The excuses we're getting at work from some of the old people now is just ridiculous. We're now on reduced hours and only allowing absolutely essential transactions (if you can do it another way then basically, f*** off), but Sandra 'just prefers to come into the bank' instead of going to the ATM, and Margaret can't be bothered waiting in the queue at the ATM. I even had an old man come to the door today just wanting his passbook updated and nothing else. Like, are these people for real?

 

Some elderly people need to wake the f*** up and realise the gravity of the situation.

 

 

I know two old people who got it after only deciding to self-isolate a week ago. Lo and behold: corona.

This sounds hopeful. From DM:

 

A California scientist believes he has found an antibody cure for the novel coronavirus.

 

Dr Jacob Glanville, CEO of Distributed Bio, is perhaps best known as one of the physicians on the Netflix documentary Pandemic.

 

'We are happy to announce we have completed the engineering and we have some very potent antibodies that can be effective against the virus,' Dr Glanville said.

 

He told Radio New Zealand that his team used five antibodies that neutralized SARS in 2002, and adapted them to attack COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.

 

The new coronavirus, the strain of which is known as SARS-CoV-2, falls under a family of coronaviruses.

 

They can cause symptoms ranging from severe breathing problems to mild respiratory infections such as the common cold.

 

Coronavirus is believed to be milder than its cousin, SARS, and it takes longer for symptoms to appear.

 

But, because they're cousins, Dr Glanville says the antibodies that fight against one virus likely work against the other.

 

So what we've done is we've created hundreds of millions of versions of those antibodies,' he told Radio New Zealand.

 

'We've mutated them a bit, and in that pool of mutated versions, we found versions that cross them over.

 

'This makes them suitable medicines that one could use once they've gone through human testing to treat the virus.'

 

Dr Glanville said the antibodies bind to S-proteins, which the virus use to enter cells in the body.

 

''Antibodies are attractive because you can give them to a patient right when they're in the hospital like an antiviral,' he said.

 

'You can also give them to doctors, you could give them to the elderly people to prevent them from getting sick.'

Edited April 1, 20205 yr by Crazy Chris

I'm actually quite enjoying the quarantine now, except for the groups drinking in the parks to replace the pubs.

 

The spoiled people screaming over this quarantine are quite pathetic.

Being in a house with all manners of luxuries, with the only danger being the virus, pale in comparison to other historical moments of seclusion. In fact, there is no comparison. I'm sure people can survive being in a house with a tv and internet and books for a few weeks.

 

Indeed it's quite invigorating catching up on things that you don't get time to do with the hectic nature of modern life, when things are back to normal you'll wish you had taken advantage of this time.

I agree, it's something we all need to get used to and find other ways of occupying our time, but I think we can still empathise with others who are struggling with the lack of social life. I've been sticking to the measures put in place but I've found myself getting really down, particularly on a night time. I live on my own and whilst I can message people online, they're not always available and it's fair to say an online communication isn't quite the same as in person. Not being able to work means I feel like I have very little purpose and I get to the end of the day feeling like I've not achieved anything. I appreciate that's something I have to deal with, just as everyone else has to, but I can understand why people would be tempted to bend the rules a bit and I don't think it's fair to underplay the situation.

We as a whole are too reliant on other people and it shows perfectly well in this scenario. Knowing it's temporary is a big factor apart from creating distractions for yourself to get through it. Work is just a means to literal surviving in this society so I wouldn't say it's the absolute most people's purpose in life.

 

Start a Youtube channel, watch TV shows you wouldn't normally watch, look for some WFH opportunities that play to your strengths, switch furniture around, create some new things out of useless stuff laying around in your house, exercise, dress up, dance, try out a new hobby. I also live alone btw but my cat is keeping me company.

This sounds hopeful. From DM:

 

A California scientist believes he has found an antibody cure for the novel coronavirus.

 

Dr Jacob Glanville, CEO of Distributed Bio, is perhaps best known as one of the physicians on the Netflix documentary Pandemic.

 

'We are happy to announce we have completed the engineering and we have some very potent antibodies that can be effective against the virus,' Dr Glanville said.

