.This is the thread for non-political news and events.
German police detain suspect after deadly shooting outside synagogue
Two people were killed in a shooting in the eastern German city of Halle on Wednesday and police said they had detained one person.
Mass-selling daily Bild said the shooting took place in front of a synagogue, and that a hand grenade was also thrown into a Jewish cemetery. An eyewitness told n-tv television that a perpetrator had also fired shots into a kebab shop in Halle.
I question the wisdom of closing the dentists.
My sister-in-law works in the Dentistry school of Columbia University at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan. When people began hearing about coronavirus, her boss (the dean of the dentistry school) warned her not to go to the dentist for her routine cleaning.
Think about it; when you’re in the chair and they’ve got the hydrator in your mouth and there’s droplets spraying all over the place, those droplets could be depositing the virus on the chair, the equipment tables, the overhead lamps, etc. Now think about the person who was in the chair before you; if he brought the virus into the office, you’re gonna be bringing it home.
So, yeah, emergency dentistry ONLY makes sense for now.
Exactly, most visits to the dentist aren’t particularly essential, many are just cosmetic. Common sense says it should be available for anyone in agony but deferring the rest of the visits seems sensible.
I think we’re rather trained to think in absolutes nowadays. In truth this is about minimising risk so hospitals aren’t above what they can cope with at any one time. The ‘flatten the curve’ graphs show that if you just reduce by contact by half it dramatically slows the spread.
Trump says he wants country ‘opened up’ by Easter, despite caution from health experts
Trump is one dangerous fucking moron.
Exactly, most visits to the dentist aren’t particularly essential, many are just cosmetic. Common sense says it should be available for anyone in agony but deferring the rest of the visits seems sensible.
Do British people even go to dentists?
No. They would like to but they are blocked by visiting Americans wearing Hawaiian shirts, carrying large cameras and talking loudly about things they don’t understand.
Trump is one dangerous fucking moron.
Here’s the plan. Let everyone go to work and open their businesses except in New York and California. Tell the high risk groups to stay home for 14 more days. Then 50% of the country will catch it. 5% of those will be serious cases. 10% of those will die and then everyone who recovers will be immune. Then, Trump will say that fewer people died than die in car accidents each year, so how bad was it really?
Trump says he wants country ‘opened up’ by Easter, despite caution from health experts
Trump is one dangerous fucking moron.
And our dangerous fucking moron isn’t far behind.
I think it might be time for politicians to shut up about covid 19, let things just go on as they are now for a while without sudden changes so that things can quiet down a bit and hopefully the social distancing will lower new infections somewhat, and let the doctors and the pharmaceutical companies do their job.
Politics is never going to stop. It’s politics.
Interestingly I was just reading this article about the possibility of cross-party governing in the UK. For all that it’s being talked about as a necessity under the current circumstances, the main consideration for the Conservatives mulling it at the moment seems to be whether the coronavirus crisis is going to damage the public image of the Tories because they’ll be seen as responsible for the damage, or bolster it due to Johnson having to adopt a more statesmanlike persona and largely having public support at the moment.
Politics never rests.
And then there’s Tim fucking Martin…
I didn’t even know Tim and Martin were friends!
Ok, that is good – really feeling all this tonight, so that gave me a laugh, thanks Dave.
Look like starting tomorrow through April 3, I’ll be working at home.
Welcome to the club, Todd. I hear it’s a toss-up between Texas and Florida as to which state will be the next COVID Hot Spot; take care of yourself and Cristel.
Look like starting tomorrow through April 3, I’ll be working at home.
Welcome to the club, Todd. I hear it’s a toss-up between Texas and Florida as to which state will be the next COVID Hot Spot; take care of yourself and Cristel.
I found out that I’ll probably start working from home on Monday as setting up a Finance department for working at home is NOT that quick and easy to do.
You and your family stay safe, Jerry.
Denver and Boulder are closed. Four counties under stay-in restrictions. People continue to act like compleat idiots.
I have take to bleaching doorknobs.
Howard Hughes was right.
Also, right now politicians need to reassure people that this won’t destroy their lives economically.
Wellllllll…
This is my controversial theory. All the big companies that can’t survive a month on lockdown, let them go bust.
Whether it be 12 weeks or 18 months this will pass and most activity will go back to normal. People will want to fly and book hotels and buy sports gear etc. Where there is demand supply will come in to fill the gap and maybe with more responsible and better run companies who don’t pay bonuses to themselves or inflate their own stock prices instead of building cash reserves to manage a crisis.
