#AntiviralWipe is on BBC2 at 9pm TONIGHT - It’s 45 minutes of hopefully cathartic Wipe-flavoured FUN including Cunk and Shitpeas and the whole damn thing. pic.twitter.com/fA37Zfr0gt

— Charlie Brooker (@charltonbrooker) May 14, 2020

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  The image that post conjures up!  I was actually a big fan of the Monkees!

Hubby’s hair clippers went missing and we tried to order new ones with the same results!  I’ve threatened to get the kitchen scissors out but he won’t let me near him with them!  My brother managed to buy some clippers early on in lockdown and the trim his wife gave him ended up in a full head shave.  It’s growing again now!  

 

Two of my close friends who live close to one another met up in the back garden of one of them last Saturday afternoon for a chat. They posted a pic on our WhatsApp group of them social distancing, each with a beer.

A couple hours later, another pic. Less distancing, a fair few empty cans on the table.

And then ;ater, when both were pretty whammed, they thought it would be an idea to cut each other's hair with clippers. The pictures they posted at gone 9pm were *interesting*. . Both posted pics the next day with No1 buzzcuts that they'd had to tidy up with.

 

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No. It’s fake news being spread by the far right. You guys have just issued guidance to the public about the dangers of spreading misinformation. https://t.co/o1pJdsbXhl

— Ayesha Hazarika (@ayeshahazarika) May 14, 2020

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Cummings and the Tufton St machine have been very busy trying to silence anyone who criticises the Govt

 

 

Massive response to this true tweet. Many who dismissed GMB's record ratings as a lie and tore into @piersmorgan were obvious bots. No followers, loads of numbers in their Twitter handles. Wonder who's paying for this weird disinformation campaign? https://t.co/2ZdGo65viM

— Kevin O'Sullivan (@TVKev) May 14, 2020

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On the subject of vaccines, treatments and testing, seems those responsible for all this 'may' be trying to seek information by hacking other countries.
US warning over Covid-19 'cyber-theft' by China
From the BBC news ticker:
US security agencies have said hackers backed by the Chinese government are trying to steal American research dealing with the response to the Covid-19 crisis.
The statement comes amid increased tensions between the two countries over the source of the outbreak.
The statement said the FBI was investigating digital break-ins by cyber-actors linked to China who were trying to steal data on vaccines, treatments and testing.
It warned scientists and public health officials to be on the lookout, but didn’t identify the institutions that had been targeted. The US authorities have long accused the Chinese government of cyber-espionage, which Beijing denies.
But this warning coincides with a much broader surge in cyber-theft and attacks by nations seeking advantage in the pandemic. Last week the US and Britain issued a joint statement about cyber threats to medical research, but didn’t name a specific country.

What's all this working together to find a common goal? Does beg a few questions if true. Why China are doing this? I suspect there is already so much of this going on in all fields, and it's quite 'normal' perhaps?

Cummings and the Tufton St machine have been very busy trying to silence anyone who criticises the Govt

 

 

Massive response to this true tweet. Many who dismissed GMB's record ratings as a lie and tore into @piersmorgan were obvious bots. No followers, loads of numbers in their Twitter handles. Wonder who's paying for this weird disinformation campaign? https://t.co/2ZdGo65viM

— Kevin O'Sullivan (@TVKev) May 14, 2020

I don't really know anyone who gives a s*** about twitter. It's like a weird little club which thinks it represents the real world but in fact is a world all of it's own.

Two of my close friends who live close to one another met up in the back garden of one of them last Saturday afternoon for a chat. They posted a pic on our WhatsApp group of them social distancing, each with a beer.

A couple hours later, another pic. Less distancing, a fair few empty cans on the table.

And then ;ater, when both were pretty whammed, they thought it would be an idea to cut each other's hair with clippers. The pictures they posted at gone 9pm were *interesting*. . Both posted pics the next day with No1 buzzcuts that they'd had to tidy up with.

