Covid-19 - Suspend Chess Immediately

[raycollett]

"We should act more swiftly given our circumstances"
I fully agree. To continue OTB chess at present is reckless.

[John McKenna]

Are we the only country who is actively not interested in testing anyone who does not apparently need hospitalisation? I am interested in knowing how that one can be defended, it seems to baffle experts and non-experts alike

This is discussed in the first question here

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/health-51 ... s-answered

In terms of other countries, this article below is useful. The answer is "we don't know", but from the scanty evidence, it appears that per head of population, we test much more than most nations, but nowhere near the scale in China and South Korea

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus- ... ource-data

Yes, Japan is also not doing a lot of "testing, testing, testing". (Neither is the USA - because they haven't got enough test kits.)

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson agreed Sunday to work closely amid concerted international efforts to contain the new coronavirus outbreak during their telephone conversation, the Japanese government said...

https://japantoday.com/category/politic ... s-response

Also, pay attention to what the authorities have been saying about "contain, delay, mitigate (& research)" because the answer to your questions is in there -

The fundamental objectives are to deploy phased actions to Contain, Delay, and Mitigate any outbreak, using Research to inform policy development.

The different phases, types and scale of actions depends upon how the course of the outbreak unfolds over time. We monitor local, national and international data continuously to model what might happen next, over the immediate and longer terms.

The overall phases of our plan to respond to COVID-19 are:

Contain: detect early cases, follow up close contacts, and prevent the disease taking hold in this country for as long as is reasonably possible.

Delay: slow the spread in this country, if it does take hold, lowering the peak impact and pushing it away from the winter season.

Research: better understand the virus and the actions that will lessen its effect on the UK population; innovate responses including diagnostics, drugs and vaccines; use the evidence to inform the development of the most effective models of care.

Mitigate: provide the best care possible for people who become ill, support hospitals to maintain essential services and ensure ongoing support for people ill in the community to minimise the overall impact of the disease on society, public services and on the economy...

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... oss-the-uk

The salient fact of the above excerpt is the (unstated) contradiction between the health of some of the nation and the wealth of the rest of the nation.

The resolution in the long run is probably going to be the last line of -

Understand...
I am not a nostalgist
I am a most pragmatic man
I look at what naturally occurs
In the living world...
And see diversity
Not specialization
I look at
Hometown banks
Restaurants
Hardware stores
Where your name
Is your credit
And decisions are rendered
By people who know you
Where you are more than
The five banks
And the four airlines
And the three newspaper chains
And the two big box stores
And the one-and-a-half political parties
And the one retort:
It's the economy stupid

For are we not now individually all next to nothing compared to the overarching global economy?

We shall, no doubt, be finding out in due course.

[Matt Bridgeman]

News of a potential cure in Australia, with a HIV drug already tested and on the market. I guess if there’s anything in this story we might start hearing more about it;

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/healt ... 51706accb5

[raycollett]

Japan is also not doing a lot of "testing, testing, testing".
The article referred to makes no mention of protocols for testing in Japan. The WHO dashboard lists only 814 cases in Japan compared with 1543 cases in the UK (as of 16-3-20). The total in the article includes 712 cases on a cruise ship. I strongly suspect that Japanese health officials recognise mistakes were made and lessons learned from that ship's epidemic.

[raycollett]

Disease experts are calling for tougher measures in the US
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03 ... iness-slow

[John McKenna]

Ray, Prime Minister Abe was being pilloried in Japan - for the paucity of testing - by many weeks before Boris began getting it the neck here.

One comment to the Japan Today
article from a young lady -

"The UK and Japan takes the same approach in dealing with the coronavirus epdiemic, because they are both island countries and are facing the same aging problem. Because the fatality rate by the coronavirus increases exponentially with age, their approach is to make the entire island an incubator by doing nothing, just letting aged people to die to fundamentally change the age structure of the population, eventually to boost and rejuvenate the economy by the nature."

Too cynical, perhaps, but it's often the case that a cloud may have a silver lining.

[Daniel Gormally]

I posted the following on facebook earlier:

Yesterday walking around town (I had a doctors appointment) it made me realize how selfish the british public is.

Ok we haven't had many cases of coronavirus in this area, so perhaps people are enjoying their freedom before it truly kicks in, but it was like a festival. never seen so many people out and about and so many cars on the road.

makes you wonder if in some ways it's not a vote for a dictatorship like china, where they literally force people to stay inside, but at least it saves lives.

[JustinHorton]

Ok we haven't had many cases of coronavirus in this area, so perhaps people are enjoying their freedom before it truly kicks in

It really needs to be drummed into people that there's an incubation period, that you don't get to wait until people are dropping like flies in your area before you take action.

And it may also be that some people just don't drum.

[Matt Bridgeman]

Plenty of pictures today of Americans having a fine old time on the beach. Whereas in Italy there’s reports of families locked down with dead relatives decaying in the spare room. It’s just not very pleasant to say the least!

[NickFaulks]

I've just taken some time off work to go out scavenging for food. There is still much that can be bought, although we shall obviously have to live without rice, pasta, lentils and most canned food for a while. No eggs to be seen, which I find odd - the staff say they load the shelves as usual but the eggs disappear straight away. What are people doing with them? No chicken either, though I cannot say which goes first.

The success story was that I nabbed the last bottle of Southern Comfort, so at least one vital food group is covered.

[John McKenna]

You might sing along to this while sipping your comfort juice -

So bye, bye, Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry
And them good ole boys were drinking whiskey 'n rye
Singin' this'll be the day that I...

[Kevin Thurlow]

"The success story was that I nabbed the last bottle of Southern Comfort, so at least one vital food group is covered."

Well done - interestingly, the supermarkets I've seen seemed to have loads of booze, although not toilet rolls, flour, pasta or eggs (which puzzled me as well). Tinned soups were still on special offer in one, which was weird.

[Matt Bridgeman]

I think a lot of Asda’s have just stopped being 24 hours now. Which thwarted our cunning plan of going in the dead of night.

[Simon Brown]

The success story was that I nabbed the last bottle of Southern Comfort, so at least one vital food group is covered.

Plenty of gin in Sevenoaks, but Southern Comfort? Give me the virus instead!

Seriously though, my daughter’s school in Manchester closed since the weekend, Sevenoaks School closing tomorrow, both due to symptoms. I doubt it will be long before this is the norm, despite Boris.

[NickFaulks]

I am now listening to The World At One on the BBC, whose presenter, working from home, speaks of "empty residential streets". This morning my buses were full, the shops were full and the roads were busy. I wonder where BBC people live - perhaps gated communities in Kensington are different?