Forums Forums Local News Coronavirus Loose on the Wirral

I hope that is not after a rest?

Have you been thinking about me granny

Of course, Casper. What else ?

Realised that if I put the thing at the top of my arm, rather than the bottom , it works better. Phew.. I really thought it was your fault Casper. False alarm sweetie. Sorry, but I am 'fit' Casper .

Glad to hear it granny, take care, stay safe, and read the instructions / information first.

For the best-detailed information on the spread of this disease I suggest looking at

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

I was most interested to see the enormous coverage given to the situation in Italy on the TV news yesterday. The 73 new cases in the UK were hardly mentioned, although this constitutes a 30% increase in a single day, whereas the increase in Italy was lower at 25%. The figures are small, but what this means is that the disease is growing faster in the UK than in Italy.

I can't decide whether this playing down of the UK problem is a desire to prevent panic, lazy journalism, or a PR exercise to prevent the government from being blamed for their incompetence.

Whatever it is, we need to stop large sporting events and concerts immediately, look at travel restrictions, and consider the closure of schools. I feel sporting events 'behind closed doors' is likely to be ineffective as fans will gather in pubs to watch which is also undesirable. These are all unpalatable prospects, but China has cut their new cases to a trickle by using them. We will be forced to it eventually, anyway, and it is better to do these things too early than too late.

It is a sobering thought that a 30% daily increase would give us over three-quarters of a million patients in 30 days, starting from where we are now. We have about 170,000 hospital beds now after a decade of conservative cuts which cut the number from about 230,000 beds. I expect those for whome beds cannot be found will be told to go home and sing 'happy birthday' until they croak!

I’ve just seen this scrawled on a mucky white van. “ No toilet rolls kept in this van”.

Most of those UK cases could well be people that returned from and were infected in Italy (or wherever), there have still been no figures for UK domestic infections. Until there are domestic infection figures available the UK rates are pretty meaningless in terms of how serious it is in the UK.