Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Police checkpoints, supermarkets sealing off shelves of “non-essential” goods, a police state the likes of which nobody in Wales has experienced since the 13th century.
Big Government Bans Supermarkets from Selling ‘Non Essentials’ in Lockdown Wales
VICTORIA FRIEDMAN 23 Oct 2020
Wales’s First Minister Mark Drakeford has said that supermarkets will not be able to sell ‘non-essential’ goods like clothing during a 17-day lockdown.
From 6 pm on Friday to midnight on November 9th, Wales will see many retailers close, apart from shops which sell food like supermarkets, as well as pharmacies and off-licences.
There had been a complaint in the Welsh parliament that clothing shops and hardware stores had to close, while supermarkets were still open to sell similar products. The Welsh leader’s solution was, instead of allowing those shops to remain open, to ban larger retailers from selling ‘non-essentials’ entirely.
Claiming the move would create a “level playing field” for small businesses, Mr Drakeford said on Thursday according to the BBC: “We will be making it clear to supermarkets that they are only able to open those parts of their business that provide essential goods to people.”
…
Read more: https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/10/23/big-government-bans-supermarkets-selling-non-essentials-lockdown-wales/
Those hard borders;
No escaping from Wales: UK police to enforce travel ban
AP 24 Oct 2020
A police force in England says it will try to stop people from leaving Wales, which has started a 17-day lockdown to slow a surging rate of coronavirus infections
No escaping from Wales: UK police to enforce travel ban
By DANICA KIRKA
Associated Press LONDONLONDON (AP) — A police force in England says it will try to stop people from leaving Wales, which has started a 17-day lockdown to slow a surging rate of coronavirus infections.
The Gloucestershire Constabulary will patrol routes from Wales and pull over drivers they believe are making long journeys. Travelers without a good excuse will be asked to turn around. If they don’t comply, officers will inform their Welsh counterparts so they can take action because Gloucestershire police don’t have the authority to fine people traveling from Wales, the department said.
The situation illustrates the patchwork of coronavirus restrictions imposed by authorities throughout the U.K., which has Europe’s deadliest coronavirus numbers, with 44,661 confirmed virus deaths. Some 1,756 of those occurred in Wales, which has a population of about 3 million.
…
Read more: https://www.breitbart.com/news/no-escaping-from-wales-uk-police-to-enforce-travel-ban/
I have fond memories of Wales, a nation bursting with national pride and their rich history. Distinct from England, friendly and totally crazy at the same time. The Welsh dragon, an ancient call to freedom, is everywhere. Welsh people move to rhythms others can barely hear, the old magic always seems very close to the surface of modern life. Britain’s strict pub closing time was frequently ignored. Life on the edge – two guys once tried to mug me in Cardiff, asked me what I had in the briefcase, so I said “coke”, and they ran away. I had a can of coca-cola in my briefcase. The first time you visit a pub in Cardiff, you pick a fight with someone, after that nobody gives you any trouble. Some of the hottest women in Britain, and the best late night steak houses. Just walking down the street in Cardiff or Swansea is an adventure; love, lethal danger, breathtaking beauty, or the indescribably weird – you never know what you will encounter. Wales is truly a glorious living modern centre of ancient Celtic society.
Not a nation of rule followers.
Yet at the same time Wales endures a seemingly endless parade of some of the most unimaginative, repressive, and economically illiterate politicians in Britain.
I suspect if anyone in Britain finally gives the finger to the lockdown fascists, it will be the Welsh. One provocation too many will be all it takes.
You bet! Wales had two of the three Roman legionary fortresses in Britain on its border in the first few centuries AD. A lot of manpower invested in them.
That speaks volumes for the resistance they put up to occupation.
Wales has more mediaeval castles than any comparable area in the world.
Edward I may have been the hammer of the Scots, but the damned Welsh cost him a lot of brass and a lot of time to bring under even partial control.
We’ve got a lot of history to live up to.
Cymru am byth. Wales for ever!
The old word “wales” also means migrant. It is where migrants to Britain went. Lets not forget boy’oh that Welsh people, still, burn down houses owned by the English.
The word means ‘slaves’ and ‘foreigners’, but Welsh citizens see no reason to change it.
“ironicman October 24, 2020 at 11:47 pm
The word means ‘slaves’ and ‘foreigners’,…”
Slaves no, foreigners yes. Or another word is “migrant”.
They say the only true Englishman is a Welshman, since the Romans stopped Offa’s dyke and those not falling to Roman rule fled to Wales.
Maybe that’s the foreigner / migrant angle.
In some languages, ‘foreigner’ is a synonym for ‘enemy’.
Greg October 25, 2020 at 12:50 pm
They say the only true Englishman is a Welshman, since the Romans stopped Offa’s dyke and those not falling to Roman rule fled to Wales.
The Romans had nothing to do with Offa’s Dyke it was built, about 400 years after the Roman ruler left, by King Offa of Mercia (an Anglo-Saxon kingdom).
ironicman October 24, 2020 at 11:47 pm
The word means ‘slaves’ and ‘foreigners’, but Welsh citizens see no reason to change it.
