Coronavirus (OLD)

[tweetiepooh]

Originally Posted by Carth

Probably the same assumptions as when the economy was going to crash, we'd all lose our jobs, there'd be massive food shortages and house prices would plummet to the equivalent of a 4 pack of Mars Bars . . ooops, got carried away there, sorry

But the price of Mars Bars would skyrocket.

The BoE predictions are also based on no huge 2nd wave of infections.

I'm hoping that our policy though having a higher "baseline" than others will flatten out any peaks following the aim to not overwhelm the NHS.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by jfman

It’s never been about activity A being safer than activity B. It’s about reducing interactions.

Schools have the added benefit of allowing those working from home to actually work from home and not be parents while banging out a couple of emails. Increasing productivity. Unless the ice cream shop wants to keep them 6 hours a day.

You've got that right!

I'd risk exposing my two to the bubonic plague to get them from under my feet.

---------- Post added at 13:17 ---------- Previous post was at 13:15 ----------

Originally Posted by jfman

In some genuinely good news though they are advising to work from home this Autumn for all the middle class people who get to enjoy the pandemic on Microsoft Teams.
.

Genuinely odd statement, how does using technology for work equate to the class system?

A little bubonic plague never hurt anyone.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by mrmistoffelees

Try using WebEx.....

we use WebEx at work, any other software is banned.

The LEA has standardised all schools onto Google Classroom now, which the high schools were already using for homework and projects.

I suspect that, absent any time for proper evaluation when lockdown occurred, someone at the council just assumed the MS product was the one to choose. Our LEA is however now supplying free chromebooks to all high school pupils so they’re pushing everyone onto Google products as far as possible.

[Carth]

Pity that Google don't do Covid 19 tests . . . they do damn near everything else

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Carth

Pity that Google don't do Covid 19 tests . . . they do damn near everything else

If Carlsberg did Covid tests?

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by jfman

More good news from Sweden, not only are they some considerable distance from “herd immunity”

http://outbreaknewstoday.com/sweden-...-donors-98648/

Their economy is also tanking

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53664354

Shrinking 8.6% in Q2. Proving the old adage that people don’t want risk death during a global pandemic for the sake of a pizza, coffee or even a muffin.

In some genuinely good news though they are advising to work from home this Autumn for all the middle class people who get to enjoy the pandemic on Microsoft Teams.

https://www.thelocal.se/20200730/swe...port-work-home

I don’t foresee any unrest or political ramifications from enshrining a two tier society as those most at risk in terms of health are also in the most precarious work.

Funny how things can be reported differently

https://www.newsweek.com/sweden-whic...C_Wz4XFbbtWCO8

Originally Posted by Carth

Pity that Google don't do Covid 19 tests . . . they do damn near everything else

They do seem to be quietly taking over... chromebooks, google office apps and all that stuff have been around for years now but it seems finally they’ve started to eat into the assumption that you have to go with M$ if you want office software.

Local councils all over Scotland have been devising programmes to hand out chromebooks to kids over a period of years, originally in our area just the new first years at high school were going to get them, then with Covid and the prospect of schools being shut again they decided to give them to the first 3 years, then they ran a survey and found - unsurprisingly - that in no school year do the pupils have access to their own laptop in any significant numbers. So now the 4th years are getting them too. I’m delighted, this means both the high schoolers in our household are getting a new free computer in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully they’ll be able to use them at school this term instead of retreating to lockdown again.

[joglynne]

Coronavirus: Safety concerns halt use of 50 million NHS masks

snippet
On 29 April the Department of Health and Social Care signed the £252m contract with Ayanda Capital Limited to supply two types of face masks.

The most expensive part of the order consisted of 50 million FFP2 respirator masks, which are designed to protect healthcare workers from inhaling harmful particles.

According to legal papers seen by the BBC, the government says these masks will now not be used in the NHS because of a safety concern about whether they would fit adequately.

To be effective these types of face mask need to fit tightly to create a seal between the mask and the wearer's face. Anyone who wears them for work is required to undergo a face-fit test.

"The face fit is either a pass or a fail and there are more fails on products with ear loops than there are on products with head harnesses," says Alan Murray, chief executive of the British Safety Industry Federation.

"That means that it wouldn't necessarily provide the protection that was required from it."

