Spursex
Alert Team
This is an interesting read:
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticl...mscpedit_gen&uac=366360CZ&impID=2327185&faf=1
muttley
Alert Team
I get it, but what they don't say is that we have 1300 hospitals and 1.5m staff in the NHS. For those working in the front line we would expect to have xxx thousand tested in 7-10 days and as we go through this process we will share the results daily. We expect that this will inform of us how we can test the greater population.
This is my problem with the government. It's too wishy washy, always lacking data and they seem to think that their way of communication is acceptable. Of course people like us will dig out what we can find, but that's not helping the masses in my opinion. Michael Gove was simply awful yesterday. He just arrogantly ignored the harder press questions and cherry picked what he wanted to answer. Boris should keep him away from that podium.
Spursex
Alert Team
I'm going to disagree for a moment, I like the fact that he treated the 'harder questions' with disdain, in my view, too many are led by political point-scoring and if he started answering them, you'd just get an on-screen argument to develop as they asked to follow up questions.
We will have all the time in the World to do a forensic and never-ending review of what got done right and what didn't - trying to score points now is pointless (excuse the pun!).
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Spursex
Alert Team
If you want a sure bet, short the Euro, unless Germany pays for it, the Euro is on the verge of collapse - Italy can never recover, nor Spain if they stay in it and Germany doesn't pay for their recovery..
John Keiger
‘Germany will pay!’ is Macron’s coronavirus mantra
26 March 2020, 12:42pm
In his broadcast to the nation ten days ago, president Macron tub-thumped his war campaign on coronavirus. Six times he repeated the word ‘war’. Yesterday, he visited the front: Mulhouse in Alsace, on the Franco-German border, where France’s largest virus cluster is overwhelming the region’s hospitals. Live TV saw him, masked up, in an army field hospital, surrounded by soldiers in combat gear. From there he spoke again to the nation. France, he intoned, was at war in this region, a region scarred by past wars. By remaining united France would defeat the coronavirus enemy. And he launched military ‘Operation Résilience’ to take the combat further.
Macron’s advisors have allegedly been briefing that he is the new Clemenceau. In 1917, when the war was going badly for France and the allies, Georges Clemenceau was made prime minister to re-invigorate the war effort. It was Clemenceau who, when asked in parliament what his policy was, retorted : ‘Domestic policy, I make war; foreign policy, I still make war’.
That coronavirus is a crisis there is no doubt. Whether it is worthy of being deemed a full-scale war is another matter. To be fair to Macron, he is not the only politician in France, or abroad, to use the war metaphor. But Macron, whose passion at secondary school was drama (which is how he met his wife) and which he relishes combining with history, is fully exploiting the theatricality of the crisis.
But there is a terrible irony lurking in this mise en scene of Clemenceau’s victorious war-making. Clemenceau’s eventual victory in the Great War would rightly see him celebrated nationally and beyond as Père-la-Victoire. But Macron’s advisors forget that Clemenceau’s other war-time mantra was, ‘Germany will pay!’ Germany would be forced to pay the bill for the war. Just as Clemenceau threw all of France’s resources into the war effort, so Macron and his ministers have repeated the Mario Draghi quip. ’Whatever it takes’.
The French lockdown, which is now expected to last until the beginning of May, is an economic bombshell. French debt, before Covid-19, was running at over 100 per cent GDP and France was already in breach of the EU’s three per cent budget deficit rules. Today the French statistical agency (INSEE) states that French economic output is down by 35 per cent and that the crisis this year will knock three points off French GDP if lockdown lasts a month, six per cent should it last two months. How will she pay for this?
It seems Germany will be asked to pay.
Yesterday, nine European leaders, with France on the front-line, called for the debt from the coronavirus epidemic to be mutualised across the eurozone. As I wrote in The Spectator on 22 March, the coronavirus debt mountain will make or break the EU. We are fast approaching a re-run of the 2010/12 euro crisis that came in the wake of the 2008 Great Financial Crash.
On Tuesday, EU finance ministers failed to agree on common measures to refloat their economies in the wake of Covid-19. Lined up on one side was France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Belgium and Greece, who called for the creation of a ‘common debt instrument’, nicknamed by the Italian prime minister, somewhat morbidly: ‘Corona bonds’. In technical terms, according to the EU, to be effective this bond should be of a size and maturity sufficient not to risk refinancing in the future. In layman’s terms, a very large sum and for the long term.
In the 2010/12 euro crisis, the principal beneficiaries were the so-called P.I.G.S. (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain). Sometimes referred to as the Southern states, their number has swelled since. The Spanish finance minister referred to the ‘euro-bond’ project as a ‘Marshall Plan’. But who will take on the financial role played by the Americans? The answer seems to be Germany.