That’s the english word for the country, the Welsh call it Cymru. Check out any road entering Cymru.
Whenever the Germans invaded a country (and the English are at bottom a species of German) they often called the native inhabitants ‘foreigners’ or ‘Welsh’, or ‘Wallace’, or ‘Wallachians’ (as the Saxons called the Romanians). The peoples may be different, but the name (and the sentiment behind it) is the same.
“Photios October 25, 2020 at 6:02 pm”
The “Angles”, yes, a north German tribe.
The Angles took their name from Angeln (Anglia or Engla-land),
a small peninsula within the larger peninsula of Jutland.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglia_(peninsula)
Along with the Saxons and the Jutes, they made up the English.
For a good idea of where they all came from, see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxons#/media/File:Anglo-Saxon_Homelands_and_Settlements.svg
I remember a Not the Nine O’Clock News sketch during the ad campaign for people to have real (coal) fires:
“Come home to a real fire,
Buy a holiday home in Wales”
Or the petrol (gas) tanker with the words ‘Free Cymru Fire Service’ painted along the sides!
Showing your age there.
I’m old
I can remember when boys couldn’t wait to get put of short pants and into long pants. These days, it’s the other way round. Recently I saw a man walking outside in shorts, t-shirt and flip flops – it was in February, and no Griff/Loydo, this isn’t a sign of global warming
I can also remember when Buxton was cut off by snow in the middle of summer
Redge October 25, 2020 at 2:49 am
I can also remember when Buxton was cut off by snow in the middle of summer
I drove from Sheffield to Buxton that morning, we had a couple of inches of snow mid-morning. Famous for preventing play in the county cricket match between Derbyshire and Lancashire! I had planned to go to the game that afternoon.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/jun/01/weatherwatch-freak-snow-stopped-cricket-on-2-june-1975
But it’s mainly due to the terrain, rather than some Gallic Resistance, a la Asterix the Gaul. Lovely place Wales.
There won’t be anything left of Wales by the time Lord Whatisname decides that people can go back to work.
The Prince will find himself Prince of Nothing.
“Claiming the move would create a “level playing field” for small businesses, Mr Drakeford said on Thursday…”
Level playing field? How, by making them all dead, by killing the game so nobody wins. Not even a participation trophy in that.
In the mean Cov 19 apparently cured the flu…
https://realclimatescience.com/2020/10/new-video-flu-cure-discovered/
Nah, David, it’s just that handwashing, social distancing and lockdowns work to reduce the transmission of flu as well as of covid19. Most importantly, there’s a flu vaccine and a lot more people have had it this year. Even those who don’t have the vaccine probably have some residual resistance to the current strain of flu because they will have been exposed to many versions of flu in the past.
But you could say this means that covid19 ‘cured’ ( really, reduced the rate of) flu this year because covid19 led to actions that cut flu transmission.
It is also likely that many of those susceptible to Flu have already been culled by covid.
But every year there is a new group ready
Not possible to stop death from taking his share
I predicted back in April that flu would be nearly non existent this year. Firstly because people die all the time and the current population the most vulnerable have already been taken out of the equation.
Secondly because any flu cases will get classed “covid19 like symptoms ” and that’s near enough when you need to justify a lock down.
Hand washing and avoid crowds larger than 50 people work. Everything else (lockdowns, masks) is for show. There will be less flu deaths this fall because a lot of vulnerable people died in April/May. Look at the one stat that is very hard to “adjust”, total deaths compared to a 5 year average:
The CDC has a “total/excess” deaths page. Scroll down to the chart:
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
Nobel-laureate Dr. Michael Levitt (Chemistry and structural biology at Stanford)
May 04, 2020: “If Sweden stops at about 5,000 or 6,000 deaths, we will know that they’ve reached herd immunity, and we didn’t need to do any kind of lockdown.”
https://www.stanforddaily.com/2020/05/04/qa-nobel-laureate-says-covid-19-curve-could-be-naturally-self-flattening/
As of October 24, 2020 Sweden has 5,933 deaths:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/
Update on July 20, 2020
https://www.dropbox.com/s/72hi9jfcqfct1n9/Haaretz-20Jul20_ENGLISH%2012082020%20v3.pdf?dl=0
Effect of closing borders, full lockdowns
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(20)30208-X/fulltext
“Government actions such as border closures, full lockdowns, and a high rate of COVID-19 testing were not associated with statistically significant reductions in the number of critical cases or overall mortality.”
– Conclusions: The lockdown was needless. It peaked in April and is almost over. Border closures & full lockdowns don’t work.
I can’t find a simple data: the total number of deaths per week, for the US, for 2018, 2019, and 2020. Your CDC link (thanks for it!) seems to provide only heavily manipulated data.
Hand washing and avoid crowds larger than 50 people work. Everything else (lockdowns, masks) is for show
A funny thing I’ve noticed coinciding with more people wearing masks: less people using hand sanitizer or washing their hands, and nobody wearing gloves (except fast foot places)
Most reported flu cases are NOT tested, just modeled, so they changed the model.
