VivianLee2 Blog Comments (524)

The New Normal

So maybe in the new normal, gyms outside under partial cover? Not sure how that would work ... good luck with your next stage and fingers tightly crossed for no spikes in infection and losses of the new freedom.

We will in final phase be allowed up to 800 people in outdoor gatherings. But there will still be limits on private parties even if you have a garden and everyone stays outside. Okay ...

The New Normal

Meta then that's a no from you on working from home I do anyway and have done for a few years - there are disadvantages but I'm loving the commute

Nothing you do want to see when we settle in the future, then.





Merc maybe it was all those stupid protesters complaining they couldn't get their roots touched up and not enough complaining they couldn't keep fit?





AI - your policia may be more relaxed than ours. Here a guy was fined for sitting on the beach with his son instead of running about, and the guidelines were emphatic, the outings are for exercise. Maybe I should have picked Murcia because you may be moving to phase 1 tomorrow but we, although meeting all conditions for phase 1, aren't. It seems Spain is running a little experiment with a 51% split and we ended up in the placebo group.

Probably why I am daydreaming about the mythical time that may one day come.





Reboot - that's now, you need to start lobbying early to make that a law for the future

The New Normal

So what's the ideal New Normal for you? and I do know gyms will be one of the last things to re-open

(You know what I find odd? The phase we are locked in right now, I can go to a hairdresser or a manicurist, which is by definition very close contact with a person who is having other close contacts, but I can't visit anyone, or have any visitors. and I can now go for a walk for up to a km, but I can't sit down on a bench or wall along the way, and just enjoy the view and the sunshine and being out I do hope New Normal isn't going to include more of this New Logic)

The New Normal

Kal, hi

Merc, not sure we can put that in as a general requirement ... but hey why not, this is ideal world after all. Works for me!!

RE: RIP DAD & MOM - I LOVE AND MISS YOU - THIS IS FOR YOU XOXO

You have had a wonderful and blessed life if this is the worst thing that happened in it.

RE: Ironic....people attacking other people

Another subject where we'll have to agree to differ. She's a tax payer, and at at guess pays every penny due unlike most on matching incomes and more: she's a major employers and the pomp and pageantry of royalty brings in mega tourist revenue, she's an asset to the country.

Plus in an age where politicians aren't worth the paper they're written on she's been an unchanging and steadfast symbol of the UK for longer than most of us have been alive. She's such a titchy little thing, too, there's a wonderful pic of her with our King in Spain who is 6'5, she barely reaches his waistcoat buttons

RE: Ironic....people attacking other people

Merc, easy for anyone to say. It seems to be impossible to do. Many in the media seem even more bent on causing as much misery, fear, and hostility as they can.

She's at the most vulnerable age and her husband even older. The virus doesn't care how much dosh you have once it glances your way.

RE: Ironic....people attacking other people

Mimi, glad to hear it!

RE: Ironic....people attacking other people

Mimi -

RE: Work Restricted

I've worked online from home for a couple of years now because I don't speak enough Spanish to get a conventional job in Spain. In the past I had jobs which could be done from home, to me the ideal going forward would be that everything who can work from home should, with one nominated day at the office a week to cover meetings, photocopies if necessary, all office stuff, plus maintaining team contacts and team spirit that would really take a load off public transport too.

I also have a plan to stop office blocks standing empty - I think after so much enforced togetherness families that rubbed along ok in normal times will now be desperate to get their own places so some office blocks can instead become apartments for far less effort than hastily building new apartment blocks. Sorted. And how original to have an apartment with, say, 4 loos

RE: Evidence that Covid 19 was around in November?

^^ quite a lot of test samples were frozen, some of those are being retested now

RE: Evidence that Covid 19 was around in November?

The French have just confirmed they retested a patient's specimen from December and it tested positive for the virus. The Chinese have confirmed their earliest cases were in October. As there has been constant international traffic between October and end January, yes it seems likely it spread fairly thoroughly before it was suddenly recognized as a worldwide emergency.

I'd said this in earlier blogs but it was nice of the French to confirm it.

Opting out of the virus panic should be an option

Merc, do I agree with you now - hmmm, count with me the number of people on CS who have completely changed their views as a result of a blog, or a comment on a blog?

And still we carry on writing them, and commenting

The fun part is debating and disagreeing like civilized human beings with different opinions

Opting out of the virus panic should be an option

There was one other comment I wanted to chase down - we know Riz eventually got to safety in the UK and is champing at the bit waiting to be allowed to return to his home but how about Sweetiefireball, stranded with friends back in mid March?

Opting out of the virus panic should be an option

Merc, love your voice and your accent

Opting out of the virus panic should be an option

Merc, agree to disagree it is.

I do agree that viral pneumonia, i.e. which won't react to antibiotics, is terrifying. I simply don't agree that half of one percent of population infected (not dead - infected. 90% of them will, statistically, survive) justifies total lockdown, when my comparisons show that total lockdown hasn't worked. And I do know I'm in the minority on that.

Opting out of the virus panic should be an option

Tchah, made an error earlier. Will pop in and delete it. What I should have said was

So I said in this blog people should be allowed to opt out of claiming medical care (thus potentially overwhelming hospitals) and get on with their normal lives with due care and respect for the fears and vulnerabilities of others.

I also said the impact on the economy was out of all proportion to the risk. What has that risk turned out to be, two MONTHS down the line from that original “two weeks” lockdown?

