Quote from: sunjester on 21 March 2020, 12:14:32 PM
Not to be advised actually https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-51980820

1st floor flat, so I'm reasonably safe.

Quote from: Raider4 on 21 March 2020, 01:00:14 PM
Both me and the daughter were terribly ill pretty much all through February. Recently thought "maybe we've already had it?", but are pretty sure we didn't - no breathing problems.

I wonder, with SO many folk having succumbed to the 'normal' cold early this year, how many didn't realise that they were actually carrying around the covid-virus and were unwittingly passing it on.
I mean, if some folk barely suffer from the C-19, they quite probably thought "Oh....It's nothing, just a cold.".....Though, obviously, we have been warned now not to take that for granted, and self isolate.

Quote from: steve_holmes_11 on 21 March 2020, 02:22:39 PM
In the absence of comprehensive testing and tracing we simply don't know.

Very true.

Cheers - Phil

I'm wondering how long the isolation bit is going to go on. I live alone, and while I'm getting phone calls (inc Sunjester - thanks mate) I do want to have a beer and a laugh.

Also, why is it considered OK to sit in a 4m x 4m office with two other people?

Quote from: Last Hussar on 22 March 2020, 07:41:43 AM
I'm wondering how long the isolation bit is going to go on. I live alone, and while I'm getting phone calls (inc Sunjester - thanks mate) I do want to have a beer and a laugh.

I DO hope it's not for too long....Though I guess we'll have be guided by circumstances. .....End of April, at the earliest ??

At the moment, if I do pop out (and I'm doing this as infrequently as poss), there's a definite feeling of tension 'in the air'.
Only to be expected, I suppose.

Cheers - Phil

Quote from: Last Hussar on 22 March 2020, 07:41:43 AM
I'm wondering how long the isolation bit is going to go on. I live alone, and while I'm getting phone calls (inc Sunjester - thanks mate) I do want to have a beer and a laugh.

Also, why is it considered OK to sit in a 4m x 4m office with two other people?

It's not - pretty much every company that can has gone to home working. We already did in our team but start of last week the rest of the company switched overnight.

Huge chunks of our support requests this week were "set us up on Cloud" or "install on sixty laptops for remote working three minutes ago!".

It's a bit sh*t for social contact (I missed the last meet of my wargames club, now this!), it'll hopefully slow up the spread enough we're not all collapsed dying at the same time :/

Should be extensive promotion opportunities for the survivors, if the economy can still support employment afterwards. 

A short war and a bloody battle there Kitty ! I'll drink to that !

Looking at the Chinese curve on this, who are now being able to return to their parks and gardens, strong / strict isolation does seem to be the only way of coming out early at the other end.

Sadly, the way the UK population has had fairly large scale disregard for isolation, especially with city centres being chocker on a Friday / Saturday night,  I suspect the past 2 - 3 weeks have given us a ticking time-bomb going forward for the next 2 - 3 weeks. The crucial question for the nation is whether we will have reached demand saturation on ventilator availability before we can get the new kit proposed installed.

The real question is of course whether all this will delay the launch of the new Japanese line....

Quote from: Last Hussar on 22 March 2020, 07:41:43 AM

Also, why is it considered OK to sit in a 4m x 4m office with two other people?

Most of our normal day staff are working from home as are those at risk. The rest of us have spaced ourselves out as best we can so we are 3-5 metres apart.

Due to the secure nature of some of the stuff we work on we will have to have some people in all the time. If my shift partner is "at risk". I am looking at working the next 14 nights (12 hours each) on the trot.

Yeah, Britain's gone nuts. It's like a huge chunk of the populace thought "what's the worst thing we could do? Do it!" And thronged the supermarkets panic buying in sardine like hordes, or just go "I'm alright jack, off to the pub!". Queue Italy style deaths in two weeks...

Ofc our laughable political non-leadership hasn't helped, although I detect a bit of the Whitehall putsch a week ago with the disappearance of some of the most odiously incompetent venalities from view, the greasy eminences sidelined and their herd immunity take it on the chin lunacy deprecated and airbrushed out, and Johnson forced to actually surface and say something (mostly useless waffle but better than his usual, small mercies - that he makes a City junk bond wideboy look good is testament to his lack of quality as opposed to theirs!), and the appearance of competent scientists and actual medical professionals in public view!

I had a mad thought last night ... a theme for a sci-fi book in a world of mass viral pandemics - where they had brought back national service ... but into the Health Service and Caring professions.

Not a bad idea anyway I thought ...

You heard it here first ... BRING BACK NATIONAL SERVICE 

There was already mutterings of that for a "peasant agriculture penal brigade", to pick all the crops and fruit that we couldn't harvest due to Brexit. After all of everyone's lost their jobs due to the virus they can be agrarianised and put to use!

Quote from: Big Insect on 22 March 2020, 09:54:46 AM
I had a mad thought last night ... a theme for a sci-fi book in a world of mass viral pandemics - where they had brought back national service ... but into the Health Service and Caring professions.

Not a bad idea anyway I thought ...

You heard it here first ... BRING BACK NATIONAL SERVICE 

Our economy is now de facto nationalised in a manner that way exceeds 1948.  When the Blue Birds come back over the White Cliffs of Dover, it will be a different world in terms of values and economics.  A National Service Corps as you suggest may well be an option. The con is the training time to provide competent  care.  

But no-one admits to panic buying