn't it also mean a vaccine would only work for a few months?

I think they do something to amplify immune system memory - around 9 minutes here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p089xqrl

i googled to see why some viruses require new vaccines once a year (flu) and some are good for a lifetime (measles seemingly) but stopped when i found this 16th century aztec picture of a man with measles which needed sharing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measles#/media/File:Measles_Aztec_drawing.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b1/Measles_Aztec_drawing.jpg/800px-Measles_Aztec_drawing.jpg

A vaccine that we all have to get on an annual basis is not the worst thing imaginable.

who knew that private eye cartoonists were working in the 16th century xp

impressed they had lanyards with ID badge back then.

That study of the German town suggests mortality rate seems to be more like 0.3%. So three times as bad as flu, but not 3.5%. Still a staggering 160,000 dead to get to herd immunity the hard way. And increasing suggestions that it won't work, as immunity might not last long enough.

Most of the vaccines they're focusing on now seemingly work by being carried on other viruses that we do create long-term immunity to, the idea being that this will also give us CV immunity at least for a few years. So vaccine-acquired herd immunity can work even when natural herd immunity fails

that 0.3% figure also presupposes a capable and well-supplied health service to deal with the crisis, which might be true of Germany but seems... optimistic here

yeah, in cases of healthcase collapse it's more like 20%