The flu did not decline, it is almost zero.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a level playing field in Wales; it’s a bit bumpy.
Maybe the testing is not so good at distinguishing between flu viruses and the dread Wuhoo strain.
If Cov19 is rapidly increasing in number of infected the flu should have followed somewhat as we get into October. Instead it is not reduced, it is drastically reduced. The vast majority of flu cases were never tested, just a modeled number. It would be interesting to know if the modeled number mismatches the number of reported cases.
“level playing field” means all suffer equally. Too bad someone couldn’t find a way to make it a win-win situation instead of lose-lose!
Now what happens if someone needs to replace a vital piece of clothing? Are the Welsh going to have a Lady Godiva moment?
What if someone needs to replace a lock on their door, or patch a hole in the roof, or buy lubricating oil for a chain saw to remove a tree in the driveway? One man’s inconvenience may be another man’s emergency.
There are many food items in a store that are not ‘essential.’ Maybe they should consider banning candy and pastries! Or, God forbid, alcoholic beverages! There are lots of draconian measures that can be drawn up to create a “level playing field”.
Wrong, he will still be the prince of ‘wails’..
1756 deaths out of 3 million is a death rate of 0.06%. Yawn.
STOP TESTING ALTOGETHER.
FREE THE HOSTAGES (COUNTRIES).
THE PCR TEST IS CRAP AND DESIGNED TO PRODUCE 85 TO 100% FALSE POSITIVES.
A POSITIVE TEST FOES NOT MAKE YOU A CASE.
MASKS ARE UNHEALTHY ON BOTH THE HEALTHY AND THE SICK.
THESE ACTIONS COMPRISE CRIMINAL ACTS AGAINST THE PEOPLE, BEING CLEARLY POLITICAL.
You get the PCR thing you state is complete rubbish, it isn’t remotely believable. In a country with little covid you can do 50000 tests a day a return very few positives day after day after day. The chances of being able to do that if your BS claim was true is in the billions to one against. I don’t know where you got that idea but it is complete BS and please stop repeating it.
Lets say that the specificity was 99%, a reasonable assumption, i.e. 1% false positives and speculate that of your 50000 , 50 actually carry the virus, then we would expect 550 positive results, i.e. 90% of the test rsults are wrong. This is what you get with a low prevalence and mass testing.
As to masks, a Danish double blind paper which shows masks are unhealthy is currently having trouble finding a publisher, so not BS, although the post could have been better worded.
Walexit!
Wales first minister made the decision. Get some rope.
Socialist diktats run amuck – Gads!
Strange memories of Wales. Many parts of Wales had stricter licensing laws than the rest of the UK
Yeah, that’s what I thought…
As a 16 year old I remember holidaying in Carmarthen, Wales in 1975 (Gabriel leaves Genesis -shock, horror headline in Melody Maker).
IFIRC they were having a referendum whether to allow pubs in the county to open on Sundays. A Vicar was on TV the day before, arguing for the ban to remain and saying the outcome would be “gods will”.
The following day when the ban was rescinded the same bloke was lamenting “it was the work of the devil”
When I arrived at Bangor Uni in 1981 the county of Gwynedd was still dry on Sundays. Only private clubs could serve alcohol – which mean the Student Union could, a huge source of friction with Bangor locals. You had to go over to Anglesey (Bulkely Arms Hotel in Beaumaris) or the Aber Falls Hotel to get a drink on a Sunday until they changed it by a local referendum – in which the students could vote!
Wales was dry on sundays since 1881, the first referendum to go ‘wet’ was in 1961 when a few counties voted to do so, Radnorshire was one of those to do so that year. There were repeat referenda every 7 years until eventually the whole country became ‘wet’ in 1996.
There were pubs that were on the english side of the border that used to do most of their trade on sundays.
When I lived in Beaumaris, you joined the Legion so you could drink on Sunday.
Sung to the tune of Men of Harlech (Rhyfelgyrch Gwyr Harlech)
Cymru men are you shallow?
COVID’s craft is a rushing billow,
Waves of lockouts yet to follow,
With testing’s deceitful claim!
Tis the tramp of functionary yesmen,
Government foemen, executive bribemen,
With pious medics these compliant yeomen,
They shall lock you down?
Lose fake tests asunder,
Flag you’ll conquer under!
The placid sky grows bright on high,
Should launch its bolts in thunder!
Onward! ’tis the country needs you,
Who is bravest, will a virus leads you?
Honor’s self proudly heads a redo ,
Freedom, God and Right!
Has anyone looked at Euromomo data for Wales… it has no excess deaths in week 41, No change since the First peak (not large anyway) subsided. Increase testing exponentially you increase cases exponentially and probably “covid” deaths as well, as people die. So the only data that makes any sense is excess deaths, only Spain in Europe has moderate excesses atm, and that is not unusual at this time of year.
You can see the same data up to week 41 (Up to October 9th) on the ONS website. As you point out there is no excess mortality at the moment. At this time of year you would expect about 600 deaths a week in Wales. The thing is they will increase as we head into winter and January we normally expect about 800 deaths a week in Wales, so the total deaths number is going to increase anyway the next few months with or without Covid.
