COVID-19 could affect more races this year.

[Zynerji]

I'll be asking for a public apology when this is all over, I believe.

Im patient!

[Big Tea]

Update from Brawn

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/arti ... LVt4k.html

Not sure how the event organisers will take the no spectators bit. They pay all the up front costs, and have no gate take? I predict a riot

[izzy]

Update from Brawn

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/arti ... LVt4k.html

it's great to know they're thinking laterally about it, and how they can do it in a self-contained way before the epidemic is completely over:

“You could argue once we get there we could become fairly self-contained.

“Our view is probably a European start will be favourable and that could even be a closed event. We could have a very enclosed environment, where teams come in on charters, we channel them into the circuit, we make sure everyone is tested, cleared and that there is no risk to anyone.

We have a race with no spectators. That’s not great, but it’s better than no racing at all. We have to remember there are millions of people who follow the sport sat at home. A lot of them are isolating and to be able to keep the sport alive and put on a sport and entertain people would be a huge bonus in this crisis we have. But we can’t put anyone at risk.

“We’re looking at the organisational structure which would give us the earliest start. We have looked at all the logistics, and we think we can hold an 18-19 race season if we can get started at the beginning of July

“But then there is always the possibility we could run into next year. That’s being explored. Can we stray into January to finish the season? There are all sorts of complications, as you can imagine, with that.

“If we were able to start at the beginning of July we could do a 19-race season. [It would be] tough - three races on, one weekend off, three races on, one weekend off. We have looked at all the logistics, and we think we can hold an 18-19 race season if we can get started at the beginning of July.

[izzy]

Update from Brawn

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/arti ... LVt4k.html

Not sure how the event organisers will take the no spectators bit. They pay all the up front costs, and have no gate take? I predict a riot

There'll be an adjustment for sure, if not Liberty actually paying the circuit

[Big Tea]

Update from Brawn

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/arti ... LVt4k.html

Not sure how the event organisers will take the no spectators bit. They pay all the up front costs, and have no gate take? I predict a riot

There'll be an adjustment for sure, if not Liberty actually paying the circuit

I would love a 'fly on the wall' at those talks

[Tommy Cookers]

.... suggests that health problems from PM2.5 pollution exacerbate the symptoms of the virus and lead to more deaths.

that is presumably PM2.5 from all sources
(not just the manmade PM2.5 that we are trained to call pollution)

pollen (particularly its fragments) is a substantial contributor to PM 2.5
here the tree pollen season is starting (with birch pollen)

last year I had a new and persistent cough apparently caused by pollen
is this a bad time to have a new and persistent cough ?

[henry]

The U.K. office of national statistics (ONS) have published a paper on the registered deaths from all sources and the effect of Covid19 for the week ending 27 March. It reports about 5% excess deaths and a large discrepancy between the headline government daily figures, which are hospital only, and the overall level of Covid19 related deaths.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulatio ... 7march2020

The ONS data has quite a lag, because of the time taken to report and aggregate the data. The reported Covid19 deaths around that week were less than 100 per day, whereas now we’re approaching 1000 and so when ONS publishes a similar report for this week we might expect a very significant number of excess deaths.

[izzy]

There'll be an adjustment for sure, if not Liberty actually paying the circuit

I would love a 'fly on the wall' at those talks

if only they'd stream it! i mean do they say "5 mil"? or just "5"?

or do they savour it and say, slowly, wrapping their tongue around it: "f i v e million-e" ?

[henry]

.... suggests that health problems from PM2.5 pollution exacerbate the symptoms of the virus and lead to more deaths.

that is presumably PM2.5 from all sources
(not just the manmade PM2.5 that we are trained to call pollution)

pollen (particularly its fragments) is a substantial contributor to PM 2.5
here the tree pollen season is starting (with birch pollen)

last year I had a new and persistent cough apparently caused by pollen
is this a bad time to have a new and persistent cough ?

I guess it covers all sources. The source paper makes no mention. However it does point out that there are some sources that we do control.

And yes it is a bad time to have such a cough, I hope you are OK and that it is just pollen.

[strad]

By the time I could write that that would never happen for a number of reasons,, the union backlash for one.... the fact that they could walk out and get another job in a heart beat for another and the fact that Alteon being doctor owned knew the Sh*t Storm this would create for another .. along with horrible PR..This came out:

Alteon Health rolled back cuts to vacation and retirement benefits for emergency room doctors and medical professionals after ProPublica’s reporting

I suspect a stupid idea put forth by a bean counter that got out before the brass could stifle it.

[turbof1]

Some recent modeling and a nice hypothesis for strategies to come out of lockdown by cycling parts of the population in and out of employment to keep R down.

https://medium.com/@urialonw/adaptive-c ... 00a86b37c7

I had a casual read through it. Very interesting proposal, though I do assume this will be quite difficult to manage.

One thing it seems to lack though is a proper model for people who become immune after infection. Those people don't need to adhere to lockdown protocols as they can't be a vector anymore for the virus, and so can be put full time again into the economy.

The model also starts from a stagnant structured economy. The reality is that with lockdown, a lot of physical shops transformed into online shops to continue doing business. Manufacturers are still producing, albeit at a lower output due social distancing and protection protocols.

It is still very much hurting economies world wide, and some sectors are still effectively closed down like tourism. But, we did atleast absorbed some effects of the lockdowns. At the same time, it did push people into arguably better work habits like working from home.

[Wass85]

I feel the UK have got it wrong and I'm angry because they had time to prepare but we were far too reactive and not proactive enough.

Listen I may be wrong but I think a hard lockdown early on would have been much easier to handle than this.

This gives better opportunity to clamp down on the virus before it gets a proper foothold and is much easier for the people in lockdown, I mean how long is this going to drag on for?

I'm not saying they are being fully honest here but China have shown what a hard lockdown does, they have basically put a stop to it if they are to be taken at face value.

[Just_a_fan]

One thing it seems to lack though is a proper model for people who become immune after infection. Those people don't need to adhere to lockdown protocols as they can't be a vector anymore for the virus, and so can be put full time again into the economy.

They can still be a vector by carrying the virus on their hands etc. from place to place. They would still need to observe things like hand washing to limit spread, even if they might not be coughing the virus in to the atmosphere around uninfected people.

Getting such messages across would be important to ensure the spread wasn't suddenly increased again by "casual behaviour".

[Just_a_fan]

I'm not saying they are being fully honest here but China have shown what a hard lockdown does, they have basically put a stop to it if they are to be taken at face value.

China also has the mechanisms in place to enforce such a stringent control of a portion of the population, being a more controlled society than the UK is. The Chinese people are probably more used to being told what to do by the state.

[Wass85]

I'm not saying they are being fully honest here but China have shown what a hard lockdown does, they have basically put a stop to it if they are to be taken at face value.

China also has the mechanisms in place to enforce such a stringent control of a portion of the population, being a more controlled society than the UK is. The Chinese people are probably more used to being told what to do by the state.

Maybe so but that's no excuse for not trying IMO.

We were told for weeks we need to lockdown immediately but we didn't listen, instead we had Boris Johnson bragging about shaking hands with people.