invisible

What are your plans? How do you look at the situation and development?

LapLap

I’m in self-isolation, with a ten year old, in London. Except that because of the sociopath-drawn policies in the U.K. right now*, my kid will be expected back in school tomorrow.
She had a nasty cold, back before the start of last weekend and a bit of a temperature. Absolutely full of snot, it was like she was fermenting. Fever stopped by Sunday and she was back at school on Monday (lots of snot isn’t one of the Covid-19 symptoms you are supposed to watch out for). On Tuesday she spent most of the day at a huge event hall, with 2,000 kids from all the different schools across our London borough (total attendance was between 8,000 and 10,000 people). When I collected her that evening she was rather pale and her fever started again. It then continued, mildly but intermittently, ever since. Of course, I’ve also had cold symptoms since and a low running fever too. Yesterday I started getting hot/cold clammy sensations and that sort of shortness of breath where it feels that your lungs are working at 90% and this has persisted today.
But I’m fine. My problem is that the English government don’t really support self-isolation anymore, and certainly not for children
https://www.gov.uk/government/public...d-19-infection
As you can see, the official line is 7 days from the onset of symptoms.
So I don’t have a way to justify keeping my kid from school any longer.
Anybody who is immuno-compromised in the UK but still needs to care for children is in very big trouble. One of her best friends has sever asthma problems and her dad is physically very fragile from a chronic blood illness.
I miss the clear guidance and transparent, rational, evidence based policies that were implemented in Spain. Am really HATING how my child and I are being used as “controlled” infection tools for our community in London.

* they are calling it the “herd based immunity” approach.

The_Bouncer

I think things are very hard to predict at the moment. If my work season is postponed, which I think it probably will be, I will most likely head to the UK.

LapLap, if you are concerned about things in the UK and would prefer to quarantine in Spain, are you able to arrange to be repatriated? I'm guessing your child is also a Spanish citizen? How is she today?

LapLap

I never got around to registering her with the Spanish Authorities. She’s Japanese and they don’t like dual nationality, let alone triple nationality. It was a different time back in 2009...

Both my parents are in the U.K., they were supposed to be living in Spain by now but my brother and I both had children at around the same time so they held off until both grandchildren were in secondary school so that they could support us. I am not certain that both my parents will make it through this, but switching country at this point isn’t going to make much difference. They may be better off sticking to the English suburbs where my brother is anyway as in Spain we live right in the middle of Alicante within a lively social network.

The option we had (myself, husband and child), but have decided not to take, is go stay with my father-in-law in Japan (having undertaken quarantine first). Our ticket is still open, I don’t need to cancel it until the 27th, so there’s always that if things in England take a terrible dive. It’s not really just about Covid-19 anymore, but social cohesion. Am not worried about my own health, or my daughter’s, at all.
It meant a lot being able to follow Spain’s approach, I have not been able to follow or understand what is happening here in England at all (and what I do learn makes me very, VERY angry).

LapLap

Sunday 15th March

I am going to wrap up now as the aim of this thread was to understand the events and policies that led to this point, with rocketing Covid-19 figures, a National Emergency declared and the country in lockdown/quarantine.
The effects of the short intense heatwave may never be understood as it coincided with a mass migration of people from badly infected areas (mostly Madrid) into the elevated temperature areas which had a much lower number of confirmed cases. The weather is just about to turn in the other direction as an unseasonably cold front arrives shortly.

The figures now are:
Más de 7.750 personas contagiadas, 517 altas hospitalarias y 382 personas ingresadas en la UCI

Which means 7,750 confirmed cases*, 517 Hospital-Ill cases and 382 in Intensive Care Units (ICUs)

Am not sure if this is a weekend thing, but, since yesterday, El Pais started publishing more, and more relevant, articles in English about the Covid-19 crisis in Spain.
I have been taking in information from a variety of sources: La Verdad - Murcia, Informacion - Alicante, Noticias de Navarra, and also La Vanguardia, ABC and El Mundo, but again and again I’ve found myself gravitating towards El Pais. The Spanish press has been doing a magnificent job this past month, and if you think my approach has been measured they are the reason for this. I recommend the English pages of El Pais if you want to follow this further.