  That’s how my brother ended up getting scalped by his wife and he recorded the event.  Rather than having attachments for different grades, his new clippers had digital controls and were cutting it to a nice length.  Then she cleaned the clippers and inadvertently changed the setting.  So the next cut sealed his fate!  

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This is an interesting story..

Why hasn't the UK listed loss of smell as a symptom of Covid-19?

At first Dan, 23, dismissed his stuffy nose as hay fever, but when he couldn't taste his beans on toast, he began to worry he had come down with Covid-19.

But when he called the NHS helpline, 111, he was told there was no problem as he didn't have a cough or a high temperature.

"They were obviously reading off a script and they said, 'You're good to go back to work,' which I felt a bit funny about," Dan says. "To have suddenly lost my sense of smell and taste when I work with some patients who have coronavirus felt like too much of a coincidence."

Ignoring this advice, he began self-isolating, as did the rest of his family, including his mum, a podiatrist whose clients include vulnerable elderly people, and his sister, an intensive care nurse at a children's hospital.

Meanwhile Dan's manager arranged a coronavirus test for him - and a few days later it came back positive.

"Based on government advice alone, I would have been back at work, going from patient to patient and potentially giving them coronavirus," says Dan.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-52638382

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You're not looking at the whole data though. What it shows is that if you're elderly and get it, you're at serious risk. If you're younger then the risk is much less, unless you have an underlying condition or are unlucky enough to have whatever it is that causes a cytokine storm.

And if you're under 30, or 40 (the line is a bit vague) then you won't show up on the test at all, as you won't have used antibodies to clear the virus in the first place.

The results are clear: shield the old, maintain distancing etc and the youngsters will slowly but surely continue to build immunity.

(EDIT: And your post shows well the folly of using averages in a massively skewed distribution. Just as a few people earning a million+ a year will skew the average much higher in terms of average earnings, so too the CFR is skewed by the massive bias towards elderly people. You should instead look at CFR by age).

 

I'm completely bemused as to why mortality seems to be the only thing you are factoring in. This disease has some horrendous effects on the body and mind and getting it can lead - in young people - to serious and potentially long-term health issues. The 'if you don't die you're fine' implication here is mind-boggling.

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I don't really know anyone who gives a s*** about twitter. It's like a weird little club which thinks it represents the real world but in fact is a world all of it's own.

What may start on twitter or facebook spreads everywhere like a virus - WhatsApp, other social networks and forums etc. 

Many people don't get their news from reputable sources anymore

So it does matter and its why Cummings and Trump know fake news on social media is so effective and can win you elections

 

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I'm completely bemused as to why mortality seems to be the only thing you are factoring in. This disease has some horrendous effects on the body and mind and getting it can lead - in young people - to serious and potentially long-term health issues. The 'if you don't die you're fine' implication here is mind-boggling.

I'd disagree strongly, of course. The antibody tests show that millions of people in Spain havd had Covid-19 and they don't seem to be a nation reeling with ill-effects as a result.

Hopefully when antibody testing is rolled out at scale here there will be a questionnaire regarding after effects along with it - so we can build a bigger picture. I would expect that only a tiny, miniscule minority end up with lasting ill effects from it - much as like regular flu.

 

 

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This is absolutely right. I would not condone my parents or my mother-in-law being locked away for months on end. That would be utterly appalling and anybody advocating such a thing would be suffering an empathy problem. We have to come up with better solutions than simply ‘shield the elderly’.

Well it is a step up from the implied "sod the elderly" which seems to be a subliminal message in some quarters!

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I'd disagree strongly, of course. The antibody tests show that millions of people in Spain havd had Covid-19 and they don't seem to be a nation reeling with ill-effects as a result.

Hopefully when antibody testing is rolled out at scale here there will be a questionnaire regarding after effects along with it - so we can build a bigger picture. I would expect that only a tiny, miniscule minority end up with lasting ill effects from it - much as like regular flu.

