Charlie has tested positive for Covid at his holiday home in Balmoral.

Being careful here bearing in mind what nordmann has said, I did see something where a woman qualified in chemistry was debunking a number of the DIY hand sanitiser recipes.  She said the only one she confidently believed might work was the WHO one and even then it had to be made properly.  There was also the risk that 'rubbing alcohol' is VERY, VERY inflammatory - saying for instance if somebody used a preparation made with rubbing alcohol and went to use lighted gas without having washed his or her hands.  Some people have burned their hands in this connection she warned. She advised buying the professionally made ones if at all possible and made the point about washing with soap being the best option.  I was wondering if when I go for my occasional (as intermittent as possible these days) shopping or exercise trips I should carry some soap around with me but in the borough where I live the public lavatories are all closed at present so that might be redundant.  (The liquid soap dispensers often are empty and bars of soap get stolen - and not just in emergencies - in such places I find).  BTW, I wasn't seriously suggesting that anyone should do anything that was mentioned in the deleted post.  I was trying for levity but maybe levity is misplaced in these difficult times.

There's a caveat that even some of the shop-bought hand sanitisers are really only for killing off bacteria - which they do - but not all of them are strong enough to kill the corona virus.

A tip from nordmann re shopping. I bought a very cheap packet of 200 freezer bags - you know the ones, all on a roll that one tears off as you need them. I make sure to bring a few with me into the shop, not as containers but as shields - since latex gloves and the like are now all but vanished from shops.

The small 1 litre size fits over the hand quite neatly and can be used just as a glove. Alternatively one can be placed around the handle of your basket etc. Or both.

Plastic and steel surfaces are those on which the virus survives longest - up to a frightening 72 hours - and supermarket surfaces are made of practically little else. Baskets, trolleys, and checkpoint card machines are the obvious fomites in a supermarket (almost guaranteed transfer points of viruses because of how they are used). So no matter how stupid it looks to go around with a small freezer bag on your hand this is a cheap and 100% effective way of stopping your skin picking up the virus from these points.

When removing the bag pinch it from the inside so that it automatically inverts as you pull it away. Then dispose of it immediately.

We have a lot of people here theatrically dancing away from each other as they pass in the aisles, forlornly trying to keep the magical 1 meter distance. This is not necessary as long as you can get past each other without coughing or sneezing. However once stationary, such as in the queue or waiting for access to an item on a shelf where someone else is picking stuff, then stand sensibly away from each other until they're finished.

Avoid touching any item prior to selecting it, and especially if there is a chance you will choose not to select it and place it back. And of course, armed with your little freezer bag glove, this too is an entirely safer operation anyway.

You don't "kill" a virus in the same way that you can bacteria. By washing your hands with an alcohol solution you greatly reduce the potential half-life of the virus as you remove quite a lot of the environment in which its protein-laden surface can retain integrity. However unless you immerse your hands in pure alcohol and hold them there for a while you will not eliminate any contamination completely.

Soap and water is in fact a far better guarantee that contaminated skin surfaces (which at the microscopic level at which the virus lives resemble a mountain range) will emerge clean if they are vigorously and thoroughly applied. The virus in fact will have most likely attached to grease/fat/sweat particles, and these will all be effectively removed by soap, right down to the valleys in which the virus has come to rest. Carbolic soap is even better (it also has a go at any nasty bacteria present too).

Removing bacteria is still important. If you are unfortunate enough to contract Covid-19 then your lungs are very vulnerable to bacterial infection too, leading to pneuomonia (and some IC results are showing pleurisy too). So anti-bac wipes aren't a total stupidity either. But wash, wash, and wash again is still the best motto.

I've looked on the website of the borough where I live and they have suspended the collection of garden waste (brown bin) though are silent on the recycling bin (blue bin).  Maybe they think lots of people will go into their gardens while confined to barracks over the Covid-19 crisis.  The green bins which are collected on alternate weeks from the blue/brown ones seem to be left in place.

