We therefore call on the Government to:
(1) initiate a health-based food rationing scheme to see the country through this
crisis. This should start from Public Health England’s Eatwell Plate, our official
nutrition guidelines, and draw on expertise from the devolved administrations,
and relevant disciplines

Nowt like making use of a crisis, is there. That’s from Tim Lang by the way. Where’s that bloody wall now the revolution’s here?

78 thoughts on “Jeebus”

  1. We might be in a better position now if Public Health England had concentrated on public health rather than designing an “Eatwell Plate”.

  2. Brilliant.
    Let’s give everyone the same based on the guideline average.

    Meanwhile, those of us who work long physical shifts can just pass out halfway through from hypoglycaemia.

    What a tosser.

  3. @Chernyy_Drakon
    Indeed. Every one of these “recommended diets” appears to based on the needs of a mildly overweight office drone. That’s actually a considerable minority of the UK population. Most people do not do office jobs. Some people actually do the work lets the country function. They can’t all be administrators, can they? There wouldn’t be enough to administrate.

  4. There isn’t enough to administrate now, that is why organisations like PHE exist, to give the surplus administrators a job.

  5. Philip Scott Thomas

    It doesn’t even make sense any longer. Just back from the local supermarket – one of the benefits of our company’s new work-from-home policy, I can pop over on my lunch hour. Things are looking better than last week already.

    Still no pasta or tinned veg/soup. But there’s chicken and meat now. Pizza’s are back. The rotisserie counter is fully stocked. Milk is available, though no single pints. Also there’s some commercial bread and plenty of in-store bakery bread. Alas, wine levels are still rather low.

  6. Philip,

    Because fascist socialists always have to busy themselves with solving yesterday’s problems.

  7. There will always be a group of people who want society brought under rigid, top down control and they’ll argue that they can run things better than people making their own decisions and they’ll take care of everyone better than most of them can take care of themselves. Perhaps a quarter of the population agrees with them and will vote for them every time. In times of crises another portion are willing to listen to them and hear what they have to say, and some portion of this next group will vote for them. This is their chance and they are going for it.

  8. The POS Act being pushed through the House of Traitors today gives them powers to do what the fuck they like.

    In a few weeks the puny plague will have subsided, we will be in a major depression and they will have all the powers they like or want.

    A coup and tyranny 1 -2-3.

  9. “Only government can manage scarcity fairly.” – Jimmy Carter

    “Screw that! We’re America. We’ll just make more!” – Ronald Reagan

  10. Our local Aldi in South London at 8.30pm was almost fully stocked… big change from Friday / Saturday. The Small Waitrose was less well stocked.

  11. Ditto here – Aldi has virtually everything except toilet paper! It even has pasta.

    Tesco this morning had near normal fruit and vegetables, reduced meat and fish, and significantly reduced tinned food.

    The usual suspects are jumping on the bandwagon.

  12. Is this the article where one of the solutions was creating NINE more public bodies to fuck up, sorry oversee the food supply? No wonder the ‘liberal’ (laughs) Guardian loved it.

    Let’s give everyone the same based on the guideline average.

    Meanwhile, those of us who work long physical shifts can just pass out halfway through from hypoglycaemia.

    The Welsh Assembly did this, incredibly, in schools – fixed portion sizes regardless of size. Six ft 14-stone kids keeling over, some bright spark eventually worked out it wasn’t very sensible.

  13. Bloke in North Dorset

    “ Alas, wine levels are still rather low.”

    Not at the Wine Society. Emergency order went yesterday for delivery Thursday.

  14. Nothing wrong with fixed portion sized school lunches. Had them when I was a kid.

    Big’uns ate 2.

  15. I was in my local Chinese shop earlier. It’s where I go to buy Chinese people.

    Anyway, for some strange reason, the Chinese shop was full of meat. Which people had not bought.

  16. Tim Lang

    Professor, City, University of London

    Hmm, have I come across that academic position somewhere else – is a pattern emerging?

  17. Philip Scott Thomas

    BiND –

    The odd thing’s been, whilst wine levels have low, sometimes very low, the spirits, beer and cider supplies have been plentiful.

