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

I'm recycling old newspapers from about a year ago and it's all May and Tory infighting and things like this

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/08/michael-gove-branded-hypocrite-after-admitting-using-cocaine

A year is a long time in politics

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-hospital-admissions-testing-public-health-england-a9540101.html

There's that London 'spike' graph again although the piece does say it may be within the margin of error.

PHE said it had recorded 264 new respiratory infection outbreaks in the most recent week. An outbreak is defined as two or more people who are infected with the cases linked to a specific location.

A total of 215 outbreaks were in care homes where 78 tested positive for Covid-19. Another 13 outbreaks were linked to hospitals where 12 were positive for coronavirus. There were three outbreaks in schools where all were positive for the virus.

Outbreaks in empty schools? The schools they're just about to reopen?

Hampstead Heath up near Kenwood was very genteel today, social distancing and good behaviour all round. Then again that's in the posh bit. Having said that even Finsbury Park looked fairly sparse when we drove past it around midday, so it's not all like Clapham Common:

Clapham Common this afternoon pic.twitter.com/2V17VfKAnA

— Jamie Macwhirter (@jamiemacwhirter) May 30, 2020

At Brockwel park it mostly twos and distancing.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tom-watson-peerage-bercow-corbyn-karie-murphy-lords-reject-a9540941.html

*Airhorn noise*

hah!

I had to spend a lot of today with the only Tory I know (brother in law’s girlfriend, one of those ‘comes from one of the 4 posh streets in a northern town where they don’t even have the accent’ types) and she is really starting to lose faith in them. I learnt a while back to let her talk, I’m never gonna get through to her but maybe I can learn how they think. She had never seen Boris talk like he didn’t know what to do before, he used to be so in charge when it came to Brexit etc but he looks lost since getting the rona and his advisers aren’t listening to him. Really losing faith that he is the person we all thought should be listened to.

It made me think that the Cummings thing isn’t even so much a ‘us vs. them’ thing as much as ‘we all thought Boris was a Churchill type and now we are losing faith cos he can’t even sack off this nobody, then what we he actually be a strong leader about’ type situation

that guy appears to be a total don

At Brockwel park it mostly twos and distancing.

― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 31 May 2020 18:12 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

ran around about 6:30 - 7 and yes a lot more distancing than clapham common but still just how much it has eroded stressed me out a lot. a fucking twelve aside football game happening for godsake

Dulwich Park was lots of distanced seated small groups. Definite change but not scary

There was a fucking drunken gammon dad's and kids rounders game at my local park. Cunts acting like tribal tatts offer Immunity.

*Airhorn noise*

Another prick that did exactly what he was supposed to

Btw, as usual (and what's good about twitter)* is how you can find counter arguments quickly so here is one (within the tweet...) for that Guardian piece:

For clarity, "a bit strange" is the measured, collegial, academic way of saying "this piece is absolutely out of its tree". https://t.co/UsrB8cB1mB

— Lafargue (@Lafargue) May 31, 2020

* it's good to see disagreements among experts in the field, not that you can judge what is or isn't correct, so it's more of a hole you can dig for yourself, and that can be time consuming.

people being good in regents park according to my sister but when I walked from kingston to richmond along the thames it seemed like no one gives a shit any more, marked change from days ago

Thames Path must be a social distancing nightmare, especially that bit of it.

Lol so the cigarette-smoking never-interviewing-before-noon stats genius predicted 80% immunity by 8 May? Don't give up the oil distribution front, tough guy

That Clapham Common footage is nuts for lots of bigger reasons but ... not one person wearing a mask?I don’t think you’d see that in any other city in the developed world right now.

was walking through pollok park in glasgow today in the mid-afternoon. hundreds of people out, only two families wearing masks

good luck UK

Yeah “city” was the wrong word: no one wearing one is a uniquely UK thing

Like I call home to talk to my hypereducated parents and mask wearing comes up and they act like I’m insane.

I don't know who had 'symbolic Babybel' on their 2020 Corona Bingo Card, but it's time to get your marker. pic.twitter.com/6N89KKGmWg

— Law Turley (TreacleA) (@LawTurley) May 31, 2020

Westminster voting intention:

CON: 45% (+1)
LAB: 35% (-3)

via @YouGov, 29 - 30 May
Chgs w/ 26 May

— Britain Elects (@britainelects) May 31, 2020

"I heard this one guy lied to attack Dominic Cummings so now I think everything's great"

Guys this happened despite the government rather than because of it and I don't want to jinx anything but for the moment at least it really seems like we dodged a bullet.

Remember when pretty much every graph showed there was no way we would avoid overwhelming hospital capacity? When we were looking at video of hospital corridors in Italy with hundreds of seniors wheezing and dying and doctors making decisions about who lived and who died? When pretty much every estimate of the number of ventilators necessary seemed to dwarf what we had on hand?