This is me extolling pure free market ideology.
Im stayimg in the Pub. I dont want to go near anyone who frequents Creative – who knows where theyve been
Judging by the frequency of posting in Creative it went into self isolation a while back.
They are already paying 80% of their wages through the companies in the UK, with many comparable schemes across the world. I’m just saying cut them out of it as they are shit companies if they can’t build reserves to last a short time. Give it direct to the staff and let someone else take the business over when it’s back to normal, preferably a co-op (now I’m getting back to my usual socialist bent).
Can the government pay that indefinitely without creating an enormous debt?
What we’re discovering at this point is that it doesn’t matter.
Our conservative government have spent the past decade wagging their fingers at the Labor party for borrowing billions in 2008-09 to fight off a recession (Labor’s work paid off – but the debt, it was said, would take a decade or more to pay off), but a week ago they themselves committed to over A$100 billion in measures to prop up businesses and individuals.
Our unemployment benefit, Newstart, hasn’t been increased in decades; activists have been campaigning since last year for a 95 dollar/week increase – the government have doubled the payment (from $550 a fortnight to $550 a week), and they’ve switched the cash-money printers on.
They’re not ruling out nationalising Virgin Australia airlines – this is the free-market, small government, conservatives doing this.
Debt is a weird one. Countries who control their own currency can’t actually go bust. I’m not saying you can borrow indefinitely but it’s also true that the consequences of doing to seem very vague.
We’ve had long lectures on the damage of debt for the best part of a decade and then Trump borrows a trillion dollars to pay for tax cuts and the stock market booms. In fact all the way through the economic recovery in the UK the Conservatives have kept borrowing.
We get confused by large numbers so often don’t know what these sums actually mean, for example a £2.5bn tax rebate given to Vodaphone in 2005 is enough to pay for free prescriptions for everyone in Wales for over 300 years. Yet when stuff like that is proposed it’s always questioned how such largesse can be afforded.
Corbyn broached free broadband and lost credibility that his plans were realistic, now we’re paying everyone’s mortgages and utility bills and rough sleeping which has been increasing for years was ended in one day in London by giving them all rooms (albeit as a temporary solution).
I wonder when Gar will start quarantining the forums.
Im stayimg in the Pub. I dont want to go near anyone who frequents Creative – who knows where theyve been.
Three months without a haircut and you’ll fit right in with us creative hippie types 
(I had planned a haircut for this week. This is the worst timing :P )
I wonder when Gar will start quarantining the forums.
Im stayimg in the Pub. I dont want to go near anyone who frequents Creative – who knows where theyve been.
Three months without a haircut and you’ll fit right in with us creative hippie types
(I had planned a haircut for this week. This is the worst timing :P )
I do have a pair of clippers in the house. We’ve now been told our MCO (movement control order) has been extended another two weeks into mid April so I may have to return to the ‘number 2 all over’.
They didn’t actually go bust though, it’s a term used but Argentina and Russia are still operating today. In truth they go through a rough period. Hyperinflation is a risk but also they were saying that in 2008 when by comparison everyone’s debt was way smaller than today.
Economics are weird, things like floating your currency are optional. In 1998 the Malaysian Prime Minister said he was fixing the value of his currency to 3.8 against the USD and it remained that way for 10 years. Just like that because he said so.
I may have to return to the ‘number 2 all over’.
This is coincidentally also a perfect description of the state of the world today.
I wonder when Gar will start quarantining the forums.
Im stayimg in the Pub. I dont want to go near anyone who frequents Creative – who knows where theyve been.
You came to a messageboard called “The Carrier” months ago and now you’re worried?
Bit late, isn’t it?
Outrage in South Korea over Telegram sexual abuse ring blackmailing women and girls
Economics are weird, things like floating your currency are optional. In 1998 the Malaysian Prime Minister said he was fixing the value of his currency to 3.8 against the USD and it remained that way for 10 years. Just like that because he said so.
It is interesting. Even the way money is spent is a strange phenomenon. Spending in the private sector has a very different effect on the economy than spending by governments. Most of the money circulating in the economy is created by banking and credit rather than by the government ‘printing’ the money.
In the end, though, it’s really a measurement. Like Alan Watts pointed out long ago in relation to the Great Depression – physically very little had changed before and after the depression began. It was a crisis in the currency – or credit, which is practically the same thing – available, and that has happened many times before and since.
