Generic Virus Thread

[leemond2008]

I am **** done with these press conferences, knock it on the **** head with your smart ass **** slogans, if I hear that **** weasel faced knob Matt Hancock say "stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives" one more **** time I'm gunna go mad.

Just answer the **** question without your endless slogans, yeah its an important message and we get it, we've been getting it for the last **** month.

[bickster]

4 hours ago, bannedfromHandV said:

Oh well, guess they could always make them available as affordable-housing solutions instead for the public.......................

No-one could live in a Sudent Rabbit Hutch as a permanent residence. They are designed for maximum profit not liveability

 

[HanoiVillan]

Yet again under 100,000 tests conducted. So predictable, and so counter-productive.

I really would have given the government more credit if they admitted they were under 100,000 on April 30th but then kept expanding the numbers tested on a daily basis. The trend is what matters (and then what you use it for of course) not the total on one day.

[Stevo985]

21 minutes ago, leemond2008 said:

I am **** done with these press conferences, knock it on the **** head with your smart ass **** slogans, if I hear that **** weasel faced knob Matt Hancock say "stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives" one more **** time I'm gunna go mad.

Just answer the **** question without your endless slogans, yeah its an important message and we get it, we've been getting it for the last **** month.

As I keep saying, unless Chris Whittey is on they're pointless. The journalists barely ask any decent questions, and when they do they don't get answered. 

[bannedfromHandV]

45 minutes ago, bickster said:

No-one could live in a Sudent Rabbit Hutch as a permanent residence. They are designed for maximum profit not liveability

 

People pay more, to live in less, in London already I’d wager.

Not saying I’d be chomping at the bit to buy one but I’m sure there are plenty out there who’d do so to avoid lining a landlords pockets or to move out from the parents.

Or worse still, it’s a far better option than being homeless.

 

[bannedfromHandV]

30 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

As I keep saying, unless Chris Whittey is on they're pointless. The journalists barely ask any decent questions, and when they do they don't get answered. 

The ‘questions’ seem pre determined, it’s like a little daily game they have running (mainstream journalists and politicians) to keep themselves amused and relevant.

I think I’d be less frustrated by it if it was just a widely accepted joke but so many people have blind faith in them and it. 
 

[Genie]

Is Boris now on paternity leave? 

[Davkaus]

3 minutes ago, Genie said:

Is Boris now on paternity leave? 

I believe he's just still recovering despite being "raring to go" and always being "in charge".

The potential negative PR of temporarily stepping aside appears to come before the importance of actually running the country.

[DCJonah]

1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said:

Yet again under 100,000 tests conducted. So predictable, and so counter-productive.

I really would have given the government more credit if they admitted they were under 100,000 on April 30th but then kept expanding the numbers tested on a daily basis. The trend is what matters (and then what you use it for of course) not the total on one day.

It just sums them up doesn't it. They really don't care about anything than trying to look good for a headline. 

I actually find this more insulting than failing to deliver. 

And yet people lapped it up. 

[bickster]

35 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

People pay more, to live in less, in London already I’d wager.

They really don't, not as a permanent resident. Most prison cells are bigger and better appointed,

Bed, Desk and shower toilet if you are lucky. Most have communal bath / toilet facilities

[villakram]

1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said:

My comments on quality are because I can envisage a two-tier system emerging where online courses are the 'budget model' while face-to-face courses are the 'luxury model' (which can already be seen in other parts of the education market). Online learning will definitely be more convenient, but it will never be able to capture the intangibles of the face-to-face experience. If this were to happen, it could also lead to either weaker tutors being given the online roles, or else tutors being pressured into double workloads, which is where my fear about staff working conditions comes in.

Universities also won't want to abandon face-to-face as, as has been noted in the thread, vice-chancellors have been building more than the pharaohs and need to get most of it back. However, yes, a larger proportion of courses being delivered online is guaranteed in the future, because this virus has started the sector down that path.

Yup, online teaching is a poor substitute for in-person work. It's already been demonstrated by market economics prior to this crisis that the difficult courses you can run online have poor attendance/outcome. Why? Well hard things require a lot of personal motivation and ability and nobody has figured out how to crack the first part of this online. This is especially the case for 18-23 year olds who are still growing and figuring out who they are and have all sorts of well known accountability issues. There are far different outcomes for later career studies, as clearly shown by the MBA program industry.

