hemale in pain posted:

i'm curious why no one is hitting the loving PANIC button and just shutting everything down to try and stop it. that will have to happen anyway like all those other countries so why not just do it instead of waiting for it to get inevitably worst?

hemale in pain posted:

I wonder what a labour governments response would be instead. Part of me thinks probably not that much different but maybe it'll turn out people literally voted for death without knowing it.

crispix posted:

I think this is the ideal time to finally be rid of the handshake forever. What would you all like to see it replaced with? I personally quite fancy the sharp teutonic head bow

Lobster God posted:

https://twitter.com/TomTugendhat/status/1239312624346693633?s=19

What in the actual gently caress.

bornbytheriver posted:

https://mobile.twitter.com/idriselba/status/1239617034901524481

Answers Me posted:

https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1239612169597136897

He's done a lot of poo poo in just the past few days, but this might be the most shameful thing he's ever said.

Guavanaut posted:

He said that if he died he'd want to come back as a pandemic inducing virus.

Communist Thoughts posted:

Partly because I'm hoping what I'm currently suffering from is a mild version of it and it's mostly over. Had a lovely bug for like 2 weeks now. Median covid length is 20 days, max is 40. So I should hopefully be better by next week.

thespaceinvader posted:

To some extent it will depend what you mean by 'once you've had it' too.

If you think 'once you've had it' means 'still coughing a bit but generally able to function' you're probably wrong in using that past tense.

Lady Gaza posted:

I’ve got an Ocado delivery tomorrow and I want to tip the driver but obviously worried about physical proximity and also how he might feel accepting cash (not the cleanest of things). Any suggestions?

NotJustANumber99 posted:

At DEFRA they've all cycled/walked in to collect their monitors to carry home so now want a lift home. Should I do that? It's not my problem. But we're supposed to help each other? I would obviously carry a printer but I dunno about a monitor during a pandemic.

goddamnedtwisto posted:

https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1242492246605389825

4000 beds, but no mention of where the staff and equipment is coming from.

NotJustANumber99 posted:

In the recent pandemic pretends documentary thing (or maybe that contagion movie?!? I can't remember) a bat dies of some disease in China and falls in a pig pen where a pig eats it. The pig is then slaughtered and people eat the infected meat and it goes from there. I'm not sure we know in real life yet do we?

goddamnedtwisto posted:

https://twitter.com/TedJeory/status/1243205994081128455

We still have nothing to put in it, but the door's there. Something something Tories.

Vitamin P posted:

Yeah how stupid of them that after over a decade of austerity and soaring living costs and literal daily propoganda hiding the systemic cracks every self-employed worker hasn't independently created their own safety net. What does 'setting up their own safety net' even mean btw?

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

I assume you have never had or tried to claim on one of those policies.
I've not had one but friends and relatives have.
They wriggle out of them every which way they can and critical illness cover is the worst for not paying out.

jaete posted:

That poo poo might be expensive though. I don't actually know but I can imagine it's not something you necessarily want to always have. Insurance companies will make sure you gotta pay for it, and can't just claim it willy nilly etc

(Obviously the government could do this much more efficiently, just like ordinary unemployment insurance)

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

RockyB posted:

Alright, half arsed recap because I've done this is far too much detail in this thread before.

Option 1: Pay everything as PAYE salary. No corporation tax. Employers and Employees national insurance.

So 20% tax up to the higher rate tax threshold (£45k or whatever it is now) + 13.8% combined national insurance, then 40% tax over the threshold. Let's call it 34%, then 53.8%.

Option 2: Pay minimal salary (normally just at the NI threshold so about £8k). Means you avoid national insurance and instead you first pay corporation tax, the dividend tax on whatever you take out.

So that's 19% corporation tax on everything, 7.5% dividend tax up to the higher rate threshold, then 32.5% afterwards. Which would be a 26.5% average burden, then 51.5%.

The figures change as you earn more or less and national insurance thresholds kick in, but generally it's 7.5% up to the higher rate threshold then 2% afterwards. If labour policies had gone through in December, Comrade Corbyn would actually have equalised it in all cases btw.

The counterbalance to this is that you don't get holiday, sick pay, pensions or stable work. As all the contractors who got fired on with a weeks notice recently would tell you.

The bigger advantage is that working through a limited company means you don't have to take everything at once, so if you earn £80k in one year you can take it as £40k a year over two. But the reason most freelance people work this way in the first place is because it's the only way companies will actually pay them (legal liability for sole traders etc).

Oodles posted:

Cross post from the main Covid thread but

https://twitter.com/DrPeckPNP/status/1244062665535864832

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/mar/30/uk-police-guidelines-coronavirus-lockdown-enforcement-powers-following-criticism-lord-sumption posted:

UK police warned against ‘overreach’ in use of virus lockdown powers

Police chiefs are drawing up new guidance warning forces not to overreach their lockdown enforcement powers after withering criticism of controversial tactics to stop the spread of coronavirus, the Guardian has learned.

The intervention comes amid growing concern that some forces are going beyond their legal powers to stop the spread of Covid-19, with one issuing a summons to a household for shopping for non-essential items and another telling locals that exercise was “limited to an hour a day”.

On Monday, former supreme court justice Lord Sumption said that excessive measures were in danger of turning Britain into a “police state”, singling out Derbyshire police – which deployed drones and dyed the Blue Lagoon near Buxton black to make it less appealing – for “trying to shame people in using their undoubted right to take exercise in the country and wrecking beauty spots in the fells”.

The Guardian has learned that the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) and College of Policing are rushing through guidance reminding officers that despite politicians’ warnings they cannot bar people from going for a run or a drive.

