Scrutable

Gentleman Jim wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2020 1:38 pm I dare say most in he field will already have access but for interested others:

https://www.thelancet.com/coronavirus?d ... onavirus20

open access

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lang ... 2/fulltext

Wow - all that buying of toilet paper doesn't look so silly now... lets hope everyone maintains good toilet hygiene... its present in the poop for a long time!

JellyandJackson wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2020 12:41 pm Thank you TopBadger.
We’re now much more concerned for her mates doing chemistry & biology who won’t get to do their practicals.

They won't necessarily cover the practical syllabus contents, but these books may be of interest...

Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments

Illustrated Guide to Home Biology Experiments


Google Books has quite a bit of the contents available in 'Preview' mode
Chemistry
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DuJ ... &q&f=false

Biology
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=POy ... &q&f=false

Grumble wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2020 1:17 pm

Blackcountryboy wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2020 12:40 pm https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland- ... s-51972372

Most probably they will be people on minimum wage living hand to mouth, some of them also losing their accommodation.

Britannia Hotels are a truly awful organisation. Consistently slated for being filthy as well, not surprised to find they would do this kind of thing.

We stayed 2 or 3 nights at one a few years ago, it was awful.

TopBadger wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2020 1:49 pm

Gentleman Jim wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2020 1:38 pm I dare say most in he field will already have access but for interested others:

https://www.thelancet.com/coronavirus?d ... onavirus20

open access

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lang ... 2/fulltext

Wow - all that buying of toilet paper doesn't look so silly now... lets hope everyone maintains good toilet hygiene... its present in the poop for a long time!

To be accurate, viral RNA is present in faeces: but what is unknown is whether it is 'viable' - that is, can it infect somebody else? Quite a few people will be looking for evidence either way.

For example, it could be that the digestive tract is not a good place for the lipid bilayer coat that envelops the RNA, so the RNA found is a result of virus particles being damaged and rendered incapable of infection by normal digestive conditions. On the other hand, the virus might be quite capable of surviving all that, and the faecal route is a potent source of infection. We just don't currently know.

To be safe, when you are coughing don't swallow the mucus. Spit it out on the floor of the bus instead.

TopBadger wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2020 1:49 pm

Gentleman Jim wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2020 1:38 pm I dare say most in he field will already have access but for interested others:

https://www.thelancet.com/coronavirus?d ... onavirus20

open access

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lang ... 2/fulltext

Wow - all that buying of toilet paper doesn't look so silly now... lets hope everyone maintains good toilet hygiene... its present in the poop for a long time!

Mike Patton is disappoint.

Gentleman Jim wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2020 1:22 pm

JellyandJackson wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2020 12:41 pm Thank you TopBadger.
We’re now much more concerned for her mates doing chemistry & biology who won’t get to do their practicals.

If it helps, I will be spending the next x weeks, carrying out all AQA required practicals to give reference results when school resumes
I'll be on here as much as I can if they have any questions

Thank you, and thanks Gfamily too. Truly, you people are splendid.

A global map showing the strength of rrestrictions: https://twitter.com/BenQuinn75/status/1 ... 6666157057

UK and Sweden looking rather different to the rest of Europe.

https://twitter.com/azeem/status/1240999015346470912

Tim Martin, who runs a lot of pubs, is saying that there is almost no transmission of the virus in pubs (for once in a blue moon I find myself agreeing with Piers Morgan, who is unimpressed), and the UK should definitely not close the pubs.

Also he seems to think the Prime Minister should get pissed.

ICU beds maxed out in two localities: Harrow and Lewisham. Patients being transferred to nearby hospitals.

Stay safe then JQH

Little waster wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2020 3:47 pm Received an email from the bairn's school regarding the school closing tomorrow, so loads of notice.

Basic points are the school are going to post online various resources and activities to try and keep the kids' hand in in regards to English and Maths; all other aspects of the curriculum are to to be covered by watching Horrible Histories and Blue Planet(!).

In regards to "key workers", the school acknowledges that that is a thing but states they've yet to receive any guidance at all from the Government of who constitutes a key worker. So that's obviously going to work grand.

As a follow-up the Littlest Waster's primary school got the official list of key workers ... at 1am this morning, the teachers are now figuring out how this going to work as we speak too late to pass this onto the parents easily.

Went to pick up an activity pack this afternoon with further work to follow by email. Also picked up the key worker form for Mrs Waster, they iterated that the school would only take the kids if both parents are key workers/single-parent family which is NOT what I understand government policy is so confusion still reigns.

Heard from a Deputy Head acquaintance of mine at a local secondary school. They did a quick headcount today of how many children are covered by the key worker policy (presumably following the one parent rule) of a school of 1600, 800 will be eligible, once again rendering the whole exercise fairly pointless.

Today and yesterday groups of teenagers have been aimlessly wandering the streets round here during the school day.

sTeamTraen wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2020 9:10 am

Pucksoppet wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2020 8:38 am
Which is disappointing, to say the least. Normally kids love finding holes in adults' arguments, and gleefully point out inconsistencies. I'm sorry you had a bad experience of it.

Perhaps it could be taught in a better way than they way you experienced?

