emax

Well if you genuinely struggle to breath when you get the flu (and I dont mean slightly out of breath, I mean actually struggling to breath) then you really should of gone to hospital, or at least the docs afterwards if nothing else. Bare in mind your case wont be the same for everyone. Someone who doesnt have regular breathing problems, will know when they have breathing problems!

Oh I totally agree with the testing. It would certainly help to ascertain how the plan is currently working, and also "could" help to lower the death rate. I mean they have said they're upping the tests, so time will tell on whether thats through regular testing, or simply just on hospitalised patients.

No lol???? I've just stated that the threshold hasnt changed, and you've just illustrated it for me. Feeling really bad with flu can mean different things to different people. Breathing difficulties is at least one of the thresholds surely?

Sorry, but I'm confused on that one. If you have breathing difficulties (struggling to breath etc), then you call 999. If you have someone who can take you, then I'm sure you could suggest that to the call centre, but they could still make the hospital aware of the case. But lets be honest, anyone coming in with breathing difficulties are going to at least be questioned on symptoms etc. All I'm saying is, yes the 111 system is struggling, but if its an emergency, you dial 999. Thats no different at any time?

I can fully understand why they dont want everyone phoning 111. Its the same in Germany, and probably other countries. Their phone lines are just as overwhelmed as we are, from what I can make out from German news anyway. To those who think they should be phoning 111 for mild symptoms, just think about if COVID hadnt happened. None of this has happened, no news reports, no government advice etc, everything as per normal. Now, you end up with a cold/flu/fever (the type you've probably had before)........would you call 111/999, or just snuggle up for a couple of days and ride it out? I'd wager 80% would behave normally and ride it out. Obviously if it developed into breathing difficulties, or lasted for days and days, or you had chest pains etc, then you'd certainly consider 111 if not 999, but thats normal. At this stage, as much as it would be nice to test everyone so as to get an idea of clusters etc, there just isnt the resources. So those resources are better directed to testing those who have more severe symptoms, or at least not mild ones.

Define "really bad"?? If you end up with breathing difficulties, then you dial 999, surely people dont need to be told that?

Just a point about Macron and the virus doesnt respect borders stuff, and the EU open borders points . All I would say on that is, are the EU countries pooling their health systems to fight this en mass?? If thats the case, then fair enough, but I've heard nothing about that so far. So, from there, if each country is effectively relying on its own health system for its own population, then there's nothing wrong with closing borders if it'll help a particular country get through this better than others.

But over what time frame is that? People are making assumptions of an assumption. How is that any different to saying this is no deadlier than the flu? Yes, and extra 500,000 deaths is not good by any means, but if thats spread across several years, suddenly not so bad. But its all assumptions, so just seems a bit silly to me to be basing opinions on assumptions.

As a worst case modelled scenario, yes. But there's no time limit on that. In my view, this press conference seems to be very professional and honest. The usual people on here will never accept anything the government suggests is correct, and they will always take every comment made and turn it into a theoretical statistic of thousands of deaths per day. That will always happen, you cant help that. Maybe I'm just growing tired, but this thread does seem to be drifting from reported news and data, into just pure paranoia where every little comment or bit of data is turned into something to trash the government, or suggest that we're all going to die!

He must be ill then, cause I'm sure they're all getting 8hrs sleep and having an easy day .......

Oh please..........would you rather he be smiling and joking?

I only pay for Sky really for Sky F1.....lol

There's markets crashing, and then there's staff being layed off or out of work left right and centre. Its not entirely about the stock markets.

But in this instance, it makes no difference what the government do surely?

Oh yeh, definitely, world economies have taken a massive hit, and will cause problems for a fair while (which is annoying really, because the market crashes are not completely due to this virus). I'm just suggesting its still a fine line, and if you can help the economy as much as possible, for as long as possible, it all helps. Just look at airlines for example. Many are now laying off hundreds or thousands of workers (a lot are contractors, mostly mechanics etc) because of the economic impacts)

Just to put some perspective on that, economic crashes/problems etc do lead to more deaths. So although I wouldnt like to say which is the route to go for, please dont think that the economy has no effect on health/deaths, and more so in the working age vs the elderly.

In fairness, if you are that concerned about this, and you disagree sooo much with anything the government is doing, then why dont you stay in yourself? A lockdown is only going to contain people who arent worried about this, those who are worried can lock themselves down surely? Why would you wait for the government if you're that concerned?

I would imagine keeping schools open for as long as possible is to limit the effect of parents having to have time off work etc, which would include emergency services, carers etc. Its easy to say shut all schools now (and it will come) but the damage that will do to all sorts of services has to be weighed against keeping those services running at their best for as long as possible. Its still a tricky one, but as keeps being mentioned, that button has to be pressed at exactly the right time. All you can do is trust the experts on that. If you dont, then you cant trust anything!

Whats better?

Exactly. Whether the UK is testing less than some other countries is hard to say, but to just assume the government are falsifying the figures, without anything to back that up, gets on my wick.

Clearly? How so, have you got the figures?

Yes, but that isnt going to happen over night....and they said they would ramp up to that figure...........jeez, everything is a conspiracy these days. Whats the point in believing anything really eh?

And the thread removed? Or has it reappeared now?

How many tests are France doing per day?

I feel the same. Especially seeing as the tests completed is gradually going up too. So I think it could of been a lot worse.