Do not be tempted, however, to put a freezer bag - or anything similar -  over your head: things can be taken too far, and you will look really silly. Use of freezer bags for one's hands is a very sensible idea (really - I'm not being sarcastic). There will now be panic-buying of said bags throughout the UK, as there are no latex gloves to be had, not even for ready money. 

Panic-buying is obviously a thrilling and addictive process: I do hope Priscilla will eventually tell her teddy bear story here...

LadyinRetirement wrote:

I've looked on the website of the borough where I live and they have suspended the collection of garden waste (brown bin) though are silent on the recycling bin (blue bin).  Maybe they think lots of people will go into their gardens while confined to barracks over the Covid-19 crisis.  The green bins which are collected on alternate weeks from the blue/brown ones seem to be left in place.

I'm still amazed and shocked by how casually the UK is acting over this.

In France, while regular bin collections continue and have actually been increased in many cities because of more people now living confined at home, all non essential collections (garden stuff, old cookers, etc) have stopped. It's not essential so deal with it. Daily postal delveries continue, but most post offices themselves are shut. However you can now arrange via the internet for postie to pick up from your own mail box when he passes, for things like recorded deliveries etc. (La Poste managed to introduce this scheme in just a few days following last week's restrictions, and it's such a brilliant idea that I suspect it will become a permanent service in the future). Local banks too are all shut (they're not essential) but the local one at least has prepared a whole range of options if you actually need to speak to a bank employee but have no internet or telephone. Whilst doing my weekly shop I also bought a box of paracetamol in the pharmacie, no problem, but I was limied to just the one box. But in France you can only ever buy aspirin/paracetamol/ibuprofin in pharmacies - never in supermarkets, newsagents or petrol stations - and so rationing, if necessary, is easily done.

The motorways in France remain open (with contactless toll payment systems) but unless you're obviously a big truck transporting essential goods, you will be stopped and likely fined (generally all travel is forbidden). The gendarmerie were orderd to quickly clamp down on anyone travelling to second homes etc. (having a second, holiday home, usually at the other end of the country from where you actually live and work, is very common). The long distance rail network and internal air traffic are similarly restricted, with massively reduced services and passengers subject to intense scrutiny about their reasons for travel. Likewise the international borders are effectively shut for all non-business travel or transport.

Frankly if you're going to do 'quarantine' then history shows that it needs to be total and enforced to be effective. The UK, even after the most recent pronouncements, still seems to be just half-hearted in its approach to this common problem, and yet again risks being the pariah state that no-one can trust.

21 year old with no known underlying health problems dies of Covid-19:

Sky News Covid-19

On a more positive note, a simple mass testing kit could be available "within days":

Sky News Covid-19 II

I wasn't complaining about the garden waste bins not being emptied, MM, I just was puzzled by it, though it being postponed for the time being because it's non-essential makes sense.  The borough has also said there won't be collections of large one-off items pro-temp.  I was thinking that maybe the items in the blue bin would be more likely to be potentially contaminated than those in the brown bin - plastic/glass bottles and tin cans obviously can be washed and rinsed and put through a dishwasher if somebody has one (I don't) but I was thinking well maybe cardboard and paper could harbour the virus.  Though I guess if a contaminated paper or piece of card had been in the bin long enough the virus would die off.  So I was surprised that the brown bin collection had been cancelled rather than the blue one - I wasn't having a hissy fit.

I've seen something in the news today about the police telling people to go away from beaches and parks in the UK so matters are being enforced more stringently here now.

We are going to continue all three collections for now - grey (residual) one week, blue (recycling) and green (green waste) the alternate week. Since blue & green need different lorries, if there are too few drivers then the least used - green - bin collection will be suspended. Then, if necessary, the blue bin collections, leaving the grey bin at least being emptied.

MM wrote:

 

I'm still amazed and shocked by how casually the UK is acting over this.
 