  18. Salmond is a despicable scumbag but I never believed he was a sex crim. One in the eye for the Sisterhood.

  19. Bloke in North Dorset

    Philip,

    The odd thing’s been, whilst wine levels have low, sometimes very low, the spirits, beer and cider supplies have been plentiful.

    A sign that its middle class women panicking? How were chardonnay stocks?

  20. Went to ASDA this am, most things available. No eggs, beer and cider low stocks, wine limited to v. expensive and scarily cheap. There are no eggs to be had in any store round here except farm shops where they have there own chickens. Surely chickens lay eggs at the same rate during demics both epi- and pan- .

    (conspiravy theory: ‘They’ are taking the eggs for vaccine production…)

  21. Bloke in North Dorset

    On the subject of panic buying there was a very good thread on Twitter arguing that most of wht’s been described as panic buying was quite rational:

    I strongly suspect there isn’t actually much panic buying or hoarding in the way we imagine. Supermarkets in the UK took £193.4bn in revenue in 2019, which is £3.7bn/week. £1bn extra has been added over 3 weeks: approx 10% rise per week for 3 weeks. That’s small, give that…

    Huge swathes of the population who were eating 1 (or even 2 or 3) meals out (cafe breakfast, Pret lunch, work dinner) are now home-working so eating at home & many kids aren’t getting school meals. Inexperienced cooks, new to it, invariably buy too much (quantity & variety).

    Then remember people are being encouraged to social distance, so they want to minimise shopping trips, so will get durables just in case (batteries, candles and – yes – toilet rolls). So the increase in purchasing is very modest, explicable, even justified. So why empty shelves?

    UK Supermarkets are masterful: cheap goods at low margin in huge bulk, with highly sophisticated FMCG just-in-time supply chains. If you operate a Tesco Metro in Central London, you don’t (a) carry excess stock (just exactly right amount based on models): wasted working capital

    (b) rent very expensive premises with larger stock rooms than you need when stock-minimisation & just-in-time replenishment is part of the financial model that makes it profitable at all. That entire model for all supermarkets is based on predicable and modelled seasonal demand.

    Remember all the Brexit/No Deal/Just-in-Time supply chain we talked about? How even slight shifts in the chain could cause massive chaos & shortages? This is it. A modest 10% uplift in demand makes it seem like locusts have hit all supermarkets (even though there’s no shortage).

    So this isn’t anti-social idiots stockpiling canned goods: it’s every household adding £5 or £6 to its weekly shop. It’s happening to a highly-calibrated supply chain that can replenish daily – because *there is no shortage* – but just can’t keep the shelves full during the day.

    I’m sure there are some people genuinely hoarding/stockpiling, even hoping to sell-on some goods at a profit, but they aren’t the major factor. Don’t think most of your fellow citizens are monsters. This is happening in the UK, but not abroad, b/c of supply chain “efficiency”.

    That won’t change, at least not quickly. Supermarket-imposed rationing sensible, but won’t actually change much. Need to have (1) priority hours (first thing) for NHS staff (2) reserved stock for elderly; (3) get trucks & migrate people to online shopping (direct from warehouse)

    Also important to remember symbiotic relationship with eat-out cafes. Pret a Manger has said it is closing its 400 cafes from this evening. Where are those located? In the city centres where supermarket’s food storage capacity (inc refridgerated/frozen storage) is most-limited.

    Supermarkets are facing opportunity loss where no stock to sell: if (for example) they were to rent empty Pret storage for middle-of-the-day refreshers of stock in city centre supermarkets & increase small van capacity, they could sell what they already hold in out of town DCs.

    I’d add that a friend of ours went to PC World to buy a laptop for home working and was told that its just as well she didn’t want a freezer, there’s none left for sale anywhere in the country. They take a lot of stocking.

    PS I apols for the formatting, I can’t get it to put a line feed in.

  22. Thought the might get off a least a chunk of it when the prosecution summed up that him being tactile was no excuse.
    If you are going to charge someone with sexual assault there has to be a sexual element, the fact someone is tactile/touchy geeky with everyone is a defence.
    Think that’s what got Gazza off the hook for kissing someone recently as well, he said it was non-sexual and just being supportive etc. so couldn’t be sexual assault.

