Wuhan Coronavirus: Megathread - Got too big

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Honestly, organizations like the WHO and UN have had it good for too long. The last time UN was ever useful was when they rallied troops to fight North Korea when it invaded the south. WHO was last useful in 1967 when it pushed for the eradication of smallpox.

There is an article in A&H that talks about the WHO and teddy.

Basically when SARS happened, the director general took a different method. The WHO had cultivated relationships with doctors all over the world and encouraged them to make reports directly too the WHO so when these strange pneumonia cases popped up. The who wasnt waiting for china to come forward instead they accussed china of covering it up. China lost face and came forward.

Vancuver wasnt doing testing or jack shit for SARS and the WHO issued traval advisories saying "DONT GO THERE"

This spurred the mayor and the powers that be to take actions but the mayor of vancuvor basically went to the head of the WHO and rightfully pointed out that the WHO doesnt have the authority do anything and he didnt like being told what to do.

Oh yeah see the WHO has/had no enforcement powers it can say "hey dont go here" but thats it. Which I think is kinda good. an Airline can stop flights and point to the WHO as the reason why. No one would lose their job for following a the recomendations of a global health organization etc.

Now since sars the chinks lost face and to prevent a repeat of SARs they did 2 big things. They workded their way into the WHO. to make sure they never get bullied into losing face again.

and 2 They build their own hightech fast response reporting network. They even did a test run...but...the test was buildt arounda forgien traveler importing a diease. not a home grown situation.

Wuhan Authorities didnt use the reporting system.

Teddy at the WHO was more aware of his lack of authority and tried to praise china inorder to get them to play ball.

finally since I have some first hand experience with chinese shit let me explain what wills top china from being a modern country like south korea, taiwan, japan, sigapore etc. and its cultural.

The chinese mind set, basically puts them at the center of the world. before you deal with anything or anyone whats so ever you must first decide if that thing is "chinese" or not "chinese" if its not chinese then you have a million reasons to handwave it away as being bad etc.

This is why china workds so hard to police non chinese, chinese if taiwanese or chinese living outside of china say bad things about the CCP it cant be blown off as "white people bad"

2nd and this is really more damming the goverment runs on face culture which means the goverment is retarded. No really they would rather the world burn than lose face and the only way to get them to behave is to embrasses them.

The WHO and other nations need to turn on china so hard and run another century of humliation.

Remember the opium war and burning of the summer palace was because the emporior couldnt even send someone with authority to negociate with the english. imagine trying to make a deal with someone who at the end of the day says "yeah thats cool but I am empowered to make any of this binding sorry no sorry"

anyway sorry to sperg so hard.
 
Trump's best move in a lot of the coronavirus stuff is to give the floor to other teams, and only turn it down if it's obviously meant to fuck with him. When to reopen? The governors can handle that. Postpone the election? Let the democrats decide to either risk it or nah, because the current situation doesn't favor them, and postponing expands his term. It both absolves him of responsibilities (especially stuff he's he can't be close enough to to understand fully) and takes the wind out of typical detractors.

Joking conspiracy time.

People have been talking about this being a power play by Trump or China, but really, there's one guy who definitely has made some political gains in this: Scott Morrison, the Australian prime minister. Three months ago, it was a running gag that Australia was gonna have another bloody power struggle because he faffed about in Hawaii while the country burned. Now, partially just due to the nature of Aus as a developed but low-pop country, we got a handle on this in record time, and he's come out of this looking ten times as competent.

Really does get the brain wrinkling.
1586924802392.png
 
No, it's worse. Your number of '63k' in the US is flat out wrong. It is super wrong. Everything I've seen and read about the swine flu deaths in the US gives a maximum of around 20k deaths. Reported confirmed deaths were around 3k. Confirmed cause of death in the US as already surpassed that, and surpassed the world wide confirmed deaths from Swine Flu by a few thousand already.
If it’s true, will you eat a hat?
 