Things have got stricter since the UK farce we witnessed at the weekend: my neighbour, who has just had her sixtieth birthday, phoned me to say she had been stopped by "the Granny Squad" yesterday while on her way to Morrison's. She was questioned, but allowed to continue. And this was in a sleepy little Devon town! The cities must be much harder to police - Londoners seem to be worst at taking notice of anybody in authority. London grannies are notoriously rebellious. Perhaps that 4000-bed emergency hospital at the ExCeL Centre - with two morgues - that is being made ready in the capital will shock them into compliance.


BBC News - ExCeL Centre Field Hospital


I haven't been out for a week now, apart from my garden and a couple of walks up the lane and back. I am strangely OK - I'm actually enjoying the peace and quiet of it all - reading, gardening and looking at Res His seem to be all I need! I must be a natural recluse.

My emergency supplies of Fruit and Nut are now dangerously low...

It's recycling bin day here tomorrow - have no idea if the chaps will come or not. I've very little this week - only Fruit and Nut wrappers.

I was listening to UK radio earlier today (BBC Radio 4 news and LBC) and had to turn it off - the levels of naivete were a little overwhelming so I switched back to Norwegian and Irish news coverage to restore my faith in humanity.

What was really disconcerting was Today on Radio 4, which is meant to be a flagship industry standard news vehicle, and which spent almost two hours switching between reporting on naive and dishonest public administration and then completely naive and dishonest reportage by them, with occasional forays in between into items designed to "lift the mood" of the listening public so they can avoid feeling "depressed" which, as we all know, is the number one effect of a SARS virus strain. LBC was even worse, as an artificially "angry" presenter invited "angry" citizens to phone in about things that make them "angry" re the coronavirus pandemic such as "should footballers receive income support from the government" and "should we report people we see in public parks to the police".

If this is really an indication of the current national awareness in the UK then I despair for the welfare of my relatives and friends there.

Is it really so difficult for people in the UK to interpret "lock-down" as a voluntary and sensible precaution to save lives? Or am I listening to the wrong programmes?

Dear Temperance,

I think MM is right. The countries, which started the first the lockdown, will flatten the curve and reach earlier the summit. It is quite logical  that any epidemic has to be nipped in the bud, once it is spread it is out of control and growing exponential.
I really fear for the US. I hope I will be wrong.

I with the partner am now in the 11th day of the quarantaine after the turmoil on the airport of Tenerife on 15 March. I made an arrangement? (French arragement) with the local supermarket boss in our small locality and he brought all necessary at the door. Then he laid the spare change in a plastic envelope at the door and I laid my money also at the door for him.

Kind regards from your also locked up Paul.

PS: At least we have a garden of some 200 square meters and it is sunny today. And of course we have also our GMS's and an I pad and a computer...

PPS: I have a big library, but it are all historyworks, atlasses and scientific works. No novels or fiction. That I have from the local library Bruges, which is now closed. The DVD's from the library and two English language books that I had with me to Tenerife, I have not to return in the foreseeable future because the library was already closed when I arrived on 15 March from Tenerife.

I'm in a similar situation, Paul. I moved from isolation to quarantine a few days ago because of some symptoms I reported. The procedure had been for them to come out and do an antigen test but the volume of reported cases has made that unfeasible. So now it's "proceed as if you have it" for 72 hours (full quarantine) and then revert to isolation if you feel better, but with extremely restricted social mobility (no shopping for example) until they can organise an antibody test.

For what it's worth the diagnosis was pretty positive - in that I have an 80% probability now of being contagious - so I'm basically grounded until or unless I'm hospitalised or get an official all-clear after the antibody test. We've organised a help group within our block so that the socially mobile can run and fetch for the immobile, and for the moment it's working fine.

Nordmann, here's hoping you recover quickly and without problems, and are then effectively immune.

Thanks MM.

