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

Some reporting on rent strike actions:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/rent-strike-student-coronavirus-lockdown-housing-crisis-a9493936.html

schools are open right now afaik. not sure what the rates of infection are wrt teachers.

at my local j + i school I have never seen more than 6 or 7 kids in the playground when I'm walking past and it often looks empty. This will vary obv depending on "key worker" numbers in a catchment area.

UK coronavirus hospital death toll rises by 229 in lowest total in six weeks

so how big a leap are the figures going to take tomorrow, do we reckon? double? more?

it always drops on a monday, because of weekend counting delays i think.

I'm not surprised Yarwood hit the bottle after just watching his Jimmy Savile impression

the non-london school where my friend and one-time ilxor _____ is a key (admin) worker has not so far had as many as 10 kids to look after in the building, more like 3-6 most days

so it is open but if you bring yr child in merely bcz yr fed up of keeping them occupied you will be disapproved at

rubber-faced funnyman not even funny (or rubber-faced)

https://www.hsj.co.uk/news/coronavirus-deaths-mapped-every-region-now-at-least-25pc-below-peak/7027212.article

This is a couple of days old and only includes hospital deaths but this is helpful:

The figures were collated between 5pm on 29 April and 5pm on 30 April, but due to the need to inform relatives and authenticate reports, many of the deaths occurred earlier than this period. It is also very likely that some deaths which did occur during these 24 hours — and before — have not yet been recorded, normally for the same reasons.

The delays to reporting mean the growth curve of deaths for recent days appears flatter than it actually is.

The figures do not include those who have died from the virus outside of hospital, nor those where covid-19 has not been specifically recorded as a cause. These are thought to be at least the equal of hospital deaths.

Due to late reporting, hospital deaths data is only considered robust until 24 April. At that point, the weekly running average had declined for 15 consecutive days and was 40 per cent lower than the peak.

All seven English regions have seen declines by at least a quarter on the various peaks. London leads the way with a drop of 59 per cent, while progress is slowest in the north east and Yorkshire where fatalities have fallen just 27 per cent.

My brother works for an academy school in an area with a large number of deprived kids so they have quite a few in, he says some of them are clearly malnourished despite the meals they get at school

Can’t remember if I already posted about how at the beginning of lockdown he was in the Budgens loading up his trolley with boxes of cereal for the kids and he said he thought he was gonna be attacked by a mob of people assuming he was hoarding for himself

without the school breakfast clubs and their free dinners some of these kids will be wasting away, some bordering on being full on edema cases if things get worse. this is the year 2020 in the United Kingdom.

Update: Following the latest hospital figures for the number of people who have died after testing positive for coronavirus, a cautious estimate of the UK excess deaths linked to the outbreak is

50,200

some methodology follows

1/

— Chris Giles (@ChrisGiles_) May 4, 2020

good god

90% of (hospital) deaths are in the 60 upwards age group. 1% are 20 to 40. That's a fuck of a difference!

and yet the over-70s are agitating to be Let Out Now!

Where are you finding these stats? xp ONS?

Pfft xps the fake news ft just want to spread fear and wreck the economy, so out of step with the mood of the nation. They should follow starmzy’s lead and never play politics

Of the 21,384 confirmed reported deaths so far in hospitals in England of people who tested positive for Covid-19, 11,205 (52%) have been people aged 80 and over while 8,310 (39%) were 60-79.

A further 1,706 (8%) were aged 40-59, with 152 (1%) aged 20-39 and 11 (0.05%) aged 0-19, according to NHS England.

FT analysis doesn't contradict that idea that we peaked on Apr 7, and it's been a steady decline in deaths since. They're just pointing out that hospital deaths, and even the recently added nursing home/community toll, doesn't give the true number. I read somewhere that part of the reason Belgium has the worst deaths-per-capita in the world is their counting methodology - they're including "assumed" cases too. So they might be closer to the "excess deaths" figure. It's difficult to compare national totals as a result of this. The excess death figure in NYC is terrible - they'd reached 7000/week by April 11, when the usual figure for this time of year is more like 1000-1200. Do the official Covid-19 stats for NYC cover that jump in numbers? No idea.

The H1N1 outbreak in 2009-10 was initially reported as causing 3500 deaths in the US. The accepted figure after the fact was more like 12000. So... I'm kind of assuming that not only do many times more people have this than have been tested positive (like, 10x, 20x, 30x), the death toll is probably 1.5-2.5x what's being reported.

The trend is what matters?

Wait who was saying the ft analysis contradicts the idea that we are past the (first) peak?

Sorry if I misread your jibe about playing politics. Figured you were saying this would be politically unpalatable info (I mean, it would I guess).

Oh yeah haha. I would argue that the numbers themselves also matter but yeah I was making fun of people who dismiss any bad news (such as pointing out the simple fact that deaths are likely closer to 50k than the official 27k) as “spreading negativity” or whatever, and having a despairing dig at the LOTO for adopting this attitude

Anyone interested in why those books on Gove’s shelves mean he’s definitely a toxic racist nutter, and not just keeping them for research purposes, ought to have a look at this thread:

While everyone's talking about Michael Gove and David Irving, I found an old article that Michael Gove wrote about David Irving. It gives a real insight into Gove's attitude to Holocaust denial and history more generally.

