[Dave Rice]

Those stories have started already on the news this morning (forget which channel).

Where the hell would we buy them from any way?

[RSB]

Shops around here are selling them at about two quid apiece. 3 ply something.

Americans: Over Sexed, Over Payed and Over here, Wat Wat!

[JayCeeDee]

Dave Rice wrote:

Where the hell would we buy them from any way?

I bought a couple of these from Amazon, unfortunately before Lee put the link up, they’ll do me for when we go shopping early morning and maybe for our beach walks.

Quality wise they’re OK and will do the job. I probably paid a tad over the odds for them, but at least we’ve got them if we need them.

[RSB]

Sorry jayceedee but you must of followed a link before hand as they are showing in my amazon.

Americans: Over Sexed, Over Payed and Over here, Wat Wat!

[PlaneMan]

I managed to get a couple of  FFP2 (N95) masks from ebay a few days back and I should have a FFP3 respirator by the weekend-maybe, the listing has been removed by ebay and I’m waiting on responses from ebay/the seller.

The Tesco where I get my prescriptions has gone fully PPE for the pharmacy staff, all have masks and gloves and most had glasses or visors. They also have a screen around the till and new cordless card payment unit that’s handed over in a small basket and taken back to the charger in it.

[JayCeeDee]

RSB wrote:

Sorry jayceedee but you must of followed a link before hand as they are showing in my amazon.

 

No – I meant that I’d ordered the masks before you put the Amazon link on the site, so I didn’t purchase them through forumite.!! :good: 🙂

[RSB]

Yes, but you had clicked on a previous link. I posted one or two for something else and they were recognised by amazon as coming from here. So, because you visited amazon from here previously I get a commission for any future purchase until your cookies are cleared.

I have to be careful what I say as for whatever reason in the terms and conditions I am not allowed to discuss amazon associates.

So I’ll create somewhere locked off where I can explain more.

Americans: Over Sexed, Over Payed and Over here, Wat Wat!

[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]

John Conway the inventor of the popular ‘Life’ computer game has apparently been one of the victims of the virus.

Twitter Link

 

[Ed P]

Forget the Downing Street BS and pabulum from Mushroom Matt, Iceland has REAL data on covid-19 as they have tested 10% of their total population. This is  a number that is statistically significant and you can pretty much say that the findings from this little country are universally applicable. (other than genetic differences which may be a significant risk factor)

First: Approximately half of people testing positive for covid-19 are asymptomatic. This is a pretty scary number as it means that there is no way of judging if a person has the virus. Everyone has to be treated as potentially a carrier. Temperature testing etc is a useless test, other than to judge if the person has a fever. It means that all people coming into a covid-free zone must be quarantined. It is a good argument for enforcing mask wearing by everyone even if these masks are of the home-made variety. link

Second: Unlike the UK, Iceland invested early on in testing, and uses rigorous testing and contact tracing to ‘flatten’ their infection curve. We tried to do it on the cheap, Iceland did not, and has been able to have a degree of normality in daily life, with most shops and businesses remaining open.

Third: Despite containing the virus, only about 0.5% of the population have had the virus, so they cannot let up on social distancing, testing and contact tracing.

Unfortunately, our Government bet heavily on herd immunity at the cost of many deaths and possibly having to live with restrictions and their economic consequences for a longer time than other countries.

You can bet that our Government is going to want to share responsibility for their huge mistakes by ensuring that the other political parties have a role in where things go from now on.

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

I was not best impressed with the “Game” of Life when I first encountered it Ed, I kept reading about how amazing it was in the computer press and I knew it was some sort of simulation but there were no screen shots. Then one day a machine code listing for it, to run on a 1K ZX81, appeared and I spent 2 hours typing in a long list of meaningless numbers only to have it crash and corrupt its self the first time I tried to run it.

I kept trying over the course of the next 2 weeks and eventually got it to run.

What did I get for my trouble ? A few apparently randomly moving black and white squares ! 😂

[Ed P]

The impressive thing about the game of life is that just a few rules applied to three or four blocks can result in quite complex outcomes.  In its small way it demonstrates that complex objects or activities can result from the application of just a few rules. You can now see that principle being applied in many different areas such as AI or games.

[Dave Rice]

I used to love mucking about with it, see what patterns appeared.

[Ed P]

Covid-19 questions that have been bugging my brain (probably one for Steve). If the whole world is in a covid economic poo, is no-one really in the poo? Who has lost and who has gained?

[Les.]

Edp, that has been my thinking. If we are all in the same boat, then we ARE all in the same boat. Of course there is the one significant point, we will all have a big ongoing debt built up. No point in everybody devaluing either.