As in the ‘euro crisis’ financing new euro debt will fall on those economical states from the so-called north of Europe, the largest of whom is Germany.
Unsurprisingly at that meeting on Tuesday opposition to the ‘Corona bond’ was led by Germany and Holland. They insisted that the European Central Bank’s recent liquidity measures should be sufficient when supplemented by those of individual member states.
That is where things stand. Today EU finance ministers will make another attempt to reach a compromise by video-conference, covid 19 oblige. Given the epidemic’s devastating impact on Italy, Spain and France, Germany and Holland will doubtless act diplomatically and probably seek a delay.
But without the weight and prestige of the northern states corona bonds will not go ahead. In the end, if another euro crisis is to be avoided, Germany will have to pay. President Macron’s advisors would do best to forget the analogies with Clemenceau given that unfortunate historical context.
Written byJohn Keiger
John Keiger is a professor of French history and former Research Director of the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge
John Keiger
‘Germany will pay!’ is Macron’s coronavirus mantra
26 March 2020, 12:42pm
In his broadcast to the nation ten days ago, president Macron tub-thumped his war campaign on coronavirus. Six times he repeated the word ‘war’. Yesterday, he visited the front: Mulhouse in Alsace, on the Franco-German border, where France’s largest virus cluster is overwhelming the region’s hospitals. Live TV saw him, masked up, in an army field hospital, surrounded by soldiers in combat gear. From there he spoke again to the nation. France, he intoned, was at war in this region, a region scarred by past wars. By remaining united France would defeat the coronavirus enemy. And he launched military ‘Operation Résilience’ to take the combat further.
Macron’s advisors have allegedly been briefing that he is the new Clemenceau. In 1917, when the war was going badly for France and the allies, Georges Clemenceau was made prime minister to re-invigorate the war effort. It was Clemenceau who, when asked in parliament what his policy was, retorted : ‘Domestic policy, I make war; foreign policy, I still make war’.
That coronavirus is a crisis there is no doubt. Whether it is worthy of being deemed a full-scale war is another matter. To be fair to Macron, he is not the only politician in France, or abroad, to use the war metaphor. But Macron, whose passion at secondary school was drama (which is how he met his wife) and which he relishes combining with history, is fully exploiting the theatricality of the crisis.
But there is a terrible irony lurking in this mise en scene of Clemenceau’s victorious war-making. Clemenceau’s eventual victory in the Great War would rightly see him celebrated nationally and beyond as Père-la-Victoire. But Macron’s advisors forget that Clemenceau’s other war-time mantra was, ‘Germany will pay!’ Germany would be forced to pay the bill for the war. Just as Clemenceau threw all of France’s resources into the war effort, so Macron and his ministers have repeated the Mario Draghi quip. ’Whatever it takes’.
The French lockdown, which is now expected to last until the beginning of May, is an economic bombshell. French debt, before Covid-19, was running at over 100 per cent GDP and France was already in breach of the EU’s three per cent budget deficit rules. Today the French statistical agency (INSEE) states that French economic output is down by 35 per cent and that the crisis this year will knock three points off French GDP if lockdown lasts a month, six per cent should it last two months. How will she pay for this?
It seems Germany will be asked to pay.
Yesterday, nine European leaders, with France on the front-line, called for the debt from the coronavirus epidemic to be mutualised across the eurozone. As I wrote in The Spectator on 22 March, the coronavirus debt mountain will make or break the EU. We are fast approaching a re-run of the 2010/12 euro crisis that came in the wake of the 2008 Great Financial Crash.
On Tuesday, EU finance ministers failed to agree on common measures to refloat their economies in the wake of Covid-19. Lined up on one side was France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Belgium and Greece, who called for the creation of a ‘common debt instrument’, nicknamed by the Italian prime minister, somewhat morbidly: ‘Corona bonds’. In technical terms, according to the EU, to be effective this bond should be of a size and maturity sufficient not to risk refinancing in the future. In layman’s terms, a very large sum and for the long term.
In the 2010/12 euro crisis, the principal beneficiaries were the so-called P.I.G.S. (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain). Sometimes referred to as the Southern states, their number has swelled since. The Spanish finance minister referred to the ‘euro-bond’ project as a ‘Marshall Plan’. But who will take on the financial role played by the Americans? The answer seems to be Germany.
As in the ‘euro crisis’ financing new euro debt will fall on those economical states from the so-called north of Europe, the largest of whom is Germany.
Unsurprisingly at that meeting on Tuesday opposition to the ‘Corona bond’ was led by Germany and Holland. They insisted that the European Central Bank’s recent liquidity measures should be sufficient when supplemented by those of individual member states.
That is where things stand. Today EU finance ministers will make another attempt to reach a compromise by video-conference, covid 19 oblige. Given the epidemic’s devastating impact on Italy, Spain and France, Germany and Holland will doubtless act diplomatically and probably seek a delay.