 

He told Radio New Zealand that his team used five antibodies that neutralized SARS in 2002, and adapted them to attack COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.

 

The new coronavirus, the strain of which is known as SARS-CoV-2, falls under a family of coronaviruses.

 

They can cause symptoms ranging from severe breathing problems to mild respiratory infections such as the common cold.

 

Coronavirus is believed to be milder than its cousin, SARS, and it takes longer for symptoms to appear.

 

But, because they're cousins, Dr Glanville says the antibodies that fight against one virus likely work against the other.

 

So what we've done is we've created hundreds of millions of versions of those antibodies,' he told Radio New Zealand.

 

'We've mutated them a bit, and in that pool of mutated versions, we found versions that cross them over.

 

'This makes them suitable medicines that one could use once they've gone through human testing to treat the virus.'

 

Dr Glanville said the antibodies bind to S-proteins, which the virus use to enter cells in the body.

 

''Antibodies are attractive because you can give them to a patient right when they're in the hospital like an antiviral,' he said.

 

'You can also give them to doctors, you could give them to the elderly people to prevent them from getting sick.'

Might be a good thing to mention that it will at best go to hum trial at the end of the summer and be available in September via some loophole called compassionate use. Which means it won't be available to anyone anyway, not untill all the tests are done and approved

I'm not dismissing people's problems, everyone has it tough and like Pavel said I'm sure people who live with abusers or in a toxic environment have it even worse and I do feel for them. My point really was, what makes the UK so special that we think we're above that, it's clearly worked for China and shows signs of working for Italy so whilst it is undoubtedly hard and difficult, I do think people should abide to it as much as they can.

 

Because people in the UK have a big ole exceptionalist boner reinforced by everything the goverment say & the media play cheerleader for.

 

In reality British people are just people like any other. Absolutely nothing special.

So 2000 NHS workers have been tested according to the ch4 news.

Over 900,000 new claims for Universal Credit in a week. :o They can't cope with processing them so are pulling staff from all other DWP departments and trying to employ more. Thousands of new claimants for JobSeekers allowance too with people turning up at offices saying they've no money at all. A lot are self-employed. It's thought that some businesses won't ever re-open despite the Government help.

 

 

Unemployment is expected to rise sharply.

Edited April 1, 20205 yr by Crazy Chris

Well quite as many will have to apply for UC until the 80% wage payments are sorted or am I wrong in saying that?

Well quite as many will have to apply for UC until the 80% wage payments are sorted or am I wrong in saying that?

 

 

I think you're right about that. If a full lockdown comes then many of those who are going to work now still when it's not essential will be claiming too as a lot of employers just won't be able to pay them until the government money comes through.

Unemployment is expected to rise sharply.

oh really

Wife says neither of her super rich employers has it. I asked how they know and she says they got hold of a test kit each. "Money can buy you virtually anything" says the wife. Wonder how they got it. The woman's sister's a GP so I'm thinking maybe she got them one. ;) Not fair though when NHS workers can't get a test.

Edited April 2, 20205 yr by Crazy Chris

Yes Israel has done quite well and some Eastern European countries like Latvia have too and Ireland too to some extent.

 

I know Italy was just very unlucky in getting the virus very early but it seems like Spain did not act quickly enough hence the worrying numbers now.

 

Another important issue with Italy and Spain, and poorer parts of New York, and so on in other countries, is the cultural mixing of the generations in one house - elderly parents tend to live with kids, putting them more at risk to stuff the younger crowd pick up. In the UK elderly parents mostly live alone so are already self-isolated more so than in Italy as a general rule of thumb.

I know two old people who got it after only deciding to self-isolate a week ago. Lo and behold: corona.

 

Ignorance is sadly multi-generational, and stupidity is not something you grow out of as you get older. If you are able to learn from life mistakes you can get a bit wiser, if you have the memory-span of a goldfish that's much harder. Younger idiots have a tendency to do things that make it less likely they will get to a ripe old age, but they don't care because it seems so far away in the future.

