The newspapers in this country are despicable. The headlines in the Mirror, Tele, Mail all received a “wtf” response from me this morning!

Yes, you can ease lockdown safely only when cases are very low as in these countries

Both we (England) and the US have ended it prematurely. The US death toll is rising by over 1000 a day and now at 86,000. Cases have plateaued, dropping in some states but rising in others which didn't have a proper lockdown before

But Trump doesn't even want to talk about Corona anymore. The Corona task force hasn't even met for over a week

And Nick Ferrari and most other LBC presenters apart from O'Brien and Fogarty attacking the teachers for being "cowards". 

Life is back to normal round here. Many shops maybe still closed, but household mixing is now regularly taking place and buses and trains very busy

Perhaps the virus is not circulating here, but all it takes is one superspreader and we are back to square one. 

When these right-wing ghouls attack unions, it’s not just teachers or firefighters or doctors they’re targeting. It’s the very idea of you or anyone else having rights, protection & power in their workplace. The billionaires pulling the strings don’t work for their money, you do.

— James O'Brien (@mrjamesob) May 15, 2020

London North Eastern Railway (LNER) will be reservations only from Monday on all its trains.

Only one person will be able to sit per row unless from the same household standard class passengers must keep 2 full rows clear whilst in first class it will be a 1 row gap.

Face masks won't be required if you're able to maintain social distancing.

It seems mostly the gammon round here who were desperate to get back on the golf course and in the garden centres. Both have been packed since Wednesday

I agree that a lockdown has limited lifespan, but we didn't have a proper one to begin with and as a result our infection rate is still too high

Boris has taken a huge gamble by lifting it so soon. We can only hope he has got this right, or many thousands more will die

Obviouly you have zero understanding of the mathematics of pandemics.  The 500k prediction was based on no measures being taken; with a CFR of at least 1% and a population of 60+ million surely even you don't need a calculator to work out the worst case scenario.

Let's be honest. If some of the media is correct this morning the only thing disappearing faster than corona virus is Professor Neil Ferguson. Surely we can expect Tim Martin to spring out of the woodwork imminently?

Yes. Despite being a fatty, Ferrari was doing his mock indignation routine this morning and criticising people for wanting lock-down to continue. He really is a repulsive reptile.   

Mainstream media for literally a month: 'Why won't Boris talk about lifting the lock down', 'the government needs to talk about the path ahead', 'we need some hope'.

Government finally capitulates

Mainstream media: 'its too unclear, the public can't handle nuance'

I mean FFS. At this point its easier to come up with a list of people I'm not angry with. I mean even I wouldn't go on that list. I'm angry at:

The media: For whinging about the lockdown for the last month and finally pressuring the government into partially lifting it with unclear messaging

The government: For being weak enough to give into that pressure

Backbench Tories and JRM who clearly still is one: For being stupid enough to, like everyone else that thinks the lockdown can be just lifted, doesn't understand viral growth.

Protesters/demonstraters: Just for existing really. On the best of days I tolerate them and respect their right to create sound pollution. But during a global pandemic they annoy me even more than usual.

China/CPC: For causing this bloody awful mess in the first place

The police: For being like a honey trap for power hungry low IQ psycopaths but who don't know the difference between a trapezoid and a triceratops.

The NHS: For being incompetent as usual.

Everyone else: I'll think of something.

The RWM utterly full of propaganda, its quite scary. Thank God newspaper sales are falling, but we still allow them to set the agenda. Why do Sky and BBC still do twice nightly press previews? They are just spreading their lies and hate

The Guardian & ITV have published false, inaccurate & misleading claims about PPE stockpile.

The stockpile has always been readily deployable. There’s been no damage to any of the stockpile and it’s always been safely & securely stored.

Read more: https://t.co/hV4eWuL5nV

— Department of Health and Social Care (@DHSCgovuk) May 15, 2020

Love it Q!

James O'Brien - what a piece of work he is! So what does the cretin think about David Blunkett giving the teaching unions a bashing for letting down children from disadvantaged households?

James O'Brien is a gobshite like Owen motormouth Jones.

Well, it's impossible to wipe it out when people are coming into London from outside.  You only need one person and the R value of SARS-Cov2 means you sow the seeds of the next outbreak, in the same way that this pandemic started.

Nabarro from the WHO was interviewed this morning and made the point strongly that we will have to deal with multiple outbreaks going forward and it's how well we manage this that determines whether we get another upsurge.

The other salient point is that the national R value doesn't tell you what's happening locally, which is what matters now.  It could be 0.2 in, say, a little village (say, in the North Yorks Moors) but 1.5 in a commuter town.  That's going to be much more challenging because it will need local measures and local messaging: how's that going to be achieved?

I disagree with Blunkett, if he said what you claim. Perhaps he hasn't seen the latest science that children do indeed carry the virus and spread it. And also this new inflammatory disease linked to Corona that has emerged recently

I don't have kids as you know, but if I did, I certainly would not be sending them back in June. 

Ridiculous - Beast you were the one urging Boris to let the pubs stay open!

Point is that schools are going back across Europe, the return to school in June is very restricted and the schools have been given plenty of time to prepare for it.

Why is the left so against easing the lockdown? The economic and psychological damage from maintaining it is worse than easing it now.

 P.S. Blunkett on the teaching unions:

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/david-blunkett-teaching-unions-reopening-plans-june_uk_5ebd08ecc5b630c3461d5b32

The congestion charge will be hiked to £15 a day under the Government's coronavirus bail-out for London's transport system, the Evening Standard can reveal.

The central London levy, suspended on March 23 as part of the lockdown to make it easier for key workers to get to work safely, will be re-introduced on Monday, about two weeks earlier than expected.

It will increase from £11.50 to £15 - a 30 per cent hike - from June 22 and be enforced seven days a week, rather than just on weekdays at present. Its operating hours will temporarily extended in the evening from 6pm to 10pm. The charge will continue to be levied from 7am.

The changes are among the conditions imposed on mayor Sadiq Khan and Transport for London in return for the £1.6 billion bail-out agreed last night.

Travel for these bookings will subject to government confirmation in the days and weeks ahead they can resume.

This will get Maunder's juices flowing

Tempted to say: WTF does this kid know about anything? But I'll leave it at: WTF does she know about the coronavirus? https://t.co/KJu6sLVyET

— Kevin O'Sullivan (@TVKev) May 15, 2020

Just removed most of the OT posts. 

Epidemic ends in Slovenia. Things starting to move quickly now. It's a bit like the start of the Grand National. All countries will be chaotically trying to get a slight edge on their competitors as economies are fired up. Interesting times ahead. In the UK I expect the quiet men to start turning up the volume. 

Slovenia has become the first European country to declare an official end to its coronavirus epidemic. The Balkan EU member state has a population of two million and has seen only a handful of daily cases in the past fortnight. In total it reported 1,464 cases and 103 deaths. There'll be no more quarantine if you're travelling to Slovenia from another EU country. [dource: BBC]

R-value in Germany yesterday was estimated at 0.75

https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges_Coronavirus/Situationsberichte/2020-05-14-en.pdf?__blob=publicationFile