Strict lockdown – Spain – has 5 thousand people infected per million. Economy - reeling
Erratic lockdown – US – has 4 thousand people infected per million. Economy - panicking
Partial lockdown – UK – has 3 thousand people infected per million. Economy - struggling through
Responsible social distancing – Sweden – has 2 thousand people infected per million. Economy - coping

Yet who can say how much lockdown has affected the outcome? There's a tag, the infection is directly enabled by the density of the people, and the density of the people.

True, dat.

Opting out of the virus panic should be an option

Chesney, yup, those seeking a completely safe haven could go to the Congo, I guess. 41 cases per million people is pretty good odds.

Opting out of the virus panic should be an option

Ha, Merc, I could see your chart perfectly when I was in the comment control thing - and the figures were very different, as you can see for yourself. I no longer trust the Hopkins chart since they said Spain had gone up by 315 people in a WEEK (I no longer update my spreadsheet every day) - Worldometers said it had gone up by 20 thousand in the same week, which tied in with what the papers were telling us, so although I looked at them today, the only figure where the two agreed was, ironically, Sweden

Opting out of the virus panic should be an option

Merc, cheers, will pop in and delete it but will also make your point for you - Sweden has 265 deaths per million, Denmark 84, Norway 39 and Finland 42.

Spain has 540.

Opting out of the virus panic should be an option

I am now tracking 12 countries on my spreadsheet. To me the most interesting is Sweden, although I only added them on 31 March, at which point they had 4 thousand cases. (At the same time Spain had 85 thousand, US had 160 thousand, and the UK had 22 thousand, just so we’re comparing apples with apples.)

Today they have 22 thousand. The interest, to me, is because they restricted crowds, then asked people to follow social distancing guidelines but within those restrictions, business as usual. Maybe the Swedes are more disciplined than the rest of us because frankly, they’re doing well.

Not as well as Greece, mind you, I only started tracking THEM a month ago when I noticed despite being part of Europe, and sharing similar climate and lifestyle, they had under 2 thousand cases. A month later, it has become 2.5 thousand. They went into lockdown around the same time as Spain. But there's another factor and that’s a subject on another blog and I won't bang that gong here.

RE: Excuses...

Everyone rushed around earnestly explaining what he meant and how it was taken out of context - and then he said he was just being sarcastic at the expense of the media.

So the media didn't understand it was sarcasm - big win

His supporters didn't understand it was sarcasm - big fail

Hie opponents didn't understand it was sarcasm - big win

All the viewers watching an official update to a worried nation about a pandemic didn't understand he was having a light-hearted moment of play to lighten the mood and cheer them all up. BIG fail

Should that be bigly failed, or failed bigly? So many new words in the American language.

RE: There's a lot of dough in pizza...

I was looking for readymade pastry today at the supermarket and for the first time ever noticed a roll-up pizza base, I'd never seen such a thing before. So guess what I'm trying for supper tonight - but no, not sweet like yours, it will be a conventional cheese ham tomato and whatever else I can find in the fridge, drizzled with olive oil

I've tried regular pizza bases before but always found them a bit thick and chunky.

RE: Immune Booster Not.

Hey Usha yikes I am probably lumped in with the false news or instant snake oil solutions my bad for trying to interrupt the doom and gloom and scaremongering to report that testing is happening in vast numbers and there is genuine hope of a lockdown-free future while we wait for what has never been achieved before - a vaccine against a corona-type virus. I was so careful to quote proper medical sources, too. Tchah.

If you had a booster within the last 15 years you will become our CS test subject the hope is not that it will stop people getting it, but that it dramatically improves their chances of getting it lightly.

Although your headline is "immune-booster not" so -

Virus vaccine trials on BCG look promising but no quick fix

BCG inoculation gives around 15 years cover. During that 15 years it has been noted, over the past 100 years, that the patient's immune system is boosted to a degree which enables them to cope far better with other respiratory illnesses.

It's of course a shame it has to be repeated, unlike a flu shot which lasts for life. Oh no, hang on, flu shots have to be repeated every year.

RE: Virus vaccines update

I'd answer your questions but my comments seem to be in invisible ink

RE: Virus vaccines update

Jim - Mercedes isn't talking about BCG. That's another trial.

Virus vaccine trials on BCG look promising but no quick fix

The US barely inoculates against TB at all so yes, their figures are far higher than countries with bigger populations which do have some BCG protection.

However they like many would prefer a new vaccine to be developed and available 2 years down the line, for whatever reason. BCG is, oddly, expensive in America, too - according to Wiki it is up to $2 anywhere else in the world but up to $200 in the US. They do prefer not to have affordable health care.

Virus vaccine trials on BCG look promising but no quick fix

Scary as the virus undoubtedly is - who needs another way to die? - people are losing perspective a bit. It really isn't an automatic death sentence, for starters. Many have had it without even knowing (while passing it round freely) and many have had pretty light encounters. Nearly a million of the three million who have been registered (and remember, because of testing limitations, nearly all those registered as infected were sick enough to have to go to hospital) have fully recovered.

In the first 12 weeks of 2020, 138916 deaths were recorded by 22nd March. Only 12755 were virus-related. Unfortunately we have unlimited ways of dying. Obviously the virus deaths started spiking after 22nd but general figures of all deaths only available at this point up to 22nd.

Virus vaccine trials on BCG look promising but no quick fix

Is that a BCG trial, or another vaccine? One thing about BCG is that it is known to be non-harmful with no side-effects so they CAN test the thousands involved without risk whereas a new vaccine could be scary