The authorities will have the most current data so perhaps there has been a notable increase over the last fortnight.
“The authorities will have the most current data so perhaps there has been a notable increase over the last fortnight.”
… as one might expect as the winter approaches. Also many will be attributed to covid because of the definition of a covid death, i.e. any false positive test case who dies, died of Covid.
RB, you can see up to date Oct. 24) coronavirus data on worldometer.info/coronavirus. It shows UK (all of the Queens friends lumped together) with an upturn in new cases but only a very slight upturn in mortality. We had this discussion here at WATTS a few days ago, the new (mutated) virus is either less lethal or there has been dramatic advances toward treating it, or some combination.
see: https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?yScale=log&zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-05-04..latest&country=~GBR®ion=World&testsMetric=true&interval=smoothed&perCapita=true&smoothing=7&pickerMetric=total_deaths&pickerSort=desc
pretty much exponential increase in testing since May in the UK, false positive will increase so called cases even without any virus spreading. However to be fair the rate of positives has risen from 1.5% to about 6%. Nor sure what the specificity is but with people returning unswabbed tests and getting a positive result, I am not sure we can be certain of anything… except excess mortality.
Maybe false positives in the testing, of which there is much more as well.
Yes, Euromomo data is very useful. It’s probably one of the few things the EU does that is actually useful. Note that the data is for deaths from all causes, possibly the most reliable indicator for the pandemic.
It’s well worth taking a look:
https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/
The z-score graphs are particularly useful, as they allow a direct comparison between countries. The two that stick out like a sore thumb are Spain and England (but not the other UK countries). Sweden looks very good: a moderate initial peak with a steady fall off following and no sign of *any* autumn increase. It strongly suggests that the very small lockdown in Sweden has gifted them with a high degree of immunity now.
For recent weeks, England and the UK have been very close to normal, apart from a short-term England spike in week 33. Ironically, Wales is the one exception: right now it’s *well* below normal, at -6.52. In fact, right now Wales has the second lowest z-score in all of Europe (after France). Spain has by far the largest up-tick, at 9.22 (week 42). However, note that these latest weekly data are subject to revision.
So: Wales, which is being subjected to an economy-destroying lockdown, is also the country that has almost the least proportionate deaths in all of Europe.
Something is very sick. And it’s not just caused by covid. It’s caused by hysteria and fear-mongering. Just like climate alarmism.
Chris
Most of France is now under curfew 2100 to 0600. I’ve lost track of what’s going on — the first reaction to the UK testing was: test more, you’ll find more positives. Add the test which is being used which appears to pick up large numbers of “phantom” positives (better description than “false”, I think) and the figures we are seeing don’t seem to match the Euromomo data. There appears to be an upturn in infections but no way of knowing how many of these are genuine “cases”, ie needing medical intervention.
Meanwhile our “medical modellers” are having a field day!
A serological study in Brasil found recently estimated that 26% of the residents of Sao Paulo had anti-bodies to the virus.
If the powers that be really want to stop people coming and going from Wales, they should just tell people they can’t enter or leave without spelling the place name:
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
Or Llanfair PG as everyone actually refers to it!
The reason that Britain’s “COVID-19 deaths” are so high is that there is no attempt to distinguish dying with COVID-19 from dying of COVID-19. The official numbers are for “Deaths within 28 days of positive test” actual cause of death is ignored.
BillP
October 24, 2020 at 11:47 pm
Seems impossible to convince these “zombies” there that “28 days later” was a horror movie and definitely not a scientific documentary.
Or they just simply and desperately trying and doing the most for the rest of the world to understand that it is wrongly blaming China for COVID-19.
Simply UK is lighting up as the ground zero for COVID-19.
cheers
cheers
Yes they prey on their knees on Sunday and on their neighbours the rest of the week.
Only joking, my son is Welsh.
Mind you they are lousy rugby players – got hammered by France last night.
And that was a joy to watch!
The full story is:
The Welsh pray on their knees and then on their neighbours.
The Irish don’t know what they want but will fight anyone to get it.
The Scots keep the Sabbath and anything else they can get their hands on.
The English are a race of self-made men – thus saving the Almighty the bother.
No, this is not how Wales is now at all. If indeed it ever was.
The detailed implementation of the lockdown may be questionable. Its necessity is probably not. The problem all of the UK regions potentially have is running out of critical care beds. The Welsh government has decided that it cannot effectively manage a series of local lockdowns, so has to do a country-wide one. They are probably right. They have been doing local ones and the infection rate has still risen. If they do not limit infections they will have the kind of disaster we saw in Italy early in the epidemic.
As to banning non-essential purchases, their worry is that having closed all the local smaller shops, the supermarkets will still be trading in clothes etc. So they will be seen as having, in effect, implemented one rule for the supermarkets and another for the ‘high streets’ – the local city and town shopping districts.
They also want to make the supermarket trips as short and few as possible. They are concerned that if they allow them to trade normally they will just transfer the shopping traffic into the supermarkets, which will then become vectors of transmission.
What they are trying to do is close down all contacts other than those that are absolutely necessary.