His example was that it’s like a construction worker gets to a site one day and is told that they can’t do any work. Why not? They have the wood and concrete, tools and workers, so what’s the problem? Well, says the foreman, we’ve run out of inches. You don’t need a dollar to actually do anything. It doesn’t actually do anything. It isn’t a part of your car when you buy one or put gas into it. It doesn’t make up any critical part of the goods and services you buy. Heck, you don’t even need to use money in any part of the physical process to print actual money. And if there is a shortage of something like oil, it doesn’t matter how much money you have, it won’t affect the amount of the resource available.
But it represents or is a unit for all economic activity and often is influenced by perceptions and predictions that aren’t entirely real or true.
I don’t know if Johnny is actually promoting a return to a barter system but they are interesting points because there is a lot of custom and artificiality to any economy. It’s something we have chosen to expand upon in the last 40 years.
Also why do you want a freezer full of bread when you can just go back in three days and get a fresh one for free? 
I do get your point, I was just having a laugh because it was a bad analogy.
I once saw a long interview with a learned guy who commented that essentially most of all economic growth as we measure it is based on population growth. Countries like Japan and Italy that have had just slight population decreases have struggled with it, suffering recession and deflation. (Many countries have negative birth rates but they make up for that with immigration, don’t doubt that was part of the reason Germany and Sweden were into helping refugees, it wasn’t all altruism, it undeniably helps the bottom line).
He said, quite rightly in my view, that a different system has to be adopted that isn’t just about having new consumers. The problem is he didn’t really suggest what it should be.
Coronavirus: Off-licences added to list of ‘essential’ retailers
Off-licences have been added to the government’s list of essential UK retailers allowed to stay open during the coronavirus pandemic.
The list was updated on Wednesday amid increasing reports supermarkets are selling out of some beers and wines.
A major pub chain has said “almost all” its business had gone to supermarkets.
The move came as bicycle and car parts retailer Halfords had to defend its decision to keep shops open.
The list of essential retailers put together by the Cabinet Office now includes “off-licences and licensed shops selling alcohol, including those within breweries”.
–SNIP–
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52033260
The list is really a moving target.
Okey-dokey. Colorado is closed as of 6am tomorrow.
Ski Utah!
And then there’s Tim fucking Martin…
I didn’t even know Tim and Martin were friends!
Yup. We are friends. Nothing more. Just friends…
Trump says he wants country ‘opened up’ by Easter, despite caution from health experts
Trump is one dangerous fucking moron.
And our dangerous fucking moron isn’t far behind.
Hey! We have a dangerous fucking moron too!
2 Trillion economic stimulus package. Wow.
And as expected in our worst nightmares, the crisis seems to be helping Trump:
Immediately after President Trump announced yesterday that he wanted to reopen the country by Easter, a Fox News host dubbed his plan “a great American resurrection.”
Turns out the president may be experiencing a resurrection of his own.
A series of polls released this week showed Mr. Trump receiving some of the highest marks of his presidency.
A Gallup poll published on Tuesday showed Mr. Trump’s overall approval rating tied for its highest point in his presidency, at 49 percent. Sixty percent of Americans gave him positive reviews for his handling of the coronavirus situation.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/25/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-polling.html
This just after he promised to get back to normal on Easter. I don’t even know what to say.
Oh, and New York has more dead – and thus presumably more infectioned, even if that isn’t what the number of positively tested says – than Germany now. That was fast.
Well, it never fails to get said government re-elected. Look at George fucking W. Bush. Yeah, long-term that war eroded any and all trust in the government, but short-term for his presidency, it worked like a fucking charm.
muttermutter fucking war criminal should be in jail not drawing fucking poodles muttermuterr
Actually, Trump may be right. Not based on knowledge, but, you know, a broken watch is right twice a day. Dr Fauci was following a certain model of the virus’s spread, but his equivalent in the UK, Dr Ferguson, who was a major proponent of that model in the UK, has redone his analysis, and is now more optimistic about the UK, and says that it’s highly probabl that the analysis has to be redone in America, too.
You clearly haven’t been paying attention then. We now have the most cases in the world and an escalating death rate. We are currently far exceeding all of the models for us.
Actually, Trump may be right. Not based on knowledge, but, you know, a broken watch is right twice a day. Dr Fauci was following a certain model of the virus’s spread, but his equivalent in the UK, Dr Ferguson, who was a major proponent of that model in the UK, has redone his analysis, and is now more optimistic about the UK, and says that it’s highly probabl that the analysis has to be redone in America, too.
You clearly haven’t been paying attention then. We now have the most cases in the world and an escalating death rate. We are currently far exceeding all of the models for us.
