Lockdown diary day 18

A very strange Good Friday.

My wife and myself read a passage of the bible relating to the events which are commemorated today in the absence of any church services.

I did find a beautiful rendition of Bach's "O Sacred Head" (see today's music spot) which had been recorded by a virtual choir singing from their own homes.

As I wrote when I posted it, I think we're going to have to do a lot more of that sort of thing.

News on the progress of COVID-19 remains terribly depressing. There is a good chance that Britain will pass the horrible landmark of ten thousand people who have died after testing positive for Coronavirus on Easter Sunday.

Some early signs, far from conclusive that the number of new infections may be starting to plateau as a result of the lockdown: the timing is about right for that as symptoms often begin to show about a fortnight after infection. 

Deaths are still on an upward trend: as those who die of the disease generally do so about a month after infection this does not necessarily mean that the lockdown isn't working, just that the effects have not shown up in the figures for fatalities.

Probably the two most significant words spoken in the press conference today were from Professor Jonathan Van-Tam who is (with Jenny Harries) one of two Deputy Chief Medical Officers for England.

He referred to London as being the epicentre of the "first wave" of the coronavirus outbreak in the UK.

That language can only mean that the planners who are trying to mange Britain's response to the Coronavirus pandemic expect that they are going to have to deal with more than one wave of the disease. I'm afraid it seems very likely that they are right.

It's going to take us a while to get through this. I am confident that we will get through this, but there is a long a difficult road ahead.

Keep well.

Stay home: Protect the NHS; save lives.

  




Comments

Jim said…
The lockdown is doing what it was intended to to, that is prolong the outbreak. Basically instead of everyone getting ill all at once near the start and overwhelming the NHS (thats not a dig at our NHS, there is not a heath care system on earth that could deal with that. The lock down slows the spread giving the NHS a cat in hells chance of dealing with it.

There are numerous temp morturaies up and down the country under construction/converson or are ready for usage.

I am still of the opinion that the lack of test and trace is the reason we will over take Italy and become one of the worst hit nations. The lockdown was never really a part of the plan, just introduced off the hoof, really in response to political pressure as people seen its what other countries were doing. difference was the lockdowns in other nations are there to aid test and trace. Ours is a golden cock up.

We are still flying blind now, people may have isolated, did they have it? have they got it, do they still have it? what about next door?

I think the current government are now between a rock and a hard place. Do they

a) Lift the current restricions, and see a huge fast rise in cases

b) Leave the restrictions in place, absolutely finish off what is left of the economy and risk civil revolt as people run out of money and credit.

10:46 am
Jim said…
One thing is for sure, Boris was never moved into hospital or ICU as a precaution.

And I dont think its a precaution we see temp morturies being contructed in

East London
Birmingham airport
Bradford
Leeds
Hull
BAE Warton airfield
these in the North East
RAF Kinloss
10:56 am
Chris Whiteside said…
I would prefer the expression "slow down" to "prolong" since out of context the latter could infer extra pain and the reverse is the case.

Almost every country including Britain bas been making efforts to test and track.

I have posted here a number of times about the frustrations involved in increasing the number of tests. which the government is determined to do.

Germany which has one of the largest chemical industries in the world has tested far more people than any other country and orders of magnitude more than Britain, and one or two others like South Korea have got on top of this in a way we can learn from, but insofar as international comparisons are meaningful, they don't show Britain as testing less than the generality of other nations - indeed the reverse. At one point we were in the top six countries for tests carried out.
12:06 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
I understand informally - and this is not a statement of official policy but Jonathan Van-Tam's use of the words "first wave" referenced above appeared to confirm he was thinking in this way, which is why I highlighted them - that the answer, Jim to your a) or b) question is as follows,

The authorities are expecting to keep the lockdown on until new infections and deaths have significantly gone down, then carefully and gradually relax it while monitoring the situation to give people a chance to get out of their houses and the economy a chance to operate, but watching and monitoring in case infections start going up again and they have to slam the brakes back on.

And the words "first wave" imply that they don't see a way to avoid a second peak and therefore presumably a second lockdown.
12:16 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
BTW, Jim, the SPAM filters intercepted some of your posts on this thread - am I right in thinking that you eventually manage to get past them what you wanted to write?
10:35 pm
Jim said…
yes thanks, i think it was further list of links on where other make shift morgues are, basically it was just me saying there is worse to come and that is what we are preparing for.
6:21 am
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