Covid-19 pandemic

[Nefertiti2]

So the UK Government's answer to a Public Health England response that didn't work, and a track and trace system that only met a key objective of 'being eye openingly expensive', is to scrap the former, but move all its staff into a new body (with a flash new medical sounding title) under the leadership of the latter. This really is 'Yes, Prime Minister' stuff. In fact it's not even that, it's Monty Python, reassuring patients that the hospital has the new expensive machine that goes "ping".

it's neither Yes Prime Minister or Monty Python. It's naked corruption.

[Fussbudget]

Yeah. As far as I can see it's replacing an agency that was led by a civil servant who got the job through open competition, with a public body led by a political appointee. Yet another step towards undermining the principle of independence of the civil service.

[Nefertiti2]

A political appointee who has failed at everything -apart from being University friends with David Cameron

https://twitter.com/ByRobDavies/status/1295453097574244354?s=20

She's a board member of the Jockey Club who owned Cheltenham Racecourse which stayed open against medical advice during the early days of the pandemic

Hancock is the MP for Newmarket and gets substantial perks from the Jockey Clube


As even the telegraph is pointing out

https://twitter.com/Sathnam/status/1295704162626408450?s=20

[Antepli Ejderha]

[Amor de Cosmos]

Woah! BC reported 236 new cases over the weekend, and Alberta 359. These are the largest upticks since March. Most in BC were from large houseparties, so the provincial government is finally going to introduce charges against those taking part. Alberta's situation is less clear, most of the cases are in and around Edmonton but no one is yet sure why

[Jimski]

Maybe we can finesse this slightly and say something like "the number of people who continue to go on holiday overseas/by plane". There must be lots of people who are travelling between England and Wales/Scotland or (for example) Spain and Portugal. Maybe long-distance or even medium-distance trips in general ought to be discouraged? I see no difference between Greenlander's ferry to France and the movement of internal tourists from the Midlands to Cornwall.

Yeah, I agree, If you go on holiday by car, keep yourself to yourself when you get there, etc., it sounds pretty safe. Planes, hotels, crowded resorts, etc. seem a bad idea right now.

[Nefertiti2]

there are some places you can only get to by plane.

meanwhile...

https://twitter.com/schneiderhome/status/1295755672777371648?s=20

[Jimski]

YIkes...

https://twitter.com/tarahaelle/status/1295524456585207811

[Balderdasha]

We've just reached a disturbing milestone of 100 deaths from Covid-19 per million population globally. At least 1 in every 10,000 people on this planet has died from Covid-19.

[Diable Rouge]

https://twitter.com/MaryERegan/status/1295757255510503425

All seems a smokescreen to distract from lack of action on meat factories and direct provision centres.

[elguapo4]

Of course it is, Martin, Donnelly and Ryan on the podium. I wouldn't trust those three to run a car park, let alone a country.

[Lang Spoon]

Leo staying away from the cameras for once. Ryan must be a fuckin fool to agree to appear on the podium with those two while delivering the bad news.

[elguapo4]

Leo staying away from the cameras for once. Ryan must be a fuckin fool to agree to appear on the podium with those two while delivering the bad news.

Varadkar is many things, but a fool isn't one of them, rumours that Fine Gael weren't happy with the new measures, so he's happy to let Curly, Larry and Moe take the rap.

[Diable Rouge]

https://twitter.com/TVsCarlKinsella/status/1295768762327670792

[caja-dglh]

The Massachusetts quarantine rules seem similar, Ad Hoc, and are similarly hard to resolve. You need to have had a negative test administered within 72 hours before arriving in the state, yet most testing here seems to require a couple of days wait to get tested, then an uncertain period of up to 10 days to get results. It's basically impossible to plan for. Also, most testing sites still have screeners that stop "normal" people being tested: we kinda lied on ours by saying that we'd potentially been exposed to infected people (which in a way, we had, because we'd been travelling and had no idea who we'd been in contact with), as the only way to get past the screener at all.

There are places with long waits that can get results in 30 minutes on the East Coast. A friend living in Westchester was just at one with a recently hired competitive-market au pair as covered in the NYT).

This reminds me I need to check where is safer to stop on my way doing the partial reverse SanB in a few weeks. The wife, kids and cat flew out today.

[San Bernardhinault]

This reminds me I need to check where is safer to stop on my way doing the partial reverse SanB in a few weeks. The wife, kids and cat flew out today.

Albuquerque and Bentonville, AR, felt safe. Sedona and St George felt pretty dodgy. Amarillo was the worst of all. West Des Moines was just about OK. I hope this is helpful for your route planning.

[ursus arctos]

Not withstanding that surely well intentioned advice, don't do it in one go by yourself.

I'd look at places near the highway in Western Pennsylvania and avoid college towns. Though Northeastern Ohio is likely not much different.

[caja-dglh]

Yeah, common sense is guiding me toward stopping where there is basically nothing except Amish riding around in buggy's and McDonalds.

[Balderdasha]

Saudi Arabia has reached over 300,000 cases and 3,470 deaths.

[Satchmo Distel]

Yeah, common sense is guiding me toward stopping where there is basically nothing except Amish riding around in buggy's and McDonalds.

A city with a mask ordinance is safer than a place that looks deserted in my experience, simply because everyone in the deserted place will congregate at the one store or gas station and they won't be wearing masks. If there are two of you in the car, get the passenger to google the mask policies on your proposed routes. Only stop at hotels that have good ratings on Trip Advisor or equivalent (we budgeted only to stay at top end places but that was based on knowing we were blowing our savings that we had set aside for future vacation options overseas that we'd normally take but we've given up hope can now happen for at least two years).

[Balderdasha]

Yesterday I spoke to a mum in the park who's an intensive care nurse in the local hospital. She says that the maximum capacity for ICU beds was 16, but over the course of two days at the peak of the pandemic, they had to convert another ward and increase capacity to 29 beds. She says that as a trust they had done pandemic planning and thought they were prepared, but that her boss described their preparation as "going for a paddle, with a tsunami on the way".

[San Bernardhinault]

Following on from Satchmo’s advice, I agree about staying in relatively higher-end places - the shittier the hotel the worse the behaviour on the whole - and staying in states with good mask mandates. Also, staying in an edge-of-town chain hotel actually worked well - you generally interact with fewer people and the whole car-to-room thing is less fussy. Buy food before you get to your hotel, take it into your room when you check in,and don’t leave your room until you check out, and you hardly see another soul.

[ursus arctos]

A.very sobering piece

[B]https://twitter.com/edyong209/status/1296060039971692545[/B]

[Diable Rouge]

Scotland records its first Covid death in weeks, but it appears to be an April fatality that simply slipped through the data net.

[Patrick Thistle]

Wales has had three days in a row with no Covid deaths reported.