Within our own little community where I live we have probably 70 households. At the moment we have 15 of these (including me) in self-imposed quarantine. But we also have a lot of young children in that group (about 20% of the human count) who are basically potential "super spreaders", which is why we are all now hoping that the antibody tests at least can be rolled out as soon as possible.

I was asked to use some models I helped develop (for computer viruses actually, but it's amazing just how similar the model works for disease once the denominators are established) to see if we could have a stab at working out effective strategies. The local community umbrella organisation (a sort of "Residents Associations Society") have picked up on this too and have started circulating our own little strategy as advice to others in similar demographic "units".

Basically, as with any virus on an exponential curve, the continued function of the host (in this case the 70 households as opposed to the PC network) can be protected up to a point before which it breaks down. The denominators that apply most are the number of locked down components (like me) versus the number who can then step in and replace their function, and of course what constitutes a "working" unit which is basically that no one starves to death.

Amazingly - as long as we all play ball - the number of necessary functioning components in this case works out to be as low as 5%, which is very much a "worst case" prognosis. So, at the moment even though we are actually untypically harder hit in our community compared to most others of similar size in Oslo, our 85% functioning component ratio is extremely encouraging!

The other thing the model includes is remediation - and on that score too the situation is far better than with a data virus loose within a network. Though we can only know when the antibody testing is completed so it cannot be included as a denominator, it is looking like the functioning component ratio can always be maintained above 60%, given that everyone plays by the rules of course.

Oh, nordmann - that post is so you! Logic v. the Bug! I shall pray hard for you and Paul to have loads of powerful and robust antibodies doing their work - if that is allowed!  (You'd probably both rather I didn't!) With both approaches - maths/science and a judicious bit of woo - perhaps this scourge can be defeated.

Seriously, look after yourself, you two.

Temp.

If you can quantify the effect of that strategy, Temp, I will gladly include it as a denominator in future models. They can always do with refining!

nordmann wrote:

I'm in a similar situation, Paul. I moved from isolation to quarantine a few days ago because of some symptoms I reported. The procedure had been for them to come out and do an antigen test but the volume of reported cases has made that unfeasible. So now it's "proceed as if you have it" for 72 hours (full quarantine) and then revert to isolation if you feel better, but with extremely restricted social mobility (no shopping for example) until they can organise an antibody test.

For what it's worth the diagnosis was pretty positive - in that I have an 80% probability now of being contagious - so I'm basically grounded until or unless I'm hospitalised or get an official all-clear after the antibody test. We've organised a help group within our block so that the socially mobile can run and fetch for the immobile, and for the moment it's working fine.

 
nordmann,

sad to hear that from you. You see the bug is closer than you think. "Our" quarantaine (or as I read you: is it just "isolation"?) is just for safety reasons, you never know. Up to now no indications and in the 11th day, the mathematic probability...

We have here also many cases with "mild" phenomena that after some fortnight are freed from strict seclusion and are called healthy again.
nordmann, in any case let know something from you about the evolution. Even with PM to all of the band, if you don't want to do it publicly...

Kind regards from Paul and with the best wishes for a speedy return to the normality of the present "nowadays".

Just two points and a query.

One - When handling bins, after collection (and basically whenever you do) wear gloves. Bin men handle c 2,000 bins a  day, who knows how many might be contaminated.

Two - Paul, you are wrong about "reaching the peak" sooner. Exactly the opposite is true. Slowing the rate of transmission delays the peak as well as lowering it. Probably has a minimal effect on the total number of cases.

Query - hand washing yes I get it. BUT does hand wash (basically smelly teepol iirc) have the same beneficial effects as soap? If not, we should be told!

Self-isolation here basically means that everyone avoids everyone else, that no one goes out unless they have to, and when they do they exercise what Norwegians call "hensyn" (no English for "direction thought" but it basically means not acting like a stupid wally). Quarantine on the other hand is literally self-imposed incarceration with self-administered temperature readings every three hours, noting symptoms and recurrences (cough frequency basically) etc, and someone ringing you from the health authority sporadically to take note of the results. Any deterioration and you'll be whisked away.

