[Ed P]

Dave, the mask regulations elsewhere in the world are NOT to protect the wearer (unless they have an N95 respirator), but to protect others in the event the wearer is an asymptomatic spreader. As a result simple cloth masks even four layers of cloth or a surgical mask will do the job, some even allow scarves despite them being fairly ineffective.

Recent research shows that even talking spreads aerosol droplets, while church singing is particularly deadly.

[Ed P]

The science behind everyone wearing face masks of some form has reached the point where the Government will have problems denying that it substantially  cuts transmission from the 20-50% of asymptomatic spreaders. We will then see if they are persisting in their managed herd immunity objective or are serious in reducing covid-19 infections.

My guess is that they are committed to infecting the population as quickly as can be safely managed. If so, they will continue with their no masks policy and  witter on about denying PPE for those who need it (who’s fault is that!). They will probably also say that we are a bunch of idiots who will now forget about keeping two metres apart or washing our hands.

[Ed P]

I’m happy if you edit any Amazon links I post.

[Ed P]

Lee, how about setting up an equipment/hardware reviews section?  At the moment things tend to get a bit scattered, but I’m happy just to Amazon link the odd bit of gear that I have used in projects etc., but you will have to tell us how to generate such links.

[Ed P]

VFM tipped us off that we are desperately short of ECMO units (only a handful in the country), but I thought that our ICU’s looked like they had enough capacity/equipment to take us through the peak.  However,  suddenly we hear from Trump that we have begged him to spare 200 ventilators! What the hell gives – who is telling the porkies — Trump, Raab or all of them?

[Ed P]

The Chinese sent humanitarian aid (PPE) here, but you would never know due to the Government lock on our media.

Les it is Public Health ENGLAND, so even the Welsh, Irish and Scots get barely a mention, and zip about the self governing UK Islands

In any case, our stats are only the hospital stats and exclude deaths at home or elsewhere. A BBC statistician stated today that the current figures would nearly double if it were possible to include these numbers (impossible actually due to our cumbersome death registration bureaucracy.)  — and we moan about China understating deaths!

[Ed P]

Ordered :good:

[Ed P]

Lets face it Dave our Government is led by a consummate liar, and it is difficult for that attitude not to permeate Government as a whole. There was a slight excuse for yesterday’s TV briefing as while they all knew (as did some of the interviewers) there was a need to inform the Queen and Uncle Tom Cobley first, however they should have just ducked questions rather than lied to the Nation yet again.

[Ed P]

Poor old BoJo – once in a UK ICU the odds start to get bad — 50:50. Still he has never been good with numbers or details so he probably does not realise his predicament.

link

[Ed P]

Firefox under Linux on a PC. I normally set the FFox zoom to 150% so I do not have to squint.

[Ed P]

Not easy getting meat around here as the Butcher is not Internet savvy and there are currently zero delivery slots at the Supermarkets. The neighbours are kind and considerate, but I prefer that they focus their help on the 80+ types who really need the extra care and attention.

As a result I started using lumps of soya meat substitute. Per instructions I soaked the pieces in stock to which I added a couple of teaspoons full of black miso paste (to add umami meaty flavour). After soaking it looked and acted more like SpongeBob Square Pants than meat, but I thought what the hell and fried it up with just a few drops of oil. To my surprise it turned into a darned good tasty meat substitute that I could just throw into a veggie curry.

The lumps are good, cheap and store happily for a long time in a cool dry cupboard. (eight-ten  lumps of soya protein are enough for one person) Recommended as a standby.

[Ed P]

Unlike Cummings, I wish BoJo well, but his hospitalisation after 9-10 days is not a good sign. If he follows the timeline shown in the Business Insider he will be in hospital anywhere between one to four weeks with a 4% chance of never coming out. For his sake I hope they hit him with the chloroquine, remdesivir, zinc cocktail that they have been using in China and Japan.

link

[Ed P]

It is much better now – back to normal. At the previous time of posting the Fs logo and hamburger icon occupied 90% of the screen. I posted my previous note as a one-liner as that was all I could do.

[Ed P]

Sort of works, but on a PC the Fs banner is huge and will not go away. It almost makes it impossible to use the site. In a word Ugly!

[Ed P]

Checkout the Google data I linked a couple of posts ago, and the phone data generally shows an improvement. There is a slight up-tick in work-place usage, but I am not too surprised as after a week there is almost certain to be something at work that is required before going back to working from home.

The data is quite detailed, so you should be able to check out your county and nearest city.

My guess is that the ‘whittering’ was due to a concern that the warm sunshine tomorrow will result in everyone heading for the countryside/beach. crowds is their main concern but if this goes on for another month or more I think the Government should look at ways of giving people a short break from their house.  This would be in-line with their evident desire to generate herd immunity in a controlled manner.

[Ed P]

Google data from their tracking of UK mobile phones.

Link

Incidentally I probably misheard the Welsh commentary on the Aneurin Bevin Health Authority. It came up again last night on the Beeb and apparently the patient zero was probably the worst one possible, she was a nurse at a Newport Hospital (Royal Gwent?) and infected both patients and staff. Similar in some ways to the Lombardy origins of Italy’s cases, however there they traced and quarantined all the Vo cases, and the original town is apparently now virus-free.

[Ed P]

Background data pulled together by Ars Technica which goes some way towards explaining why the US has done an about-face on mask wearing, and why the WHO (and almost certainly belatedly the UK) will also probably recommend the same.

The primary reason is that even relatively crude cloth masks cut down the transmission from covid-19 carriers. Something that has become increasingly important as it becomes recognised that 50+% of carriers do not know that they are ill.

[Ed P]

No, it was actually put up just for info. I thought that maybe Steve would be interested in the fact that pubs are starting to use such services for off-licence sales.

This was more about linking in the delivery side of things rather than the shop side of things. I would guess though that they may well be something that could also open a role for you, as these people would probably benefit most if they had attractive web sites. It may be worth exploring local delivery sites.

[Ed P]

Our world will be very different when this is over as it has really accelerated the trend to on-line shopping. If you look on-line for ‘local deliveries’, you will find companies such as https://yourlocal.delivery that aim to create a platform for small businesses, pubs etc to stay in business by delivering directly to their on-line customers, while other companies are setting themselves up as local deliverymen.

[Ed P]

Nearly a month without bad Boeing news, but even if few planes are flying, the Boeing ones still have problems. In another three weeks if the maintenance crews on Boeing 787’s have not remembered to reboot the flight control systems they risk the plane falling out of the sky on its next flight!

El Reg Link

[Author]

Posts