Covid-19

[Pippedydeadeye]

They would have been very happy to take my (overweight/obese) plasma, but I’ve got the wrong sort of other antibodies and they do generally prefer to get it from men.

[ParisGal]

Tests in France are 100% free, they don't even scan your social security card like they would in any other healthcare situation. There was something on the news about it last night - I don't remember exactly, but the cost to the state for each test was about 80€ (20 admin, 60 for the test I think).

[Mountain Goat]

I think even the US tests people for free (?) - I don't see how you can do anything else unless you actively want to kill off your lower income demographic.

[H1ppychick]

Don't put ideas in Cummings's head...I believe he's a bit of a closet eugenicist...

[Mountain Goat]

No, that's unfair. Nothing closet about it.

[ParisGal]

I think even the US tests people for free (?) - I don't see how you can do anything else unless you actively want to kill off your lower income demographic.

Here (if I understand it correctly) very low income people are given free at the point of use healthcare, and if at some point in the future tests turned into the normal way of working*, they'd still be able to get free tests. But I think this might then exclude people who are in France but don't have a French social security number.

* Either pay up front and get reimbursed by the state up to a defined limit, and then perhaps partially by your private healthcare insurance, or if the provider is more technologically advanced, pay only the top up amount up front if there is any.

[Shoe]

I'm not allowed to give plasma either. The nurse told me that at 5'1" it was unlikely if ever be able to unless I put on a lot of weight.

[smalex]

The Welsh FM was just incredibly damning about the UK government.

Even more restrictions in the north and midlands now. I know someone touched on it a couple of days ago but has anyone read good explanations for why it's in the north more now. The SW was about the least affected in the first wave, and while we've seen some increase in the figures in the last few weeks all the authorities near me seem to be consistently in the least affected areas (SO FAR *TOUCHES WOOD 57 TIMES* )

[Mountain Goat]

Oh, I missed that about the Welsh FM, going to look.

I looked at the Zoe app map of infections yesterday (they're going to have to create some more categories for higher infection levels because most of the country is now on the maxed out colour) and there is a diagonal line going from the Wash down to just under Wales where almost everywhere, except London, is relatively low and everything above is maxed out. The SW, aside from the odd patch, looked in pretty good shape according to them to.

Have we seen the new ONS data on infections? Increasing in England by 6,000 a day this week according to them.

[Disco]

Have we seen the new ONS data on infections? Increasing in England by 6,000 a day this week according to them.

Yes, just saw that on the news.

[Mountain Goat]

And last night it was reported that the govt are pressuring care homes to take COVID positive hospital discharges again. https://twitter.com/Channel4News/status ... 6101218315

Either by incompetence or design, we're no better able to cope with this than we were in March. And I can't see there being anywhere near as high a level of compliance to harsher local lockdowns or to the possible national lockdown that may or may not happen in October. People are just done with doing as they're told (for a multitude of reasons, some totally reasonable, some fucking idiotic).

The only positive I can see is that we are still way, way down on the numbers we had in March/April and maybe factors beyond the government's power will limit the damage, like the virus weakening, or a vaccine, or me waking up and finding it was all a dream.

[smalex]

That map! It's such a striking divide.

I saw two friends earlier this week and we were discussing rule of six, etc. In both cases these women were two of the most ardent zealots (and loudly judgemental) people I knew over the first lockdown period. No nuance, no forgiveness, no exceptions. One in particular quite quickly fell off the waggon post May. She said a couple of times this week she had no intention of stopping seeing her mum or sister and nephews (she's got three kids so unless she sees her mum only or her sister only in most scenarios they'd be more than six). Reasons given- why should I do that when the pubs are open and I could sit in a room with 30 other people, counting her mum and sister as being part of her 'bubble' (even though the bubble rule could only have applied to her sister as a single adult family and she could've bubbled to her OR her mum, not both), her mum looks after her nephews and her youngest daughter so her and her sister can work (which I don't think is illegal here now) so they're all heavily exposed to one another anyway, Who knows what the rules are anyway they keep changing, if its ok to meet in a group of 6 from six households what harm is seeing my mum, as IF the government are going to follow it themselves (cheers Dominic). It's exactly what I thought would happen, tired of the rules/not prepared to sacrifice close family bonds again/demotivated/doesn't make sense/mixed messages/government are hypocritical. I find it aggravating because I found her attitude so so difficult to deal with back in March/April but I also don't hugely blame her for looking at the scenario and coming to the conclusion she has. I'm sure this is happening on a very widespread basis.

[Mountain Goat]

I completely agree. As a hardcore zealot ( JUST FOR MYSELF ) I recently shrugged and encouraged a friend on a minor infringement for these kind of reasons.

The map is boggling isn't it?! They're really going to have to rethink their data category colour scheme before the whole map is the same colour (except Hartlepool, where not enough people are reporting. What's going on, Hartlepool? )

[Ella77]

This is an interesting article. Things have really moved on from the early days when we thought masks were pointless because it couldn’t be transmitted by air.

https://elemental.medium.com/the-most-l ... 430384e5a5

The TL;DR is don’t bothering wiping down your groceries, but do wear masks.

[Mountain Goat]

That's really interesting, particularly the assertion that wearing a mask can protect you as well as other people (which could help to achieve better compliance, which is tragic in itself).

[Smunder Woman]

I am so braindead, I came to share that link on this thread, WHERE I JUST GOT IT FROM.

[Mountain Goat]

[Ella77]

I am so braindead, I came to share that link on this thread, WHERE I JUST GOT IT FROM.

Highly relatable in 2020 .

Isn’t it, Goat?

[olive]

That’s really interesting, Ella. Thanks for sharing. We’re still wiping down groceries - not fresh food, that just gets rinsed and put away as I figure cooking it will kill anything.

I am spraying the boys school stuff with Lysol though which I hate doing but I’m wary of anything they’ll pick up from school but I might stop wiping things down and spraying their stuff if the rate continues to slow where we are.

[Smunder Woman]

I make Joe go and shower as soon as he gets in every day. He's not too impressed with this His blazer, tie and bag get dettol sprayed.