Harry

Yes! @cheesleysmate. Superb Not sure why his tag ain’t working? Is he on here still!

4,789 new cases yesterday. 5,239 new cases today. They’ve increased today by 450. Unless the site I’m using is wrong, they’re not coming down.

I always used to say to my staff : There are no stupid questions. Just inquisitive idiots.

Am I the only one seeing a chunky las in a short skirt on your car? Or am I going stir crazy already?

NHS funding has been a problem since it came into being in 1948. The 1944 white paper estimated the annual cost at £132m. In the first full year in 1948, the actual cost was £248m. By 1951 it had increased to £384m. The system has been playing catch-up since day 1.

Sorry for the multiple quotes but I wanted to make a couple of points. The US system is multi-faceted. They have Medicare, which offers state-funded healthcare for the over 65’s and for the disabled. They have Medicaid which offers state-funded healthcare based on means testing. Then they have Private Healthcare for those who are deemed to be able to “afford it”. What many people don’t realise is that the state funded programme covers 64% of treatment and makes up 17.1% of their GDP. Compare that to ours at 9%. So the US spend nearly twice as much in terms of GDP than we do. We are also the 13th ranked in Europe for spending vs GDP. There is a lot wrong with their system, as there is with ours. But it’s important to make the point that it is not a system whereby everyone gets turned away or face huge bills if they don’t have insurance. They spend more than we do and a large part of the population DO get free healthcare. I’m not gonna get into the rights and wrongs but just want to make that point.

I think the weather hasn’t helped the situation this weekend. It’s rained pretty much every day for about 4 months and then, the one day we’re all advised to stay indoors, out comes the sun. I doubt all those day trippers to Weston, Snowdonia etc wouldn’t have gone if it was pissing down with rain. It’s absolutely ridiculous. Why the **** are people taking a trip to the ******* seaside when they’ve been advised to stay in! It’s this sort of behaviour that will lead to the army on the streets. Clearly the general public can not be trusted to take on board these simple instructions, so it’s time to lockdown and for the army to patrol.

To be honest, it was meant fairly tongue in cheek. Yes, going out for essentials is necessary. Of course. Many are going out for whatever reason.

Man who is out on Gloucester Road criticises other people for being on Gloucester Road. You are part of the problem, sir.

Have you got a beer fridge in the garage?

Exactly. As I said a fair few pages ago now - political arguments are pointless right now. This situation is much bigger than anything we’ve ever faced. Politics is out of the window. This needs a joint effort by everyone to get us through. Whoever was in charge would’ve done pretty much the same thing. No one in politics is responsible for anything. This is a virus. It’s unprecedented. No one has any clue how to deal it and mistakes will be made. Not on purpose, or for any political gain, but simply because we just don’t know what to do for the best. Quit the political shyte please everyone.

Not that I actually care much about football at the moment, but hopefully, whenever we come out the other side of this hell, maybe, just maybe, we might see a wholesale change of how football operates. An idea could be that, hear me out, I know it’s totally revolutionary, but maybe clubs could only spend what they earn. Just imagine.

Yep, saw that a couple of weeks ago. Basically, there is a very large Chinese population in Italy, many of their factories, particularly in the north, are owned by Chinese or have a significant workforce from China. Thoughts are that many of the +300,000 Chinese returned to China for their new year and then came back to Italy carrying the virus. Italy is one of few places (apparently) with direct flights to Wuhan, and there is a very particular concentration of Chinese in northern Italy. Add to this the fact that Italy has more percentage of older folks than anywhere else and you have yourself a perfect storm. Whilst in the U.K. we have more Chinese living here, there isn’t the dense concentration of that population in any particular area. Some northern Italian towns have over 6% of their population as Chinese. We have nothing more than around 2% in any town. That all said, we are clearly on a similar trajectory to Italy in terms of deaths, so that is a concern. I can only guess that this is likely due to us not closing borders earlier. Hindsight is wonderful, as they say, but I do find myself thinking we should’ve stopped all flights from China as soon as this started and we should’ve maybe even quarantined all incomings, from anywhere, for 14 days, as many countries are now doing. However, I can’t begin to imagine the outrage and panic if we’d closed our borders back in January. I don’t think it would’ve been very popular!

Currently near the end of season 2 of El Chapo. It’s good, as long as you can get over the terrible dubbing that doesn’t match the subtitles. Also currently on Better Call Saul. Highly recommended. Recently watched The Witcher. Very much enjoyed that and looking forward to series 2.

Was good until the last episode. Very rushed finale I thought.

