Restrictions on my movement have been ramped up a little more. With my certificate I can take exercise, but now only on foot, the bike will have to stay in the barn. I may only go 2 km from home on my own or with the wife, and must not stop to have a chat if in the unlikely event I might meet someone. Brittany Ferries have now stopped all their routes on the Western Channel, which is the route that many producers in Brittany and Spain use to get their fresh fruit and vegetables into the UK. Tonight there are problems in Dover as additional checks have been brought in. It took 1.5 hours for the situation to go downhill, and they are now having to restrict access into the port. Any slowdown at Dover and there are real problems as there is nowhere for the lorries to go. With more lorries heading to the Calais - Dover route instead of Caen, Le Havre - Portsmouth etc. apart from the longer journey the port is not geared up the deal with extra traffic or checks. Almost any delay at the ports will have an effect on the supermarket shelves with their just in time supply chains.
For all those on here who still able to take violent exercise, but don't want to go out and risk infection, there are always ways around a problem as shown in this article. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...hon-on-7-metre-balcony-during-french-lockdown
Piece of p!ss. I did a double marathon on the sofa yesterday afternoon, with a pot of tea and a film.
An extraordinary announcement by the Scottish government - and, I believe, one similar from their Welsh counterparts. People have been 'flocking to the hills' in campervans looking for isolated spots in which to isolate themselves, stretching to the limit the already limited food & services available to isolated communities. I know that Australian States are now closing their internal borders in an attempt to stop the spread - I wonder if that could be the next step here? please log in to view this image
I am afraid that some people are only thinking about number one when I read that, and see that tens of thousands of people descended on seaside towns like Skegness yesterday to enjoy a day out. Armed with my piece of paper I have been out to the bread machine to get a loaf, and actually saw a moving tractor. Unless people are stopped with proper measures the attitude that it doesn't apply to me will continue. You cannot have half and half measures when you shut the pubs, but allow non-essential shops to stay open. The French authorities are carrying out detailed checks on all cars and lorries crossing the Channel which is why there are delays in Dover, and the weekend is always the quietest time to be on the move. It is little wonder that there is talk about even stricter regulations being brought in to control traffic coming from the UK.
A thought provoking read this - an article written by the chief scientific adviser at the UK Department of International Development about the 2014 ebola virus outbreak and the problems faced in containing its spread. This section, taken from page 3 of the article, is interesting - "Delays mean more deaths" The author of the report is one Christopher Whitty - an Epidemiologist, someone who studies diseases within populations to analyse what causes outbreaks, in an effort to identify ways of preventing future outbreaks. Strangely, Mr Whitty was appointed Chief Medical Officer of the UK in October last year - shortly after Boris Johnson was elected as PM, and shortly before the Covid-19 outbreak was announced. Possibly even more strange is that neither he nor Boris Johnson followed his own previous expert advice on outbreak containment. It does tend to make you wonder why. https://www.nature.com/news/polopoly_fs/1.16298!/menu/main/topColumns/topLeftColumn/pdf/515192a.pdf
please log in to view this image Car parks and trails could be shut to stop people from visiting Snowdonia National Park after "unprecedented scenes" on Saturday, according to bosses. There were so many people on mountain summits it was "impossible to maintain effective social distancing". Pen y Fan in the Brecon Beacons was also busy with visitors on Saturday. Welsh ministers are considering their legal powers to force people to stay away during the coronavirus outbreak.
Some of the human stories behind this are heartbreaking. Germany has brought in a stop on all visits to people in hospital or in care homes - one of our neighbours was denied entry to see her husband yesterday, who is in an advanced state of dementia. Will people be denied access to their loved ones at the last minute ? We need to get real here - we are not talking about the plague, or ebola, or tuberculosis, or yellow fever. We are talking about a disease which is slightly more dangerous than influenza, and slightly more contagious - but only because it appears that people have a longer span of infectiousness than with a normal flu outbreak. The panic appears to come from the fact that this thing is unknown, and so we do not know how it will develop - like a living organism it is 'feeling it's way'. The light at the end of the tunnel is that 7 countries recorded lower numbers of new cases yesterday than for the day previously. Those were Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, the USA and Iran. For Austria this was the second day in succession and for Denmark it was the lowest figure for 7 days. Real 'killer' epidemics look different. Having closed schools, hospitals (for visitors), shops, businesses and all the rest of it, where is the exit strategy ? At what point do you decide that it is safe to get back to normal ? All these steps have been done after the horse had bolted - the golden law with unknown epidemics is to cordon off the area where the first case occurred, and to pay each individual within that area a sort of unconditional basic income to prevent people having to leave it for work - and then test everyone there. The Chinese did this (albeit a little too late) and paid every citizen within the cordoned off area a lump sum of € 1,000 to soften the inconvenience. Better the short sharp targeted shock then a process lasting over a much longer time which happens when you react after the event.
I think we have to be very careful about how we look at and use figures available when comparing what is happening in different countries. It looked as though the figures for new cases in France had dropped, but then they started to rise again. A day at a time comparison is not a good way of measuring. Germany might be different to other countries in Europe for the reasons described in this article. https://www.ft.com/content/c0755b30-69bb-11ea-800d-da70cff6e4d3 I would agree that the slower you are to react the worse results are likely to be. While I agree that everyone should be certain of having enough money to know that they will be able to continue to feed themselves, I would say that is a different to the steps that a government needs to take to control the virus. Two different things side by side, yes, but need to be treated separately.
A Tesco in Lewes that opened one hour early for NHS workers at 9am this morning reportedly let others in because of long queues outside and did not open the tills until 10am, meaning that shoppers were packed together in close quarters.
I wouldn't say that the issue of having enough money can be separated from the issue of controlling the virus Frenchie - if you tell people to stay at home then you have to give them financial security to make sure they do exactly that. People who have no reserves and who are eg. freelancers must know that their income is covered otherwise they will try to carry on working.
https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-the-dance-be9337092b56 I have just read this and am mightily depressed.... anyone else fancy a read and a more optimistic slant ???
I quite agree that people need to have the means of support of course, but I think it is confusing when government announces extra money for the emergency health provisions, then another department that is looking after people receiving benefits while they cannot work, is told that some of the money will come from the health spending budget. It is far to much smoke and mirrors for my liking, and there should be a clearly identified break between the two.
Thoroughly depressing - I got just over halfway and thought "why am I still reading this?" - then gave up. Many of us damned if we do, more of us damned if we don't - which, I guess, we all realise anyway. What we really need is a cure - a cure that is kept well away from the sticky, grubby fingers of America and, probably, those of the UK too.
They must otherwise the supply chains will be severely disrupted. I listened to part of the BBC food programme today and it was a bit scary.