— libcom.org (@libcomorg) May 4, 2020

The IEA must be worried that the IFS appears to have set up a rival production line for the market in crank economic policy.https://t.co/by0gWngGpY

— David Timoney (@fromarsetoelbow) May 4, 2020

Lol

The books on my table pic.twitter.com/Blr0evCzK7

— Andrew Adonis (@Andrew_Adonis) May 4, 2020

ffs turn on the TV to see Kate fucking Andrews' face filling the screen. That's on BBC24, Sky has Carole Malone.

Roehampton the first uni to propose cutting academic staff (by 15%), and asking staff over grade 7 to take a 'temporary' pay cut, will be a test case for UCU

https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2020/may/04/uk-government-using-crisis-to-transfer-nhs-duties-to-private-sector

An interesting point that the 60% 'support for the government' isn't blanket support - it's basically support for "Rishi Sunak gives you a lot of money" - only 24 percent of people think the government has done a good job on testing, and 32 percent on the distribution of key medical supplies.

there are so many ways you can interpret "support for the government". if someone asked me who i wanted to handle this crisis, the government or the private sector, and i said "the government" - is that support for the government?

I would really like to see how much push is in the poll questions. Probably loads - a practice that is rightfully illegal in America, so the companies come over here and do it.

This previously slipped my attention because it's a very thin book, but Michael Gove and Sarah Vine also own 'Beyond Human Rights: Defending Freedom' by Alan Benoist, a central figure in the European New Right and Third Positionist movements. Just a couple over from Ruth Rendell. pic.twitter.com/UzVVbv9O6y

— libcom.org (@libcomorg) May 4, 2020

fuck's sake!!

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/countering-radical-right/germany-radical-right-hit-hard-virus/

This piece looks at how support for the far-right has declined during covid, this is partly to do with the rallying around the flag occuring throughout Europe and not solely confined to the irrational uk electorate.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EXMqY1FXsAEcge5?format=jpg&name=large

I noticed a couple a weeks back the CDU have a clear majority in the polling. AfD are in UKIP style freefalling decline.

jesus, people get two weeks of gentle authoritarianism and they give up on actual fascism already? lightweights

i heard starmer this a.m. on Today. he's like a big, baffled sheepdog. he wants in on the action. he's keen. he's got a few things written down to say. he says them energetically. you can imagine his eyes swinging around wildly as he talks, looking for someone who looks likely to pat him on the head.

move over crace i've got this superficial sketch writing shit SEWN UP

Privatise the BBC

What is @BBCNews playing at?#COVID19 pic.twitter.com/7ObJLAAhEP

— The Horse from Readin' Irving (@bojack90s) May 5, 2020

how are they supposed to report on it if it wasn't in matt hancock's press release?

I love border-collies and resent their keen as mustard nature being mocked like this and being compared to an inanimate puppet of a lapdog like Starmer!

The time to worry about the far right will be when things are ostensibly returning to normal but countries are experiencing recessions or depressions the likes of which most people have never seen in their lifetimes. The UK is probably less vulnerable here than other countries - in part due to the voting system but also because we have a government that will not hesitate to adopt its language, drawing off support but also legitimising that language.

It would be astonishing and frankly terrifying if the country was not past the peak this far into lockdown. In two weeks' time we'll probably have a much clearer picture of how it's working but without widespread testing we can't really know the extent to which it's going to come back. Everything suggests that care homes and hospitals are the real hotspots right now which at least in theory makes test-trace-isolate more feasible as an approach.

Is it unrealistic to think we'll probably end up seeing some relaxation of measures before the end of the month? Even if it's being able to sit in the park or whatever. More generally the government is going to have a hell of a task on its hands convincing people it's safe. Avoiding a depression is important but if they rush the transition out of lockdown it'll negate any economic benefits and probably make things worse, especially if they have to lock down all over again.

i think we'll see easing, i don't think the easing will be based much on a scientific plan

reporter on sky news last night standing in front of No. 10 was asked by the anchor how the government was going to handle the 'pressure' for easing the lockdown and she very smartly replied 'it's quite the opposite, actually - the question is how will the public respond to being told that restrictions are easing? they've been told for weeks to stay home, protect the nhs, and save lives. how is the government going to give them the confidence that anything has changed?'

I mean the far right are in government now.

What the far right have been doing is spreading and reacting to news stories from before lockdown that when shared read like mosques have been open since lockdown. And last week Nigel Fascist-Partridge, exploiting 'key worker' status, tweeted a video of himself on the beach speculating about how people enter the country by boat and are taken off in vans, some to jobs they've lined up, and others 'bringing the virus', putting words into the mouths of some locals and that they don't believe the official figures.

I expect a lot more anti-globalisation rhetoric citing the virus directly.

there was a lot of stuff on social media at the start of lockdown, it seems to have tailed off a bit but yeah you're right i'm sure it's still out there and likely to resurge as lockdown eases

I mean the far right are in government now.

Well yeah, that too.

The BBC ran a story about mosques opening for Ramadan on the front page without saying those mosques were in non-lockdown areas of Pakistan and Indonesia.