  23. Can someone explain to me the logic in telling people to stay home, then allowing big takeaway firms like Nando and McDonald’s to close even to takeaways..?

  24. And while you’re at it, can you also explain the logic in allowing the rail and tube to cut the services which ends up with ‘essential workers’ crammed in like sardines?

  25. Douglas Carswell has tweeted this :

    “A great friend I was chatting to on the phone with two weeks ago, and had lunch with a couple of months ago, died of CV this morning. He was 52. No previous health issues. Keep away from crowds, folks.”

    All very well but :

    ” A 10-year-old Connecticut boy died of flu. So did a 21-year-old bodybuilder, and 4-year-old Jonah Reiben of Dayton, Ohio.

    These are not the usual sick and elderly people who die from influenza. But every year, flu carries away perfectly healthy young adults and children, and tens of thousands of people over 65
    How does flu kill, and why does it sometimes kill so quickly?

    Doctors who study the body’s immune response say there are three main reasons: co-infection with another germ, usually bacteria such as strep; aggravation of existing conditions such as heart disease and asthma; and a so-called cytokine storm, marked by an overwhelming immune system response to infection.

    Sometimes this can happen very fast. During the 1918 “Spanish flu” pandemic that killed up to 50 million people a century ago, many people were reported to have died within hours of showing their first symptoms.

    One experiment showed that certain “new” genes in these never-before-seen viruses help them thrive deep in the lungs, which can cause pneumonia and might provoke an overwhelming immune response.

    While a few people seem to die within hours or days, flu can cause lingering sickness in others. Then they become susceptible to other infections, such as streptococcal or staphylococcal bacterial infections.

    These secondary infections can damage organs, cause pneumonia or get into the bloodstream, causing another kind of immune system overreaction called sepsis.

    So far this season, flu has killed 30 children, according to the latest CDC data. Last season, 110 children died from influenza in the U.S.

    The CDC doesn’t precisely count adult flu deaths, in no small part because it just kills so many. Every year, flu kills 12,000 to 56,000 people and sends as many as 700,000 to the hospital.

    CDC estimates flu deaths by looking at how many more people than usual died of flu and pneumonia, but even those calculations miss people who may have died from flu complications, such as a heart attack set off by a bout of flu.

    For patients with asthma or other lung conditions, flu is just one more problem for the lungs to cope with.

    “They are already having breathing difficulties. It can put them into a spiral very quickly where their breathing gets compromised,” Adalja said.

    Patients with diabetes already have a damaged immune response, so they also are more susceptible to flu.

    And pregnant women have a double risk. “Pregnant women are in a state of immunosuppression because the immune system is trying not to reject the fetus,” said Adalja. So the virus can get further, faster in their bodies.

    Plus their lungs are compressed by the fetus, so they have less breathing capacity. Humans need a certain level of oxygen and if blood oxygen levels fall too far, they enter a state called hypoxia. Hypoxia can cause organ damage within minutes.

    That’s why bluish skin or difficulty breathing is an emergency that requires immediate medical care.

    The best defense against flu, the CDC, FDA, pediatricians and other health experts agree, is a flu vaccine. Just about everyone over the age of 6 months should get one and it’s still not to late to do it.

    And flu is spread by droplets that can linger on surfaces such as countertops, which is why hand-washing is so important. It also spreads via sneezing and coughing and, perhaps, may float in the air on tiny droplets emitted by simple breathing.

    Researchers who have gone back and re-examined tissue samples, and read reports from the time, believe most deaths were caused by co-infection with another germ. But many of the healthy young men and women who died quickly of flu that year more likely succumbed to cytokine storms.

    The human immune system has a load of weapons to throw out against infections, including cytokines produced by a variety of immune system cells.

    “Those substances work to stop the virus from spreading,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease specialist and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security.

    They cause the typical “flu-like symptoms” that bring misery from flu and other infections.

    “The muscle aches, the fever — all of that is the result of the immune system responding to the virus,” Adalja said. That’s why so many diseases cause similar symptoms: it’s the body’s response, not the particular invader, that’s to blame.