Remember that arcgis site I linked to a few times? It seems like the UK government has decided to move it to a new, fancy URL

Old URL

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/f94c3c90da5b4e9f9a0b19484dd4bb14

1586932006192.png


If you go to the new URL you see this


1586932108779.png


Either that's very good news - new cases just dropped through the floor, or the website is broken. Of course it's the latter.

If you go here you find


1586932240165.png


Far from new cases dropping down to nothing they're still running at around 5K per day. Worldmeter cites a source for each day's data too

1586932826637.png
 
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NWA was right

No doubt.



Back on topic...

China didn’t warn public of likely pandemic for 6 key days
https://apnews.com/68a9e1b91de4ffc166acd6012d82c2f9 (https://archive.vn/tZHby)

In the six days after top Chinese officials secretly determined they likely were facing a pandemic from a new coronavirus, the city of Wuhan at the epicenter of the disease hosted a mass banquet for tens of thousands of people; millions began traveling through for Lunar New Year celebrations.

President Xi Jinping warned the public on the seventh day, Jan. 20. But by that time, more than 3,000 people had been infected during almost a week of public silence, according to internal documents obtained by The Associated Press and expert estimates based on retrospective infection data.
 

You do realize that I don't have to disagree with you to think that the way @DNA_JACKED was stating their point was fucking ghoulish, right? There's better ways of saying "hey, there's no putting this genie back in the bottle so we might as well move on with our collective lives" than basically saying "fuck you and your loved ones, nobody gives a shit, society is more important".
 
This made me laugh over my breakfast.
Here’s an alarmist DM article. TRANSMITTED BY DOGS alert!
Archive: https://archive.li/97A2b
Original paper: https://archive.li/97A2b https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/doi/10.1093/molbev/msaa094/5819559
Archive of abstract: https://archive.li/jTzB4

If someone wants to archive the actual PDF then the link is on the abstract page.

So. Dogs. Remember that bat is the reservoir species, and often you have an intermediary that the virus jumps into and from there to humans? Lots of effort expended to find that intermediary. We’ve had snakes, pangolins and bats so far. Now dogs.
But what’s wrong with that, otterly? You say...

Well this is what’s wrong with it.

- articles stresses Canadian paper.
- author Chinese
- all Chinese research has to go through CCP vetting, and if you think research done abroad is always an exception, you’re naive. So assume this has passed censorship, or even been directed.
- article doesn’t make much sense and has no direct evidence. They’ve looked at one aspect of sequence and decided that because the most extreme example of it known is in dog, then dog is the intermediary. But zero direct evidence (who h would be virus circulating in dogs outside of spillover from humans.)

But look deeper at what this actually is: it’s a paper suggesting an intermediary. One that westerners really like. Our best friends are traitors in our midst!
It also implies there WAS an intermediary. None has been found yet though. There may well be one. But there might not be and if there isn’t then that points the finger at direct transmission, I.e. direct bat to human transmission and that can ONLY have happened in one way. A human interacting with a bat species that isn’t present in the area. Are bats eaten there? Nope. Are bats present in the immediate area? Nope. Is it remotely likely that a stray dog ate a bat a hundred km away and wandered into town, then infected a load of humans who aren’t terribly friendly to stray dogs and then left no trace of virus in the local stray dog population? Nope.
Are bats used for studying new bat viruses in two labs in town? Why yes.
If there’s no intermediary, then the finger points at a lab fuckup.
So expect and awful lot of shouting in the media about potential intermediaries. Expect a paper a week about a new potential one, reinforcing the idea there must be one, and focusing on animals used as pets as an extra little CCP touch.
 
So went to the hospital today to have my regular blood test where I am in and out of hospital at least once a week, either for treatment or for blood tests right now.

Only for the whole way of blood tests apparently is now being changed. Blood test clinics are no longer drop in at all. You have to go on a website and book from now on.

I can understand this, tbh. It lets them manage blood tests more generally, but some indication this change was coming would have been appreciated. Thankfully they booked me in and let me take my test, but I'll be using the new system from now on.

