Will plasma treatment provide us with a solution?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52348368

The DHSC has now now started issuing direct rebuttals to media claims on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/skynews/status/1251946911231283202?s=21

Its the first Tweet in response to the Sky article.

Today's fun thing for me will be the news that the gov't is giving away free laptops and 4G dongles... it looks like my team will, in due course, have to go in to set up a crap-ton of laptops (and presumably hand them out too).

We have 25% of our pupils on free school meals and by the sounds of it a quarter of year 10 (80 or so pupils) will be getting free kit, as well as looked-after children in other years.

The interesting thing is that we'd already allocated about 10 laptops (old teachers' ones) for some of the present year 11, but the Trust vetoed any idea of getting dongles for them on the basis that we couldn't fulfil our statutory safeguarding duties - as we couldn't ensure the Internet access provided by them would be filtered.

Now it's government-mandated, don't be surprised if you hear of people taking the free 4G dongles and using them on a friend's laptop and surfing for porn via a VPN! Furthermore, I notice the reports said that "some educational sites" won't count against the data limit... again, this raises the spectre of the school having to fork out for the kids to watch Netflix or iPlayer, all things which resulted in the Trust vetoing the idea when it was mooted by our head prior to the lockdown.

Oh well, we'll see what happens. Given the government's handling of IT in general I doubt we'll see much for the next fortnight at least!

Developments in Sweden continue to be fascinating. Perhaps the virus will just fade away after all? On the other hand it's possible there are other factors at work. For example, the Swedes may be very good at social distancing without needing strict rules to be imposed by government or the population density makes it more difficult for the virus to really take hold. Mass antibody testing in Stockholm would be informative. 

Free-to-roam Swedes flatten the coronavirus curve

The medic leading Sweden’s coronavirus response claims the country’s epidemic is stabilising even though the population has not been ordered to stay at home.

Almost alone among wealthy European nations, the Swedish authorities have chosen not to slow the disease’s spread through an enforced lockdown.

Instead, most schools, bars, restaurants, shops and even some museums and galleries have remained open, with Swedes advised rather than compelled to adopt social distancing measures.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/free-to-roam-swedes-flatten-the-coronavirus-curve-bxpdvv05f

Shocking to see the government website being used for a political rebuttal. That's your tax and mine being used to prop up a government which I personally don't support. Can I request a refund?

It is very shocking Brain and I don’t agree with the DHSC being used in such a way.

How would you suggest it was done then? Would you have just ignored the report?

Sweeden looks like the one country that has got its approach right treating its citizens like grown ups and protecting its economy at the same time and if indeed things improve there it would be a good model for the uk to follow in 3 weeks time.

I'm sure population density must have a significant impact. 

Sweden's population density is 25 per km squared

UK's population density is 281 per km squared

Countries with vastly greater densities like ours can't just follow the Sweden model and expect similar results. Had we done so it would have likely meant disaster for our NHS.

They shouldn't be using tax payers money for political reasons. If you want to make a donation to the New Brexit Party feel free. I'd sooner not.

Sweden is a bit different to the UK.

https://luminocity3d.org/WorldPopDen/#5/57.005/11.953

Certainly looks positive at the moment but it looked good in Japan too and they now have a huge problem with an increase in cases and pressure on hospitals.

That thought has occurred to me quite often Steve. It is also, and will continue to be, interesting to compare the picture in Sweden with its Scandinavian neighbours.

They have a problem but it is too early to say whether it is huge. On April 15th they recorded 741 new cases. For comparison the UK is still recording between 4,000 and 6,000 infections on a daily basis.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/japan/

Doctors in Japan are are warning of a health service break down. It’s the hospital admissions that you need to look out for, not the number of new cases (particularly from a country that isn’t testing - 892 per million, compared with the UK’s 7000

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-52336388

I think it's way too early to make that judgement.

Just for balance, here's a contrary view...

The Grim Truth About the “Swedish Model”

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/swedish-coronavirus-no-lockdown-model-proves-lethal-by-hans-bergstrom-2020-04

So you would have ignored it then.

It starts with 2 very dodgy claims:

‘This is an unprecedented global pandemic and we have taken the right steps at the right time to combat it, guided at all times by the best scientific advice.

'Our response has ensured that the NHS has been given all the support it needs to ensure everyone requiring treatment has received it, as well as providing protection to businesses and reassurance to workers.

--

So, both the lockdown and the PPE procurement were done at the right time and also the NHS stuff have all the protection they need. In other words the frontline medics are probably lying.

They've done quite poorly so far compared to their neighbours and it's not like they are not taking an economic hit (they will have a recession and unemployment is rising fast)

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-deaths-days-since-per-million?country=ITA+KOR+SWE+GBR+GRC+DNK+NOR+FIN+PRT

There are signs that their epidemic is slowing down, but it's still too early.

It's quite a different situation actually. The new cases in Singapore are mostly in immigrant housing and I think Singapore will manage to control it again. Japan, on the other hand, seems to have more widespread new infections and hospital admissions and I expect their number of deaths to rise sharply in the next few weeks. SIngapore has done (and still is doing) a lot of testing, but Japan hasn't. There were also many right wing politicians in Japan claiming that the priority should be the economy.

The "Get ready for Brexit on October 31st" campaign cost us £100m. 

If you look at the numbers both here and America, a large number of cases are from minority groups in densely populated areas

Take those away, and the situation doesn't look bad at all in rural areas. Perhaps lockdown can be eased in such areas with no public health risk