 

 

We don't yet know this for sure. If you only had mild symptoms, then you will probably be ok, but you may also not have enough antibodies to ward off a second attack

 

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I'd disagree strongly, of course. The antibody tests show that millions of people in Spain havd had Covid-19 and they don't seem to be a nation reeling with ill-effects as a result.

Hopefully when antibody testing is rolled out at scale here there will be a questionnaire regarding after effects along with it - so we can build a bigger picture. I would expect that only a tiny, miniscule minority end up with lasting ill effects from it - much as like regular flu.

 

 

Of course you would, Darren. For some reason you are on a mission to prove that Covid-19 is a storm in a teacup.

My 48yo neighbour caught it in Feb skiing in Italy. She was very ill for three weeks. She has permanently impaired lung function with doctors estimating she has lost 20% of capacity.

She used to run half marathons. 

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Of course you would, Darren. For some reason you are on a mission to prove that Covid-19 is a storm in a teacup.

My 48yo neighbour caught it in Feb skiing in Italy. She was very ill for three weeks. She has permanently impaired lung function with doctors estimating she has lost 20% of capacity.

She used to run half marathons. 

/shrug.

She got unlucky, is all.

If everyone of the millions who recovered from Covid suffered similarly, believe me you'd know about it!

Being fit is no gaurantee that you didn't have an underlying condition or genes which made you more susceptible. Hopefully there will be more testing of these unfortunate people so that we can gain a better understanding of both the visible and invisible risk factors.

 

 

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Or make your own masks.  The guidelines only say ‘face covering’, which could be a scarf!

My wife, who is good at sewing, has made a couple of masks. The elastic was so strong that it bent my already ample ears back double on themselves! Working on mark 2 now.

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I don't really know anyone who gives a s*** about twitter. It's like a weird little club which thinks it represents the real world but in fact is a world all of it's own.

 

That may be so, but the idea of posting links to comments made on it is that you agree with the point being made and want to share the point.

Morgan getting ripped into by hundreds of supposed Twitter followers for exposing the government's ineptitude and lies was used by more established right-wing media outlets to try to create the narrative that Morgan's views are unpopular (the inference being that they should be dismissed and him not watched/listened to because he's a joke).

There is a massive war taking place and the battleground is information and communication.

The faction that seems to be winning hands-down peddles a hard-right, anti-regulation, nationalist, anti-liberal, populist, anti-'Big State' message. They use misinformation, smeers, 'fake news' as their weapons, whipping up hate against the organisations, individuals and policies that they despise. The likes of Bannon, Cummings, Peterson etc are the better-known participants. The impact of their methods has been seismic, helping get Trump elected to winning the Brexit vote. Both by harnessing through misinformation a wave of discontent amongst the general public. In both cases IMO the public were manipulated through sustained misinformation and propaganda to target their anger in totally the wrong direction.

Yet the deeper question to ask yourself is: who is funding all this?

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/shrug.

She got unlucky, is all.

 

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I'd disagree strongly, of course. The antibody tests show that millions of people in Spain havd had Covid-19 and they don't seem to be a nation reeling with ill-effects as a result.

Hopefully when antibody testing is rolled out at scale here there will be a questionnaire regarding after effects along with it - so we can build a bigger picture. I would expect that only a tiny, miniscule minority end up with lasting ill effects from it - much as like regular flu.

 

 

I know 7 people who've had it. 5 of them, in some cases 2 months on, still cannot breath properly. A small sample, but one that is reflected by what I have seen elsewhere. I'd suggest you can't see it because you're not looking. The idea that this is just like regular flu is dangerous nonsense. There are serious long-term effects here that are not properly understood. To plough on with flu-based assumptions rather than recognise that there are signs this could have serious repercussions beyond mortality is just bewildering.

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My wife, who is good at sewing, has made a couple of masks. The elastic was so strong that it bent my already ample ears back double on themselves! Working on mark 2 now.

   Oh d’ear!  That really did make me laugh out loud!

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