The Flu (Health)

[Ishmael]

I've just given you the numbers. Boris Johnson could not have been in any danger. The numbers are clear.

10,000 deaths from Covid-19 in a population of 350,000,000. 90% of those persons dying were of "advanced age."

How in the world are you still pretending Johnson was on his deathbed? He obviously wasn't. Though he may insist there's "no question about it."

[Hatty]

So according to your scenario, St Thomas's ICU doctors and nurses were pretending too? First-rate actors one would have to say.

[Grant]

I’m not sure “co-morbidity” means you would have died of it anyway. It just means another disease which accompanied you to the grave.
As for Boris, he must have been ill but I’m not convinced the doctors didn’t panic over what for him was a nasty - and convenient - flu/cold/coronavirus.

This all comes back to what I said months ago. If you pay a multi-billion turnover organisation to panic on your behalf about every single health scare, don’t be surprised when they succeed. The solution is to defund the WHO and sack every single so-called expert in epidemiology

[Mick Harper]

Two fascinating bits of Covid lore. The DVLA is unable to conduct driving tests in sufficient numbers to prevent a giant backlog building up. The people at the end of the queue will find their theory test pass has expired. We can't help that, is the DVLA position. Odeon Cinemas run a scheme where you pay a standing order and can visit their cinemas as often as you like. Since nobody has been able to for several months, lots of people want to cancel their standing order. Too many for Odeon Cinemas to cope with. Anyone who cancels their standing order off their own bat is breaking the terms of the contract and is automatically turned over to a debt collection agency. We can't help that, is the Odeon position.

[Ishmael]

[Ishmael]

[Ishmael]

[Hatty]

[Mick Harper]

The position has now reached crazy-stakes. The daily infection rate appears to be expanding exponentially (3000 yesterday, double from last week) while the death rate stays at -- functionally -- nil. The other figure bandied around, admissions to hospital, is never shown (nor broken down to ordinary and intensive care) but is consistently said to be 'unchanged' though one expert corrected this and said something to the effect, "Well, it rose by seventy," but didn't seem overly concerned.

Another expert tried to retain the status quo by talking about how the 3,000 will play out 'long term' but since the overall position has now gone through several two-week infection-to-outcome cycles, it is reasonable to say, WTF. Who cares if it goes up 10,000 if nobody much is dying. Flu cases are ten thousand on a good day.

This has become personal because, at the end of the month, I am due to have a holiday in close proximity to maybe 15-20 people -- children, adults, old, very old -- and there is talk of us all socially distancing. My position is not me, bub. If we have a carrier we'll all likely catch it anyway and since none of us are likely to be one of the half dozen due to die on any given day, let's just go for it. But then I'm the only member of my extended family who got a VC during the war. Not that I have ever told them. Well, you don't, do you? I told them once about being a polymathic genius and I've never heard the last of that!

[Chad]

[Mick Harper]

Waiter, take this away.

[Boreades]

[Ishmael]

[Mick Harper]

[Hatty]