If anything, it's far more convenient as it no longer means I have to dash in at the crack of dawn and hope I'm about the 6th one in as previously I've waited over an hour for blood tests.
 
@Azovka If you don't mind sharing, can you give us an update on the French situation? How is the the mood amongst your friends, colleagues, and neighbors?

Of course!
So, first things first, our President Macron announced that our confinement will last until May 11, at which point only schools and "necessary" businesses will be opened. Higher education, cafés, restaurants, cinémas, theatres, gyms, etc. will remain closed until new order even past May 11.
There is no plan to reopen European borders. Some say they will be closed until mid-September, but there's no official date yet.

As for the situation in the country, I'm personally in a wealthy seaside town in southern France known for its Festivals, so here, we literally have nothing happening. The hospitals are empty, there's barely any patients, people go for casual walks... Our open air markets are working, the streets are disinfected by drones, and we're getting mandatory reusable masks to wear this week by mail from the town hall.

Most of the cases are located in regions neighbouring Germany - Alsace, Lorraine (with 5k hospital cases), and in the great Paris area (13k cases), specifically in the poor, immigrant communities where the confinement is probably not even enforced anyways.
Screen Shot 2020-04-15 at 09.57.10.png


Macron has said that France was admittedly "underprepared" when it came to the virus, and 2/3 of the people that watched him seem convinced by his speech according to national polls. I personally am not. He's an incompetent, bumbling fool that wanted an ez 5 years of Presidency to sell our national airports to his businessmen friends, and generally use his mandate to make some quick bucks.
He had ample time to close borders and order confinement when Italy was getting hit end February, but nope. We waited till mid-March for that, and even then, Parisians and others had one week after the announcement to leave and travel.

Everyone is just bored, at least in my circles. Personally, I still have no idea when my uni exams will happen nor when I'll get my diploma. Work is rip for now, but that was expected.
All in all, France really fucked up. As you can see in the chart above, our regions aren't equal. What the government should've done is lock down greater Paris and the East at the start of the epidemic, and let the other regions do their thing. Or better yet, forcibly quarantine travellers and people with symptoms like Singapore, South Korea etc. have done (because yeah, we barely started doing that.)

France's economy won't be in a good place either coming out of this since most of it relies on tourism. Guess we'll see if we'll get some industry jobs back or whatnot. Most of my friends are rich / have family wealth, so none are too bothered. And I'm doing a Masters in Law, so most of my classmates are just focused on studying without worrying about rent or the next pay check.
The rare "lower middle" and working class people and families I do know are really struggling though, even with all the government help. You can apply for partial unemployment, but it doesn't work for freelancers, intermittent workers (mostly in entertainment / showbiz) etc. And the government is barely only introducing financial aid for their children.

Also, yesterday, the ambassador of China to France got taken to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs because turns out he lied about France to his buddies (and media) back in China. Most surprising, I know. Apparently, he claimed that France lets its old die from hunger, that French officials called the head of the WHO "nigger", that France is wrongly blaming China after calling themselves corona "just a flu", and that French medical professionals gave up on their jobs instead of fighting.

So, there's that. Wish I could be more informative, but I'm a privileged Parisian currently sitting it out in Southern France, and here, all's quiet on the South-Eastern front.
 
"The Covid Lockdown" by Gary Orsum, a parody of The Final Countdown




How is it that in the span of a month we went from the popular opinion being that you’re a fucking moron if you don’t take the Coronavirus and Quarantine seriously to you’re a fucking moron if you want everything to stay shut down and everyone to stay inside?

Sitting at home for a couple of weeks, your country's economy completely fucked, eating tinned food and instant noodles and reading doomer posts way worse that Drain Todger's all over the media can really get to you.
 
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Do you think schools should run on the Bismarck system?
Do you mean a voucher system? Yeah, I do.

You don't want that. You think you want that, but you don't. Over here we call that "colegios concertados", and admitedly some of them are great. Most of them are HORRIBLE. Having private biz manage public institutions is basically BEGGING for corruption and power abuse. SPECIALLY on education. Fuck me that's a hellhole of a system.

