COVID-19

[gosling]

Government advice is no "non-essential" travel. Though again, this is what BoJo has said but it's not explicit in the latest communication
https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... le-adults

We had a cottage booking for Easter. The company told us we could rebook within the year or book another cottage to the same value. I think that's pretty kind of them (financially speaking) in the circumstances. I think our travel insurance might cover us cancelling anyway but need to check with them first once they actually answer the phone. Anyway, it's worth checking on the policy wording of any travel insurance you may have.

We were due to go over to Lundy with my 73-year-old mum towards the end of next week. Landmark Trust have credited our account with the money for the cottage, and refunded the cost of transport to the island. We can use the credit towards another property up until the end of 2021. Impressed with that given that the govt still isn't explicitly saying don't travel.

Have advanced tickets on GWR to get to Devon, but they're still saying no refunds on advance tickets. They do say we can change the date without incurring an admin fee. Not sure what date they think people can book for given the current situation. Just hope that the reduced timetable coming in next week means our train gets cancelled and we can get a full refund.

P.S. If anyone has had a BA flight cancelled but is only being offered a voucher on the website: a friend at work has shown me how to bypass the javascript on the site so you go to the refund page instead. PM me if you'd like details.

[shpalman]

AND NO YOU CAN'T GO ON FRIDAY AND COME BACK ON MONDAY TO TECHNICALLY AVOID THE WEEKEND ITSELF

Did that literally have to issue a separate explicit order for that? I'd love to see it if you have a link (in Italian is fine).

Here's Ordinance 514 of the Lombardy Region, 21 March 2020

The actual orders start towards the end of page 4. The relevant part is

È consentito il rientro presso il proprio domicilio o residenza. Non è consentito lo spostamento verso abitazioni diverse da quella principale, comprese le seconde case utilizzate per vacanza.

The part about Fridays and Mondays might have been in a national decree; hang on (I haven't read it, I only heard about it on the news).

[shpalman]

Yes it's in this decree from the ministry of health:

nei giorni festivi e prefestivi, nonché in quegli altri che immediatamente precedono o seguono tali giorni, è vietato ogni spostamento verso abitazioni diverse da quella principale, comprese le seconde case utilizzate per vacanza.

[lpm]

NICE guidelines for the UK for triage into critical care. Not based on age, but on a 9 point "frailty scale".

1-4: will get into ICU.

5-9: it depends



https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-heal ... -patients/

[shpalman]

Yes it's in this decree from the ministry of health:

nei giorni festivi e prefestivi, nonché in quegli altri che immediatamente precedono o seguono tali giorni, è vietato ogni spostamento verso abitazioni diverse da quella principale, comprese le seconde case utilizzate per vacanza.

Meanwhile of course thousands of people f.cked off to their static caravans YOU'RE NOT ESCAPING THE VIRUS YOU ARE THE VIRUS

[EACLucifer]

Reportedly from the Sunday Times

[Bird on a Fire]

WTF? The way the US organises healthcare is insane.

The US doesn't organize healthcare.

Yet manages to spend a higher proportion of its GDP even on *public* healthcare than the UK (just)

It's interesting that when offered a presidential candidate campaigning to change how healthcare works (going into the easiest election in history), USians instead opt for the guy funded by insurers who promised to veto any proposals for radical change.

Enough of them are obviously basically happy with the status quo. Or were - I suspect that this outbreak will make the case extremely convincingly for public healthcare, just a few months too late for anything to happen.

[shpalman]

Reportedly from the Sunday Times

I'm sure he is entirely to be taken at his word regarding this denial.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... people-die

[JQH]

Reportedly from the Sunday Times

I'm sure he is entirely to be taken at his word regarding this denial.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... people-die

The wise words of Jim Hacker come to mind.

[discovolante]

The PM and advisors seem to be really struggling to explain that it's ok to be outside as long as you're not near anyone.

I dunno if they are trying to avoid people in busy cities getting the hump because countryside folk can swan around as normal or if they just can't work out how to explain it properly.

[shpalman]

Lombardy has had to close the parks since people here couldn't get the idea here either. The restrictions in force here until the 15th of April are now really restrictive, but we were certainly warned this would happen and people took the piss anyway.

[discovolante]

Lombardy has had to close the parks since people here couldn't get the idea here either. The restrictions in force here until the 15th of April are now really restrictive, but we were certainly warned this would happen and people took the piss anyway.

I mean, they were saying...if you're over 70, if you observe social distancing, that's ok, and then you will be indoors for the other 23 1/2 hours of the day....sorry what? Outside but two meters away for no more than half an hour a day?

It seems like they can't get their heads away from the scenes in e.g. Victoria Park and are addressing the whole country about an issue that is only affecting some areas, and it's making a muddle of it all in the process.

[Opti]

Fortunately, here in Spain, the general public are taking the lockdown pretty damn seriously.

There seems to be a fair bit of 'English Exceptionalism' going on back in the UK.
This ain't like the blitz guys.

[lpm]

Too late now, but they should have thought about words.

Self isolation conjures up images of... well, isolation. People resist it. Should be "family protection", or for the more macho inclined "chain breakers".

Herd immunity was such a terrible thing to say. We live on in infamy, in every history text book.

The weakness of their language has reached absurd levels,

This oh-so-clever nudge unit seems incapable of using basic nudge techniques. A starting point is speaking in a way that easily gets across to people.

