Coronavirus, advice from ME

The same smoke rings includes a bit from the Sept 1904 mag which does make interesting reading.

I'd have thought there would have been more complaints about ME using a somewhat out of date photo of some bloke named Neil on the facing page than about Martin's text

Edited By JasonB on 30/06/2020 19:46:04

I have few issues from the Second World War and none from the first.

A random editoprial from February 1945 had Percival Marshall reporting on things as if all was normal, except for the results of an American railroad modellers magazine reader survey. He states that the results of a postwar survey would probably show even more activity, reflecting the assumption around then that it would all be done and dusted in the relatively near future.

Neil

During the war there was plenty of information regarding things going on - Percival Marshall wrote in the issue of Sept 21st 1939:

'Some of our readers may be wondering what the 'ME' will do during the period of the war. The answer is simple - it will carry on'

Later in the same piece he says that 'many of our readers will be engaged in some form of armaments making or of national service where where mechanical knowledge is required'

He goes on to say that the magazine supported this in the last war, and in fact a series of articles by Edgar T. Westbury were printed on 'Model Engineers and National Service' as well as information on Capstan and automatic lathes that they might come across if working in factories.

LBSC used to include asides in his articles about 'Herr Hitler' and the V1s or 'wommin birds' and how he had to put out an incendiary in his attic, how next door had a bomb hit and also how he used to sit outside the Anderson Shelter with a drawing board on his knees completing articles. He was definitely very pro British - you could tell by his cheeky comments about the Germans, including Goering who was described as fat but owning a model train system (but he still recommended by name tools that were pre-war and German!) He and his wife evacuated for a few weeks and this was also described.

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Well, that's good to hear

Magazine arrived today and the editorial is controversial, possibly by accident, because the conclusion is sensible enough - 'get back to normal as soon as we're allowed to'. Apart from being counter to government health advice, it's apparently based on a belief that the Prime Minister irrelevantly refers to 'morbid funk' in private. I guess 'Surveys suggest that, even after our freedom is restored, many people will be reluctant to get out and about' was written before packed beaches, raves and football celebrations hit the news!

This issue got even worse when I read 'Confessions of a Model Maker' by John Moorhouse. John rubs a hundredweight of salt straight into the open wound of my guilty conscience. I am Mr Untidiness and Task Avoidance incarnate. Someone has grassed me up - I'm so obviously the Jackass John is writing about.

I was devastated long before getting to the cruel truth of 'Starting a Project is much easier than finishing.' After delivering this comprehensive thrashing John finishes off with the brutal promise: 'To be continued'. I may have to cancel my subscription for health reasons.

Dave

Well I do - That Mr Hitler was not a nice guy and Kaiser Bill was not much better!

I have looked in my bound volumes of ME for 1918 and not found any mention of the 1918-20 flu pandemic. There is no entry in the indexes and I can't see anything in the editorials or club news and nothing is apparent in the adverts. (I can't claim to have read every word, ME came out once a week in those days) There is a mention of the end of the war in an editorial at the end of November, but no mention of flu.

There may have been a special reason for this. The pandemic was often called "Spanish Flu" despite it having first become a known issue in the US at an army camp in Kansas, and then becoming a huge problem almost everywhere around the world. This was because Spain was neutral and it's press was relatively free to report the problems caused by the pandemic. The warring nations had powerful wartime censorship which prevented mention of anything which may have caused morale issues and this censorship may have prevented Percival Marshall saying anything.

Rod

Here's some advice from me: Read this government web page.

Look at the last update date. Fake news.

JA

Do you have a link I could look at?

Martin.

Martin

Using your link I opened the document which says as of 19 March COVID19 is not considered to be a high consequence infectious disease. This document was last updated on 17 June. I don’t think the government could claim COVID19 was not a high consequence infectious disease two weeks ago.. No government would have updated such a document.

I leave others to judge its providence.

JA

It was decided not to keep it as a 'high consequence infectious disease' as that status is intended for rare diseases and places an onerous reporting burden on doctors.

If they had enforced it on Covid-19 a huge burden of pointless extra administration would have been placed on the NHS as the 'purpose' is to alert the authorities to the presence of such a disease, but we already knew Covid-19 was here.

It's aim is to make sure things like ebola or west nile fever don't go unreported.

Unfortunately the bare headline makes wonderful conspiracy theory fodder.

Neil

OK.

Thanks Neil.

JA

Am I missing something here?

How can a gov decide to reduce the fundamental threat status of Covid-19 (months ago!) while it's still claiming and acting as if we're in deep danger from it?

That link is to a government website and amongst other things states that: "As of 19 March 2020, COVID-19 is no longer considered to be a high consequence infectious disease (HCID) in the UK."... and ..."They have determined that several features have now changed; in particular, more information is available about mortality rates (low overall)".

They're the gov's own words, so where's the conspiracy theory there?

Keeping the country on lockdown for months despite this hugely downgraded 'threat' makes no sense to me unless something else is going on.

If I'm misunderstanding something then I think they need to make their message clearer for people like me.

Martin.

Well yeah. You are missing the clearly stated definition of HCID. It hinges on the fatality rate. For Covid19 that is somewhere about 1 to 3 per cent. HCID diseases are those such as Ebola that is clearly listed and has a fatality rate of 25 to 90 per cent. Huge, huge difference.

So Covid19 is not in the same league as Ebola. But that does not mean you can just do away with lockdowns and carry on. As they are currently finding out in places like Texas and Florida where lockdowns were lifted and deaths went through the roof in the past week or two.

The website you linked to is clearly too complex for you to understand the finer points of, not being a medical professional. So you should listen to what the nation's chief medical officers are telling you in simple language daily on the news. They know more about medical science than you do.

Oh sorry.

Only when I saw on their web page: "They have determined that several features have now changed; in particular, more information is available about mortality rates (low overall)". I thought they were saying overall mortality rates were low.

You can rest assured that, like you, I'll stop trying to understand what words mean and instead trust the word of polititians and the likes of Neil Ferguson and base my future on it.

Sorry if I interrupted the simple language you must be listening to on the daily news.

Edited By V8Eng on 05/07/2020 13:35:38

Edited By V8Eng on 05/07/2020 13:36:01