His new model basically means that we shouldn’t consider all American cases and deaths as a unit, but as multiple outbreaks of the same pandemic, that happen to take place in one nation. Thus, we should analyze each local outbreak as he’s analyzing the British outbreak.
So I’ve been doing stuff with the TV news on in the background, and felt compelled to give opinion.
Canada ‘strongly opposed’ to U.S. stationing troops near shared border
Just searched and posted a link, but haven’t read. Going by what I heard on television
What the fuck? The world’s longest undefended border now needs U.S troops to catch all those damned Canadians crossing illegally?
Who in the fuck would be wanting to leave and go to a country that looks like it’s trying to dethrone Europe as the new epicenter of the Pandemic?
Could not the U.S. military be better served by enforcing lockdowns (where they’re needed)?
Please note, I do like Americans (mostly) and put this squarely into Trump’s camp.
While the two countries don’t always see eye-to-eye, we are friends, important allies, and during times like this we should only strengthen our bonds and work together.
It’s just hard to watch the news every night with every idiotic comment from that man (pretty much forcing me to take back things I said about George W. Bush).
I remember joking the whole way along during the last U.S. election and after Trump was elected I felt sick to my stomach the next day after it actually happened, enough to admit it to people.
That man being President felt like the beginning of the Apocalypse and we’ve been waiting for him to start it.
He may not have started it, but he will definitely make it worse.
Oh, and if it does get worse can he halt the upcoming elections and just declare himself President for another 4 years?
Ugh, probably the wrong thread for that, and sorry for putting a bad thought in your head (but you do know behind the scenes it is getting talked about, right?).
Edit: Forgot to add that I liked hearing that behind the scenes Canada is arguing this, as are many U.S. politicians in Washington.
We are friends, and many know it.
Actually, Trump may be right. Not based on knowledge, but, you know, a broken watch is right twice a day. Dr Fauci was following a certain model of the virus’s spread, but his equivalent in the UK, Dr Ferguson, who was a major proponent of that model in the UK, has redone his analysis, and is now more optimistic about the UK, and says that it’s highly probabl that the analysis has to be redone in America, too.
You clearly haven’t been paying attention then. We now have the most cases in the world and an escalating death rate. We are currently far exceeding all of the models for us.
His new model basically means that we shouldn’t consider all American cases and deaths as a unit, but as multiple outbreaks of the same pandemic, that happen to take place in one nation. Thus, we should analyze each local outbreak as he’s analyzing the British outbreak.
that’s still meaningless. NY alone has more cases than England and most others don’t have high numbers because they haven’t ramped up testing yet.
Actually, Trump may be right. Not based on knowledge, but, you know, a broken watch is right twice a day. Dr Fauci was following a certain model of the virus’s spread, but his equivalent in the UK, Dr Ferguson, who was a major proponent of that model in the UK, has redone his analysis, and is now more optimistic about the UK, and says that it’s highly probabl that the analysis has to be redone in America, too.
You clearly haven’t been paying attention then. We now have the most cases in the world and an escalating death rate. We are currently far exceeding all of the models for us.
I was reading a thing yesterday that said that on the 17th, there were 5,000 cases in the US, but on the 24th, there were over 50,000. This morning I saw that the US is up to 82,000 cases. At this rate it’ll probably be multiple hundreds of thousands of cases by the middle of next week, and millions a week later.
Worrying about how you model the pandemic is arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, trying to make people feel a little bit better when the death toll reaches the thousands.
Trump says he wants country ‘opened up’ by Easter, despite caution from health experts
Trump is one dangerous fucking moron.
And our dangerous fucking moron isn’t far behind.
Well, you’re dangerous fucking moron is now truly fucking dangerous:
UK prime minister Boris Johnson tests positive for coronavirus
News last night was that this “DEADLY NEW VIRUS!!!” has killed six people. Sorry, I have sympathy for those people obviously, but six deaths in a month makes this the most pathetic virus in history. Why are we supposed to be panicking over this?
I just wanted to giggle at how well this post has aged.
I’m not going to argue, as I’m not sure I understand his idea myself; it has a lot to do with statistics, which I’m not good at, so I may have misstated his position because I don’t understand it, but I know there’s a way he’s suggesting applying it to America. That is, I’m not an epidemiologist or an expert in statistics, and even if there was one here, their statement would be meaningless unless they have Dr Ferguson’s work; we shouldn’t ask questions on people who are much better qualified than us. I’m just talking about his conclusion, but I’m not touching how that works; it’s not my place or yours.