I haven't met you IRL as far as I know, but I hope you will allow me to assume that you, like most of the members of this board, love finding holes in other people's arguments. It's possibly the #1 reason many of us are here, probably associated with an IQ over 120 (i.e., in the top 10% of the population).

I was that kid too -- when I was 9 I had a teacher whose every spelling mistake I pointed out gleefully (she hated it, but I thought, FFS, just learn how to spell). But it does not surprise me in the least that most kids would not enjoy this. Many of them have trouble fully understanding a lot of abstract concepts anyway, and resort to rote learning to get through exams (even I did that for O-level Latin).

My eldest daughter has discussed that with me. She made a deliberate choice to actively correct her French teacher at GCSE because she realised that otherwise her teacher was giving the kids incorrect information about French grammar and vocabulary. That was quite a common occurrence, unfortunately. We were amused to see that when her younger siblings came to GCSE French, the teacher was using her work as model answers - we recognised the handwriting as well as the wording.

For me, I did the same, but it was never as common and just correcting brain-farts which happen to anyone.

lpm wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2020 12:57 pm The correct Brexit parallel is when we were disputing UK experts by quoting EU experts. Currently we are disputing UK experts in exactly the same way. Plus we can quote contradictory things that UK experts and politicians are saying - e.g. when they claim one thing but do another.

Loosely related to the above topic, this piece by Simon Wren-Lewis is worth a read:

mainly macro (2020-03-16) Coronavirus and the consequences of a compliant media

...it was Amartya Sen who suggested that a free press meant less deaths in famines, and now we can see why.

Gentleman Jim wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2020 3:19 pm Stay safe then JQH

Cheers. Apart from food shopping I'm not going out so I hope I'll be ok.

Grumble wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2020 1:17 pm

Blackcountryboy wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2020 12:40 pm https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland- ... s-51972372

Most probably they will be people on minimum wage living hand to mouth, some of them also losing their accommodation.

Britannia Hotels are a truly awful organisation. Consistently slated for being filthy as well, not surprised to find they would do this kind of thing.

You may remember this bunch of charmers from this little episode.

sTeamTraen wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2020 9:24 am
Do we have enough cases/deaths/understanding of testing patterns yet to understand why Germany is having so few deaths relative to its neighbours?

Um, they have more ventilators per head? It has to be a difference in treatment or testing, I suppose.

TopBadger wrote:Telling people we're more weeks behind Italy than we are as per numbers is more likely to be an attempt to control panic than to be accurate with the science.

Like not mentioning all the scary provisions in the emergency bill, or telling us how many ICU beds are left.

And look how well that's working out. Perhaps it would've worked better if they didn't have Johnson doing a press conference every day. It's painful to watch when a journalist asking him a perfectly reasonable question that anyone could have come up with, like 'who are these key workers then?' and he answers 'we'll tell you tomorrow'. The last thing you want a leader to do right now is seem unprepared, and yet that's how he comes across.

Or to have his bl..dy dad immediately contradict the advice.

sTeamTraen wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2020 3:10 pm Tim Martin, who runs a lot of pubs, is saying that there is almost no transmission of the virus in pubs (for once in a blue moon I find myself agreeing with Piers Morgan, who is unimpressed), and the UK should definitely not close the pubs.

Also he seems to think the Prime Minister should get pissed.

Boris bans the fun industry.

Did he confirm whether restaurants can still operate as takeaways and do delivery?

I'd assume so but not seen it anywhere and missed the press conference.

badger wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2020 6:02 pm Did he confirm whether restaurants can still operate as takeaways and do delivery?

I'd assume so but not seen it anywhere and missed the press conference.

Yes they can - just seen the clip!

raven wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2020 5:39 pm

sTeamTraen wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2020 9:24 am
Do we have enough cases/deaths/understanding of testing patterns yet to understand why Germany is having so few deaths relative to its neighbours?

Um, they have more ventilators per head? It has to be a difference in treatment or testing, I suppose.

TopBadger wrote:Telling people we're more weeks behind Italy than we are as per numbers is more likely to be an attempt to control panic than to be accurate with the science.

Like not mentioning all the scary provisions in the emergency bill, or telling us how many ICU beds are left.

And look how well that's working out. Perhaps it would've worked better if they didn't have Johnson doing a press conference every day. It's painful to watch when a journalist asking him a perfectly reasonable question that anyone could have come up with, like 'who are these key workers then?' and he answers 'we'll tell you tomorrow'. The last thing you want a leader to do right now is seem unprepared, and yet that's how he comes across.

Or to have his bl..dy dad immediately contradict the advice.

How many journalists have been sent out to try and get a picture of Stanley in the pub tonight.

This is a good Twitter thread on the SAGE data that has been released: https://twitter.com/whippletom/status/1 ... aC1OYKA5H0

The higher CFR for men seems to be retained in other countries, ones with not such a sharp smoking differential as China. Maybe the simple story of women suffer more, die less?

Interesting article arguing that one needs to suppress the epidemic and get R₀ below 1 asp.

Medium (2020-03-19): Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance - What the Next 18 Months Can Look Like, if Leaders Buy Us Time

Worth a quick read.