Generally I'd say for healthcare, educstion and science there should be a strong public sector and there should be the option for temporary public grants to the private sector with clear fucking rules behind what they're supposed to do and which are discontinued if the objectives aren't met. That's basically the only way to avoid having to deal with so much bureaucratic backstabbing it makes soviet fucking russia look friendly. Then again for that you need to have the public sector be transparent and handled via "bolsas" and technocratic shit like that, else you literally turn into soviet fucking russia.

Again, execution is the most important part. A point can be made for a USA stile mostly private system. But either way. No fucking concertados. That's a horrible mistake we're seeing the consequences of over here.

I pretty much stopped paying to case numbers and case fatality rates two weeks ago. DAE?

Particularly because of bullshit like this:
View attachment 1231867

To be fair he probably means symptomatic prognosis being used for temporary diagnosis, which is common everywhere in the world, except germany and china, when you gotta get those numbers out this fucking fast. Here in spain they did it for some areas, and apparently not others, so we'll see when this ends what the real numbers were.

There is an article in A&H that talks about the WHO and teddy.

Basically when SARS happened, the director general took a different method. The WHO had cultivated relationships with doctors all over the world and encouraged them to make reports directly too the WHO so when these strange pneumonia cases popped up. The who wasnt waiting for china to come forward instead they accussed china of covering it up. China lost face and came forward.

Vancuver wasnt doing testing or jack shit for SARS and the WHO issued traval advisories saying "DONT GO THERE"

This spurred the mayor and the powers that be to take actions but the mayor of vancuvor basically went to the head of the WHO and rightfully pointed out that the WHO doesnt have the authority do anything and he didnt like being told what to do.

Oh yeah see the WHO has/had no enforcement powers it can say "hey dont go here" but thats it. Which I think is kinda good. an Airline can stop flights and point to the WHO as the reason why. No one would lose their job for following a the recomendations of a global health organization etc.

Now since sars the chinks lost face and to prevent a repeat of SARs they did 2 big things. They workded their way into the WHO. to make sure they never get bullied into losing face again.

and 2 They build their own hightech fast response reporting network. They even did a test run...but...the test was buildt arounda forgien traveler importing a diease. not a home grown situation.

Wuhan Authorities didnt use the reporting system.

Teddy at the WHO was more aware of his lack of authority and tried to praise china inorder to get them to play ball.

finally since I have some first hand experience with chinese shit let me explain what wills top china from being a modern country like south korea, taiwan, japan, sigapore etc. and its cultural.

The chinese mind set, basically puts them at the center of the world. before you deal with anything or anyone whats so ever you must first decide if that thing is "chinese" or not "chinese" if its not chinese then you have a million reasons to handwave it away as being bad etc.

This is why china workds so hard to police non chinese, chinese if taiwanese or chinese living outside of china say bad things about the CCP it cant be blown off as "white people bad"

2nd and this is really more damming the goverment runs on face culture which means the goverment is exceptional. No really they would rather the world burn than lose face and the only way to get them to behave is to embrasses them.

The WHO and other nations need to turn on china so hard and run another century of humliation.

Remember the opium war and burning of the summer palace was because the emporior couldnt even send someone with authority to negociate with the english. imagine trying to make a deal with someone who at the end of the day says "yeah thats cool but I am empowered to make any of this binding sorry no sorry"

anyway sorry to sperg so hard.

So the who's prior lead was decent and that's exactly why they kicked him out. Corruption ahoi.

Also, to be fair the Opium Wars have to be the most British conflict ever. Fucking hell sometimes I think only reason the rest of the planet bothered learning english is because of how snobby you fuckers are. Then again if anything that's an adequate demonstration of power. The japanese tried pulling that one of and so far it's only worked on the ultraweebs.