At the moment I'm seeing no improvement and no deterioration which, a week ago, would itself have been enough to be taken in. But now it just means an extension of the quarantine regime.

Antibody testing will verify immunities and so on. However it won't be a measure of shedding potential, so right now no one can predict how long this goes on for with any accuracy except that it won't be "speedy". The stuff being spouted by government in the UK and USA in particular is therefore very scary, or certainly should be for those living there with such buffoons in charge.

Green George: Soap is good. Better than detergent, or at least any detergent that doesn't itself have a soap content. This is because soap's amphiphiles actually dismantle the lipid bilayer - the fatty element of the virus which houses also the protein connectors it uses to attach to a host. And it works best if vigorously applied - this ensures the soap reaches the microscopic crevices harbouring viruses on contaminated skin. Detergent will kill bacteria on your hands too, which is never a bad thing, just not the thing most important in this case.

Excellent!

Above post - brilliant - I'll be singing it all day now.




PS Actual line from P&P! Mr Bennet must be thinking:" Yes, shut up for God's sake, Kitty, or they'll put us all in quarantine, and two weeks stuck in with six women will drive me completely over the edge."

Paul & Nordmann, sorry to hear about that, I'm sure everything will be OK.


Great song!!!


One from Horrible Histories:

deleted, video deleted itself

Green George wrote:

Paul, you are wrong about "reaching the peak" sooner. Exactly the opposite is true. Slowing the rate of transmission delays the peak as well as lowering it. Probably has a minimal effect on the total number of cases.

Query - hand washing yes I get it. BUT does hand wash (basically smelly teepol iirc) have the same beneficial effects as soap? If not, we should be told!

 
Gil,

thanks for the "éclaircissement" (enlightenment?)

Query...The grandson (Phd in biochemicals) said to me on the phone, that each "tensioactif" (I see now that it is "surfactant" in English)
https://www.britannica.com/science/surfactant
breaks the cell wall of the virusses and bacteria...
But to be sure better seek it for yourself...

Kind regards, Paul.

nordmann wrote:

Self-isolation here basically means that everyone avoids everyone else, that no one goes out unless they have to, and when they do they exercise what Norwegians call "hensyn" (no English for "direction thought" but it basically means not acting like a stupid wally). Quarantine on the other hand is literally self-imposed incarceration with self-administered temperature readings every three hours, noting symptoms and recurrences (cough frequency basically) etc, and someone ringing you from the health authority sporadically to take note of the results. Any deterioration and you'll be whisked away.

At the moment I'm seeing no improvement and no deterioration which, a week ago, would itself have been enough to be taken in. But now it just means an extension of the quarantine regime.

Antibody testing will verify immunities and so on. However it won't be a measure of shedding potential, so right now no one can predict how long this goes on for with any accuracy except that it won't be "speedy". The stuff being spouted by government in the UK and USA in particular is therefore very scary, or certainly should be for those living there with such buffoons in charge.

Green George: Soap is good. Better than detergent, or at least any detergent that doesn't itself have a soap content. This is because soap's amphiphiles actually dismantle the lipid bilayer - the fatty element of the virus which houses also the protein connectors it uses to attach to a host. And it works best if vigorously applied - this ensures the soap reaches the microscopic crevices harbouring viruses on contaminated skin. Detergent will kill bacteria on your hands too, which is never a bad thing, just not the thing most important in this case.

OOPS, nordmann, and we learned here on RH during the years, how important a defenition is.

And yes as I read it now: I am in self-isolation and not in quarantine (I see now that it is nearly the same sound as in the French and Dutch "quarantaine").
But I doubt if overhere everyone uses the correct meaning.

And again chapeau nordmann for your in depth explanation of the role of the refractant (tensioactif) stuff.

Kind regards, Paul.