The next problem they have is people driving in from English hot spots. This is by American or even European standards a tiny geographical area – which is one reason why local lockdowns in the country have been so ineffective. In terms of Britain, they are no distance from Liverpool and the other hot spots in the northwestern parts of England, which are rapidly extending south.
All in all, its not unreasonable. The thing to worry about for the Welsh is how long it will have to go on. The idea is that a couple of weeks should do it. To restrict the population for this long is not a big deal. But the time period specified is probably too short to know how well its worked, and at the end of it, they will be faced with the choice of relaxing without knowing what that will lead to, or continuing without knowing whether its necessary.
They will probably, given the risks to the hospitals, have to go with an extension. In which case it would be smarter to make that clear at the start.
A few voices in the UK at the moment are proposing to isolate only the over 65s, as being the most at risk of death or serious illness, and the most at risk of taking up hospital beds. The general view is that this is impossible to do successfully. However it seems likely they will be driven to it in the end by running out of money to do general lockdowns. Its going to be very tough to do, given the number of multi-generational households, particularly in the Northern and Midlands cities. But its probably where they are going to end up.
All those probablys yet you are certainly wrong on just about everything. Listen to Mike Yeadon on James Delingpoles podcast.
There is a summary of Yeadon’s views, by him, here:
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/what-sage-has-got-wrong/
I think his argument has been falsified by events in Liverpool and the other northern cities, and in Belgium and Holland. If he was right, there should have been no second wave and no sudden rise in hospital admissions. There plainly are both of these.
Hospital admissions are right now the driving factor in the government handling of the epidemic, both at a local and national level. They are the reason why not just Wales but also the Northern local authorities, have gone to lockdowns.
If you were an elected local official, a well known local figure, taking these decisions, would you really be prepared to place your bet on higher levels of immunity existing than the numbers seem to indicate from day to day?
Knowing that if you get it wrong, you will have to walk around in your town and district, attend council meetings and public events, and be known as the one who got it wrong? The one who allowed hospital beds to run out? Against the advice of the national government and the consensus of advisers?
Don’t think so.
The average age of death from covid since the start of the year is 82.4 (higher than other causes). The IFR is now about 6/1000. Deaths from flu/pneumonia(non-covid) have outnumbered covid deaths for ages.
It is crazy locking down for such a disease, it is not harmless, but it is not the Satan Bug either.
The economics and the well-being balance is off-the-scale wrong.
https://www.soundhealthandlastingwealth.com/covid-19/the-average-age-of-death-from-coronavirus-is-82-4-years-writes-david-rose/
try being in Victoria Aus
minidictator dans yet again refused to ease restrictions on shops restaurants etc again!!!
because a 30person seemingly all friends/family seemingly immigrants(again) didnt stay home and keep their kids away from school in one? suburb
so hes refusing the entire inner vic areas any relief and restart to trade
all shops have been shut for months now apart from supermarkets other food butchers etc
but the online purchases have soared and many wont revert to shopfront purchase after
This is Yeadon’s argument:
The more likely situation is that the susceptible population is now sufficiently depleted (now 28%) and the immune population sufficiently large that there will not be another large, national scale outbreak of COVID-19. Limited, regional outbreaks will be self-limiting and the pandemic is effectively over. This matches current evidence, with COVID-19 deaths remaining a fraction of what they were in spring, despite numerous questionable practices, all designed to artificially increase the number of apparent COVID-19 deaths.
It has the great merit of implying some falsifiable predictions.
michel
October 25, 2020 at 1:46 am
You have to understand that is not Yeadon’s fault for this whole sale stupidity at large which happens to stand on the insane proclaimed grounds that fatality is the main parameter in the definition of a Pandemic.
You have to look elsewhere for the root of such pandemic stupidity, maybe Fauci, Billy you know WHO and the rest of the hyenas there, or/and also consider the naivety and ignorance of people at large.
When you looking up for a speck in your brother’s eye, you better check out first for that huge pole up you know what.
As
cheers
michel,
we’re not running out of critical care beds, More than 6,000 new beds have been set up in 19 Welsh field hospitals (Nightingales) costing ~ £165Milion ;
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-52752976
The biggest (2,000 bed) ‘Dragon’s Heart Hospital’ at the Millennium Stadium Cardiff treated a max of 46 patients opened in April 2020 closed June 2020 dismantled Sept 2020
We do have a shortage of critical care nurses – https://www.hsj.co.uk/exclusive-intensive-care-staffing-ratios-dramatically-diluted/7027214.article
Same here in Washington state, I work as a critical care nurse and am putting in 72hrs per week, every week, for the last 2 months.
The truth is somewhere in the middle. While it is true that beds alone are not the solution, the shortage of nurses is also in part a bureaucratic issue.
The problem with covid and beds has never been that these patients require such intensive continues care, but that unlike most other care, it is so long. European hospitals discovered long ago that you can plan very well for the amount of beds, and send people home after a few days. That is cheaper and the patient itself often also prefers staying at home.