    But different people have differently composed immune systems.

    “In certain individuals there can be a very pronounced immune response that can result in a lot of damage to the cells in your body including the cells in the respiratory tract,” Adalja said.

    When a virus is new, like the 1918 strain of H1N1 and the 2009 H1N1 “swine flu”, it usually kills far more people. One theory is that the immune system can become overwhelmed by the never-before-seen invader and sends so many troops to fight it that perfectly healthy tissue in the lungs and other organs gets killed, too.

    People who die from “bird flu” viruses, such as H5N1 or H7N9, also seem to die via an over-the-top immune response.

    And these newer viruses also tend to kill younger people, perhaps because the older population may have been exposed to a distant relative of the virus in the past. The H1N1 flu virus killed 282 U.S. children in 2009-2010, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. It may have infected 61 million people.

    Now it’s just part of the annual flu mix and while it is circulating and killing some people this year, it’s the H3N2 strain that is suspected of causing most problems this time around.”

    NBC January 2018.

    So while tragic–not exactly evidence of a new Black Death either.

  26. Wife worked in ICU for over a decade, says that you can’t just chuck in a nurse with no ventilation experience, going to need training as well and then at least having experienced staff supervising inexperienced staff and checking up on them

  27. Bloke in Lower Hutt

    BiND –
    I’ve been thinking along the same lines about panic buying. In NZ, we were told to self-isolate at home for 14 days if you’ve been in contact with someone who’s been in contact with someone returning from overseas with a cough. This lead to 9000 people self-isolating when the number of known cases was in single figures.

    The Government then gets surprised we everyone starts going to the supermarket and stocking up on a fortnights worth of supplies. Surely it is the logical thing to do when in all likelihood you are not going to be leaving your home for the next two weeks?

  28. See that Trump is starting to look at the question of the cost of the cure, of course BBC make it out that he’s being self serving because of the crisis the Trump empire of hotels and golf clubs is facing
    Can’t see why golf clubs would close their courses though, the club house yes, but courses it’s very easy or social distance

  29. Not a biggie, one can still drive to the supermarket and go for a run. Instead of going to the shops 3-4 times a week I’ll just go once a week, otherwise life as normal.

  30. The police will be able to enforce these rules…a firm approach is clearly needed, similar to how XR stunts were handled.

  31. Breaking News

    PM announces strict new curbs on life in UK
    “The prime minister is announces strict new curbs on life in the UK to tackle the spread of coronavirus.

    From this evening people must stay at home except for shopping for basic necessities, daily exercise, any medical need and travelling to and from essential work.

    Shops selling non-essential goods will also be shut and gatherings in public of more than two people who do not live together prohibited.

    If people do not follow the rules police will have the powers to enforce them, including through fines and dispersing gatherings.

    Other premises including libraries, playgrounds and outdoor gyms, and places of worship must also close immediately.

    Parks will remain open for exercise but gatherings will be dispersed.”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlEFrbLeDks

    Boris implements de-facto lock-down on UK – imo OTT reaction

  32. Bloke in North Dorset

    “ Can’t see why golf clubs would close their courses though, the club house yes, but courses it’s very easy or social distance”

    We’ve got controls on how many people in the locker room at any given time. Bar and restaurant closed but you can ring in advance and they’ll deliver as your walking past. (They’re also doing very cheap home delivered meals for members).

    On the course all high contact equipment such as bunker rakes and ball cleaners have been removed. Cups have been turned upside down so we don’t have to touch the when leaning in to collect balls. We’re also encouraged not to touch the flagstick.

  33. Bloke in North Dorset

    Just to add a bit of a downer:

    50% of Italians who were being incubated on 21 March were under 60 because they’ve run out of ventilators and ICU beds.

    Spanish doctors have started disconnecting the over 60s to allow the under 60s to be treated on ventilators and heavily sedating them to ease their suffering as they die.

    Any British government that lets that happen without taking extraordinary measures will be lined up against the wall.

