Interesting Links for 07-04-2020

[andrewducker]

Dialysis machine shortages lay bare wider threat from Covid-19

(tags:Doom virus pandemic )

You Should Worry About Coronavirus in the Southern States (for more complex reasons than you'd think}

(tags:USA pandemic inequality race poverty )

What it means to be admitted to intensive care

(tags:medicine UK )

500-year-old Scottish manuscript contains earliest known use of the word "Fuck"

(tags:Scotland history language swearing )

Having Too Much Information Can Lead Us To Make Worse Decisions

(tags:decisions psychology )

A story about Ed Miliband

(tags:politics Labour UK coal globalwarming )

How far away are 'immunity passports'?

(tags:statistics pandemic )

Comments

[calimac]

The Ed Miliband thread is how I learned he's now in the shadow cabinet. Good; unlike in the US where they never go away, in the UK there's a tendency to throw losing politicians on the rubbish tip, and that's a shame in the case of a man whose only real crime was to eat a bacon sandwich.

Note also how, not only did he change his mind about the coal plant, but the trip-barrier way he went about implementing that, instead of an outright cancellation which might only have caused backfire. That's crafty politics.

[andrewducker]

Yup. Definitely someone you want to keep working in politics!

[danieldwilliam]

I once happened upon an early example of the Jamaica pun in the 17th century Records of the Privy Council of Scotland.

Local ship owner applied to the Privy Council for permission to trawl round the prisons in Edinburgh, Leith and Dundee looking for prisoners who would exchange a commutted sentence for 7 years indentured servitude in Jamaica.

Yes, but only if the prisoners went of their own accord.

[danieldwilliam]

I've been thinking over the class aspects the coronavirus outbreak. There is so very clearly a class aspect to how likely you are to catch it and how likely you are to have your income disrupted.

[mountainkiss]

And the quality of your existence in lockdown.

[danieldwilliam]

That also. Very much so.

MLW, the Captain and I are able to occupy a different room from each other and have some other rooms spare. We're close to green space. We have a wide range of entertainments; media streaming, a stock of board games, books and papers. The house is full of tasty treats. There are worse places to be holed up.

And then add to that that many of friends and the friends of my children are similarly fortunate and therefore under a little less pressure in aggregate and it makes for a less unpleasant time.

[mountainkiss]

Yes and you still have at least a bit of outside space if the lockdown starts to extend to daily exercise breaks.

[danieldwilliam]

Aye - I am currently working on reconfiguring the garden to provide some outdoor seating. And perhaps some apples.

[mountainkiss]

I suspect you won't regret that. Order anything you want well in advance as there'll be a run.

[danieldwilliam]

Wise comment.

The rough plan (if you recall the general layout of the front garden - and you are under no obligation to have done so) is this:

remove the old current bushes from the raised beds by the path to the main building
replace those with apples (espalier or fan) - these will sit back a little
add one or two benches in that corner - it's the corner that gets the sun in the evening.

My hope is that when we get to the longer warmer summer days in June we'll be able to at least sit outside.

[mountainkiss]

I'd buy the benches and apple trees now.

[danieldwilliam]

As I said to you on yon Twitter I wonder if combining a 95% accurate coronavirus antibody test with other data might improve the overall reliability of the tests.

Specifically whether anyone else in your workplace or family has had it.

What finding out a bit more about the antibody tests has made me think is that we're likely to have a closer quarantine for longer. Firstly,sounds like it will be a while until we have either a good test or enough post-infected people for the number of false-positives to be manageable. Second, if it takes 28 days for the antibodies to be detectable then we're looking at four weeks before it's worth rolling out mass testing.