But covid patients require much longer continuous care. It is not critical, as the patient is typically stable, be it in bad condition, but is taking up these beds for much longer times than other care. European healthcare systems often had much much lower beds per capital ratios than e.g. the US. Exceptions are Germany even though even they don’t get close to US numbers. The primary reason Europeans saw overruns, and the US never came even close to overruns other than in local spots (where often stuff wasn’t that great before either in terms of capacity and PPE/equipment – e.g. NY) was this. Cynically the US concept of having surplus beds, because bed-cost is expensive enough to leave capacity unfilled, typically leads to waste and drives cost up, but was a savior with covid.
WA state, where I live, never even came close to reaching normal max capacity, let alone surge capacity or the emergency capacity they could have added (and did in a few places) through the military, hotels, etc. They also got away by having the critical care nurses work double shifts, and not using the other schooled nurses. In fact WA state actually send many medical personnel including nurses home or reduced shifts in early covid, because the other care was low in demand.
If push comes to shove, in Wales you don’t need highly specialized nurses to care for covid patients as most care is fairly basic. Several other countries did manage to get other medical personnel to fill in without much issues. But existing healthcare rules, financing etc often prevent this.
Note that the article you quoted was from March. If today Wales is not better prepared, that is criminally negligent. Also I still feel we have less cares today then we had in March. Then we tested not even everybody with symptoms, now we test the same non-symptomatic people multiple times. Also we learned putting everybody on a ventilator is not just unneeded and wastes critical personnel and equipment, but actually can kill covid patients.
2 weeks won’t make any difference to anything, and it won’t even be possible to see if it is. It took up to 5/7 weeks after lockdown in some areas for the exponential growth to stop last time.
The problem is aggregation of data hides the fact it is not a single outbreak, but many outbreaks all at different stages. If you look at a smaller level it is clear that the exponential growth comes under spontaneous control and rapid decline without intervention – that is nature and why the human race still exists. Even as some large metropolitan areas were going into tier 3, the virus was already declining in some districts within.
All the interventions are doing, if anything, is disrupting the natural progress including the natural burn out, deferring, increasing the likelihood of a resurgence as with time as people move around and social contacts change etc.
The daftest thing of all is that lockdowns are a self-perpetuating trap. They are not a solution to anything. Appear to work or not, they are pointless.
There is no prospect of NHS resources being overwhelmed with all the Nightingale provision, that is one of the craziest things politicians keep saying. There is time to organize and prevent it – as we’ve already seen.
“There is no prospect of NHS resources being overwhelmed with all the Nightingale provision,”
Grim
Not true, Yes we have the (6,000) beds but no critical care nurses to man them, it takes years to train them (but our glorious leaders have cut back on training for years) , Normal CC ratio is 1 nurse/patient …even if we 1/2 that & then work the nurses at 60hrs/week you need 24×7/60x (6000/2) = 8,400 Highly qualified CC nurses…NOW !
How many do you think are sitting at home waiting for the call ???
A good summary.
For information. The welsh National Health Service is very badly run compared to the English NHS. It was always on the cards that Wales would find their NHS running out of resources before Englands.
Question one, michel. Is “infection” in this context synonymous with “positive test” because if so, stop right there. The test is picking virtually every scrap of viral debris from people who have had Covid and recovered and others with a viral ‘load’ too small to be infectious.
Question two. If “infections” is the number who have sought medical treatment we’re one step closer to an answer but how many of those infections have resulted in hospitalisations? This is the one figure that seems to be missing from the stats and it’s the only one that gives us a true guide as to how serious this so-called “second wave” actually is.
Btw,
That figure of 1756 deaths in Wales with Wuhan Virus is just more fake news from the lying Associated Lugen Presse.
I would be more interested if someone could quote the number of unfortunates who have died FROM this Chinese Virus.
I have been informed of the death of a Client who was diagnosed with leukaemia last August and was deteriorating fast. She tested positive for Covid, probably hospital acquired, shortly before she passed away so it goes down as a Covid death.
Lots of that is going on.
This disease is still not as bad as the 1968/69 flu epidemic in which 80,000 died when the population was smaller.
It has never been sensible to try to control a respiratory illness in any human society.
This mess is a result of insane authoritarian overreach.
Sweden got it right.
“This disease is still not as bad as the 1968/69 flu epidemic in which 80,000 died when the population was smaller.”
go look for actual data on the 68 flu
none exists
references to numbers exist. multiple claims exist, but no actual data
that you can download.
So data is actual only when downloadable … and I presume that in same vein, only data that can be downloaded is correct … not even funny.
Here in France, the Honk Kong flu killed 31226 people in two monthes which is equivalent to 31226 * 67 / 50.8 = 41183 deaths with respect to the actual population :
“En France, il faut attendre 2003 avec les recherches de l’épidémiologiste Antoine Flahault pour connaitre le nombre de victimes en France : 31 226 morts en deux mois”
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grippe_de_Hong_Kong#Compte_rendu_en_France
The COVID 19 deaths number between Marsh and July in France is 29836, 27% lower than in 1968 :
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/france/
Yes, this flu in France is a non event. But the lockdown and the economic, social and health disaster (due to all other causes, heart attacks, domestic violence, suicides, alcoholism, psychiatric illnesses, etc. than this flu) it caused is a clear tragedy.