Trump's best move in a lot of the coronavirus stuff is to give the floor to other teams, and only turn it down if it's obviously meant to fuck with him. When to reopen? The governors can handle that. Postpone the election? Let the democrats decide to either risk it or nah, because the current situation doesn't favor them, and postponing expands his term. It both absolves him of responsibilities (especially stuff he's he can't be close enough to to understand fully) and takes the wind out of typical detractors.

Joking conspiracy time.

People have been talking about this being a power play by Trump or China, but really, there's one guy who definitely has made some political gains in this: Scott Morrison, the Australian prime minister. Three months ago, it was a running gag that Australia was gonna have another bloody power struggle because he faffed about in Hawaii while the country burned. Now, partially just due to the nature of Aus as a developed but low-pop country, we got a handle on this in record time, and he's come out of this looking ten times as competent.

Really does get the brain wrinkling.
View attachment 1231793

If you think the president of australia has handled this well... you have issues. The famine from his mismanagement will be catastrofic.

This made me laugh over my breakfast.
Here’s an alarmist DM article. TRANSMITTED BY DOGS alert!
Archive: https://archive.li/97A2b
Original paper: https://archive.li/97A2b https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/doi/10.1093/molbev/msaa094/5819559
Archive of abstract: https://archive.li/jTzB4

If someone wants to archive the actual PDF then the link is on the abstract page.

So. Dogs. Remember that bat is the reservoir species, and often you have an intermediary that the virus jumps into and from there to humans? Lots of effort expended to find that intermediary. We’ve had snakes, pangolins and bats so far. Now dogs.
But what’s wrong with that, otterly? You say...

Well this is what’s wrong with it.

- articles stresses Canadian paper.
- author Chinese
- all Chinese research has to go through CCP vetting, and if you think research done abroad is always an exception, you’re naive. So assume this has passed censorship, or even been directed.
- article doesn’t make much sense and has no direct evidence. They’ve looked at one aspect of sequence and decided that because the most extreme example of it known is in dog, then dog is the intermediary. But zero direct evidence (who h would be virus circulating in dogs outside of spillover from humans.)

But look deeper at what this actually is: it’s a paper suggesting an intermediary. One that westerners really like. Our best friends are traitors in our midst!
It also implies there WAS an intermediary. None has been found yet though. There may well be one. But there might not be and if there isn’t then that points the finger at direct transmission, I.e. direct bat to human transmission and that can ONLY have happened in one way. A human interacting with a bat species that isn’t present in the area. Are bats eaten there? Nope. Are bats present in the immediate area? Nope. Is it remotely likely that a stray dog ate a bat a hundred km away and wandered into town, then infected a load of humans who aren’t terribly friendly to stray dogs and then left no trace of virus in the local stray dog population? Nope.
Are bats used for studying new bat viruses in two labs in town? Why yes.
If there’s no intermediary, then the finger points at a lab fuckup.
So expect and awful lot of shouting in the media about potential intermediaries. Expect a paper a week about a new potential one, reinforcing the idea there must be one, and focusing on animals used as pets as an extra little CCP touch.

Well that explains why there's been so much push for a "intermediary". Also: do the chinks have no self awareness? If anything this drive is proving chinese researchers can't be trusted by non-chinese institutions as they will only use the name of the institution for their own gain. It's papers like these that the nationalists will point to when expelling all chink researchers from everything.

You know what's funny? Here in spain they were only just now starting to try and infiltrate our public institutions. See the hilarious thing is, our public institutions use technocratic lists by merit and tests to decide who enters, so the chinks got into the private no issue, and then discovered in spain private=diploma mill no one respects. So last semester I saw multiple programs by china to try and get our youth to learn chinese and do joint programs with their institutions in hopes of using that to get inside. I don't think that's gonna work now. If anything, what I'm seeing is professors pointing to studies like this one and proclaiming such programs need to be culled ASAP. And I'm fairly sure the more papers like this they do the more people will join. Doesn't help that I went to a conference about one such program and the pitch was HILARIOUS. I wish I had had a camera there just so I could make a transcript. But they treated it like it was a fucking holiday pitch instead of a joint research program and you could see hpw much people wanted out as soon as they got the memmo knowing chinese was mandatory just to enter. Yeah good luck trying to get spanish students that already need to learn english and most of whom are trying to learn either japanese, french or german (many more than 1 of that list) to learn fucking pollution goblin runes! Hah.