This isn't to minimise the suffering and deaths so far - I'm talking specifically about the ability of the health service as a whole to deal with the numbers. Like... what the fuck happened? How did we get away with it? Is there a long read??

Has a bullet really been dodged? For care homes this has been a disaster and I saw reports of people avoiding A & E and maybe dying at home?

In terms of hospital capacity yes, the predictions did not come true.

Letting people die at home and in care homes saved hospital capacity that could have kept them alive.
It's just a shame the bullet we dodged killed tens of thousands of people and counting.

Is that really what happened though? I would believe it; is there an analysis somewhere?

I mean - if the story is as simple as: hospital capacity was not overwhelmed because people were left to die at home.. it's too horrendous to contemplate either as deliberate policy or accidental byproduct of the strategy. Maybe I've just been blocking it out.

Lots of cancer treatment and surgical work was placed on hold so the NHS could pivot to dealing with COVID.

xxp Tracer, what in god's name are you talking about? The UK has the fifth highest deaths per capita IN THE WORLD - worse than Italy's. And it avoided filling hospital capacity by offloading cases with the virus to care homes, where it tore through the very population that all of this was supposed to for the protection of. It's been, you know, kind of a big story recently?

"Rees-Mogg’s draft plan — due to be finalized this morning — is apparently for MPs to form a kilometer-long socially distanced queue snaking out through Central Lobby and down through Westminster Hall."

What are the age profiles for the parties? I'd have thought the Tories have more to lose than gain from 'rona roulette.

The work that needs to be carried out to determine the extent and cause of excess deaths is more academic than journalistic, I think. It will take time and when it does come out it will be shut away by much of the press, too. And also it's my assumption that it will be a lot for people to take so they'd rather not see it. In the end, the press will be actually giving the public and its owners what they want, for a change.

XP - the full extent of it hasn't really been fully covered. Partly because services were overwhelmed.

What we've seen so far is a mix of reporting and work by statisticians and 'sexy' data churning from the likes of John Burn-Murdoch at the FT but clicks and needs for headlines in the news cycle drive a lot of it...to gather the data, look at the gaps and to clean up what is obscure will take time and work.

Ah, JBM, do love how he posts his dinner in the same thread as a big pile of death statistics.

The data doesn't really support "people were left to die at home" unless you're counting care homes - the home death numbers have been pretty small throughout and not enough to overwhelm hospital capacity in and of itself. We've avoided having people die in hospital corridors as in Italy, but remember that "prevent the NHS from being overwhelmed" was THE UK govt success metric at the start and probably the main reason why it disgorged patients back into care homes where it thought fewer people would notice.

We haven't dodged a bullet, it's been a disaster but there is still the sense that it could have been a lot worse. That's in large part down to lockdown measures and it could still be a lot worse - ie if this thing comes back with a vengeance in the winter.

Almost a month old but in terms of excess "at home" deaths it's a fair chunk of the total

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/08/more-people-dying-at-home-during-covid-19-pandemic-uk-analysis

Ah right I was only talking about Covid deaths specifically, the number of people who died at home for other reasons, out of fear of going to hospital, was much higher than usual.

Yeah. Here's the long-ish read I was looking for:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/28/why-did-so-many-people-die-of-covid-19-in-the-uks-care-homes

Read in a certain way, it is a simple story and AF and julio are right:

- Central government mandated 15,000 beds to be cleared from hospitals by 27 March

- The number who have died in care homes of COVID-19? 16,000

- The number who have died of it in Honk Kong? 0

brb, changing username to 'Honk Kong'

Honk if you love Kong

zero C-19 deaths in Vietnam as well.

bad news and good news

As I read this, unless you live together, it’s now unlawful to have sex with your lover indoors, but fine outdoors (subject to public decency offences); but you can have sex with an escort indoors, as that is reasonably necessary for their work purposes (see 7(d)(i)). https://t.co/QXbT1EYikt

— George Peretz QC (@GeorgePeretzQC) May 31, 2020

Don't social distancing rules still have to be followed both outdoors and in the workplace? The 2m rule would make that pretty difficult.

lawyers could have a field day with this, specifically no more than six lawyers from different practices

Wonder how long RLB will last.

1.Tonight parents of children expected to attend school tomorrow across will be agonising about the choice they are about to make. Will they be safe? Am I doing the right thing? Will their teaching staff be at risk? Will our family be at risk? Will there be a spike in the R rate? https://t.co/VChqEA2aAY

— Rebecca Long-Bailey (@RLong_Bailey) May 31, 2020

i wonder if she's deliberately pushing Starmzy on this to see how long the lol broad coalition will last

IDGI, in what way is that thread going off-message? The only thing I can see there that might give Team Starmer conniptions is the word 'abandonment'.

I think she'll last in the Shadow Cabinet unless she chooses to resign fwiw, above and beyond all else she's a team player and a pro.

Reopening schools is pretty unpopular within the country at large and will presumably become more so when parents have to negotiate the school gates and when kids start coming back with stories of what it's actually like.