Scrutable

lpm wrote: Mon Mar 16, 2020 11:48 pm https://twitter.com/hancocktom/status/1 ... 04032?s=09

Can this FT claim really be true? The models were based on viral pneumonia instead of Covid?

Grumble wrote: Mon Mar 16, 2020 10:59 pm I’ve seen a plausible claim on twitter that the only actual powers he has for this kind of situation are in the civil contingencies act, but those are limited to 30 days so the government don’t want to use those yet. Parliament may have to grant government more powers.

raven wrote: Mon Mar 16, 2020 11:59 pm

Grumble wrote: Mon Mar 16, 2020 10:59 pm I’ve seen a plausible claim on twitter that the only actual powers he has for this kind of situation are in the civil contingencies act, but those are limited to 30 days so the government don’t want to use those yet. Parliament may have to grant government more powers.

Looks like Hancock will outline emergency legislation on Tuesday, followed by voting it through on Thursday:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51916076

We clearly need an army of volunteers to help vulnerable people get groceries. It's perplexing the government hadn't thought of that before telling large groups of people to start social distancing. But people seem to be leaping into the leadership vacuum & co-ordinating volunteers themselves:
https://covidmutualaid.org/resources/

lpm is right. We need to chuck the rules out of the window and just do what needs doing. If airlines can't fly, make their creditors give them a payment holiday for the duration so they can just mothball everything for a few months and avoid bankruptcy. If ordinary people can't work & aren't getting paid, give them a mortgage/rent holiday for the duration too and make sure they have a basic income to buy food.

This is the kind of radical solution those wierdos and misfits should be coming up with, isn't it.

Cardinal Fang wrote: Mon Mar 16, 2020 8:11 pm Not sure the Government is living in the real world any more.

They're saying that if one person in any household has a persistent cough or fever, everyone living there must stay at home for 14 days, and that all of them should, if possible, avoid leaving the house "even to buy food or essentials".

Except that the country has gone so nuts that supermarket delivery slots are non existent, so how are these people going to get food and the like - especially given we've also been told not to stockpile. In large parts of the country, particularly in the South, people don't know their neighbours so it's not like you can just ask your neighbour next door to grab you some things from the supermarket.

CF

headshot wrote: Mon Mar 16, 2020 8:25 pmI’ve just delivered leaflets to 25 houses either side of ours on our street asking that we all try to work together to support one-another with help getting food or chatting things through.

I suggest you and others start doing the same.

lpm wrote: Mon Mar 16, 2020 11:44 pm Oh, and not just complex stuff like ventilators - there's not even basic stuff ready like PPE. How hard is it to build a hospital bed? f.cking easy, that's how hard.

JQH wrote: Mon Mar 16, 2020 10:46 pm Seen a claim on FaceBook that Johnson is only "advising" people not to go to pubs etc rater than ordering the venues to close because if he did the latter the venues could claim on their business insurance. While this fits in with my prejudices about Johnson, I've no clue how this kind of insurance actually works and hence whether there's any truth in the post. Anybody better informed?

Given the new advice relayed by Boris Johnson at his press conference concerning COVID 19 this afternoon, the doors are open for now. (please do not visit if you are sick) We are currently stuck between a rock and a hard place. Morally we would love to close but financially, we can't. We already have advised all staff to wear gloves and wash their hands regularly behind the bar, we currently use single-use plastic disposable glasses and we now only accept card at the bar to prevent contamination from cash transactions.

Because of this government's lack of preparedness and refusal to actually enforce closures of pubs/clubs/music venues, as it stands we will not receive our business interruption insurance. As a direct result of that, this could be it for us. We cannot survive a multi-week to month(s) closure.

mikeh wrote: Mon Mar 16, 2020 7:00 pm For what its worth, blog post from me on this evenings updates, plus the new Imperial College London modelling paper (unsure if its upthread anywhere, if not already seen then there's lot of data to unpick and its clearly informed CMO policy)

https://medium.com/@michael.g.head/uk-c ... 6e146e4be3

EACLucifer wrote: Mon Mar 16, 2020 11:18 pm Tool up time is probably faster now than the kind of serial production we were doing then for armaments.

That said, the time lost is inexcusable. There is a lead time on production of any product; that could have been underway in January at very little cost if the products were not needed, and it was not.

The same things that worked then would work now, though. It's too late for the Shadow Factories approach, though it would have given us a head start, it isn't too late for some of the other tricks, namely distributed production of components with centralised assembly and testing, and also kicking all intellectual property issues into the long grass. Build now, a comission can work out who gets paid what later.

lpm wrote: Mon Mar 16, 2020 11:48 pm https://twitter.com/hancocktom/status/1 ... 04032?s=09

Can this really be true? The models were based on viral pneumonia instead of Covid?

purplehaze wrote: Mon Mar 16, 2020 5:16 pm What is going on now?

What does SAGE mean?

I'm not sure what Alexander Johnson is talking about.

Mass gatherings?

Over 70s?

Travel restrictions?

