The furlough scheme is being reduced to 60% of your salary, no?

 

I hope you guys can survive that. If that were me I'd be screwed - my rent is 60% of my salary so I'd have nothing left for food or anything else.

 

No, 80% of wages up to a maximum of £2,500 per month, with the remaining 20% optionally covered by the employer...

 

7.5 million currently furloughed, approximately 29% of the UK workforce.

No, 80% of wages up to a maximum of £2,500 per month, with the remaining 20% optionally covered by the employer...

 

7.5 million currently furloughed, approximately 29% of the UK workforce.

 

And that's not taking in to consideration a lot of firms are not taking advantage of the furlough system, but are asking employees to work at 80% of their salary too.

 

Not sure if the Government are taking in to consideration the amount of people that were furloughed for a period of time too, but are now able to get back to work. Or the business has operationally worked out how they can operate whilst keeping their employees safe.

I would rather meet my parents in their garden than meet them in a public place where others will be doing the same.

 

I’m in Wales though, so we don’t have any confusing rules.

Hadn't seen that story about the rail worker - that's so awful.

 

Also in the Guardian today was very moved by Rory Kinnear's piece about the death of his sister to the virus. I found this part particularly powerful, one of the most annoying things about COVID-19 is the amount of people who say things about whether people died of or with it, like everyone was about to die anyway.

 

So it was coronavirus that killed her. It wasn’t her “underlying conditions”. Prior to her diagnosis, she hadn’t been in hospital for 18 months – an unusually care-free period for Karina. No, it was a virulent, aggressive and still only partially understood virus that was responsible, a virus that is causing thousands of people, despite the unstinting bravery of the medical staff of this country, to say a distanced goodbye to relatives who would still be alive had they not contracted it.

 

No one could describe Karina as weak: she did not have it coming, she was no more disposable than anyone else. Her death was not inevitable, does not ease our burden, is not a blessing. She was vulnerable, yes. She needed the care of others to live. I will remain for ever grateful to the hundreds of caregivers who have, at one point or another, looked after her with such kindness and dedication, some of whom have maintained a relationship with her long after their retirement. Grateful too to live in a country that makes provisions of care free to all, no matter one’s need, however stretched and fraying their chronic underfunding increasingly makes them.

 

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2...us-rory-kinnear

Yes, I’ve read that piece twice today. Incredibly moving and powerful. The true lives lost solely because of the virus. An extraordinary tribute to her all the same. :heart:

I also read the Roy Kinnear piece and it echoes my thoughts about people who assume some members of society have lives that are less valuable than theirs, and their God-assuming right to say that having a condition or having successfully lived a life contributing to society that suddenly they have had enough back and should be sacrificed on the altar of capitalism so others who haven't spent their entire lives struggling can make more money. Dominic Cummings & your ideological twatty followers I'm looking at you and will blame you for the rest of eternity for just being awful human beings who have killed people who wouldnt have died if you'd done your jobs right.

 

50,000 so far, most likely.

Anybody else feel like that by handing over control of the lockdown to Germany’s individual states, Merkel is risking undoing all the good work Germany have done so far? Definitely not a responsible move imo.

Anybody else feel like that by handing over control of the lockdown to Germany’s individual states, Merkel is risking undoing all the good work Germany have done so far? Definitely not a responsible move imo.

If I am correct (help me out Silas) a lot of the responsibility has always been in the states hands, but they always followed the federal governments advice and to this day are still largely doing so

Yup. It’s exactly that. Federal government doesn’t have the power to control the pandemic response so each of the 16 states has been applying their own rules with some coordination from the Federal level to avoid a potentially damaging mixed bag approach to a nationwide lockdown. Now we are quite far out of lockdown the federal government is taking a step back again but still providing a guideline and framework for the states.

 

EG the emergency break for the regulations would kick in at a level too high for the city states to tolerate (the 50 cases per 100.000 people per week measure would be 1.900 cases in Berlin in a single week. Higher than at any point of the pandemic thus far) so they’ve applied different measures. Berlin has a red, amber, green system for reapplying restrictions through the city.