  34. That is why people will only be allowed to leave their home for the following very limited purposes:
    •shopping for basic necessities, as infrequently as possible

    And the panic buying was just dying down.

    •we will stop all gatherings of more than two people in public – excluding people you live with;
    •and we’ll stop all social events​, including weddings, baptisms and other ceremonies

    But we won’t stop the more than thirty flights landing at Heathrow tomorrow from China, Italy and Spain.

  35. Thankfully, my golf course is still open.

    Snack bar closed.

    Multiple emails from management saying, “No congregating! Finish your game, leave.”

    “On the course all high contact equipment such as bunker rakes and ball cleaners have been removed.”

    Interesting. I always handle the rakes with my gloved hand, as some are old and have fiberglass splinters waiting for me to grab them. I’ll think about rakes differently tomorrow.

    Got some bananas this PM in grocery store. Usually pickup a half dozen bunches before I pick one. Did all my inspecting by sight; just picked one bunch.

    Wondered if previous shoppers did same.

  36. Don’t worry, the alarm clock will go off shortly…

    Off at a tangent, if you genuinely do want people to spend more time at home, it might make some sort of sense for DIY, garden and a whole load of other related retail outlets to stay open, alongside food etc.

    Yes, yes, I know, fucking imbeciles the lot of them. We now know, if we didn’t, that BloJo is as much the shitty little Nazi as the rest of them.

  37. Bloke in North Dorset

    My golf course closed. In a way this is a good thing, been a horrible winter and it could do with a chance to recover.

    On the Down side I presume green keepers aren’t key workers.

  38. a health-based food rationing scheme

    Unfortunately supply chain is set up to supply what people want to eat. Do we bin all the “unhealthy” non vegan food and livestock?

    @RichardT

    “We might be in a better position now if Public Health England had concentrated on public health rather than designing an “Eatwell Plate” of rabbit food

    +1

    @Philip Scott Thomas, rhoda

    Seems to vary across country from reports here. Today Morrisons had ~20% beer, on Sat none. Cider never short. Veg, Meat, dry goods, UHT, loo rolls, soap none or scarce, fish plentiful; bread, eggs ~20% normal. Hot & cold foods, most deli and meat closed

    @BiND, JuliaM

    Yep. A cash & carry Mgr said same few days ago: restaurants, takeaways, work closed peeps need more from retail

    Now McD etc takeaways closed too, more strain on supermarkets, corner shops, small chippies

    As usual, Gov’t making situation worse by not caring about consequences of policies, “be seen to do…” good headline more important

    @Mr Ecks

    +1 some peeps imune systems over react to some ‘infections’ and eat their host – allergies are a good example. The obsession with cleanliness past few decades is a contributing factor

    @Bloke in Lower Hutt

    There is a difference between buying 14 day stock and buying everything in sight

    FoI Requests
    Local Council: Domestic Food waste collected per day March 2019 and March 2020

  39. Good “Parks will remain open for exercise but gatherings will be dispersed” – Boris
    Bad “closure of all parks and play areas in Hartlepool has been announced to try to limit the spread of coronavirus and to support social distancing measures. Residents are also being asked to refrain from using all beaches until further notice” – Hartlepool Council web-site

    So people who want to walk their dog get crammed into the smaller remaining spaces – nice one Chief Executive Gill Alexander – I can find where you live, and follow you at a distance of 2 metres until you break.

  40. “Be seen to do…” good headline more important because of media attacks: [no it’s not, attack the panic mongers and stop pandering to them]

    Panic and Fear Mongering:

    1 – BBC
    Coronavirus: Spain death toll tops 2,000
    The UK death toll has reached 335
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IuWRObuh-E

    Annual Winter Flu – higher? lower?

    Is average death rate per day higher? ~1,680pd in UK

    2 – HoC
    Minister Malthouse believes everyone will start to behave appropriately in UK [good, trust the public unlike Left demanding rationing; sadly Boris has sided with Left]
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvQuRC-95jc

    3 – ITV & DM Piers Morgan: Hancock pandering to negativity panic monger
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Z44stTd63U

    4 – C4 News: Hancock pandering to negativity panic monger
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1WwvhZHMvs

    5 – C4 News: negativity and panic, NHS will close, we’ll all die
    youtube.com/watch?v=RUJ97CuVUHY

    Boris should use his “Emergency Powers” to stop this panic mongering.