What is the government advice.

lpm wrote: Mon Mar 16, 2020 11:48 pm https://twitter.com/hancocktom/status/1 ... 04032?s=09

Can this really be true? The models were based on viral pneumonia instead of Covid?

veravista wrote: Tue Mar 17, 2020 8:28 am OK, serious question. How hard would it be to knock up a crude but serviceable ventilator? When I was at college we did this sort of thing for water pumps and the like that could be knocked up out of wood, piping and corrugated iron. I'm not talking an all singing and dancing machine that goes beep, but just enough to get by safely. In our village we have all sorts of practical people who have access to lathes, milling machines,3D printers and the like. Get a community design for one and small groups could make millions of them.

veravista wrote: Tue Mar 17, 2020 8:28 am OK, serious question. How hard would it be to knock up a crude but serviceable ventilator? When I was at college we did this sort of thing for water pumps and the like that could be knocked up out of wood, piping and corrugated iron. I'm not talking an all singing and dancing machine that goes beep, but just enough to get by safely. In our village we have all sorts of practical people who have access to lathes, milling machines,3D printers and the like. Get a community design for one and small groups could make millions of them.

lpm wrote: Tue Mar 17, 2020 9:14 am

veravista wrote: Tue Mar 17, 2020 8:28 am OK, serious question. How hard would it be to knock up a crude but serviceable ventilator? When I was at college we did this sort of thing for water pumps and the like that could be knocked up out of wood, piping and corrugated iron. I'm not talking an all singing and dancing machine that goes beep, but just enough to get by safely. In our village we have all sorts of practical people who have access to lathes, milling machines,3D printers and the like. Get a community design for one and small groups could make millions of them.

veravista wrote: Tue Mar 17, 2020 8:28 am OK, serious question. How hard would it be to knock up a crude but serviceable ventilator? When I was at college we did this sort of thing for water pumps and the like that could be knocked up out of wood, piping and corrugated iron. I'm not talking an all singing and dancing machine that goes beep, but just enough to get by safely. In our village we have all sorts of practical people who have access to lathes, milling machines,3D printers and the like. Get a community design for one and small groups could make millions of them.

The proper ones are incredibly complex - always feeding back and adjusting with every breath. I think it sort of puts resistance in so the lungs have to keep working a bit, and this resistance must constantly change. They self-check themselves every second and give clear messages to nurses.

You could have grades A, B and C - but even C would need to be far beyond what you are talking about.

I wonder what happened to old ventilators when new and better versions came along. It would have been sensible to stockpile them, and have old 1990s versions lying around ready for a really bad flu season or a pandemic. No doubt the UK never had the foresight, but other countries?

Woodchopper wrote: Tue Mar 17, 2020 5:52 am

lpm wrote: Mon Mar 16, 2020 11:48 pm https://twitter.com/hancocktom/status/1 ... 04032?s=09

Can this really be true? The models were based on viral pneumonia instead of Covid?

Better link: https://twitter.com/hancocktom/status/1 ... 5586604032

veravista wrote: Tue Mar 17, 2020 8:28 am OK, serious question. How hard would it be to knock up a crude but serviceable ventilator? When I was at college we did this sort of thing for water pumps and the like that could be knocked up out of wood, piping and corrugated iron. I'm not talking an all singing and dancing machine that goes beep, but just enough to get by safely. In our village we have all sorts of practical people who have access to lathes, milling machines,3D printers and the like. Get a community design for one and small groups could make millions of them.

lpm wrote: Tue Mar 17, 2020 9:15 am
The proper ones are incredibly complex - always feeding back and adjusting with every breath. I think it sort of puts resistance in so the lungs have to keep working a bit, and this resistance must constantly change. They self-check themselves every second and give clear messages to nurses.

You could have grades A, B and C - but even C would need to be far beyond what you are talking about.

I wonder what happened to old ventilators when new and better versions came along. It would have been sensible to stockpile them, and have old 1990s versions lying around ready for a really bad flu season or a pandemic. No doubt the UK never had the foresight, but other countries?

AMS wrote: Mon Mar 16, 2020 10:12 pm

lpm wrote: Mon Mar 16, 2020 8:16 pm
Crucially, we will not import health resources (we cannot import ICU nurses and presumably no country will be mad enough to sell us their ventilators). We have local resources to exploit instead. So many that we can rotate people in and out if they get sick. We have unemployed people who can design, manufacture and deliver materiel to front line troops, and to build hundreds of Treatment Centres, and act as support staff.

In WW2 it took 8 months to train a fighter pilot, it is a 22 week course to train an army medic. A huge well educated country can do pretty much anything if that is its only focus.

This is not as hard a task as it looks. In 6 months there could be a bed and nurse for every patient and many multiples of current ICU beds. Governments are able to ignore money. All it needs is to list your resource priorities, list your unused resources, and start redirecting.

One thing I've been wondering - we should soon have tests for serum antibodies to check who for sure has recovered from the virus. While there's an unclear risk of reinfection, the expanding immune population are a high value resource, and it would be good to think what roles they could be used for.