 

 

As a result of the restructuring of Germany post-WW2 there is limits on what the federal government can actually do so much of the success has been driven by the states. Bayern in particular has really driven the restrictions

Arguably Germany's post WWII restructuring has been much to its benefit, with a much more responsive and functional federal government able to effecitvely target and deal with this crisis. The UK response in comparison looks comically poor, especially this confused partial lockdown easing in England but not in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.

 

Good to see Starmer squewer Johnson (cornering him into a complete lie in the HoC) today at PMQs over the utter disaster that is social care and the unforgivable seeding of Covid-19 spread within care homes through this crisis.

Up to 100 children in the UK have been affected by a rare inflammatory disease linked to coronavirus, medics say.

 

Some needed intensive care while others recovered quickly - but cases are extremely rare.

Arguably Germany's post WWII restructuring has been much to its benefit, with a much more responsive and functional federal government able to effecitvely target and deal with this crisis. The UK response in comparison looks comically poor, especially this confused partial lockdown easing in England but not in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.

 

Good to see Starmer squewer Johnson (cornering him into a complete lie in the HoC) today at PMQs over the utter disaster that is social care and the unforgivable seeding of Covid-19 spread within care homes through this crisis.

 

I love how when he first quoted government policy before 12/3 his first reaction was to deny it but the forensic Starmer quoted the policy :D

I love how when he first quoted government policy before 12/3 his first reaction was to deny it but the forensic Starmer quoted the policy :D

This is the difference between someone whose pre-politics training as a QC helps him to master a brief and someone for whom mastering a brief is too much like hard work.

This is the difference between someone whose pre-politics training as a QC helps him to master a brief and someone for whom mastering a brief is too much like hard work.

 

Yes, Starmer shows how an opposition leader should be - factual, understated, relentless, calm and rational. Johnson has no armour without the pack braying in the background to hide behind, the King is naked and no amount of BS can hide that Johnson is directly responsible for all those needless deaths. I know my friend who lost his mother to Covid-19 blames him and so do I.

Northern Ireland will be taking its first steps towards easing the lockdown, allowing garden centres & recycling centres to reopen from Monday. Given that I have no need to use either of those (although I could've used the latter during the month where the council refused to pick up my recycling bins), it will still be business as usual for me.

Yes, Starmer shows how an opposition leader should be - factual, understated, relentless, calm and rational. Johnson has no armour without the pack braying in the background to hide behind, the King is naked and no amount of BS can hide that Johnson is directly responsible for all those needless deaths. I know my friend who lost his mother to Covid-19 blames him and so do I.

So it's no surprise that Jack Mogg wants to ignore the distancing rules and bring back the baying mob asap.

So it's no surprise that Jack Mogg wants to ignore the distancing rules and bring back the baying mob asap.

 

Yes, well, elderly people don't generally buy tons of packets of fags in their care homes so he's not going to lose any money from encouraging them to disappear from existence leading by example. Probably also anticipating a few bi-elections as an opportunity for misdirection of facts under cover of campaigning...

Northern Ireland will be taking its first steps towards easing the lockdown, allowing garden centres & recycling centres to reopen from Monday. Given that I have no need to use either of those (although I could've used the latter during the month where the council refused to pick up my recycling bins), it will still be business as usual for me.

 

I was at B&Q on Monday!

 

I'm back to work on a rota one day a week each from after the bank holidays. Will any summer weddings go ahead do you think?

I was at B&Q on Monday!

 

I'm back to work on a rota one day a week each from after the bank holidays. Will any summer weddings go ahead do you think?

 

 

Can't see any summer wedding going ahead this year at all. Most seem to be postponing to next year. We had invites to two but both are now next July/August

 

Wife's just gone again to B&Q for plants but when she went on Saturday there was a long queue.

On this website, it’s telling us how many people in the UK have had coronavirus but not how many have it at the moment. They should stop hiding it, people have a right to know https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/