    UK Mask demand goes from ~1 per person per day to ~10 per person per day. Gov can’t solve this, 3M etc are doing all they can. C4 refers to buying from Screwfix – not NHS approved masks. Like Trump, Boris must relax regulations. A 3M FPP3 mask will be OK even if not the NHS approved one with recyclable blue elastic and NHS logo on mask and wrapping

  41. @Gamecock. On the course I played on sunday that had put a foam sleeve round the bottom of the flag. Meant the ball dropped about half its diameter into the hole.

  42. @Bongo

    It’s same as McD, Costa, Pizza Express takeaways closing. More concentration at any still open – Gov meddling making situation worse as usual

    Still almost open:
    https://www.dominos.co.uk/

    “From Tuesday 24th March, we’re halting collections and moving to delivery only service in order to protect our colleagues and customers. You can still enjoy your favourite Domino’s delivered to your home.”
    https://twitter.com/Dominos_UK/status/1242192864169295891

  43. Some sense:
    Flatten the curve not the economy
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA4LI0Ok988
    and
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gBEJOZANDA

    Who wants to be a Millionaire
    The Covid-19 Global Pandemic, after 3 months, has now been a trigger for how many deaths in World’s 8 Billion population?
    1 Billion?
    100 Million?
    1 Million?
    100,000?

    None of above: 15,430
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK5s-6aA1fs

    15,430 world wide? That’s fewer than normal UK Flu deaths every year

    ‘The Five’ shreds Dems for derailing the coronavirus relief bill
    Dems: “We’ll only approve if lots of green crap added”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBdMdEiqN_E

  44. BinD–

    “50% of Italians who were being incubated on 21 March were under 60 because they’ve run out of ventilators and ICU beds.”

    So Italian Gov/EU –same thing –caused deaths. I won’t repeat the Italy special case stuff again. Their plan to deal with the CCP has cost them FAR more than it is worth. All with EU connivance.

    Again –how many of those in ICU are young &able-bodied or are the young ones in ICU already not-so-well from other causes. And likely large numbers of Italians have still had this virus and shrugged it off.

    “Spanish doctors have started disconnecting the over 60s to allow the under 60s to be treated on ventilators and heavily sedating them to ease their suffering as they die.”

    And how many of them are dying who would not have died anyway ? Almost none. Again–how many of the young are young and able-bodied. Which ord winter flu also kills.

    “Any British government that lets that happen without taking extraordinary measures will be lined up against the wall.”

    Any British gov collapsing the economy will be up against the wall–esp once the Coro cockrot collapses and is revealed as flu + at max.

    Also any Tory gov still doing nothing for 5 million s/e who were its former core voters.

    Once it is obvious that despite the scare stories coro is no big deal, the same mob kissing Blojo’s arse today will be baying for his blood tomorrow. And scum endorsing lockdown tinpot tyranny tonight will be baying the loudest.

  45. Our new Eatwell Guide helps people to understand what a healthy balanced diet looks like. The evidence shows that we should continue to base our meals on starchy carbohydrates…basing meals on potatoes, bread, rice, pasta or other starchy carbohydrates, ideally wholegrain…choosing lower fat…choosing unsaturated oils and spreads …

    It’s precisely this diet which has caused everyone to become fat and sick, and now the fascist left would make it compulsory.

  46. If only the right people were put in charge of a national organisation with sweeping powers, everyone would eat healthily again!

    Do they ever consider that the people desperate to control this organisation will be the cranks, fanatics and loonies? The “Eatwell” guide will be whatever group came out on top of the vicious political warfare they waged between each other. Then their crank diet would be enforceable by the State.

  47. Bloke in North Dorset

    Rob,

    Kipp’s Law: Those that advocate for central planning always imagine they’ll be the ones doing the central planning.

    Of course it never works out that way and they are usually amongst the first in to the unmarked graves.

