Be Excellent To Each Other

That has more than one meaning

Ha! So it does. Um - in the second one, not *everyone* suffering.

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it

Charles II de Valois, Duke of Orléans

Likewise: "Those doomed to repeat the lessons of history are history teachers" - Simon Munnery

Dominic Raab was looking really anxious on the evening news, and not just his usual shifty self.

They're shitting bricks aren't they. Thought they'd just get to slime their way through a political career, blame any and all fuck ups on something else then end up with some cushy number at the end of it. This fucking shit was categorically NOT what they signed on for.

I have some friends on facebook (right, surprisingly, I know) that are SHOCKED and APPALLED at people DARING TO BE OUTSIDE.

However, they do have some quite vulnerable people in their families so I can kind of understand them being far more scared than others, but this level of finger-pointing, dobbing, righteous indignation doesn't sit too well with me and it seems like yet another division being stoked.

The Betoota Advocate summed it up in a pithy way, and amusingly as it is presented there I realise there's no benefit to shaming the shamers, as it were but it's good that we can still laugh though.

Just seen a replay of this on the news. He did not look well at all.

This is wonderful in so many ways

On the other hand asking people to clap at 8pm for good people who are fighting the fight on your behalf as we speak isn't too big an ask, as opposed to having a poppy attached to your lapel with a sharp pin that you inevitably prick yourself on putting on, and then falls off half way through the day, leaving you looking like a dick and so you go out and buy another one and the same thing happens again and then somebody asks, "Why aren't you wearing a poppy?" and you sound so craven explaining what happened with "I bought two actually," and aaaaaaaaaaargh.

However I am darkly amused by each clapping run sort of being like applause for Stalin, you really don't want to be the first to stop.

Plus you can legitimately go out and start emotionally shouting, "Fuck yeah!" as you clap like in a movie which is great.

Of which great movies are you thinking?

Claude Reins at the end of Casablanca, all of George Bailey's friends in the finale of It's a Wonderful Life, the crowd in the Emerald City at the end of the Wizard of Oz, and latterly Return to Oz, oh there are many.

I'm pretty sure the line "Fuck yeah!" was cut from all of those films.

Team America

A very timely and topical reminder of Bayesian mathematics:

Suppose you have a coronavirus antibody test that can tell you if you have had covid-19 or not. It has a 95% accuracy rate; so:
1) if you have had covid-19 there's a 5% chance the test says negative and
2) if you haven't had covid-19 there's a 5% chance the test says positive.

You get tested and it's positive. What is the probability you have had covid-19? How dangerous is it - to you and to society - for your doctor to now say "you can resume your normal daily life"?

Erk, I'm very bad at statistical analysis. While I understand the importance it is just not something that was 'sticky' enough for me to be able to retain any more than a very very (very) basic limited awareness.

But, the question "What is the probability you have had covid-19?" is answerable but, uhh, I'm working on it... The question "How dangerous is it - to you and to society - for your doctor to now say "you can resume your normal daily life"?" isn't so answerable without other parameters is it? and would be quite open to interpretation?

(define 'dangerous'. If true positive, are you still an an infectious stage? Does having had covid-19 prior confer you any immunity [presumably some, as it's an antibody test]?)

Don't we need to know the percentages of how many people have been tested and found positive/negative?

Presumably you're going to explain why Mr Bayes proves it's not 0.95 (I can't do stats. Or maths in general, but particularly stats) But maths tricks aside it's dangerous because immunity doesn't stop you existing people who otherwise wouldn't be?

There's a few factors.

Yeah, one is that even if you've had it, you can continue to spread it by touching something that has the virus on it and then touching something else, even if you can't contract it. So actually it's kind of a concern if people who are told they don't have it go around thinking they are invincible and stop washing their hands etc.

The other is that it would appear as though people with immunity can still contract the virus, their body just fights it off much quicker. This is good because they are less likely to get symptoms of any kind, so the risk to their own health is much lower. It's bad because they can still be asymptomatic carriers, and spread it to others who have no immunity, since they would likely be unaware they are carriers, because of no symptoms.
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandso ... n-positive

It's also unclear how long the immunity period will last. Unless people are going to get blood test on the regular, there's a chance of their antibodies no longer being produced and people being in a vulnerable state in ie 6 months time.

There's also the chance that there could be a mutation of the virus, for which these antibodies have no effect.

With more time to study, we could have more answers on how exactly this virus works, but people are dying right now so

I can answer this now. The short answer is, you can't know, there's not enough data. But the longer answer is: a lot less than it sounds like.

Think of administering this test to a million people chosen at random. Now let's make an assumption: let's assume 10% of the population has genuinely had covid-19. (This is almost certainly a significant over-estimate at the moment.)

So you have 100,000 people who have had it, and a 95% test success rate. That's 95k who get a positive test and have had it. And it's 5k who have had it, but the test comes back negative (a false negative result).

But you also have 900,000 people who haven't had it, and another 95% test success rate. So you get 45k people whose test is positive but they haven't had it (a false positive result.)

So we have a pool of 140k people who get positive results, with 95k who have had it and 45k who haven't. So if your 95% accurate test comes back positive, and 10% of the population have been infected, then there's only a 68% chance you've actually had covid-19.

Now, this all turns on the 10% infection figure I put in earlier, yes. But even if you make it 30% - which isn't possible to reach for a very long time without hopelessly overwhelming the hospitals - then the point stands: the false positive rate means your test is deceptive a lot more often than it sounds like it is.

I unintentionally muddied the waters with this bit. I should have written "even assuming that you get 100% immunity to coronavirus" - ie the danger is just from the risk of false diagnosis. My intention is to frame this in terms of the "I have had it and am now immune" passport idea that's floating around.