It is not clear what will happen now to the 50 million masks.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53672841?xtor=ES-211-[34671_PANUK_SOT_31_CNV_Send22EngagedCNV1to21_RET_B]-20200806-[bbcnews_safetyconcernshaltuseof50millionmasks_news healthcvd]

---------- Post added at 16:28 ---------- Previous post was at 15:42 ----------

An interesting article. .

'Not as bad as we think' ITV GMB's Dr Khan explains how UK coronavirus data has improved
ITV GMB's Dr Amir Khan reassured viewers on Thursday morning as he explained how the latest coronavirus data shows the UK is doing better than it may seem despite new local lockdowns being imposed across the country.

snip
The Doctor referred to a new report from the country's largest testing study which found that coronavirus infection rates continued to decline even when some lockdown restrictions had been lifted.

The research, conducted by Imperial College London and Ipsos MORI, involved 150,000 volunteers across England being tested for COVID-19 between June 19 and July 8 to determine the scope of the spread of the virus throughout the country.

An initial report from the study, released last month, found that the rate of infection throughout the country was halving every eight to nine days during May.

The study's second report has now revealed there was further decline of infection in late June and early July, with the virus continuing to halve every eight to nine days during this period before ultimately falling to just under eight positive cases per 10,000 people.

This was despite the reopening of non-essential shops and restrictions being eased to allow the public to have more interaction with people outside their households.

In contrast to the first report, the second report also showed there were no significant differences between the rates of infection for key workers and non-key workers.

https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv...centage-report

[jfman]

Originally Posted by Pierre

Funny how things can be reported differently

https://www.newsweek.com/sweden-whic...C_Wz4XFbbtWCO8

It’s a positive spin, but where’s the herd immunity or growing economy? In the absence of either of those the strategy doesn’t work on either health or economic grounds.

Sweden by definition can’t have a second wave when the first is ongoing.

Originally Posted by joglynne

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53672841?xtor=ES-211-[34671_PANUK_SOT_31_CNV_Send22EngagedCNV1to21_RET_B]-20200806-[bbcnews_safetyconcernshaltuseof50millionmasks_news healthcvd]

---------- Post added at 16:28 ---------- Previous post was at 15:42 ----------

An interesting article. .

https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv...centage-report

"Interesting" story behind the company supplying the masks...

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/h...-ppe-wmps5kpjh

The biggest contract was awarded to an obscure company with no history in the sector: Ayanda Capital. The deal was arranged by Andrew Mills, 56, a businessman who registered an offer to supply facemasks and other PPE on April 11. He told officials that he had secured “exclusive rights to the full production capacity of a large factory in China to produce masks” and could supply a very large volume immediately, documents filed in a legal case show.

Mr Mills, who once ran a technology company and has held jobs at Samsung and IBM, was working on behalf of Tim Horlick, a former investment banker and the chief executive of Ayanda, a family investment company. Mr Horlick said Mr Mills was a business associate who he had asked to assist Ayanda with the project “given his relationships with the Department for International Trade and his experience in international business and sales”. Since October 2017, Mr Mills has served as an adviser to the Board of Trade in the Department for International Trade.

He made the initial approach to the government in the name of Prospermill, a small company he had set up with his wife the previous year which has not yet filed any accounts and has £100 of share capital. It took more than a fortnight for a deal to be struck under which the government would spend £252 million on masks for NHS workers. Late in the process, officials say in legal filings, Mr Mills asked to switch the counterparty for the contract to Ayanda, saying that the company had an established infrastructure for international banking.

Until that point, they had seemingly been prepared to sign a large contract with Mr Mills’s own small company Prospermill. He said that he had been finalising his appointment as an adviser to Ayanda when he made the offer but “informed the [health department] of the intention to contract through Ayanda as soon as I was in a position to do so”.

Mr Horlick said he did not believe that Mr Mills’s role as a government adviser “had any influence whatsoever” on winning the contract and said there was what “seemed to be an extremely rigorous and professionally run procurement process”.

Mr Mills also said his position had no effect on the awarding of the contract. He declined to say how much he expected to make from the deal.

[Sephiroth]

That deal stinks.

[jfman]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

That deal stinks.

110%

[pip08456]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

That deal stinks.

Yes it does stink. This thread is a good read.
https://twitter.com/JolyonMaugham/st...44082145177600