Delivering massive first year or entry level content is much more straightforward/tractable, but you can't replace the one-one professor/student interactions and then arguably more importantly, the student-student interactions and peer support that many require to succeed at higher University level material.

None of the above will stop all sorts of new capitol jumping into this space promising to revolutionize the way people are educated. Thus, I fear you are correct and this two-tier system is all too real a possibility and likely unstoppable to some degree (e.g., there will be cases where it is clearly beneficial - internet connect backwaters everywhere). At its core however, the same techniques that worked in Bologna a 1000 years ago and elsewhere long before that, are still required today. 

[LondonLax]

9 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

The chances of that being cross-contamination or a testing error are extremely close to 100%.

The French have retested the sample multiple times and are confident that the virus was in France at least as early as December.

Quote

He said the patient had survived and that a first investigation to trace the first contamination had been carried out.

“He was sick for 15 days and infected his two children, but not his wife, who works in a supermarket,” he said.

“He was amazed. He didn’t understand how he had been infected. We put the puzzle together and he had not made any trips. The only contact that he had was with his wife.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/04/french-hospital-discovers-covid-19-case-december-retested

[chrisp65]

59 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

People pay more, to live in less, in London already I’d wager.

Not saying I’d be chomping at the bit to buy one but I’m sure there are plenty out there who’d do so to avoid lining a landlords pockets or to move out from the parents.

Or worse still, it’s a far better option than being homeless.

It’s one thing to pay top dollar for a bed in Chelsea if you work at the American Enbassy, I’m not sure it translates to Admiral call centre staff looking at a high rise block in Cardiff that’s pinned between the main road, the main railway line and an NCP.

Certainly not when there’s soon to be a whole host of apartment choices in what used to be city centre department stores and office blocks.

Our boss has had something of an epiphany this week. I think he’s realised that we’ve all just proved we can work from home for 7 weeks, whilst there an office rent review coming up in August. So it looks like there will be some more spare office space going cheap very soon. In round numbers, there are currently about 30 of us in quite a spacious high spec office, big enough for another 10 if we wanted to. Of the 30, 10 have openly expressed a preference to go back to office based working. So why not halve the size of the office?

There’s a real potential here for me to be working from home for the majority of the time in the future. Bring it on.

[bickster]

16 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

So it looks like there will be some more spare office space going cheap very soon. In round numbers, there are currently about 30 of us in quite a spacious high spec office, big enough for another 10 if we wanted to. Of the 30, 10 have openly expressed a preference to go back to office based working. So why not halve the size of the office?

I've been predicting this as a highly likely outcome since this all started. The Office market is gonna nose dive and that in time will have a knock on effect.

To add to what you've said, when things do start opening up, public transport will not be the same. The tube in London and Social Distancing rules will mean massive queues, in many instances it will not be worth using and people are going to be very late for work, this too will add to the pressure of office downsizing especially in London. Firms may even decide to leave London

[Xann]

7 minutes ago, bickster said:

Firms may even decide to leave the UK

Already know what my first task is post lockdown.

Shut down, dismantle, send abroad.

Go Brexit!

[bickster]

2 minutes ago, Xann said:

Already know what my first task is post lockdown.

Shut down, dismantle, send abroad.

Go Brexit!

There's that too

[AVFC_Hitz]

Bulgaria will be opening bars and restaurants with outside areas tomorrow. Tables 2.5 metres apart maximum 4 at a table (or family).

[Lichfield Dean]

8 minutes ago, AVFC_Hitz said:

Bulgaria will be opening bars and restaurants with outside areas tomorrow. Tables 2.5 metres apart maximum 4 at a table (or family).

See, most restaurants in other countries have said that they can't possibly survive serving that few people. How do the government there propose to deal with that?

[Genie]

Be interesting to see how these early adopters get on, if they see a second spike then we’ll be locked down for months

[AVFC_Hitz]

6 minutes ago, Lichfield Dean said:

See, most restaurants in other countries have said that they can't possibly survive serving that few people. How do the government there propose to deal with that?

Im not sure but we've got a 60:40 rule in which the govt will pay 60% of wages. Waiting staff are typically paid around £1.20 an hour. There are also rent holidays in force too.