No one is talking about how the model is built. We’re talking about how all you have to do is pay attention to understand that things are going to continue to get worse here before the get better. So no, Trump isn’t right, even in a broken clock way.
So Evangeline Lilly has changed her tune about the virus and has apologized about her past remarks… Is she off the hook now?
Sure – besides who’s holding that hook, anyway? I think that an entirely unprecedented catastrophe has somewhat blunted the effectiveness of shaming people when it’s become so apparent that surprisingly, we really do depend on other people – especially those with whom we disagree – to survive the hazards of the world. Forgiveness and acceptance is trending; shaming on the decline.
No one is talking about how the model is built. We’re talking about how all you have to do is pay attention to understand that things are going to continue to get worse here before the get better. So no, Trump isn’t right, even in a broken clock way.
Likewise, this is not getting much traction, but Lilly’s initial comments were in regard to the “election year.”
I mentioned in another thread that there is a tendency to find reasons for bad behavior AFTER a person is already engaged in the behavior. People naturally don’t want to change their routines. They don’t want to work from home and certainly they don’t want to stop working or changing plans that were already in place to deal with child care and so on. The first reaction is to deny there is a problem and then carry on. You don’t even need a reason to do it – denial is almost by definition ignoring any reason. It’s inherently irrational.
So, when confronted, rather than wake up and realize this is not right, a person (or more likely, a person’s subconscious) is going to latch on to a reason. I do this all the time and have to consciously actively realize it. People generally don’t do things because of the reasons they state, but rather the reasons they come up with are stated because of or to justify what they are thoughtlessly in the process of doing.
An easy “conspiracy theory” to latch on to goes something like this. A) the flu kills and probably will be responsible for killing more people this year than the coronavirus pandemic. B) If the news reported on the flu the same way that it’s reporting on Covid-19, it would cause the same hysteria. C) Therefore, this is just a stunt to upset the economy in advance of an election rather than anything we really need to worry about.
Of course, it avoids the obvious differences between the flu and Covid-19 in that we have vaccines and reliable treatments for the flu built up over decades or even a century plus of dealing with it. Our health care services are prepared for the flu for this same reason, and, of course, Covid 19 is hitting the same time as the flu season which means that the available services are already close to their limits.
So, Lilly just hit that “oh shit, this is really serious” stage of accepting reality and the falsehood of her rationalization and she went public with it in an apology. That’s a good thing because we need to strongly encourage more people to wake up to it. Certainly, it is also part of PR damage control, but no need to get all judgey when the net effect is positive.
I generally agree with Johnny on the Lily thing, despite me picking up David on a past post that really was just joking with him. People make mistakes and I think as a society we should be more accepting of that.
Interesting with those CDC flu stats. I’m a little sceptical about it all. There’s a Grand Canyon of a statistical margin of error there between 24 and 62 thousand. Normally the margin of error is 3%, not 300%. If this is just a slight increase on that then why are Spanish authorities having to resort to ice rinks as temporary morgues?
I wonder if with limited testing capability and huge reliance on those stats (which they admit in the small print) on assumptions that there’s a gap there. I’m 47 years old next month, I’ve never had the flu, I have had many common colds but a significant indicator of influenza is pains on the limbs, which I’ve never had, but everyone calls in ‘sick with the flu’, I think I’ve done it.
Trump says he wants country ‘opened up’ by Easter, despite caution from health experts
Trump is one dangerous fucking moron.
And our dangerous fucking moron isn’t far behind.
Well, you’re dangerous fucking moron is now truly fucking dangerous:
UK prime minister Boris Johnson tests positive for coronavirus
What’s truly fucking dangerous is that if Johnson is deemed to be incapacitated then his nominated deputy to take over as acting PM is Dominic Raab.
Dominic fucking Raab.
As if things couldn’t get any worse.
You can’t call in to work saying you’re staying home because you’ve catched a cold.
You actually can if the work culture is such that your managers encourage you not to work when ill because you staggering into the office, looking half dead and contagious doesn’t actually do anything productive.
Sure, it’s an honour system in part but those can be surprisingly effective.
So, Lilly just hit that “oh shit, this is really serious” stage of accepting reality and the falsehood of her rationalization and she went public with it in an apology.
…which is more than President Orangina has done. “I don’t accept any responsibility…”
I saw this on Facebook:
News last night was that this “DEADLY NEW VIRUS!!!” has killed six people. Sorry, I have sympathy for those people obviously, but six deaths in a month makes this the most pathetic virus in history. Why are we supposed to be panicking over this?