- use concrete words, not abstract
- be practical, not conceptual
- use familiar words, not fancy words
- keep it human, not mathematical

For example, they say "if you have symptoms of coronavirus illness (COVID-19)..." - symptoms is not a word used by most people, the jargon is unnecessary. Johnson says people must be "responsible" - an abstract concept that gives no practical meaning. The term "observe social distancing" is a new invention, something that none of heard of in our lifetimes, and it takes time to understand. "Do not travel unnecessarily" isn't presented in human terms and unnecessary has no concrete meaning.

Other countries are doing nudge concepts better, saying concrete human things like "Only leave your home to buy food and essentials" or "you can walk your dog outside, but only for half an hour once a day" or "the rule you must obey is to stay two metres apart - that's two arms lengths."

This weekend has obviously been a fiasco for nudging us all into the proper behaviour. Maybe a bit unlucky - two lovely sunny spring days so everyone wanted to go to parks and beaches. But fundamentally a lot of people don't yet "get it".

[greyspoke]

Judgment is required. Some people, given a rule, do their best to push the limits of interpretation. Also, it is rotten luck that all this has coincided with some good weather.

[shpalman]

I'm sure it's actually a "we're about to get locked down so let's go out one last time" response.

[discovolante]

I think hes just going to shut the parks, but he daren't even say that. Happy to be wrong.

[greyspoke]

I'm sure it's actually a "we're about to get locked down so let's go out one last time" response.

It might look like that from Italy shpallers, more like "lets go out for the first time we've had decent weather at the weekend in bl..dy ages". I am fairly sure Snowdon, Pen-y-Fan etc. would have been just as crowded this weekend without the virus.

[AMS]

I'm sure it's actually a "we're about to get locked down so let's go out one last time" response.

It might look like that from Italy shpallers, more like "lets go out for the first time we've had decent weather at the weekend in bl..dy ages". I am fairly sure Snowdon, Pen-y-Fan etc. would have been just as crowded this weekend without the virus.

Places like Snowdon are probably also many people's idea of somewhere you can be outdoors and safely far away from others. Unfortunately, too many people had the same idea...

But pick a random public footpath through a farmer's field, and you have a reasonable chance of having the place to yourself.

[bob sterman]

NICE guidelines for the UK for triage into critical care. Not based on age, but on a 9 point "frailty scale".

1-4: will get into ICU.

5-9: it depends

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-heal ... -patients/

That 1-9 scale seems very focused on classifying elderly people (as suggested by the graphics).

Not sure how young people with disabilities would fit into that system. The key difference being - while a young person with disabilities might "need help with all outside activities and keeping house" they might be able to progress to being "not dependent on others for daily help" - i.e. progressive decline is not inevitable.

[mikeh]

Few quick things -

Coming out tomorrow, currently embargoed as I type this, an interesting paper from UCL - covers estimations of excess 1- year mortality from COVID-19 (in England). From a quick glance through it, appears to reinforce the Imperial College modelling data.

Also tomorrow, major genomics initiative to be announced tomorrow (in the UK). It looks pretty cool.

An 18 year old has died in the UK from COVID-19, they had underlying health conditions. Definitely youngest death in the UK, how many younger globally?

And if you're terribly bored, I did a podcast with the Triggernometry podcast people - see here for the video https://youtu.be/0Hs2KKczjYA?t=44

[TopBadger]

But pick a random public footpath through a farmer's field, and you have a reasonable chance of having the place to yourself.

Thats what we did today and seemed to work.

The number of kids I've seen still playing together in the street struck me though. The point of schools closing is to stop kids intermingling, seems the parents havent grasped this point.

[Gfamily]

The very excellent Dean Burnett tweeted these today...

dean Burnett 3.jpg (427.6 KiB) Viewed 3142 times

[discovolante]

And below a link explaining the clusterf.ck that is the court system, with a welcome update in the comments. But the changes that have been happening have been very piecemeal - e.g. in Scotland the housing and property tribunal has postponed everything until May, but the Sheriff courts are continuing with hearings that don't require witnesses (so all lawyers to continue to attend), for now. Jury trials are going ahead in E&W unless they last longer than three days. A shambles, really.

https://nearlylegal.co.uk/2020/03/law-i ... duty-work/

[raven]

The weakness of their language has reached absurd levels, This oh-so-clever nudge unit seems incapable of using basic nudge techniques. A starting point is speaking in a way that easily gets across to people.

- use concrete words, not abstract
- be practical, not conceptual
- use familiar words, not fancy words
- keep it human, not mathematical

This. So much this. These people can't communicate clearly to save anybody's life. As I said somewhere, the average read age in the UK is something like 11. Have you seen the advice on gov.uk? It's wordy, long and badly organised. For goodness sake, if you want people to listen, make your guidance simple and use simple, everyday language.

You know, like that slogan, what was it again? Oh yes. Take back control.If Cummings can reduce Brexit to three words, surely he can come up with appropriate, simply worded guidance for this.[/sarcasm] I can well believe Cummings jumped all over the idea of herd immunity as soon as he heard it. He seems just like a guy who knows a lot of science-y sounding buzz words and the precise meaning of none of them.

NICE guidelines for the UK for triage into critical care. Not based on age, but on a 9 point "frailty scale".

That's all very well under normal circumstances, but when you're inundated with a lot of critical patients at once, patients struggling to breathe and unaccompanied by family because you're trying to limit everyone's exposure, how do you find out what someone's usual activity levels are or how often they need help?