But without the weight and prestige of the northern states corona bonds will not go ahead. In the end, if another euro crisis is to be avoided, Germany will have to pay. President Macron’s advisors would do best to forget the analogies with Clemenceau given that unfortunate historical context.
Written byJohn Keiger
John Keiger is a professor of French history and former Research Director of the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge
Nick Real Deal
Vital Football Legend
I did notice the point scoring nature of some questions. I didnt like it and Gove dealt with it with the contempt it deserved.
Nick Real Deal
Vital Football Legend
A report suggests China has been able to lockdown more effectively partly due to their advanced digital lifestyle. Grocery orders are ordered on line and in some cases delivered in 20 minutes. They are more disciplined in their response to control by the govt obviously. The actual spread of the virus in China has been confined to a concentrated area with strict roadblocks. The infection map of the country has vast areas so far not touched.
muttley
Alert Team
This was when I got that impression yesterday....
Q: We were told before the decision on Monday to impose much stricter rules on people’s movements that such a decision would be based on data around footfall, activity and transport. Yet the government has not so far provided any of that data to justify the most sweeping restrictions on the population the country has ever seen. Will you promise now to publish that data and explain why it hasn’t been published so far?
Can you guarantee the NHS is ready for what is about to come and if not, what is the one thing you still need from the government to prepare yourselves?
Gove says the government has followed evidence at every stage. Since the measures taken on Monday, there has been a dramatic decline in public transport use and footfall, and the majority are following the advice. The data will be shared in the spirit of transparency.
Stevens says everyone across the NHS is doing everything that could possibly be done and we are getting that support from the government.
Harries says the government has always acted on the science in this unprecedented event. Data changes frequently, so there is a moving agenda on some of the data, but be clear that we have acted on modelling and steadily implemented measures in a way that they are timed appropriately.
So 3 people in very senior positions answering the same question and not a single data point given. It might be in business that it is drilled into us that facts and figures need to support any conversation. I mostly see it missing in politics and it is becoming a really big theme across all of these daily briefings and the press keep pushing on it. That's especially relevant to the the second part of that question.
Your point is clearly well made on the press point scoring though. That's unfortunately another constant in this whole thing.
Big Chiv
Vital Football Legend
I have called out the media scum from day one of this, those ***** asking the questions are just trying to further their careers as ' a reporter who asks the hard questions ' , they have no sense of responsibility or balanced journalism.
Big Chiv
Vital Football Legend
On a side track, how long will this lockdown last before people tire of it and start ignoring it en masse, I'm particularly thinking of apartment dwellers in major cities.
Obviously, as has been pointed out in various posts previously, each country reacts differently to authority, what worked in China probably won't work for that long in major western cities.
I honestly can't see people in the west putting up with this for 3 months.
Nick Real Deal
Vital Football Legend
One of the questioners tried to point the NHS not coping due to Gove's tenure in charge. What a waste of a question ?
Real Deal
Alert Team
They knew of the virus back in September. I know this because of a friends wife is Chinese. She lives in England but went to China in January for a funeral. She is of course stuck out there.
She said they are not being truthful on the death toll either. Its much higher than they are reporting.
They have had a good 7 months of studying this virus.
I sures hell don't trust a word they say.
The devastation they have caused is unforgivable. They must be held accountable for this.
World war 3 anyone?
Real Deal
Alert Team
Well my neighbor's son arrived from London on Thursday. I was livid.
"Oh but he's family", bullshit gets spouted. Loads of other stories saying the same.
I have seen so many stories of people holding barbecues already. Plenty are not listening.
There isn't the policing to deal with it so people will try their luck.
Big Chiv
Vital Football Legend
I also don't think this country has much respect or dare I say fear of the police compared to countries in Europe.
Harry-Kari
Vital 1st Team Regular
Big Chiv
Vital Football Legend
Otorhinolaryngology....now there’s a word to say 10 times quickly...bet you can’t...
Can't even say it once !
Nick Real Deal
Vital Football Legend
In the trade I think it's called Rhinology. Cant blame them.
Spursex
Alert Team
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...otted/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr
If the evidence now going around is accurate then the Chinese had closer to 160,000 deaths, which accords to my virologist friend who was in Wu-han and only recently returned who assures me that China's stated public numbers are 'a figment of their propaganda'...and so the evidence that it was/is a stats cover-up is emerging everywhere.
Spursex
Alert Team
Nick, see above - I have been told for some time that China's claims on numbers have no basis in reality.
Real Deal
Alert Team
The lass said around 100 thousand deaths so that's even worse than she first thought then.
I'm pretty sure I read the yanks want the Chinese to be held accountable somewhere.
With Trump in charge I wouldn't rule a war out. He just turned their economy around, he won't be happy if that goes up in smoke.