If anybody does have any questions they would like help finding answers to (even with translation software I understand how difficult it can be to find and identify the information you want to translate in the first place) am very happy to help. But I’d rather do this publicly than in a PM as I am very capable of error and would rather allow my efforts to be reviewed in case I slip up. It also allows an alternative view to be offered.
Just alert me with a quote or a mention so that my FT bell gets dinged.

I wish you all and your loved ones good health!

sorry, forgot to elaborate on the * just a reminder that the confirmed cases figure is being collected differently to before as less testing is being done outside of hospitals (and within the hospitals they are more likely to reflect people who have been treated)

photos from today:
https://elpais.com/elpais/2020/03/15...ml#foto_gal_17

invisible

I would not count on elevated temperatures to be helpful...

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysia reported 190 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, with most linked to a religious event at a mosque that was attended by 16,000 people from several countries.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-h...-idUSKBN2120BE

LapLap

I’ve never been to a Malaysian Mosque. Is there no climate control inside? (I understand many of the Singaporean multiple infection events happened in air conditioned venues)

invisible

They did not say which mosque was and unless the biggest and most prestigious ones, I would not expect any aircons inside. At least it is the case in Singapore and most likely would be there too.

P.S. Watch out for cases from Indonesia as well. Indonesia now seems to adopt the stance that 'there will be no cases if we won't test for them', but when hospitals will starting to getting full, it will get an idea...

LapLap

You did say 160,000 people from all over the world were there, so biggest and most prestigious would fit.

I tend to agree with you that it’s the deaths that will really indicate what is actually going on. The change in how El Pais reported the Covid-19 related figures today was telling, less affluent countries will not be able to sustain testing as long as Spain did, so I don’t see any other way of understanding what might be happening except for deaths (unless they relay their ICU needing cases and, perhaps, how many ICUs are available - which seems unlikely)

invisible

Correction here - 16k people, not 160k and it was during four days, our 4000 per day (assumption).
Still, a mosque holding 4k people inside is quite large. I'm sure in upcoming days there will be more details where/what it was.

Even with death, there is no guarantee that a) reporting of actual numbers would be accurate b) there won't be concealment of true causes of death by writing something else in the report. We already have Iran as an example...

LapLap

Monday 16th March

Just in case anybody is still using this to make plans:
The Government is working under the assumption that the current State of Alarm will be extended further than the initial 15 day period
15 days seems to be the maximum allowed at a time by law, but this does not allow enough time to “win the battle against Covid-19”.
https://elpais.com/Comentario/158434...a83312e?gla=es

There’s some introspection and soul searching going around, but for the signs of what Spain will be doing in the next month, one needs to look to South Korea. The country is psychologically ready to learn from and (importantly) ACCEPT an Eastern Asian country as an equal and peer. This is an article about why Spain should be seeking to adopt South Korea’s measures (China is considered still too foreign and different to emulate - but Spain is a country that, just this last week, was split into regions, each with their own policies, each thinking that they were too unique to be following each other’s plans and procedures - as a nation, Spain has come a long way already)
https://elpais.com/sociedad/2020-03-...no-siguio.html

Koby

I think that, at least in this case (especially in how Madrid was not locked down days ago), Alicante and Murcia are at least as angry as Catalunya. At least we have some unity there... :-)

LapLap

I set up a Covid-19 Thread of Shame - which I’m casually tending in fluffy OMNI - there are a couple of ‘jop’ta Madrileņo entries in there. Probably could have filled it with more examples, but it makes my blood boil seeing and hearing about them, so haven’t actively been searching them out. Those are going to be some seriously divided and angry communities when this passes, I don’t see how these selfish “domingueros” are going to continue living the same way in their vacation apartments. They really have cagado on their own (albeit secondary) doorsteps.

IAN-UK

It was an international mass gathering organised by Tablighi Jamaat, a conservative, strictly orthodox, missionary movement focussed on a return to traditional values, behaviours, dress among muslims. It was held at the large Sri Petaling mosque complex. It was far from a regular prayer session, think more of a jamboree, an international convention.

A second event was planned for Sulawesi, but the indonesian authorities finally managed to get it cancelled.

LapLap

is this the place?