It will state that while certain actions such as driving to exercise may be unwise, they are not prohibited by the emergency powers, according to sources with knowledge of detailed discussions. It is also expected to conclude the law does not restrict people to exercising outside only once a day.

The Guardian understands that the NPCC chair, Martin Hewitt, wrote to police chiefs across the forces in England and Wales over the weekend about the need for greater consistency in the application of emergency powers.

Senior police commanders are understood to have been concerned over how the unprecedented powers were being implemented in their first few days by some forces, with Lancashire police issuing 123 enforcement notices since Thursday and Bedfordshire police issuing none.

The guidance contrasts with local police actions that have ranged from Derbyshire Police filming dogwalkers in the Peak District with a drone to officers telling a shop to stop selling Easter eggs.

Speaking to the BBC, Sumption attacked the behaviour of police and singled out the Derbyshire force.

“The behaviour of the Derbyshire police in trying to shame people in using their undoubted right to take exercise in the country and wrecking beauty spots in the fells so people don’t want to go there is frankly disgraceful,” he said.

“This is what a police state is like, it is a state in which a government can issue orders or express preferences with no legal authority and the police will enforce ministers’ wishes.” He said that the force had “shamed our policing traditions”.

New legislation was introduced and rushed through parliament to become law on Thursday in a bid to enforce physical distancing and slow the spread and death toll from Covid-19.

Senior police chiefs from larger forces are understood to be concerned about “not turning communities against us”, one source with knowledge of discussions said.

Asked on the BBC’s Newsnight about communication from the NPCC, Andy Marsh, chief constable in Avon and Somerset, said: “I had a conversation with other chiefs and Martin Hewitt and we talked about the style of our enforcement and the engagement and explanation that went before and we all agreed that we wanted to see this done with the consent of the public. We’re not going to enforce our way out of this problem.”

He said Hewitt’s message to police chiefs called for common sense and sound judgment and added that the police were “figuring out some of this stuff as we go along”.

On Monday afternoon, the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, praised the police’s response to the crisis in general but told reporters that “obviously we need some common sense”.

The source of confusion for frontline officers appears to be a gap between what the emergency legislation actually orders and what the government has said it wants people to do.

In his address announcing the lockdown last Monday, Boris Johnson made reference to only exercising once a day – a limitation that is not set out in the law.

There is sympathy in policing for what government is trying to achieve to deal with a national emergency. The unprecedented lockdown measures in the UK are broadly in step with draconian measures countries around the world have or are taking to deal with the pandemic.

Bedfordshire’s chief constable Garry Forsyth told the Guardian that his force had avoided enforcement actions by resolving issues diplomatically. He said that problems enacting the emergency laws were inevitable: “It is difficult to get precision on quick legislation. Of course it could do with more clarity. These are unprecedented times and we have to make the best of what we’ve got.”

Stephen White, police and crime commissioner in Durham, said: “I think policing is confused about what it is being asked to do. Police officers have no power to stop people going to the Lake District. It takes a long time to build up trust and a short time to destroy it.”

The Metropolitan police commissioner, Cressida Dick, whose force covers London, said no checkpoints were being carried out in the capital and her officers were encouraging people to comply: “Already we have had examples of people who simply hadn’t quite heard all the messages – and, only as a very last resort with the current restrictions, using firm direction or even enforcement.

“We’re not doing what you might call road blocks or anything like that,” she told LBC radio station. “Yes, we stop motorists sometimes, we have a conversation with them.”

A spokesperson for the NPCC said: “The vast majority of people are fully complying with the guidance and advice. For the small number who are not we will use enforcement. Given the rapid pace of development forces do not have paperwork specific to the coronavirus regulations.

“Officers are issuing the fines using existing paperwork or statements. All fines issued are legally enforceable and non-payment will result in prosecution.”

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52095331 posted:

A coronavirus app that alerts people if they have recently been in contact with someone testing positive for the virus "could play a critical role" in limiting lockdowns, scientists advising the government have said.

The location-tracking tech would enable a week's worth of manual detective work to be done in an instant, they say.

But the academics say no-one should be forced to enrol - at least initially.

UK health chiefs have confirmed they are exploring the idea.

"NHSX is looking at whether app-based solutions might be helpful in tracking and managing coronavirus, and we have assembled expertise from inside and outside the organisation to do this as rapidly as possible," said the tech-focused division's chief Matthew Gould.

Instant alerts
The study by the team at the University of Oxford's Big Data Institute and Nuffield Department of Population Health was published in the journal Science.

It proposes that an app would record people's GPS location data as they move about their daily lives. This would be supplemented by users scanning QR (quick response) codes posted to public amenities in places where a GPS signal is inadequate, as well as Bluetooth signals.

If a person starts feeling ill, it is suggested they use the app to request a home test. And if it comes back positive for Covid-19, then an instant signal would be sent to everyone they had been in close contact with over recent days.

Those people would be advised to self-isolate for a fortnight, but would not be told who had triggered the warning.

In addition, the test subject's workplace and their transport providers could be told to carry out a decontamination clean-up.

"The constrictions that we're currently under place [many people] under severe strain," said the paper's co-lead Prof Christophe Fraser.

"Therefore if you have the ability with a bit more information and the use of an app to relax a lockdown, that could provide very substantial and direct benefits.

"Also I think a substantial number of lives can be saved."

To encourage take-up, it is suggested the app also acts as a hub for coronavirus-related health services and serves as a means to request food and medicine deliveries.

The academics note that similar smartphone software has already been deployed in China. It was also voluntary there, but users were allowed to go into public spaces or on public transport only if they had installed it.

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