Which doesn’t make the figures wrong, Steven, does it. If that’s the best contribution you can make, why bother? I’ve seen reputable sources quote figures as high as 80,000 so in the absence of anything that meets your strict criteria for eligibility I’ll stick with that as a “worst case” figure, if that’s OK with you!
Mosher basically says not to trust medical models, only climate models are trustworthy.
That is true Clyde 🙂
He is right about the flu data which is attribution statistics and if you complain about the covid19 data you should be even more dubious about the flu data.
That’s funny Mosher – I only did one google search and found peer reviewed papers showing data, written around 1969. Here’s one:
https://europepmc.org/backend/ptpmcrender.fcgi?accid=PMC2130729&blobtype=pdf
We all know the internet didn’t exist back then – it doesn’t mean data doesn’t exist. You think death certificates weren’t filled in back then or something?
Spanish 1918 = 675,000 dead / 103 million = 6550 deaths per million
Asian 1956-8 = 69,8000 dead / 178 million = 392 deaths per million
Hong Kong 1968 = 100,000 dead / 206 million = 485 deaths per million
* Wuhan 2020 ~= 170,000 dead / 331 million = 514 deaths per million
* Up to 90% of the deaths attributed to the covid-19 disease would not have been counted as an infectious disease death prior to 2020. From 2003 to 2020 the same definition was used.
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/news/if-covid-fatalities-were-90-2-lower-how-would-you-feel-about-schools-reopening/
Similarly the definition of “pandemic” was changed in 2008 to remove the requirement of excess deaths so after that anything fast spreading could be labelled a “pandemic”. Until those 2 definitions are changed back the “medical martial law” imposed by governments will continue.
In England the scheme works like this
Our data says you’ve got too many cases of CV19 you must got into level 3
How much are you going to pay us?
X million
No we want Y million
OK (X+Y) /2
OK deal
Then Rishi prints a few more millions. A lot more businesses go bust. The economics you get when a mediocre journalist becomes PM on the back of a series of three word slogans
Except that Wales is run by Labour, so Boris has nothing to do with it at all.
In Scotland, Sturgeon is also making a huge balls up as well. But it could be worse- we could have Macron in charge!
Paul,
One of the (many)things which tickle me, is that the Royal Mint is located in Wales (or Whales as our Germany friend above called it) in a wee place called Llantrisant. As this whole scandemic is part of the Great Reset or the New World Order, or the Green Deal, the first thing to do is destroy our money by printing barrow loads of it. I am just curious about the connection with Wales, especially as every car owners’ details are stored in Wales at the Vehicle Registration Centre.
The Welsh have us by the short and curlies.
Paul I was talking about England, Sheffield, Nottingham and the rest negotiated cash deals before going into Tier 3
It was either that or the communists.
The news have been so gloomy. The statistics is all about death from COVID-19. The extreme lock downs taken my most countries. In a number of developing countries the lock down has resulted to unplanned or unintended pregnancies as people have lost access to contraceptives and have nothing to do in their houses. UN estimated some 7 million unintended pregnancies. Here is the link
https://www.unfpa.org/press/new-unfpa-projections-predict-calamitous-impact-womens-health-covid-19-pandemic-continues
One country has some 7 thousand deaths from and with the virus but is expecting more than 2 million unintended births and pregnancies.
The hottest women in Britain, Welsh dragons.
Where’s William Wallace when you need him?
Hmmm, not sure William Wallace was a supporter of the Welsh, in fact the Scottish forces over 5000 Welsh infantry at Berwick.
Now, where’s Owen Glendower when the Welsh need him?
The Welsh were not and never have been Celts…..
https://museum.wales/articles/2007-05-04/Who-were-the-Celts/
Achyfi!
Are you completely stupid?
mae gennym ni yr unig iaith geltaidd bywiol yn y 21 ganrhif!
From someone a fluent Welsh speaker, I can tell you are a complete cretin!
However “Llywodraeth cymru” the “Welsh government” is an oxymoron.
The best advert ever for “failed in Wales”
When can we kick their asses & show tell them to go jump in the Irish sea?
Cymru am byth!
without the committees of cretins in Cardiff.
Whales has been doing more than twice as well as England and about as well as Sweden, but to what cost?
https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps#
You can see from the “Z-scores by country” weekly that Whales is having a downward trend very recently, whereas Sweden has had the downward trend ever since the grand peak.
The restrictions in Whales are junta style madness. Trying to get the mortality rate below base line by destroying the country and the livelihood of its people, is something I fail to understand.
Comparing to Sweden, where I live, everything is normal, except from plexiglass in front of the shop personnel in the commodity shops, but nothing changed in the majority of tool shops and the like. Oh, forgot that they also have these soap dispensers in the supermarkets. I am not sure what is in them, but I occasionally see people using them. Not sure it is good for your skin to do this all the time.
As some have pointed out: Lock down, put masks on and get a generation of traumatized children and frustrated adults.