EDIT: also yeah, when the chinese realized you need to prove to be meritorious through unbiased testing their reaction was to try and get spanish natives to cooperate with them. And yes I am definitely cackling at the implication that they couldn't find a single fucking chinaman worthy of entering our institutions. Get fucked china.
 
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Börk news (From yesterday, but I didn't see this posted): it's over 1000! https://www.expressen.se/nyheter/coronaviruset/folkhalsomyndigheten-hall-presskonferens/
Over 1,000 dead from the corona virus in Sweden

Over a thousand people have now died in covid-19 in Sweden, an increase of 114 people since yesterday.
People born in Somalia, Iraq and Syria are overrepresented around those infected, according to new figures from the Public Health Authority.
- We will follow these groups over time, says Anders Tegnell.
At the same time, Region Stockholm presents new figures on which districts are the most and least affected.

For several days in a row during Easter, few deaths have been reported. Yesterday there were another 20 people, on Sunday 17, and 12 people the day before.
On Tuesday, 114 new cases were reported, and 1033 people have now died in covid-19 in Sweden.
- We have had a very unfortunate development in Sweden compared to our neighboring countries with an introduction to a lot of elderly housing, and this is reflected in the figures we are seeing now. Together with many other authorities, we have started to work hard on this, says state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell.
- It is not a failure for the overall strategy, I would argue, but it is a failure for our way of protecting our elderly who live in elderly housing.
The Public Health Authority has previously said that reporting into the regions may lag behind during the weekends. Only tomorrow may more reliable figures come, says Anders Tegnell.
The spread in Stockholm - district by district
The Stockholm region reports a new distribution of the number of infected people in different municipalities and districts in Stockholm. The figures show that the spread of infection has decreased in Spånga-Tensta, Rinkeby-Kista and Sundbyberg. At the same time, however, it has increased in both Södertälje and Skärholmen, south of town.

Over-representation of foreign-born
Over 11,000 people have now been confirmed infected in Sweden. 530 patients receive intensive care today, and about 300 people receive other care, says the National Board of Health.
People born in Somalia, Iraq and Syria are overrepresented around those infected, according to new figures from the Public Health Authority. It is mainly about people who have come to the health care.
- This observation we have received from different directions because we have an over-representation of people born in other countries, it is true, says Anders Tegnell.
Somalia has a strong over-representation, Syria slightly less. Also born in Finland, Iran, and former Yugoslavia have a higher proportion of infected compared to the proportion of the population.
- We will follow these groups over time and see if this holds up or if we manage to reach these groups better with our messages.
The Express has previously reported how it took weeks before society acted around the fact that many infected people in the Stockholm region lived around the Järvafältet, and that there was, among other things, a lack of information about corona in languages other than Swedish.
Furthermore, it has been reported that a large proportion of those who have died in Stockholm are Assyrians / Syrians.
Some statistics over the different parts of Stockholms län (county) and how hardly they have been hit. Lots of what the press and government agencies so delicately call "vulnerable areas" (or as others might say: no go-zones, ghettos, förorten or "otten") have been hardly hit.
640@601.jpg640@602.jpg640@603.jpg
 
Börk news (From yesterday, but I didn't see this posted): it's over 1000! https://www.expressen.se/nyheter/coronaviruset/folkhalsomyndigheten-hall-presskonferens/Some statistics over the different parts of Stockholms län (county) and how hardly they have been hit. Lots of what the press and government agencies so delicately call "vulnerable areas" (or as others might say: no go-zones, ghettos, förorten or "otten") have been hardly hit.
View attachment 1232034View attachment 1232035View attachment 1232036

If you think 1000 is hardly hit there's a giant blackpill waiting to be rectally inserted just for you. And yes, no-go zones will be getting culled soon enough.
 