Which is interesting, as in the regulations that were passed to support these it stated that a review must be carried out by the 16th April 2020.

We watched a veritasium YouTube video about this exact concept and I understood it at the time. But now I don’t again.

That’s not a failure of your explanation. Just of the amount of time that has passed.

So my work has been turned into the Covid-19 testing site for all employees current self isolating.
Their line manager gives them a super secret number, they call and speak to a clinical staff member/Band 3 or above (whoever is manning the super secret phone) and are told to come to our car park to be tested. We’re only testing those who are symptomatic and results are supposed to be ready in 24 hours (this hasn’t necessarily been the case so far).
Of the 130 tested so far, 69 have been given their results and 11 are positive.

Eek. I hope you have the appropriate PPE for yourself Sally.

Only 15% positive is lower than I’d have expected, though I can understand why people have been erring on the side of caution.

All of the direct patient contact is now being done by clinical staff, I currently only have phone contact with them so none needed!
We’re still doing Sexual Health treatment etc in the mornings and then the Covid-19 testing from 1:30pm onwards, so all the reception staff are still needed for taking the normal calls. Thankfully I also do some other tasks - like sorting the HIV patient results and prescriptions - so I have got a bit of variety to my days, unlike some of the others.

This is quite important information.

A sub I watch on Youtube just lost his father in law to Covid 19. He said that 811 (Canada) told him he didn't have it and to stay home. 4 days later he was dead.

Apparently another "symptom" that I knew nothing about is the person becoming incoherent due to a lack of oxygen getting to the brain. Apparently a Canadian woman sat in A&E confused for several hours and then died, but they suspected she was schizophrenic because she wasn't making any sense.

So if you are on the phone with an elderly loved one and they don't make much sense call an ambulance.

I get this quite often, I read or watch something and feel like I'm getting it... until I try and apply/think about it, or until someone asks a question and I realise I'm really just some bozo that can only really read and recite a bit.

For example, recently for some reason* my Google News feed shows articles about quantum physics and I feel clever reading it but then and then and then before finally



*(Probably because I keep clicking on them and reading it.)

I seem to be sleeping longer and longer nowadays.

Anyone else?

I think there is at least another 10 weeks of this, possibly seven with a "don't even think of going out" bit attached.

This thought hasn't cheered me at all.

Not having to get up for a commute is bliss. Probably the only benefit of permanent home working.

Nope. I often can’t get to sleep until 1-2 and then have to get up at 7:30 to take Sal to work. I’m fucking exhausted most of the time.

I've just stuck to the same routine really, I worked from home one or two days a week as it was anyway. And I've been getting out for a run almost every day which I find helps massively with sleep, once it gets to 11 nothing is keeping me awake. Well not apart from the big helicopter that came twice last night. Not sure wtf that was about.

Ouch. Sorry to hear that, buddy.

I went for a run Tuesday; didn’t seem to help. I’ll try again tomorrow.

Actually slept better last night. Used some guided meditation, which helped.

I thought my symptoms were going away, but three weeks in and my relatively minor chest tightness and headache are lingering. Advice is still to just ride it out unless I get any serious symptoms

I've had this week booked off for ages and decided to take it anyway as I was pretty burnt out, and despite being stuck largely at home it's been great.
I don't normally sleep brilliantly, and for the first time in as long as I can remember I've started to get back to a normal sleep pattern.

We aren't going to bed quite as early, and I'm sleeping pretty much all the way through and not waking up early.

Yeah. Bed by midnight, up sometime after 8 am.

Here's an interesting conundrum. Farmer blocks a footpath

https://twitter.com/BBCCornwall/status/ ... 6839226368

#Coronavirus: A popular cycleway /footpath in #Cornwall is blocked off over infection fears

Read the full story ⬇️https://t.co/haMclcEw7s

— BBC Radio Cornwall (@BBCCornwall) April 9, 2020

No, I'm still getting my regular 4 hours as I have done for the last few years.

I often get an extra hour or two in the evening when I fall asleep watching TV.

I've been getting better quality of sleep since the threat of redundancy was removed and also when I stopped worrying about how we'd manage financially when I retired, but that was probably because I decided to delay retiring indefinitely. I was worrying a lot about those things and often woke throughout the night, mulling it all over incessantly.

Yes, I am sleeping more..

I won't be sleeping more tonight... My girls have decided they wanted to camp in the garden so I've drawn the short straw to stay with them.

The Vision is your name
Your Mrs is to blame
Put dignity to shame wear onesie
Egg hunt on Sunday
Seems bloody miles away
The sleep loss and disarray disfigure
The campsite’s a disgrace
Defying Bear Grylls place
Unending paper plates unending
Deafening
Pisstaking
TikToking
This pot noodle it doth ming

I’ve had full blown influenza once. I’ve never been so ill in my life. Took me six months to fully recover.
I know this is different but there reports coming out that medics have been telling people who get this bad and recover, that it will take a long time to clear your system.

Boris tested negatvie for Covid 19.

/Waits for shit to hit the media fan.

Yeah, real flu is shit, so when people say the covids is 'just the flu' I point out that what they have experienced in the past when they had a 'touch of the flu' almost certainly wasn't really flu at all but just a bad cold.

I've only had a proper flu once, and haven't had it as bad as Snappa, but when I did it was fucking shit; I couldn't get out of bed for days and was too ill to watch telly, play video games, read or do anything other than just lay in bed. It was horrid.

I recall at the time feeling annoyed, it felt like a 'waste' of being home sick and not being able to do anything comforting/distracting like I normally would on a sick-day... until I relaised that, shit, this is what really being actually properly sick really is - not just a bit poorly. It changed my perspective and made me more careful with how i labelled things.