Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[mongers]

I went into a medium sized Sainsbury's for a couple of minutes last night and didn't register any closers, but I was focused on 'the mission'.

The waitrose I was in last friday certainly didn't have any lanes closed, so I presume one could have bought some stationary or a mug/frying pan.

Well, with everybody supposed to work from home, if possible, stationery is actually a vital supply. I know I will need to buy some printer paper soon; I am just hoping to hold out for my next Tesco delivery.

I would probably consider the ability to buy frying pans etc. to be essential as well with restaurants closed. There's people trying to cook at home who may never have cooked before.

Yes, up and down the country there are thousands of households staring at a dozen bags of bread flour, with or without yeast, wondering 'how the fuck do I turn that into a loaf'. 

edit:
also how many households have bread tins? 
I've got two, sort of rescued family treasures, but I'd guess these things are now in short supply on amazon/ebay.

[Josquius]

In Switzerland too they've cordoned off the non food related parts of supermarkets.
Intersting point on pots et al. No idea there.

Outside of London it's not middle class to have a car or use it. Similarly I don't see how police harassing corner shops (who are allowed to be open) for stocking "non-essential" products like Easter Eggs is particularly middle class.

Quite the opposite in fact.
If you're well off then you don't need a car, you live walking distance to the city centre, near a train station or the like.
Its if you're poor that you have no choice but to live in the arse end of nowhere and have to drive just to live your life.

[Sheilbh]

I just don't think these quite tiny examples should be helped to drive a "police, back off!" narrative barely a week into a lockdown that a) its going to get more strict soon and b) will last a couple of months.

I think we just see it from opposite ends - you see at as tiny examples of the police enforcing, while I see it as tiny examples of non-compliance. Aside from that it's the same point really.

Although I don't think it will get stricter and I don't think it should. 95% of people are complying and that's a massive reduction in infectiveness through widespread, voluntary compliance. That might not work but I think getting stricter for a very small gain among the 5% who aren't complying could put the compliance of the rest at risk by making life too difficult for them or if the rules are seen as too petty. As I say there is the start of social revolt against lockdown in both Italy and China. In both cases they've got far more police per capita to enforce this than we do in the UK so we need to focus on keeping that voluntary compliance as high as possible.

also how many households have bread tins? 

I've always been a free-form baker

[mongers]

I just don't think these quite tiny examples should be helped to drive a "police, back off!" narrative barely a week into a lockdown that a) its going to get more strict soon and b) will last a couple of months.

Tamas you do have a point, but I think class isn't such an issue, because in two months time, nearly everyone will be champing at the bit to get out and about.

I don't have a solution to that.

[Gups]

Ta - I don't think it's the court. I think it's the government and the national association of police chiefs that's putting this guidance together. One of the other issues they want to address was inconsistency, so Warrington had issued over 100 finds in two days and were clearly "enforcing", Bedfordshire police had issued zero fines and were focusing on persuasion and only fining people who wouldn't do as asked.

You posted a link upstream about a judge saying something about ministerial whims or something like that.

As Shelf gave up on whatever he was going to say, this is Jonathan Sumption, a recently retired UK Supreme Court justice and historian of the 100 years' war. Probably our most famous lawyer in the last 30 years and first to go straight from private practice to the Supreme Court (in his final private practice case acting for one Russian billionairre against another, he was rumoured to have been getting £100K per day). Transcript of his interview below.

BBC interviewer Jonny Dymond 'A hysterical slide into a police state. A shameful police force intruding with scant regard to common sense or tradition. An irrational overreaction driven by fear.' These are not the accusations of wild-eyed campaigners, they come from the lips of one our most eminent jurists Lord Sumption, former Justice of the Supreme Court. I spoke to him just before we came on air.

Lord Sumption The real problem is that when human societies lose their freedom, it's not usually because tyrants have taken it away. It's usually because people willingly surrender their freedom in return for protection against some external threat. And the threat is usually a real threat but usually exaggerated. That's what I fear we are seeing now. The pressure on politicians has come from the public. They want action. They don't pause to ask whether the action will work. They don't ask themselves whether the cost will be worth paying. They want action anyway. And anyone who has studied history will recognise here the classic symptoms of collective hysteria. Hysteria is infectious. We are working ourselves up into a lather in which we exaggerate the threat and stop asking ourselves whether the cure may be worse than the disease.