If anything this drive is proving chinese researchers can't be trusted by non-chinese institutions
I hate to say this because one of the really good things about working in medical research is being able to work with smart people from all over the world. And working with people from all over the world is fun, and educational, and often leads to great breakthroughs because people come at problems from a standpoint you might not have thought of. And there are really good researchers and medics from China just as from everywhere and now they will all be tarred with the same brush.
But: it’s very obvious that a proportion of foreign students (from various areas tbh, not just China) are spies, both political and industrial, and I think we will see increasing scrutiny of foreign visa applicants in certain fields.
It certainly puts some moments from earlier in my career in perspective, when I’ve seen senior figures warn UK students against working in predominantly Chinese labs/programs. The older I get, the more I think on a few moments from years back with that ‘ooooohhhh... THATS what that was all about.’
 
You don't want that. You think you want that, but you don't. Over here we call that "colegios concertados", and admitedly some of them are great. Most of them are HORRIBLE. Having private biz manage public institutions is basically BEGGING for corruption and power abuse. SPECIALLY on education. Fuck me that's a hellhole of a system.

I do want that. A voucher system would give parents the choice of state schools to send their kids to, and a choice of paid schools. Right now in the UK, most people don't have a choice of which school they send their kids to unless they can afford to pay for a 'public school', which is the UK's term for a school with usually pretty steep fees. If you're in a rich area, the local school is good. If you're rich and your local school isn't good you can afford to send your kids to a paid school. If you're in a poor area the local school will be terrible and you have no alternative. A voucher system makes all schools compete and gives choice to everyone, not just the rich. I don't really know enough about the Spanish system to comment but Sweden has a voucher system and it seems like it works well. No offense, but it seems like you're mixing up a voucher system with a completely privatized education system, picking the worst example of a privatized system you can find and saying 'vouchers will inevitably lead to this'. Also, we're way off-topic here.

Presser on the effect of Coronavirus on the economy


Local upload as mp3 because even the 240p version breaches the 100MB limit.

OBR report
https://archive.vn/ciAKx

Spectator article
https://archive.li/TFalG

Just days after the Office for Budget Responsibility announced its economic forecasts in March, the reality of Covid-19’s impact on the UK economy sunk in, and its projection was rendered completely obsolete. A month later, with a clearer picture of the toll the virus and lockdown have taken, the OBR today released its new coronavirus analysis, showing a staggering 35 per fall in real GDP in the second quarter, and an unemployment spike of up to 10 per cent – that is, 2 million additional people out of work. A long way off its Budget 2020 forecast for the year:

As the graph above shows, the OBR's scenario predicts a 'V-shaped' recovery – a quick economic downturn followed by a quick upturn once the lockdown measures are lifted – but it is not predicting a recovery in full. The start of a GDP uptick in Q3, followed by 'pre-virus levels' of GDP in Q4 would still mean a 13 per cent fall in annual GDP in 2020 – the biggest quarterly economic contraction since 1908, worse than the financial crash and both world wars. And even if the economy bounces back quickly, unemployment is not expected to fall at the same rate, despite unprecedented measures from the Treasury to keep people in employment.

The UK is also heading for its 'largest single-year deficit since the second world war', with public sector net borrowing set to increase by £218bn this financial year – confirming speculation that a decade's worth of austerity measures to recover from spending during the financial crash has been completely wiped out and a staggering budget deficit reinstated. The combination of low GDP and high spending is estimated to take UK debt figures over 100 per cent of GDP, dropping back to 95 per cent by the end of the year - a financial danger zone that could result in grave long-term problems.

There's an interesting discussion between Brendan O'Neill and Kate Andrews here that notes, ominously, that the government response to this assumes that you can shut down the economy and then restart it with government stimulus. However, that might not actually work. People might not go back to doing the things they were doing before the crisis afterwards no matter how much fake money the government pumps into the system


Audio only because it's a podcast.
 

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