In light of the pound dropping in value and another commodity becoming as valued as gold, a new paper currency may become the norm....
i had to smile --in yesterdays news--a 3 month "holiday" for mortgage payers--if needed. nothing new there--mortgage providers have had that available for years. it simply means the home owner has to pay it later--in effect extending it by 3 months. in other words--the government isnt providing a penny.
I don't really know, but I think the distinction is that ICU nurses and facilities deal with people who are so ill they are near death, ventilators are just a part of that. They are saying this thing has a need for 12% of those who contract the virus to need some form of hospitalisation, 5% of all those who contract the illness are bad enough to need that ICU care that means they will probably die without it, these people are not getting better on their own, of the 7% between the 12% and 5% they will at least need extra oxygen because they are showing symptoms of pneumonia, that's the ventilators although I expect all 12% need the ventilators to some degree, don't quote me I don't know. These devices apparently are not just oxygen masks but complex pieces of machinery that have to both monitor the patient and keep the oxygen at the right pressure for the current condition of the patient, a ventilator is not a 1940s piece of industrial engineering it is a highly modern piece of computer controlled machinery, and basically we don't have a lot of them because not that many people need them, usually. And that is the problem, that the vast majority 80% will get a mild illness, if you can call the vast majority 80%, I rather think that when someone says 'the vast majority' that I want them to mean 99% or maybe at the worst about 95% but it isn't they call 80% the vast majority. Twenty percent have a really bad time like you get with the flu (real flu not man flu) except that 12%, one in ten of all infections, need to be in hospital, and of all infections 1 in 20 need intensive care i.e. 5% get near to death. Influenza is nowhere near like that for most people, absolutely nowhere near those numbers, and that is why all this **** is happening all over the world because the resources for caring for those numbers don't exist, and if it goes uncontrolled people will be dying by the thousand in their own beds at home. They are all, I mean every country is at least a month late in implementing the measures we see now, none of them wanted to face reality, sadly viruses are not capable of giving a **** about our needs and wants they are actually really just a maths problem from the moment anything like this appears, with the right reproduction number and the right incubation period latency what we see now is inevitable if you don't do what the Chinese did very early on, they got lucky (so far only so far) because they are a totalitarian state and can do what the hell they like to their people, but we on the other hand have to be convinced and hence we do nothing until it is too late. Reactive and not proactive as Dr Campbell keeps saying. edit: note how far behind the infections and death rate the recovery rate lags, that means that these people are in that ICU bed for a long time, it's not just a couple of days i.e. vast NHS resources tied up. edit again: once we run out of ICU facilities because they are already occupied by people that are taking weeks to recover then the number of people in that 12% group that are going to die will climb dramatically. That might be what is happening in Italy which has around a 9% mortality rate on the raw numbers, yes I know that is not the real picture there but it is a lot worse than a lot of places where it is more under control.
Had lunch in Kingston upon Thames by the river, three customers in the restaurant, manager told me they are closing at the weekend. The local Tesco had 600 people queuing at 6am this morning to shop, I went in at 2pm looked like a swarm of locusts had stripped the shelves
It's Not All Bad News Here's a list of Uplifting Coronavirus Stories : https://www.gogaffl.com/blog_posts/...h0226C8mPbIjz7eXNHdMbRGyCPILA7NYbcwHJH0yrSxdU
I work for aforementioned company as Home Delivery Driver, and I'm now witnessing a stage of panic. Our store is in Mid-Wales, so we're always last in line for depot deliveries. We should have received 5 lorries of stock today, but they were all cancelled or rescheduled, only fresh produce, bread, meat and milk made it on time. Bread came in at 7.30am, and by 10am, it was all gone. We've had no frozen food deliveries for 2 days, so our freezers are almost empty. I came into work at 8.30am and there were massive lines on the 2 opened tills and a queue on the self-service tills. By the time I left at 3, the store was in a terrible state, something I've never witnessed in my 35 years working in food retail. I'm glad to say, all of my home delivery customers were very understanding when they had many substitutions, they seem glad just to have something.
Some of the supermarkets are in the middle of a hiring spree, Rob. Maybe this will ease the burden for you
Has anyone noticed that there are more smiles in the supermarkets? I went to Tesco the other day and I just had the feeling that more people where smiling at me more than usual. People need signs of reassurance at this time.
PPP. I was driving somewhere in the country this week when people on the radio where discussing Post Pandemic Parties! We all must stay positive and it is good that some people are looking ahead.
I went for a filling at the dentist this week and he said they will have to go down to a skeleton crew soon. He asked me how my job was and after I told him that we are flat out, he said he will have to drive trucks soon
It is so easy to go downhill, mentally. I am determined to look for the positives everywhere, so: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-51963446
I spoke to our Manager yesterday, he said they are interviewing and getting shop floor staff to start immediately, straight after the interview! We need more delivery drivers, but as you know Mike, its a bit more drawn out getting them on the road very quickly - driving test (examiner is 1 guy who covers the whole of South Wales), the CRB check, and of course driving training. In all it's at least 5 weeks getting new drivers on the road. The plan at the moment is to support full-time drivers like me by bringing back carrier bags (to minimise contact) and double crewing of vans. I still had some big deliveries yesterday - some of 100kg, but going forward, this wont happen due to new restrictions on bulk buying.
Aren't there many drivers keen on joining Tesco home delivery for a while, Rob? I am asking this because many people don't want to leave their houses and interact with others, although if people are laid off they will need a job.
Took me four days to get some loo roll. I spoke to the Aldi check out guy last night and asked him where he thought people were storing all the meat that was flying off the shelves. He told me a customer told him she had tried to buy a freezer and they were all sold out.
There's always a "tabo" instead of using loo roll, John Your wife will give you instructions I am so glad I mostly eat just vegetables these days. The rest of the family are "normal"