If the late Michael Crichton had written “State Of Fear” today, he would most likely have put the Covid extremists in the same box as the climate extremists.
‘Whale’ is the aquatic mammal. ‘Wales’ is the country; many puns are based on this.
Then there was the time an American tourist was in a Cardiff pub and approached a table of hefty women. He smiled and said,”I love the way you women in England speak.” To which one of the ladies told him, “It’s Wales you idiot!” The American replied, “I’m sorry, I love the way you whales in England speak.” He was released from the hospital several weeks later.
ROFL 🙂
I was once on a train in North Wales in the early 1980s and two American tourists were listening to a conversation between the train guard and customer. They were conversing in Welsh.
When they finished, the American lady tourist turned to her husband and said “Gee, is that olde English?”
Death wish or what?
My first visit to Cardiff, after a business meeting, I dropped into a pub to grab some lunch, someone asked me what I thought of the place. I said in total innocence “I love it here in England”. They were nice to me, made allowances that I was a foreigner and new to town, I didn’t at that stage appreciate the subtleties.
Sorry for W(h)ales thing.
We are touchy about it. Visit any town centre in Wales in normal times and you can see why. The epidemic of FBS is far more widespread than Covid, longer lasting, more damaging to society, and kills more people.
You must lock yourself down.
Now this is just my opinion , OK? But I think that much of what has been said above about the Welsh and the situation in Wales is dubious. Looking at them with a defocussed eye I have always thought that one of the main characteristics of the Welsh is not individualism but a sense of solidarity . You see this in the former generation’s commitment to the Chapel and its often repressive rules compared to England , in the Welsh valour in battle from the Welsh bowmen at Agincourt to the presnt day , to the commitment to the Labour cause and the unions , especially the miners. But this also makes them more compliant to repression from political leaders which is what we are seeing now.
The idea that the ban on buying , eg clothes (winter coming on ) is to protect the small shops is sheer nonsense.
I live in the most prosperous area of Greater Manchester . Apart from the shops in Hale that cater exclusively for footballer’s wives there are NO small clothing shops anywhere. The only place to get clothing is the local supermarket or the charity shops, or of course , Amazon. This initiative is down to one minister , Mark Drakeford. look him up on Wiki. He is a committed Marxist . He is an associate of the former extremist Corbyn and a hater of anything that involves a free market . This lockdown is intended not to protect small businesses (less likely to be Labour voters) but to destroy them.
I advise people read more on , eg lockdown sceptics for a less romantic view of the Welsh and the appalling destruction of Civil Rights that is happening there (where are the famed EU / UN civil rights regulations now).
https://lockdownsceptics.org/
Meanwhile, nothing special with respect to Acute Respiratory Infections (ARI) or Severe Acute Respiratory Infections (SARI) according to the WHO :
– exactly the same ARI and/or SARI progression this year as in previous years (in the countries where those indicators has been filled and sent to the WHO).
Look for instance at Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Turkey, etc.
and compare this to the excess mortality monitoring at least in Europe here :
https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps
and to the COVID-19 “cases and deaths” here :
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
WHO influenza like illnesses historical comparison charts (with ARI and SARI when this data is entered) :
https://www.who.int/influenza/resources/charts/en/
Click on chapter link :
“Comparison of current surveillance data with historic data by country”.
URL :
https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiMTEyZmM0NGItNjU3OS00YzgzLTgwMDYtNjQ4OWJlNjNkMGZhIiwidCI6ImY2MTBjMGI3LWJkMjQtNGIzOS04MTBiLTNkYzI4MGFmYjU5MCIsImMiOjh9
BTW, in France, in the Paris region (one fifth of the France population), there were twice as many heart attacks during lockdown than usual :
https://presse.inserm.fr/le-nombre-darrets-cardiaques-a-double-pendant-le-confinement-en-region-parisienne/39663/
We still dont have the number of suicides, due to lockdown and the economic disaster it caused but we know for sure that suicide attempts exploded during and after the lockdown :
https://pro.guidesocial.be/articles/actualites/confinement-explosion-des-appels-au-centre-de-prevention-au-suicide
https://www.lavoixdunord.fr/844926/article/2020-07-28/lille-apres-le-covid-vague-de-depressions-et-de-tentatives-de-suicide
https://www.horizonradio.fr/article-23343-vague-de-depressions-et-tentatives-de-suicide-en-metropole-lilloise.html
https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2020/06/22/le-confinement-a-la-source-dune-deuxieme-vague-mais-psychiatrique-1
etc.
And those criminal lockdownistas dare speaking of saving lifes … SHAME ON THEM.
The flu season will properly take off in November
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_W4KvbcntsKU/SwQb9Gct8RI/AAAAAAAAABc/5qoIl8Zt0Ns/s320/hemisphere+and+epidemic.jpg
It’ll all be under control then!!
That should have been December
The people of Wales have got what they voted for.
Good and Hard. (h/t H L Mencken)
Hideous
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/army-sent-tier-3-lockdown-22901889
So, you can buy groceries but not clothing. I think it won’t be long before Minister Drakeford eats his shirt.
Perhaps they will sell you cake.