Coronavirus

[sandall]

People tend to leave table-mics alone, especially when the stands have been moved well away, to make room for notes or laptops, but 9 out of 10 will bend the stalk of a gooseneck so it's totally at the wrong height for the next speaker.

[J Pearce]

As Tom says, and because they’re the scenarios where multiple people use the same mic within a short space of time.

Comedy nights/band nights are another example.

[Andrew C]

Why specifically in lectern situations? Generally speaking people don't need to touch them?

Watch the video of "The Orange Buffoon" and his recent Covid speech. They ALL grab the mic, or fondle the lectern WHILE pontificating...

[GridGirl]

Well, we’ve just cancelled the last two weeks of our summer season, and Opera on Sydney Harbour has been cancelled. No word yet on the upcoming ballet season but I don’t see it going ahead. With any luck we should be back up and running for the winter season, starting in mid-June.

 

I’m fairly sure my job is secure, but I think there’s likely to be some unpaid leave in my future. Luckily we’re in a position to weather that. A lot of my freelance colleagues are not going to be anything like as lucky.

[kerry davies]

Things are beginning to move really fast and snowball due to a lack of leadership and people like the Premier League taking unilateral action. Cruise lines have mothballed dozens of ships and are laying off thousands, the NHS is unable to test even their own staff so are sending them home on the slightest suspicion, cancellations are beginning to affect our sector, Ryanair unilaterally just cancelled 80% of flights and our PM is looking like a deflated used weather balloon. The Urdd has been cancelled until 2021 and that is huge news because they have three permanent camps and about a dozen supporting festivals and sports events making it the biggest youth festival in Europe.

 

I think the message now must change to "stay safe" and hunker down to try to ride out the inevitable recession in our sectors because it looks like it will last and become an official depression for arts, culture, events and sport.

 

E2A Good luck to Gridgirl and all others affected, I have never been so glad I retired. Friends of mine of similar age face a doubly nasty few months. The leak that suggests this running until next spring and hospitalising 8M is pretty scary if true.

Edited March 16, 2020 by kerry davies

[paulears]

I'm visiting hospital to visit my mum every day, and despite 2 heart attacks and kindness failure, she's well enough to be discharged shortly. The clinics have cancelled many appointments and there are beds empty in the wards - presumably being kept for emergency admissions. My dentist phoned this morning and asked if I still wanted to come in? I asked him what he thought was best and he said come in, let's do it - which I've done. I'd have though dentistry and the close contact must be risky, but maybe not?

[Stuart91]

I'm visiting hospital to visit my mum every day, and despite 2 heart attacks and kindness failure,

 

Was that meant to be "kidneys" failure, by any chance? I initially pictured her being stroppy to medical staff...

 

Let's face it, we could all do with a good laugh at the moment. The outlook is grim.

 

Interestingly, I still have people getting in contact to book kit for gigs in the coming weeks. Can't fault their optimism but it's hard to see how anything will be going ahead.

[Robin D]

Mum mum is nearly 93 and had kindness failure years ago! She has been in a care home for almost 5 years with Alzheimers. She was always a very tough cookie, but the disease has now removed any empathy for anyone else, or yet how she is being received, so everything comes over through both opinionated and bigoted barrels. It's terribly sad, and makes visits anything other than enjoyable. The care home has now closed to all but essential visitors. Mum is also registered blind and a technophobe, so all attempts to use video calls fail. Even the DECT phone there she invariably manages to press buttons while talking to her and cuts us off intentionally (I think! :blink: )

[sandall]

Not sure about hospitals (I might get a snapshot of one big London one later in the week, if I'm not cancelled), but GPs seem to be having a hard time. This morning I arrived at my surgery a few minutes early, checked-in on the screen & was shown as next patient. 5 mins later I got a cancellation text. Eventually got through to back-office by phone, to be told that ALL appointments were cancelled until further notice. By good fortune I hadn't quite reached the door when the nurse called for me. It turned out that they had had an email from the Dept of Health this morning, telling them to cancel EVERYTHING. Fortunately for me the Practice Nurse was interpreting this as all non-urgent appointments, so I managed to reclaim a string of just-cancelled appointments, & at the moment I'm covered for the next couple of weeks, but I lost count of the number of cancellation & reinstatement texts that pinged-in in the next hour. Apparently at least 3 doctors & 4 reception staff (so far) have got the virus, presumably from patients. I await tomorrow with interest. Decision-making on the hoof may be the only practical way, but it makes for interesting times.....