Triceratops wrote:

Trike, I can't download the video (it says video is not available and it is private)

But I searched on internet and found that it was a series:
I found this one...

.

And I thought that it was always me again who got occasionally linked with loos and shit and all that...

But see as I put my choice from the series overhere, what do I see that it is exactly the one you chose!!!
Can I suppose now that we two have in "certain" fields some "common" interests...

Kind regards from a chuckling Paul.

PS: OOPS I just see now that your picture of the video is not the same as my picture of another video with the word "putrid water in it.
Hence forget my comments about our "common" interests and excuses for even thinking about it     ...

I don't know what happened there, Paul. The download looked OK to begin with, then it disappeared.

It was called "The Plague Song"

Triceratops wrote:

I don't know what happened there, Paul. The download looked OK to begin with, then it disappeared.

It was called "The Plague Song"

 
No, Trike, neverywhere found it. Or it was on Pinterest and one has to subrscribe and perhaps one has to pay for it.
I found this:



Kind regards, Paul.

I've had to stop myself neurotically checking the following link for daily updates on the statistics from across the world. I ruefully realised it had become a sort of macabre substitute for the usual sporting medals charts: USA now having knocked China off the top spot in the Corona Olympics. Can Trump really claim a triumph for his country because of superior testing? That man could claim a victory out of anything.

Don't look - it will drive you mad:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries




PS Nord - hope you are starting to improve this morning - you'd better be, as I don't want you messing up my data returns. Paul, hope also you and your partner are remaining well.

No improvement, but I have our local version of the Bow Street Runners to fall back on for the moment. No good for acquiring booze and fags (underage) but otherwise little dotes who will deserve a treat when this is all over.

I don't want to denigrate your willing helpers, Nordmann, who seem to be doing a sterling job, but in Sylvain's graphic novel thread on a couple of occasions you have referred to Victorian London's street children as 'Bow Street Runners'. I always thought the Bow Street Runners referred to London's proto-police force. Genuine question, because I can't find anything, did the title BSRs later become applied to street urchins and other semi-feral children, or was it originally a mocking name for the officers themselves?

Correct, MM, my bad! I of course meant Baker Street Irregulars!

We have enough self-appointed police officers here in Norway without recruiting the kids too

Ah of course the BSI not the BSR - though I had already assumed it wasn't the Politi-og lensmannsetaten who were bringing you your daily bread and toilet rolls.

The police in Oslo are actually playing a blinder - they drop in on nursing homes and take shopping orders for the inmates. They're also doing collections of online delivery items from newsagents and supermarkets and dropping them to off to quarantined people.

Somehow I'm not surprised that the Norwegian police are like that. I can't however imagine the French Gendarmerie acting in that way, although to be fair the Police Municipal (a different force entirely) have been assisting with deliveries to the local retirement home, and surpervising the (completely non-existant) crowd outside the village supermarket.

I see the postal workers in Ireland have also decided to do free person-to-person deliveries, especially for elderly people in rural areas, as well as shopping runs for them too. Their union wan't too impressed, but the guys had already organised themselves nationally before anyone knew about it.

Johnson tests positive:

BBC: PM positive

They'd better keep Larry away from him - hope our lad has had his cat flu jab.

Meanwhile in Germany, Dortmund baker Tim Kortuem cleans up with toilet roll cakes:

No evidence yet that it can be passed to other species, Temp.

But then Johnson and at least one of the space lizards got it, so who knows?

nordmann wrote:

No evidence yet that it can be passed to other species, Temp.

But then Johnson and at least one of the space lizards got it, so who knows?

Beat me to it, Nords.

The designated deputy is..................................

Well it seems bats and pangolins have had a role in turning it into what we have now, so better safe than sorry, Larry. 2 meters away and don't forget to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2C_n1pgl8sA

Temperance wrote:

They'd better keep Larry away from him - hope our lad has had his cat flu jab.