I just wanted to giggle at how well this post has aged.
While over 260 people sadly died of Covid-19 in the UK yesterday, 450 cancer sufferers also died.
I’m not making any point here. I’m just stating numbers.
Oh, here’s another number:
So that’s 6,000 less than died of seasonal flu last season.
Seriously, next flu season let’s put a death ticker on the nightly news and see what happens.
While over 260 people sadly died of Covid-19 in the UK yesterday, 450 cancer sufferers also died. I’m not making any point here. I’m just stating numbers.
However, how many Covid-19 patients are taking up hospital beds and ventilators that would normally be used for people suffering other illnesses? It’s the increased and geometrically increasing impact that not staying at home will have on the health system that will be felt elsewhere. So, not only will severe cases of Covid-19 die because there is no treatment available, anyone might die whose had a car accident at this time or heart attack or food poisoning because their treatment will be delayed or unavailable. Of course, the people most at risk are those providing that treatment, too. If a doctor or nurse gets Covid-19, they won’t be able to treat anyone who comes in with any other injury or illness as well.
With cancer, flu, heart conditions, and regular injuries, any normal health care system is already operating close to capacity. It would be wasteful to assume there might be a pandemic every year and have all this added equipment and personnel that would be used once in a century. Taking no measures at all, a potentially fatal and severe illness like Covid 19 has currently an infection rate of one person infects about three people before they are identified. That’s relatively very high. So the easiest step is to get people to stay away from each other to lower that replication rate. It’s not an intrinsic part of the virus. Then testing and tracking those who have it and those who have had it and immune can help isolate and identify where resources are needed and who can get back to work.
That’s why this is being reported so much more urgently and widely than the flu season – which would be more news in a normal cycle since it is such a bad one – because in the worst hit areas so far people are already dying while waiting for treatment that is not available. And by taking these measures in places that haven’t yet gotten to that point, it increases the chances that you won’t reach it.
So that’s 6,000 less than died of seasonal flu last season.
They’re expecting that many deaths even with the entire country grinding to a halt and people shut in their homes for weeks. As far as I remember that didn’t happen last flu season.
Coronavirus is different from regular flu. It’s more contagious, the fatality rate is higher, its effects on the individual are less predictable, and there is no current vaccine.
If anyone thinks this is media hype then make your case.
Right now the global consensus of scientists is that this is a genuine threat that goes beyond the norm and the reluctant position of the world’s politicians is that they are having to take measure they would never normally contemplate.
So if they’re wrong, make your case why?
Speaking from personal experience Arjan?
FBI Arrests Actor Who Claimed He Had a Coronavirus Cure to His Millions of Instagram Followers
This jackass and Alex Jones.
I’m not making any point here. I’m just stating numbers.
You are but you were when the number was 6 and my response there was it is news because of the potential of a pandemic and those numbers rising dramatically, which has happened now.
Bear in mind too the projection of keeping around 20,000 fatalities in the UK is after drastic social distancing policies have been applied nationally. The number projected with ‘herd immunity’ policy was 250,000. That’s 224,000 more than seasonal flu last year which is why it’s being responded to differently.
It’s a measure of how serious this situation is that David talked about the projected number of deaths being “6,000 less” than for seasonal flu last year, and more than twelve hours later no-one has even considered deploying Stannis.
So that’s 6,000 less than died of seasonal flu last season. Seriously, next flu season let’s put a death ticker on the nightly news and see what happens.
Just adding to what Dave already pointed out, but you are aware what the prognosis would have been if nothing had been done? And that the UK government changed its tactic because of that prediction? If not, take a look here:
In total, in an unmitigated epidemic, we would predict approximately 510,000 deaths in GB and 2.2 million in the US, not accounting for the potential negative effects of health systems being overwhelmed on mortality
So tell me David, would 510,000 be a bigger or a smaller number than that of the yearly flu deaths?
I think you’re all missing my point.
This is obviously serious, you would have to be stupid to think otherwise, and the preventative measures are obviously necessary and helping.
Now let’s do this next flu season too, because 26,000 deaths is still 26,000 deaths, and we now know how to cut those numbers down.
Or, is there an acceptable limit where we will cross our fingers and don’t care about deaths that aren’t us because it’s too difficult/expensive to stop them? (For me, as my posting history shows, I’ll freely admit I was like, meh 
at six people. The rest of the UK seems to routinely be the same at 26,000 every single year.)