Yep. I mentioned this all the way back on page 2 or 3 I think, of this thread. My sister in law regularly visits China for her work. She returned in mid December and felt terrible. She was told she had severe pneumonia and was given some pretty strong drugs. Me and the family spent Xmas at her house, for 3 days and every one of us was ill with these corona symptoms shortly afterwards. It’s fairly common knowledge now that the first cases of this in China were Nov/Dec so I’m convinced the sister in law came back with this. She was ill for weeks, really badly. And she passed it, in a milder form, onto all of us. She also said that literally everyone on her flight home was complaining of feeling ill. Edit - it was page 6

Pops, you seem to regularly misunderstand what I say. My post was specifically in regard to the chap who is high risk, and has the facility to wfh. My amazement would be if such an employer refused wfh for such an individual.

Good luck with everything you two. Hope all goes well. If it’s any consolation, my experience of having kids is that your Mrs will be shattered and will not really want to see anyone for a couple of weeks anyway. So you’ve probably got a very well timed self-lockdown situation. If you are in a high risk group and your employer is refusing your request to work from home then your employer is a total dick. If they don’t allow it, call in sick and say you have symptoms. You don’t need a Dr‘s note to prove it, just say you called 111 and they instructed you to stay at home. Technically, if you call in sick then you are entitled to sick pay from day 1. However, if your employer does the right thing and allows you to work from home then that’s the best scenario. I’d be amazed if employers are refusing this, if it’s available.

None. And that’s exactly the point. The clear advice at present is that those who can work from home should. Because there are many that can’t. So it’s a slowly slowly process. If employers are refusing those that can, then they are dicks, simple as. My wife’s job requires her to be there in person. She can’t serve a table if she’s not there. So, if her restaurant is open this weekend then she’ll have to be there. Likelihood is that they won’t be open as they’ve had 500 cancellations yesterday. As I said to rumred earlier, I don’t see where the ambiguity is. If you can work from home, you should. This reduces the movement of people significantly enough to reduce the risk of spread, slowing it enough for the NHS to be able to cope. It’s all about stemming the flow and gradually introducing harsher and harsher actions, whilst relying on the public to abide by the advice in the meantime. Give it a few more days and everything will be shut. No one will be earning any money and the government will need to have an income protection plan in place for ALL workers. For now, and prior to the BIG shutdown, people should abide by the advice to try to reduce the case count. Loads of people are going to die, whichever way this is handled. And everyone is going to suffer loss of earnings, whichever way this is handled. We are quite literally in a no-win situation. Everyone.

Should be easier if working at a big national. They would be more likely to have pandemic planning policies in place. Whether they’re fit for purpose is another thing but they’d certainly have to have a disaster recovery plan. But they’ve got the richest man in the world to bail them out. Haven’t they?

If you have the ability to work from home then you should do so. That’s the advice. That’ll keep the salary coming for those people. Of course there are HUGE challenges to come for many people who won’t be able to work and whose employers have to close. I know all about that, as my wife works in a restaurant who’ve had 500 cancellations yesterday and is likely to be let go. Yes, the government have a massive role to play in ensuring there is as little impact to people and businesses as possible. Big big challenge. But that’s a totally different argument to “I can work from home but I’ve decided not to because my employer isn’t following the advice”.

Ha ha. That’s mint news. He’s been a proper dick over the last few weeks. Every program he’s been on he’s been going totally against all advice and positively ‘encouraging’ people to book holidays. He’s been bleating on about “there’s great deals to be had here” and “you can get a flight and hotel for 3 nights in Venice for less than £100”. He’s a total imbecile and I’m glad he’s stuck in Yemen.

Your employer doesn’t need to be “told” by anyone else. The advice is quite clear. I’d suggest you speak to your employer yourself and inform them, that due to government advice, you are going to work from home. If they refuse, then it’s your employer who is being a dick, rather than Boris, whom you were so keen to blame earlier.

Well I thought the ‘advice’ was quite clear yesterday. If you have the ability to work from home then you should. That was made quite clear. As for those “at risk”, it’s also quite clear that those who are in at risk categories should stay away from work or any kind of social gathering. Whilst this is just ‘advice’ at this stage, I think you are incorrect to say that it’s not been made clear. It’s really quite, quite clear that if you have the ability to work from home (which you have said you can easily do) then you should. I don’t know what is in any way ambiguous about that? https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-guidance-on-social-distancing-and-for-vulnerable-people/guidance-on-social-distancing-for-everyone-in-the-uk-and-protecting-older-people-and-vulnerable-adults

You’ve tagged me twice now and got it wrong both times. I firmly believe that once this situation REALLY hits the fan that the whole economy collapses. Everyone will need support. Everyone. I find it very hard to believe that the banks will start evicting people for non payment of mortgages. We will quite literally all be in this together. Not sure why you’ve developed a very incorrect impression of me?