 

Like Kerry, I'm glad to be "retired" at the moment, though ironically, being in the "at-risk" category, I'm going to have to pull out of the only gig still in the diary.

Edited March 16, 2020 by sandall

[paulears]

Ha! Yes kidney failure - still no problems with visiting. Oddly The PM just advised to NOT visor people in care homes. AND of course, theatres should close.

[bigclive]

I get the feeling that everything is being blown out of proportion regarding this virus. The media hype may actually be causing more deaths due to the extra stress and fear it's inducing in people diminishing their body's ability to self defend.

 

A Facebook friend got the virus after travelling and said it was a brief cough and fever and that's it. He's now enjoying a self-isolation holiday.

 

Without media hysteria this could have been just another seasonal flu bug and nobody would have been any the wiser.

 

By the end of the hype I bet less people have died than the typical 100 to 10,000 that flu claims in the UK each year.

 

 

So that just leaves the question. Who's benefiting from the scaremongering and how? The medical industry will be doing well and the collapsing of the stock market will make it very rich pickings as things gradually return to normal.

[J Pearce]

Not so sure on this one Clive. A few friends of mine are scientists in relevant fields, with nothing to gain from lockdowns, all of whom have advised that large social gatherings are unwise.

 

The issue is that for most of us it will be a fairly mild cough/fever, but for those with any underlying conditions (asthma, diabetes) it could easily become a rather serious pneumonia. The risk is for that significant minority. If even 1% of the population get to that point (which I’m told is realistic), we’re looking at wildly overloaded ICUs and doctors making decisions about who to save and who to let go.

 

No doubt the media frenzy and panic buying and general scare is superfluous, the caution and ‘social distancing’ is, as far as I can determine from the information provided to me, entirely proportional to the risk.

[Stuart91]

By the end of the hype I bet less people have died than the typical 100 to 10,000 that flu claims in the UK each year.

 

Three weeks ago, I'd have tended to agree with you, but look at the state Italy is in right now. The UK is on the same curve as them, only a few weeks behind. And we're not any better equipped to deal with it.

 

You're perfectly entitled to retain your scepticism but please don't ignore the safety advice, especially around elderly or vulnerable people. (Handwashing and reducing contact is a pretty cheap way to hedge your bets, especially given the potential downside)

 

 

Who's benefiting from the scaremongering and how?

 

Nobody in the production or events industry, that's for sure.

 

TBH I'd usually suspect incompetence ahead of conspiracy with this. Someone will always find ways to make money from a situation, no matter how grim. But I doubt anyone will be exacerbating the outbreak so that money can be made.

 

(Or maybe the virus was released by a cartel of hand sanitiser manufacturers. It's from the same playbook as the florists that murdered Princess Diana)

 

If even 1% of the population get to that point (which I’m told is realistic), we’re looking at wildly overloaded ICUs and doctors making decisions about who to save and who to let go.

 

Yep. There are some quite brutal triage decisions being made in Italian hospitals. Many patients with complicating health issues (i.e. something else wrong with you in addition to the virus) aren't being ventilated, so that the limited supply of machines can be used for those more likely to make a full recovery.

 

We're not talking decrepit coffin-dodgers here, apparently people in their 60s are in this situation in some areas.

 

It's not a pleasant way to die. You don't want to put anyone through it if it can be avoided.

[sandall]

The view from the Isle of Man may be different, but if you are over 70, living in London & find your local supermarket stripped bare & your GP closed it all starts to feel very real.

[kerry davies]

When we had 10,000 deaths in about 2008 the case fatality rate was 0.02%. We have no idea about the UK because the government is too terrified to test, diagnose and measure but outside China the rate in the rest of the world is 3.5%. That is scary but then you need to realise that in 2008 we had a vaccine and today we don't. This one quite rightly horrifies our politicians into spin, denial, lies and ineptitude. They simply don't know what to do.

 

Today we had 50 London theatres and 250 across the UK shut down and our four biggest airlines just abandoned between 75% and 80% of all flights. That means my nephew cannot rejoin his RFA ship which may have to come home and park up and that in turn may mean the RN gulf fleet have to return home because they get no supplies. We are entering uncharted territory, Clive and that scares people.

Of course a few will make money, wanna buy a cruise liner going cheap, plenty to choose from.