The few people who come out of this well, are the old buggers like me, PROVIDING we see it through in one piece. Of course for those who don’t, a Government win.

Until my prediction comes true of 80% reducing to 60/70%, and pensions being chopped likewise.

Quite frankly, other than not being able to get out on the bike, my life has not changed by barely more than a jot.

I see Trumpton is going to switch the US back on in 16 days time! The man beggars belief.

Les.

[JayCeeDee]

I think that one positive outcome for the world, after coming out of the current trouble, will be the need for it to take an introspective look at the way things have evolved or decisions were made.

The end result of cost cutting across multiple industries both here and abroad, has been for China ( especially, but not exclusively ) to become the world’s factory. That manufacturing process across multiple strands of tech, clothing, auto, fashion accessories ( hair bands and the like ), toys et al, has enabled them to supply the world with what it wants at the cheapest price, undercutting manufacturing across the globe and for those industries throughout the world to fade away when they could not remain competitive. They have thrived by producing what the world wants at prices even the accountants are happy to pay!!

Each country now has to decide whether they consider it worth paying a little bit more for home produced products, and at the same time keeping an industry that employs people thriving and keeps people in jobs.

We had an industrial heartland that was the envy of the world, that screwed itself by not adapting. Maybe, just maybe, we have the chance to revive that and reduce the independence we have on other countries like China that make things.

 

[Ed P]

John sometimes those decisions were made in an absence of sufficient data.

Although the press will be full of the ‘shocking’ jump in deaths it may be worth speculating on possible causes. If you look at the ONS death data  then you have to remember that the cause was four to six weeks in the past.

You also have to consider where the big jumps have taken place (mostly in the Midlands and North). Based on that, and looking what happened in late February to Mid March, Liverpool hosted Madrid, City played in Spain, Newcastle played in Southampton, all subsequent Covid hotspots, Based on that,  I could make an argument that we should have banned all football matches from mid February. We didn’t because both the WHO and our scientific advisors completely dismissed evidence from China on asymptomatic spreaders and evidence that aerosol infection was possible. However had our Government made such a decision at that time and in the environment of that time, the lynch mobs would have been out in the streets! It is only a short time ago, but both VFM and I were being dismissed  as scare mongers by some forumites, so it would have been a big ask of any Government to take such unpopular action.

That said, I agree that the Government must at some stage be held to account for its lamentable failures on ventilators,  testing and health worker PPE. There are no excuses for any of these and the Government and Mushroom Matt has spun a lot of porkies without getting a grip on the situation.

 

[JayCeeDee]

Ed P wrote:

John sometimes those decisions were made in an absence of sufficient data.

Although the press will be full of the ‘shocking’ jump in deaths it may be worth speculating on possible causes. If you look at the ONS death data  then you have to remember that the cause was four to six weeks in the past.

 

Ed, my comments above were exclusively on the outcome of manufacturing decisions and buying choices made over the last few decades ( or more ) and not CoVid 19 related, apart from the timing of the opportunity for a retrospective analysis.

Perhaps they merited a fresh Topic??

[Bob Williams]

I have to repeat something I have said earlier, and on BBC comments and responding FB idiots who could not find China on a map of Asia, even if clearly marked.

The whole mess is the sole responsibility of China. Ed P and others who have visited Asia may back me on this: wet markets are where the disease began, by crossing species. Wet markets slaughter and butcher all the animals that the Chinese buy to eat, some very different species. Bats, snakes, other reptiles, various different bird species, pangolins, big cat parts, monkeys and probably others. I have seen it published that the source was bats, then jumped to snakes, eventually a jump to humans. Blood and body fluids run to the floors and mix. Wet markets were nothing but a ticking Biohazard time bomb. A species- crossing mutation and a pandemic disease was just a matter of “When”?

Now it is past time for the world to pressure the Chinese into closing the wet markets and to stop eating or using all these totally unsuitable animals for food or “traditional medicine”. That is something that the USA, EU and ourselves should be doing. Meanwhile, their infection and death rates have increased again. The northern cities are another, ‘new’ source, it is said. What is the betting that there are wet markets there?

But the Chinese government say that the new cases are all people who have travelled into the country. Of course.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Ed P]

The Asians in general have closed their wet markets. In fact China did this once before with the SARS outbreak but it did not ‘stick’. I do agree that it would be constructive of Western Powers to ask China and others to support a UN ban on the eating of non-food animals (Incidentally Asia is not the only place this happens – African/Caribbean ‘Bush Meat’ is just as dangerous, maybe even more-so as it usually includes Chimps etc.

Maybe this will happen, but I suspect we will have to weather this crisis first.

[Author]

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