Dymond At a time like this, as you acknowledge, citizens do look to the state for protection, for assistance, we shouldn't be surprised then if the state takes on new powers if it responds. That is what it has been asked to do, almost demanded of it.

Sumption Yes that is absolutely true. We should not be surprised. But we have to recognise that this is how societies become despotisms. And we also have to recognise this is a process which leads naturally to exaggeration. The symptoms of coronavirus are clearly serious for those with other significant medical conditions, especially if they're old. There are exceptional cases in which young people have been struck down, which have had a lot of publicity, but the numbers are pretty small. The Italian evidence, for instance, suggests that only in 12 per cent of deaths is it possible to say coronavirus was the main cause of death. So yes this is serious and yes it's understandable that people cry out to the government. But the real question is: is this serious enough to warrant putting most of our population into house imprisonment, wrecking our economy for an indefinite period, destroying businesses that honest and hardworking people have taken years to build up, saddling future generations with debt, depression, stress, heart attacks, suicides and unbelievable distress inflicted on millions of people who are not especially vulnerable and will suffer only mild symptoms or none at all, like the Health Secretary and the Prime Minister.

Dymond The executive, the government, is all of a sudden really rather powerful and really rather unscrutinised. Parliament is in recess, it's due to come back in late April, we're not quite sure whether it will or not, the Prime Minister is closeted away, communicating via his phone, there is not a lot in the way of scrutiny is there?

Sumption No. Certainly, there's not a lot in the way of institutional scrutiny. The press has engaged in a fair amount of scrutiny, there has been some good and challenging journalism. But mostly the press has, I think, echoed and indeed amplified the general panic.

Dymond The restrictions in movement have also changed the relationship between the police and those whose, in name, they serve. The police are naming and shaming citizens for travelling at what they see as the wrong time or driving to the wrong place. Does that set alarm bells ringing for you, as a former senior member of the judiciary?

Sumption Well, I have to say, it does. I mean, the tradition of policing in this country is that policemen are citizens in uniform. They are not members of a disciplined hierarchy operating just at the government's command. Yet in some parts of the country, the police have been trying to stop people from doing things like travelling to take exercise in the open country, which are not contrary to the regulations, simply because ministers have said that they would prefer us not to. The police have no power to enforce ministers' preferences, but only legal regulations - which don't go anything like as far as the government's guidance. I have to say that the behaviour of the Derbyshire police in trying to shame people into using their undoubted right to take exercise in the country and wrecking beauty spots in the Fells so that people don't want to go there, is frankly disgraceful.

This is what a police state is like. It's a state in which the government can issue orders or express preferences with no legal authority and the police will enforce ministers' wishes. I have to say that most police forces have behaved in a thoroughly sensible and moderate fashion. Derbyshire police have shamed our policing traditions. There is a natural tendency of course, and a strong temptation for the police to lose sight of their real functions and turn themselves from citizens in uniform into glorified school prefects. I think it's really sad that the Derbyshire police have failed to resist that.

Dymond There will be people listening who admire your legal wisdom but will also say 'well, he's not an epidemiologist, he doesn't know how disease spreads, he doesn't understand the risks to the health service if this thing gets out of control'. What do you say to them?

Sumption What I say to them is I am not a scientist but it is the right and duty of every citizen to look and see what the scientists have said and to analyse it for themselves and to draw common sense conclusions. We are all perfectly capable of doing that and there's no particular reason why the scientific nature of the problem should mean we have to resign our liberty into the hands of scientists. We all have critical faculties and it's rather important, in a moment of national panic, that we should maintain them.

[Tamas]

I am sorry Gups et all, but read up on the emergency powers the Hungarian government granted itself on the back of all this, and compare that to scenic walks in the Lake District.

