Lockdown easing in England

[Maiden Stone]

Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, today, interview. Wants more statistical information broken down by area so that people in that area can make informed decisions about what to do. He made a similar request 3 weeks ago, at the time of the first easing of restrictions. He, the Merseyside Mayor and leaders of other local authorities, have expressed criticism this month about the lack of consultation before changes were announced nationally. Liverpool was a Covid hotspot.
Andy Burnham was Secretary of State for Health at the time of the SARS outbreak.
 

[LizzieL]

I agree with him. The https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ website tells me there are a total of 230 cases in my local authority area, but no indication of whether the daily no of cases is rising or falling, or anything more detailed about where in a large rural area they are. I am right on the north east corner of the area. The south west corner is about 25 miles away from me. There are two large towns almost encircled by my LTLA which have substantially higher numbers and rates, I suspect most of the cases in my LTLA are on the borders of these two towns, which are comfortably far away from me.

[Maiden Stone]

Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, today, interview. Wants more statistical information broken down by area so that people in that area can make informed decisions about what to do
 

Link to recording of interview  + a summary from Centre for Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases (includes link to London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine)
https://twitter.com/AndyBurnhamGM

[Roobarb]

I too would like more detailed information. The NHS England spreadsheet for deaths due to Coronavirus has a number of tabs for its analysis, one of which is by health trust. The area covered by my health trust is large and diverse and includes a very large town which is a hotspot. The figures which are published by the government by local authority area are for confirmed cases, not deaths. The local authority area I live in includes some suburbs of that hotspot, as well as the town I live in and a number of outlying villages. It's very difficult to deduce what the risk levels are. I'm playing safe, partly due to that and partly because visitors from the hotspot are coming to the coast.

[jillruss]

I've just watched last night's Have I Got News For You on catch up. Hilarious!

Mostly about you know who and his trip to Durham. I couldn't stop laughing. If you want a good laugh, give it a go!!

[Gadget]

Here's a link:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000jk6z/have-i-got-news-for-you-series-59-episode-9

We're a laughing stock.

[Gadget]

Have you all seen this:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-52864454

and this:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52862440

[Greensleeves]

I saw that earlier; terrifying scenes of people totally disregarding social distancing.  Yesterday's briefing included the information that we are having about 8,000 new cases of covid-19 a day, and that's with lockdown.  I dread to think what kind of carnage will be wrought by hundreds of people crowding together.  Someone (not on here) posted recently that we should just go out and learn to live with covid-19.  I pointed out that what they were really talking about is asking people to learn to die with it.

[mckha489]

Opinion piece on NZ site by someone in London ends

“ The featureless ministers, the droning answers that say nothing, the avoidance of anything resembling liveliness or humour or a shared acknowledgement of humanity - all of it is intentional to keep the public at arm's length.

That's not just because the Tories hate their own constituents, but because a disengaged population who thinks politics is boring and inaccessible poses no threat to power.

They want people to leave these briefings befuddled and bored, deciding they'll use their own common sense rather than listen to what a bunch of Westminster elites have to say.

Then when a deadly virus kills a vast swathe of the population because public health advice wasn't followed, they can say it was our fault.”