Penguin68

but people have been reinfected in much less than the 6-12 months that you (randomly) guesstimate I don't believe there is any evidence of re-infection anywhere - some early cases were re-interpreted as testing failures. Can you cite any authority for this? - I would be happy to stand corrected.

I'm not sure how this is a scam - of course encouraging people to eat 'for cheap' is misleading (and false advertising) if it isn't, and if they were both charging full price and indenting the government for the 50% up to ?10 that's clearly wrong, but they wouldn't have the invoice paperwork to back this up - but if they're simply not offering the deal then they gain nothing (they receive for the meal only what they would have received, but all from the punter and not some from the government). So they make no more money. Clearly the punter isn't getting what they thought they should - but the outlet isn't then making any additional money or profit. So it's misleading and false advertising but they are not profiting from it. Indeed they are losing goodwill by so doing. I can understand why you would think that they weren't dealing fairly - you were conned - but I'm not sure it's, as such, a scam (unless they are charging full price but in some way getting additional funds from the government).

The number of new cases has nearly doubled in Southwark in the last week and numbers are rising across London. From a low base, of course. In terms of real impact, it is the numbers being admitted to hospital, of those, those moving to ICU, of those, those being ventilated which are the important figures. And these still seem low. The young seem admirably fitted to throw off this virus with little real impact on their health. For many, it is no more alarming than a common cold, for some even less so. So long as they stay away from the elderly and vulnerable the more young people who get it, the better, frankly, if they do gain some immunity (6 months to a year?) which is now being suggested. In effect, they are being inoculated against the virus - and will start to build the numbers that herd immunity would require. I would suggest to the young - go out and party, rub together, enjoy life - but stay away from the vulnerable - social distance when you are not partying, wear masks on public transport and in enclosed spaces. And if the vulnerable keep up the hand washing, mask wearing and social distancing we may get through this OK.

where a forwarding server is blocking i.e. not forwarding, our emails. It's worth checking whether people with problems (sending or receiving) are using VPNs. Sometimes VPN usage can cause problems where IP addresses aren't as anticipated, or may even be overseas.

To save me looking it up, can anyone tell me which political party run those Councils which did the semi structured interviews I used to work in, well commission, market research. When we actually wanted to find stuff out, not prove a point. It was very difficult to devise questions which did not lead responses - most political research commissioned by parties - I am generalising but not much - is designed to provide ammunition to sell a particular (political) idea - it is not about striving for truth. You only have to read the questionnaires created for Southwark to realise that. [Which is why at election times, parties, who then actually do need to know which way the wind blows, commission private research which is regularly not published.] My base-line in interpreting any published research results is to ask - 'who benefits?'. It means that research undertaken for political entities which is then published should be treated with hundredweights of salt.

Nothing in over 2 weeks off silvester road The irony!

For the sixth weekend running the Orange line through Honor Oak Park has been fully suspended, and TfL has closed numbers of tube stations daily outside rush hours. And yet we are told to abandon our cars and walk or bicycle anywhere we need to go. Well, nuts to that. Whilst an integrated transport policy isn't apparently possible (as Southwark and TfL operate to entirely different agendas) and whilst we in the south of the borough are so poorly supplied with public transport options (weekend closures of lines are always with us) I find it completely insulting that I should be harangued by the car hating brigade (many of whom do not apparently live locally and may well live in those flat parts of London well supplied with public transport not regularly suspended).

Many of the cases being uncovered follow significant increases in testing and include people generally asymptomatic - the 'false positive' figures are significant once the actual infection rate is very low - roughly 10 in 10,000 will falsely test positive (that is, the test is 99.9% accurate in terms of 'clearing' the non-infected). That means that, if there are 150,000 tests in a day - which is the broad run-rate - you will find 150 false positives. [There are also false negatives, of course, and that figure would be higher] - However, if no one at all had Covid, 150,000 tests would still say the number with Covid was 150. So once the numbers infected get low (as they are at the moment) the 'headline' positive number may be misleading (this isn't an issue with very high infection rates, of course, where false positives are statistical 'noise'). Additionally you need to consider the severity of cases - the numbers being admitted to hospital are not rising significantly (indeed are low) as are those in ICU or ventilators. Flu and non-Covid pneumonia are currently the significant killers in hospital settings, rather than Covid 19. If you are unhappy with social distancing around you - then avoid it. I know some people who remain in voluntary lock-down still, and that is their choice. But for the vast majority of those reading this forum, it is not our job to police social distancing, or to make decisions on other's behalf. I might report rats or mice or cockroaches in places that sell food, but not, I think, behaviour.