[garbon]

I just don't think these quite tiny examples should be helped to drive a "police, back off!" narrative barely a week into a lockdown that a) its going to get more strict soon and b) will last a couple of months.

Tamas you do have a point, but I think class isn't such an issue, because in two months time, nearly everyone will be champing at the bit to get out and about.

I don't have a solution to that.

I think class and race are definitely an issue here. Some communities (working class, BAME) are already well versed in they heavy handedness of the police that you just have to put up with.

Now we are seeing that get spread to more affluent members of society and they are the ones kicking off when confronted over their 'minor' acts of non-compliance.

[Admiral Yi]

What is your stance Gups?  What is your opinion on the great national freedom to drive to exercise debate?

[Sheilbh]

I think class and race are definitely an issue here. Some communities (working class, BAME) are already well versed in they heavy handedness of the police that you just have to put up with.

Now we are seeing that get spread to more affluent members of society and they are the ones kicking off when confronted over their 'minor' acts of non-compliance.

I think that's definitely true.

But I don't see that the these are partiuclarly middle class activities - if you live in Derby or almost anywhere outside of London I'm not sure it's uniquely middle class to drive 20 minutes out of town and into somewhere more remote. Similarly we've got police pulling cars over to ask them for the purpose of their trips and enforcing because "multiple family members had been shopping for non-essential items" - it may be that they're targeting Waitrose, but I suspect if they're just pulling "random" cars over that it'll still most likely be working class and BAME people being enforced against.

[Admiral Yi]

Why do you put "multiple family members" in scare quotes?  One person shopping for an Easter egg means less chance of transmission than six people shopping for an Easter egg.

[mongers]

I think class and race are definitely an issue here. Some communities (working class, BAME) are already well versed in they heavy handedness of the police that you just have to put up with.

Now we are seeing that get spread to more affluent members of society and they are the ones kicking off when confronted over their 'minor' acts of non-compliance.

I think that's definitely true.

But I don't see that the these are partiuclarly middle class activities - if you live in Derby or almost anywhere outside of London I'm not sure it's uniquely middle class to drive 20 minutes out of town and into somewhere more remote. Similarly we've got police pulling cars over to ask them for the purpose of their trips and enforcing because "multiple family members had been shopping for non-essential items" - it may be that they're targeting Waitrose, but I suspect if they're just pulling "random" cars over that it'll still most likely be working class and BAME people being enforced against.

I guess we can only describe our own experiences or area, and Gabby's right to point out the inner city inhabitants fearing being under the boot.

But as you point out in non-urban areas all classes use cars to get about and go walk the dog or exercise. Last evening four lads on mopeds dressed in black street wear were one of the handful of people I encountered on my journey through the forest edge, I'm not exactly sure they were middle class people. 

[mongers]

Why do you put "multiple family members" in scare quotes?  One person shopping for an Easter egg means less chance of transmission than six people shopping for an Easter egg.

I think that's a direct quotation from the police?

[Sheilbh]

Why do you put "multiple family members" in scare quotes?  One person shopping for an Easter egg means less chance of transmission than six people shopping for an Easter egg.

I was just quoting Warrington Police's tweet.

You're allowed outside as a household - and in terms of shopping surely it's better to go as a group rather than multiple trips to pick out your Easter egg?

One not so good stat from the government daily briefing, the number of corona-virus patients today, Monday is 9,000, exactly double what it was on Friday.

Is that right? I thought he said the numbers were stable and not accelerating over the last few days - so there's been 1,000 admissions a day which is tough but the rate has been stable?

[Josquius]

Why do you put "multiple family members" in scare quotes?  One person shopping for an Easter egg means less chance of transmission than six people shopping for an Easter egg.

Not too much surely?
If one person in the family has it then they all do

[Richard Hakluyt]

This idea that country walking is some sort of middle class preserve is simply not true of Lancashire and Yorkshire (at least). There was a strong mass movement to gain access to the countryside a 100 or so years back; Northern cities and towns, massively polluted back in the day, are surrounded by hills and moorland. The most famous incident was the Kinder Scout mass trespass back in 1932 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_trespass_of_Kinder_Scout .