robin_unreliant

Look - there are lots of nhs frontline staff who have VOLUNTARILY moved out of their family home, stayed at a hotel, and carried on working. Meanwhile, footballers on mega money are worried they will bring the virus home. That is totally within their own control. They stay way from their family for the period it takes to play the games, wait 2 weeks after it finishes, then go home. Protecting their family is not a valid reason not to re-start. They are unlikely to be personally seriously affected as they are young and fit. NHS workers on low wages have carried on working while protecting their family. Footballers on millions/year are not prepared to do the same? Fine - opt out and donate your salary to a charity if you can't face being isolated from family for a few weeks.

My dad is 84 and has COPD and other risk factors and thankfully is fine. Covid19 has only taken out a small proportion of that part of the population so far. The fact there are two different infections will double the chances that he might get one or other of them this winter. So it is quite possible that there will be a surge in deaths from both flu and covid19 at the same time.

My worry would be we get a double-whammy of flu and covid-19 this winter. Given that winter 17-18 excess deaths from flu were 50,000, which is similar to what we might end up with from this first wave, it could be double what we've seen so far over a similar period. Hence I think the so far under-utilised nightingale hospitals will be kept ready for the winter, just in case.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsinvolvingcovid19englandandwales/deathsoccurringinmarch2020#characteristics-of-those-dying-from-covid-19. According to the ONS 90% of those who died in the UK are over 65. So not accurate to say over 80 but the fact it is predominantly older people is true. Look at Fig 7 in this article. Around 60% are over 80. This is for March.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/11/30/winter-deaths-hit-highest-level-40-years-experts-blame-ineffective/amp/ According to this article there were around 50,000 excess UK deaths in one winter due to flu. That was only a couple of years ago. I agree Covid could be much higher than that if we get this badly wrong but also we need to balance the effect on public health of shutting down the rest of the NHS and a significant financial recession. In this context though football really isn't important at all.

Maybe we shouldn't play until measles cases are down to 0....or not play if there is a bad flu season this winter. Previous record for flu is around 28k deaths in one season. Where do you draw the line on public health priorities. There is a vaccination for both these diseases but that doesn't eliminate any risk.

Let's just assume the odd player tests positive. If the teams are all isolating, away from their families, just how much of a risk is this? According to the statistician on Marr this morning anyone under 25 has an infinitesimal chance of dying. Something like 1 in 2 million. So why would they be particularly worried about it? As long as you can create a 'bubble' and prevent any contact with outsiders the overwhelming odds are that no-one will get more than a mild illness. If the players refuse to take that risk, which should be totally within their rights, then they shouldn't expect to carry on getting paid £millions. Either play or choose not to and don't get paid until you go back to work. I guess some managers and staff will be in an older age group and there it all starts to get more complicated. However I don't see how the football fraternity can expect to carry on drawing mega salaries while refusing to do their job. I suspect if you told them they wouldn't be getting more than the furlough scheme limit of £2,500 they'd all be back out on a pitch lickety split.

Can you imagine no City fans if we got to a BCD play off final? There would be some who would try to get together near where it was played. Or people would get together locally. Just can't see how this could happen without causing a breakdown in social distancing...

SL is probably significantly out of pocket judging by the stock market indices. Quite probably a lot worse to come on that front too. I'm sure he's taken steps but a drop of 25-30% in the value of investments is gonna hurt even when you are a billionaire.

I just don't see how governments will be able to maintain lockdowns for months on end. They seem to have got themselves into a postion where there is no way out. I can't see society sticking to this for more than a couple of months. So hopefully we can start again by July, maybe with empty grounds.

If you don't mind me butting in I would say you are being a bit one-eyed too. Private companies do have contracts to treat NHS patients at the same cost as would be paid to an nhs provider. What they then do is set various criteria to filter out any complicated or risky patients e.g. those with co-morbidities or high BMI. In effect they cherry pick those they can do cost efficiently and leave the complicated cases to the NHS. Which undoubtedly makes them look efficient but is misleading.

Absolutely but mums, dads and grandparents are always dying. Judgements about whether to spend money keeping them alive are taken every day. It's what the NHS has to do as the govt limits its resource so decisions have to be made. We restrict some treatments so money is targeted to best effect but don't think that people aren't left to die routinely because it costs too much to extend their life. Working out how to deliver the best population health outcome from a set budget happens all the time. I just suspect what's happening now is totally out of step with the way this country has done it for many decades. If this is now the right way to do it let's remember that when it's over and we can't afford to finance the nhs again as the public finances have collapsed.

That was the kind of reaction I expected tbh. That isn't what I'm saying. Where is the shock and outrage for the 600,000 loved ones who die every year is the point. Why isn't there massive pressure to spend whatever it takes to save them when there isn't a pandemic. Why has everyone been happy to sit back and allow the govt to decide not to spend more on healthcare in the past when that is condemning people to die early? The reaction to this is at odds with how we normally decide spending on healthcate is all I'm saying.

The BBC online had a story recently around a prediction that 60% may be infected and 0.5% fatalties. That could be 200,00 of which the majority will be older people with other conditions. These are people they stated who could quite possibly have died in the next year or two anyway. 600,000 die in the uk annually in a typical year. All those stats make me wonder if trashing the economy is really the logical response. When NICE look at recommending a new treatment on the NHS they look at the cost compared to the benefit i. e. how many years of qualty life is delivered by spending £X. Why is that logic, which has contributed to controlling healthcare spending for many years, suddenly being abandoned? If this new logic, in terms of what we are prepared to spend to save lives, carries on once this is over we will probably need to quadruple the nhs budget! To me it feels as if all the normal logic around what we should spend on healthcare has been turned on its head in a mass panic. It felt like our govt was reacting quite logically initially, accepting that it is inevitable that the majority of people will eventually get it, whatever. However as other countries lockdown they couldn't politically resist the pressure to follow suit. If 200,000 end up dying anyway and on top of that a million jobs are lost and the national debt rockets then will we look back and think the govt did a good job in this crisis? On the other hand if, by some miracle, there are only 20,000 more deaths than usual will we be prepared to carry on spending at this same rate on the nhs budget to deliver the same kind of reduction in the normal death rate. I'm sure if we doubled the spend we could buy an extra year or two, on average, for those 600k dying every year. I doubt it - which suggests to me we have ditched the logic we use in normal times and are just reacting to mass panic.

Lucky you. I drove home from Newton Abbot to Cullompton to find the M5 closed at J28 due to a 'police incident'.

Two solid defensive displays away is a massive bonus. Well done to the players and coaching team. Starting to feel we may be able to move on and forget the big players we had to lose over the summer.

DaSilva for Watkins is all you need to do that really. I tend to agree that it looks a bit like not upsetting the bigger characters in the squad.

Seem to be three defenders and no striker (guess LJ counts JP and COD as attackers). If Eisa is fit that is disappointing.

You're obviously less superstitious than me. PLEASE don't tempt fate.

Did you have to ffs

Just as well as he's **** all use in attack.

Is that a request?

It's easier to look better when 2-0 behind. Opposition sits back on their lead. You see it all the time. Doesn't mean much.

Why did he bother buying Eisa? 2-0 down at home and a goal scorer stays with his arse glued to the bench.

FFS what's the point