I bought this parking barrier for my drive-way - it's not currently available (it was very good value) but there are alternatives. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B078Z9QJP2?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_dt_b_product_details

Loss of taste/smell, lung impairment plus sustained organ damage to liver, heart, kidneys and brain. Many of the long-term - and most devastating - effects are the consequence of cytokine storms (when the body's own immune system turns on it). These were certainly also a consequence of the pneumonia's triggered by the Spanish flu - although far fewer people survived this to suffer consequential long term effects. The ability to trigger cytokine storms is by no means unique to Covid-19. So we may be seeing - in 'symptoms' - the results of quite different assaults on the body - for the vast majority of those infected the impacts are quite benign (indeed in perhaps a third of cases unnoticeable) - for a few, where storms are triggered, these can instead be devastating. If this was 'designed' (and I don't remotely think it was) it was very badly designed. Unless by millennials wanting to get their inheritance early and free up the housing market. Or hospital administrators wanting to clear out the bed blockers.

The comflict between scientists is a reality we cannot ignore. I think at this stage 'conflict' is a loaded word. There is still very little known for certain about what appears to be an evolving virus. As, frankly, is 'scientist' (a loaded word). Additionally you have both 'hard' science in operation, and statistical modelling - what we can be absolutely certain about is that we can't at the moment be absolutely certain about anything (and in science that is actually almost a requirement). Governments are driven at the moment by the precautionary principle (with the USA and Brasil clearly outliers here). So they are being very conservative as regards any public health upsides and very open to accepting the possibility of public health downsides. I suspect they will be shown to have been over-cautious - but (in terms of death toll) that's what we might want. Economies can recover, generally, and over time - dead people can't.

The government's quarantine requirements cover all entrants from the 'forbidden' countries, regardless of individual health conditions. You are correct that there are no certain figures for immunity after previous infection, although there are no proven cases of 'second' infections. [There were suggestions earlier on that there might have been some, but problems with testing mean that it was uncertain whether they had actually recovered before being tested positive again.] If you have had it, however, I would personally be a lot less worried about contracting it again this year at least.

And it is a fair note of caution, because mutation, or significant drift, would make this virus more dangerous if we can not create a modifiable vaccine for it, so everyone is looking for evidence of it at every stage. Actually, truly random drift is as likely to make the virus less, as more, dangerous to humans. Darwinian drift may do also, as it is not in the virus' best interests to kill its hosts - they need to be ill enough to spread the virus, but ideally for a long time. Rather like the common cold, a sister corona-virus. But you are of course right that a virus with shifting genetics but where it remains equally dangerous in terms of effect will make effective immunisation that more problematic.

It isn't the council making rash decisions it's a social experiment across the UK and further afield. Most people who participate in 'experiments' get the option to decide (at least collectively) whether to participate; - numbers of councils have used the emergency Covid-19 legislation to force through 'experiments' which have either never been tested for acceptability with participants or which have been tested and previously rejected.

This week's Private Eye picks up on the same issue, but in Lewisham, where 'Covid enabled' closures are forcing traffic away from wealthy and into more mixed neighbourhoods. They suggest it's a London-wide problem of over eager councils.

And funnily enough those were the Dulwich Hill Ward councillor's own comments on the original proposal, but they've been totally ignored. All quite strange ! Well, they'll be up for punishment beatings and re-education then from the Tooley St. apparat. The Goose Green squad have been keeping their noses well clean. They know the score.

with a GP practice if replaced by such a private entity ALL GP practices are private entities - GPs contract with the NHS, certainly, and sometimes (most frequently) exclusively, but GPs are not directly employed by the NHS (unlike hospital doctors, numbers of whom also undertake private work). The NHS has always, since its inception, been a mixture of private (primary care) and public (hospitals etc.) provision. What you are complaining about is the entry into the primary sector of publicly quoted commercial companies (but GP practices are also commercial, though more frequently partnerships like accountants and lawyers). Some are however wholly owned by wealthy individuals or families. For most GP patients it is the administrative side (i.e. appointments etc,) which most frequently go wrong, most people have generally good things to say about the medical practitioners - so maybe having a commercial company professionally good at administration might not be a bad thing. Just a thought. But don't get precious about primary care, it's not the socialist uplands of your dreams.