Another important issue with Italy and Spain, and poorer parts of New York, and so on in other countries, is the cultural mixing of the generations in one house - elderly parents tend to live with kids, putting them more at risk to stuff the younger crowd pick up. In the UK elderly parents mostly live alone so are already self-isolated more so than in Italy as a general rule of thumb.

 

 

Same in the Philippines. You get 3 or 4 generations in one tiny house, with beds, or rather just mattresses with a sheet on as it's so hot, lined up in a room and both sexes sleep together. Their death rate isn't very high though, 88 so far with about 2,100 cases and they've a population of around 100 million.

Edited April 2, 20205 yr by Crazy Chris

Same in the Philippines. You get 3 or 4 generations in one tiny house, with beds, or rather just mattresses with a sheet on as it's so hot, lined up in a room and both sexes sleep together. Their death rate isn't very high though, 88 so far with about 2,100 cases and they've a population of around 100 million.

 

I think at this point we do have to assume the less developed a country is, the higher the number of infections/deaths that are going unattributed to it is. There's no way it it's spreading in the likes of Philippines/India/Indonesia at the rate that they've reported it as.

 

Some of that will be government coverups but in many cases they just won't have the infrastructure.

Some good news: Fox news is busy deleting all of its tweets and archive news online of its coverage of the early pandemic because it is seriously worried they are going to be involved in multiple law suits from families of victims who took the advice of the station which spent weeks spreading malicious lies about covid-19 and suggesting dangerous practices were fake news designed to attack Trump. Of course Trump was also spreading fake facts. Still is lying about everything.

 

With a bit of luck, and given the oncoming onslaught of dead Americans, that will end the existence of the news corp that has promoted lies and deceit as a way of life, and those people who have fallen for them will now see things differently with the opportunity to make claims against them. I look forward to seeing the Murdochs in court, fingers-crossed.

Watched the worried-looking Swedish Chief scientist on Newsnight last night - they are currently also opting for the "herd-immunity" theory, with many things still open.

 

I'm sure "herd-immunity" was the main theory in practice during the Black Death and the Spanish Flu. Another fancy-phrase for "herd-immunity" is "do f***-all about it".

 

Herd-immunity of smallpox, malaria, cholera of course such a huge success that they started giving doses to the population to make sure they developed herd-immunity, and they definitely didn't try to battle it for as long as it took until they had developed a prevention. After-all, those who were going to die anyway might as as well die sooner than later, why bother taking chances on the economy suffering.

 

And of course, diseases never mutate and get potentially even more lethal when left to their own devices. Never happens. Fake news.

I think at this point we do have to assume the less developed a country is, the higher the number of infections/deaths that are going unattributed to it is. There's no way it it's spreading in the likes of Philippines/India/Indonesia at the rate that they've reported it as.

 

Some of that will be government coverups but in many cases they just won't have the infrastructure.

 

 

President Duterte has now ordered the police and soldiers to shoot dead anyone who doesn't abide by the lockdown. He said "don't argue with them. If you feel under threat just shoot them....dead"

 

He's the very popular leader who ordered drug dealers to be shot dead and said he wasn't scared of Trump or the UN.

Edited April 2, 20205 yr by Crazy Chris

If we lived in a fully-functioning democracy with a relatively non-partisan press, this is how a press conference might have gone earlier this week...

 

Gove: We are now doing over 10,000 tests a day.

Journalist: Oh, good. What is the highest number of tests carried out in one day?

G: Just over 9,000.

J: Ah, not 10,000 then. OK, on how many other days have there been at least 9,000 tests?

G: Er, none.

J: OK, so you are not conducting 10,000 tests per day. How come Germany can do 70,000 tests?

G: Per week?

J: No, every day.

G: Ah, well, we are experiencing problems getting some of the chemicals needed.

J: But the chemicals industry say that there are no supply problems.

G: Er,.....

 

Sadly, we have a press that thinks its role should be as cheerleaders for Johnson so it went more like this.

 

G: We are now doing over 10,000 tests a day.

J: Oh, well done!