 
Temperance,

there is today  a report of a man in Wallonia with Corona, who has transferred it to his cat.

https://www.lesoir.be/290449/article/2020-03-27/coronavirus-un-chat-infecte-en-belgique-annonce-le-spf-sante

But the article warns that up to now no transfer from animals at house are detected to their pet owners.
If I have time I will try to make the essential to confort for instance LiR.

MM, if you have a bit of time, because for me, it is perhaps more difficult to make the translation between  two foreign languages...only for the essential...to confort the ladies and our eventual male members with pets.

Kind regards from Paul.

The lesson from this incident seems to be "don't blow into your cat" and definitely "don't exchange body fluids with it". If your cat breathes heavy and has diarrhea then you may have been guilty of one of the above, or for that matter it may be just because your pet is - well ... - a cat.

The lesson for the Belgian authorities would seem to be - "what the hell are you doing wasting scarce testing resources on incontinent cats?????".

PaulRyckier wrote:

there is today  a report of a man in Wallonia with Corona, who has transferred it to his cat.

https://www.lesoir.be/290449/article/2020-03-27/coronavirus-un-chat-infecte-en-belgique-annonce-le-spf-sante

MM, if you have a bit of time ... to make the translation

Translation:
Le Soir (lesoir.be) - updated online 27/03/2020 at 11:26.
Coronavirus: an infected cat in Belgium, announces the SPF Health. The animal developed symptoms after its owner contracted covid-19.

The virologist Emmanuel André announced this Friday during the daily press conference on the coronavirus that a cat had been infected: "The cat of an infected person has been infected by its owner and has developed symptoms. Its contamination is confirmed."
"Animals are not vectors of the epidemic, so there is no reason to abandon your animal," responded the National Council for Animal Welfare (CNPA).
This is a case of transmission from humans to animals and not from animals to humans, said virologist Emmanuel André during the daily press briefing on the evolution of the Covid-19 epidemic in Belgium. This is an "isolated case" which occurred after "close contact" between the cat and its owner.
The cat in question had symptoms such as diarrhea and difficulty breathing. Health officials have not specified whether he is still alive.
In order to protect their animals, experts nonetheless suggested adopting a series of precautions for infected people who have a pet.
Specifically, the CNPA advises sick people to "respect the usual hygiene rules" and in particular to wash their hands before petting their animals as well as after; and "not to rub the nose of their animals".
"Let everyone take care of themselves, other people and their animals!", concludes the National Council for Animal Welfare.

MM, thank you very much for this immediate reaction and merci.

Kind regards from Paul.

You're welcome - je t'en prie.

And to anyone here over 65 years of age - remember, this is where the UK is heading in about two weeks with the current numbers for contagion, morbidity, mortality and equipment.



Stay clean, stay safe, and stay in.

Edit: I see Dr Campbell removed the video from his channel. The Madrid authorities have denied they have a policy of withdrawing respirators from the elderly, and one Spanish news site is claiming they have proof that the person who posted it is not as a doctor, as he claimed. I am dubious about both claims, to be honest. The original video was posted by someone who has previously posted on health issues as a doctor from before the epidemic, so if it was a deception then it was elaborate, prescient, and a very long time in the making. Allocation of scarce resources, such as respirators, would still be assessed within clinical and case-dependent criteria by the medical professionals involved, so I could not see quite how such a diktat could be conceived or enforced, though I could easily see how triage rules must by necessity enter into ICU case assessments as time goes on.

The issue at stake might really not be so much about the frightening shortage of resources we have at our disposal, but at this point more about how to salvage and maintain any degree of public faith in the efficacy of the authorities' response. So I can see why such a video - however much it was genuinely composed or otherwise - would be seen as potentially harmful.

The one-time international footballer, and now Liberian president George Weah, has gone all spiritual and Rasta about it. I actually like this!



He made the recording in the studio he built "to alleviate problems for Liberian recording artists", which just happens to be attached to his presidential residence