Covid-19 Pandemic Thread

[Regulator]

Thanks. What's the view on bringing together a number of people from different households to livestream?

My view is that is not an essential service and breaches the terms of the government guidance.

[Joan]

Aside: my local vicar, Richard, got promoted to Archdeacon, and his last service was the first Sunday of the ban. He livestreamed it, of course, but it was a downbeat ending to long tenure.

[JohnToo]

Thanks. What's the view on bringing together a number of people from different households to livestream?

The missing bit seems to be that it's clearly low-risk for one person to turn up at a church and press a couple of buttons before streaming. Some churches in America are ignoring the guidance and having meetings of 1100 people. No-one seems to be talking about what's reasonable in terms of how many are involved in the streaming. I've been scouring around FB and churches in the main seem to be preaching from a sofa, with a pre-recorded band clip thworn in, or doing things in ones and twos. There's the odd broadcast with 4 musicians explicitly spread out.

My personal opinion...

When the London Bishops backtracked on their previous permission to clergy who lived contiguously to their churches to enter them, they gave a justification, which was that they had become aware that this permission was being interpreted by some as licence for everyone to go to church. Mass attendance at church is clearly unsafe and unwanted. We might, cynically, speculate that the real reason they backtracked was because Welby lent on Mullaly to present a united front, but, nonetheless, the argument that we shouldn't be doing anything that encourages people to think it's OK to gather together unnecessarily has validity. My interpretation is that a priest obviously livestreaming on their own - for example, being seen to be pressing their own buttons - is a positive message, because it shows how we can adapt our normal activities to avoid social contact. Having musicians present, personally, I wouldn't.

[Joan]

See, this is where Catholics are at a disadvantage. Being single, they don't generally have family they can dragoon into being their film crew.

[Mister Paul]

See, this is where Catholics are at a disadvantage. Being single, they don't generally have family they can dragoon into being their film crew.

There are three in this family that can do it together. But we can do it at home, which was my argument yesterday.

Thanks for your views. It's useful to hear some balance.

[Joan]

I received a letter today from someone** I know has coronavirus. I don't want to touch it.

**Boris, obviously.

[JohnToo]

Trips out of the home for shopping are restricted to shopping for basic necessities only.

Gardening materials, for example, bags of compost, something that both we and our neighbours have run out of, are clearly not "basic necessities".

There's a garden centre 4 miles from us, who have set up a "farm shop" operation to sell fresh veg, which allows them to stay open under the regulations, and, as they are open, they are selling gardening supplies as normal (but with social distancing in place). We used our daily exercise ration yesterday to cycle there to check it out. They are indeed selling eggs and potatoes and some other veg, but most people seemed to be carting away sacks of compost.

What does the panel think? If someone drives there for one of their essential-groceries shopping trips instead of to Sainsbury's, are they flouting (a) the letter (b) the spirit of the restrictions if they buy compost as well?

(We know what we think, I'm interested whether it's the same as what anyone else thinks...)

[Iris]

Legal and within the spirit of the regs.

It's legal to go outside with a reasonable excuse. A reasonable excuse is to shop for food. What else you do at the same time is up to you.

The objective of the regs is to ensure that physical contact between people is significantly reduced to minimise the spread of disease. A secondary, largely unstated, objective, is to ensure that viable business continues so that economic activity isn't completely destroyed and so that people continue to have jobs.

For what it's worth, my reading of the very limited evidence is that the UK version of lockdown is about as effective at suppressing transmission as the much more Draconian versions in France, Italy or Spain. We're now at the stage where deaths are only increasing by 15% a day, and we've got there a bit sooner than I'd expected. You don't need to suppress all transmission to control an epidemic, just enough to stop it in its tracks.

[Regulator]

I’d agree that it’s legal and within the spirit of the regs. I shall be doing some planting this weekend. We’ve already got the compost (although no fine potting compost but I have a plan for that involving the mini food processor) and the seeds/plants.

[Regulator]

I’m a little in love...


Emily Maitlis, Newsnight, on Coronavirus. (BBC iPlayer link)

Watch the first couple minutes.

[Joan]

Compost for flowers, non-essential I guess.

But surely if you are growing food?

(I still buy wine)

[Regulator]

My employer is sending all staff something from Hotel Chocolat as a little thank you for our efforts recently...

[LowlifeDes]

That's nice of them

[Regulator]

That's nice of them

Yep - given that we have 11,500 staff (not including our medical consultants).

[Sonic Budgie]

Got my uniform today [thumbsup]