  48. About a thousand people over seventy die each day in the UK averaged over the year. Probably more in the colder months. This virus is at 50 a day right now. It isn’t worth shutting everything down, just lock up Granny, or at least the 1.5 million on the govt’s list, and let the rest of us carry on. Also, the incremental effect of the latest measures must be minimal. It’s just a gesture, totally pointless, kowtowing to the most scared.

    Oh, and report the regular medications that the seriously ill are on, just in case there is a clue there.

  49. At least one road block around Nottingham today. Justify your journey to an oik. Welcome to Piers Morgan’s hysterical Britain.

  50. PJF

    LOL – Welcome to Boris’s Britain.

    What’s the police comeback to a standard “going to a supermarket” or whatever? “I don’t believe you”?

    And presumably if one is asked whether their business is essential, can one simply not reply “my employer has told me that this journey is essential, it’s not for me to judge, take it up with my employer”? And if the police then want to “waste police time”…

    If they had any savvy at all, they would simply concern themselves with obvious public gatherings, as that appears to be the alleged concern. People in cars are pretty much by definition self isolating. But that would require some tiny smidgen of intelligence….

  51. I’ve got my response worked out in case I need it:

    My house is carrying the infection. I am a type 2 diabetic which is one of those underlying health conditions that you keep hearing about. This means that I may be about to die so guess how many fucks I give. Now piss off before I infect you on purpose.

  52. If a cop stops me . . .

    “Cough. Cough. How can I help you, officer?”

    Yeah. I didn’t think you really wanted to talk with me.

  53. Golf course update:

    o They inverted the cups in the holes, creating a drop stop. Same as BiND’s.

    o No rakes in bunkers.

    o Pro shop – a barrier two feet out from counter. I spose to keep me away from them.

    Pro said they were doing record business – there’s no other game in town!

  54. Pcar/numbers

    Damage to world economy has to be in the trillions.

    Total deaths: 18,000.

    How many lives has draconian response saved? 100,000?

    $3,000,000,000,000 / 100,000 = 30,000,000

    Thirty million bucks per life saved. Now there’s a deal!

  55. Subtract the cost of lives lost due to the tanked economy and the result is trillions pissed away so Piers Morgan doesn’t jump up and down in his chair so much.

  56. Canada closed all national and provincial parks so no chance to go off camping, which for me at least is an exercise in self-isolation. Biggest risk is most probably the fuel stops, for some of the key areas (Lake Louise) it makes sense.
    On the one hands it’s isolate as much as possible followed by closing down spaces you could use while isolating.

  57. TOTAL LOCKDOWN: Brits face fines for leaving homes as coronavirus deathtoll hits 335 – in 70 Million population
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NE-mWvJFvo

    Stay in home, more delivery drivers and vans required, can’t obtain delivery slot – UK Gov now actively encouraging panic

    Promising new treatments on the coronavirus – chlorequine
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pevfw17JS6k

    Left media attack Trump with fear-mongering “if overdose you might die”: err, whut? Applies to most substances including water

    Trump ‘right’ to call out China over COVID-19 origin
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uRdecaBJVM

    Absolutely

  58. “No tyranny can withstand deliberate non-cooperation.” – GC

    I hope my red neck brethen in Charlotte carry on, ignoring the peacock politicians.

    I got a message from my dermatologist’s office (NC): they are closing til further notice. Skin cancer can wait.

    Got message from my hair cutter (SC): governor has ordered all salons closed tonight. There’s going to be a shaggy Gamecock.

  59. Update from hair cutter: it’s NC that is closing salons. Dang. I was rather looking forward to being a long haired hippy freak. Again. Been 50 years.

    Here’s how I see it. If you expect X cases, and you are concerned about handling them . . . .

    You try to get the max cases you can handle quickly, and maintain that level for a few weeks.

    Current approach by government is to delay all cases for as long as possible.

    I submit that that is a fvck up. You are going to get a peak greater than you can handle.

  60. @Gamecock
    Bjørn Lomborg’s The Skeptical Environmentalist has a chapter on the cost of saving lives. The most extreme example he could find was US regulation on sulfur emissions from tyre manufacturing, which cost $2 billion per life saved.

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