Do remember there are valid reasons for adults not wearing a mask - including their own health conditions and if they are accompanying someone who relies on lip reading for communication. A friend of mine is profoundly deaf and without the ability to lip read would be very isolated. For very young children a parent in a mask may be quite scary as well (and young children are not required to wear masks). Certainly some non-mask wearers will be simply ignoring the rather-more-than-just-advice - but some few others will not be wearing a mask quite legitimately.

COVID is not the mass killer we think it is - its just a flu bug and its doing what those bugs always do. NO, it is absolutely NOT a flu bug. It's symptoms, for many people, are similar to flu, and resulting pneumonia is also a consequence of flu, but some symptoms (anosmia - loss of taste and smell) are different - and it's long term impacts for a few (possibly more than a few) are far worse than for flu, from which most people will fully recover. Unlike flu it has multiple asymptomatic carriers, and people become infectious up to 3 or 4 days before they display any symptoms, if they do at all. It's anyway an entirely different family of virus from flu. Flu treatments (other than analgesics) don't work on it either to relieve symptoms or shorten duration. So far the first wave, as it's peaked and plateaued has killed .01% of the population - in most countries which are now past the first tranche, unless they locked down very early and very firmly. A second wave is now hitting those countries. Oh, and there's a vaccination which reduces flu's population impact - there isn't one for Covid-19.

The wording of the official reported Covid deaths are of people who have died having tested positive for Covid. Only in England; Scotland and Wales put a time limit on when the positive test was done, I think the Scot's one is 28 days. It almost as if PHE wanted to place as many deaths as possible at Covid 19's door rather than imply that maybe people could have died of other things not being properly treated because all the medical attention was on Covid-19. Unlike (I'm guessing) almost every other country, except possibly Belgium, our English system is, if anything, exaggerating the Covid-19 death toll.

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Good to hear that there is no risk of Transmission ?in this weather?. And asymptomatic transmission isn?t a thing after all. As long as you?re outside you can?t catch coronavirus! No need to keep your distance or wear a mask. Great You seem very keen to put words in my mouth - I didn't say (as you suggest above) that you could 'push past people' - indeed I said that 'bumping into' people was different. And it is the government's own scientists who are clear that in the open air, in wind and sunshine, the virus dissipates and dies quickly. I never said there was 'no risk' - just that the risk was substantially reduced. And the 2 metre/ 10 minute rule (again) was specifically referencing indoors encounters - something I was again clear about. If you exclude from 'the public' symptomatic people you are left with the active asymptomatic - probably on current figures a third of the actively unwell may be asymptomatic. Most recent figures show Southwark with 1493 confirmed cases - if we assume that these are self isolating then possibly another 800 are asymptomatic. Southwark has a population of 332,000 so on that basis every 415 person you walk past might be an asymptomatic carrier. The 'rules' about social distancing in social (i.e. if you're chatting) conditions - and indeed hand-washing, still apply - so I would still maintain that walking past (not brushing past) people within 2 metres, indeed within one metre in warm, sunny and breezy conditions is relatively (not absolutely, of course) safe. Creating sufficient outside space so that no one ever comes within 2 metres of anyone else would be madness. And very unnecessary.

There are red squirrels in the Isle of Wight

I'm still here, Penguin. I do a huge amount of community work, ... I wasn't remotely suggesting you weren't, indeed that's the point of my post. My closing remark was simply to note that Renata was outperforming her party colleagues in terms of visibility, and was the exception that proved the rule about the ruling party.

... but you know, heaven forbid that people should be able to pass one another safely in the street. In this weather, sunny and breezy, and if you are talking about actually walking past people and not stopping to chat, then a metre or less of clearance will be quite safe. The 2 metre rule (which anyway now has been reduced) reflected long (10 minutes or more) contact in enclosed spaces (so still relevant for e.g. shops and supermarkets). Actually, normal walking at normal clearances, even unmasked, is almost entirely risk free in these weather conditions. Bumping into people is different, of course, but I really wouldn't be worried about passing people quite close in the street. Of course, if you yourself are symptomatic, stay at home and isolate.