Highly unlikely... My son had the first symptoms at the end of last week, but he could have been carrying the virus for over a week before that.

Saying that, we have all picked it up quickly. (I was the last to show symptoms on Tuesday night).

Like I said, it might not necessarily be covid19- I guess we won't know until an antibody test is available- but we all have the supposed symptoms. If it arrives in your modest household, I'd simply accept it's likely you are going to get it. It's very big odds in your favour that you will be perfectly fine.

I must admit, that is what I expected, as I would think it's practically impossible to keep away from each other. Then, there's the period that somebody has it, but isn't showing symptoms that lasts for an unknown period of time.

Hope that you're all responding well and getting better!
KST

Not far off. Saying it was the Government's plan to do herd immunity is incorrect. Imperial College's experts were consulted throughout and it was them who suggested that approach based on modelling. They then re-did the modelling based on data coming out of Italy which suggested a 30% rate for those hospitalised requiring ventilators and 66% of those put on ventilators dying. They re-ran the modelling based on that with the UK population and took into account things like public transport and events like the Cheltenham Festival and they very quickly realised that we'd end up with hundreds of thousands of dead people and an NHS in absolute crisis and unable to provide a functional service in any area. A lot of people need to take the politics out of the situation. The Government are doing what they are being told to do by the experts and they are doing what they can to catch up in the areas they are failing. Don't believe for a second that anything would be any different with another political party in charge. Labour wouldn't have come in an bought several hundred thousand ventilators or virus testing kits or PPE as they wouldn't have known they needed to. The same reason the UK, France, Spain and even America are way behind in all the same areas.

Don't doubt that coronavirus is very serious. If it weren't for lockdown and distancing controls etc the NHS would be in a mess now, like they were in China, like they are in Italy and Spain and even New York. They can't process the bodies quickly enough in morgues in New York City, arguably the supposed pinnacle of modern civilisation. Sure most people aren't going to be seriously ill, but the belief that under 70s aren't going to die and under 40s are basically immune is just ignorant and dangerous. You don't want to catch this as a lot of people who have had it report it as horrific. A lad I worked with described it on whatsapp as like having a hangover from hell but with glass in your throat and having beasted yourself at the gym the day before. I don't fancy that and I don't fancy my kids getting that either. It's a disaster that will massively affect the economy and people's lives but slowing the spread is essential and there really is no choice.

Firstly, as I understand it, the most basic requirements for any pandemic are 1) PPE to protect the critical staff in hospitals and 2) Testing so that you can understand how it is spreading and hence how to control it. There is an article today on the BBC site (with pictures) of hospital staff using clinical waste bags to protect themselves instead of disposable gowns. This is not Tehran, it's the UK. As far as testing is concerned, we dont have enough test kits for the Drs and nurses attending the hospitalised, let alone other support staff, let alone in the community. Hence the recently announced deaths of two Drs and nurses (and they will not be the last). The Government doesn't need a scientific strategy to deal with this, simply preparation and planning. A stock of PPE plus a functioning supply chain, and designated labs. in the UK who can quickly raise antibodies to a given virus, then incorporate it into an ELISA test would have allowed us to tackle the coronavirus (or any other). And we know that both these areas have been shockingly neglected.

Secondly it's not an issue of politics, its accountability and we all know where that lies.

This party has underfunded and cut costs for the NHS for years and as a result it’s on its . They’d sooner spend the British tax players money on painting Buckingham Palace than funding the NHS properly.

How do you explain the governments constant mixed messages? Johnson going from bragging about shaking hands with CV patients, to talking about herd immunity to then enforcing a ‘lockdown’.

Large sporting events were fine. Delaying the closure of pubs/restaurants. Encouraging *regular* outside exercise. Non-essential workers still working if they can't work from home. Self-employed in limbo for weeks. Lying about testing capability. And that’s only the half of it. These people think they're fit to 'lead' us.

All governments have found this crisis difficult. In the UK it has exposed some failings at the top of government that have grown over the past decade.

The first has been a hollowing out of expertise in the civil service. Back when there was foot and mouth and swine flu there was much better capacity in terms of having people around with long-standing experience, not only scientists but people with a handle on the infrastructure and logistics requirements in a sector. Ministers would be working long hours but also had a lot of people around them who could give them accurate up to date information and guide their decisions. There was also a different culture back then where Ministers were more willing to accept hearing bad news or things they didn't agree with.

A lot of the expertise has gone. Some went during the cuts of the Cameron era where they were made redundant and moved to the academic or private sectors (often to then be hired back by government as external consultants). Also the culture changed - especially after the referendum - where 'experts' were treated with suspicion and seen as part of some kind of deep state conspiracy to undermine the UK - so a lot of the best people resigned or were 'moved on' and replaced by yes men who tow Ministers lines. There was a move away from people with policy expertise to PR types and more of an emphasis on "defensive lines" and "constructing a narrative" that supports the government rather than policy problem solving.

Last week the papers were running stories about how NHS management have been threatening clinical staff with being struck off if they raise concerns publically about the lack of PPE. This is how NHS management have been operating for a while. The priority is to shut down the story and not let the public be alarmed, rather than take accountability.

The problem with yes men and PR-focused managers in the civil service is they aren't necessarily competent and they are exactly what you don't want in this type of crisis. People are calling out the government for being slow off the mark to prepare when we knew about this in January. I'd be interested to see what type of briefing Ministers were getting back then. I wouldn't be surprised if it was "this is likely to be contained regionally in China....the NHS is world class, we are well equipped to deal with any cases that emerge here". Yes-men civil service managers send that type of stuff up as it is what Ministers want to hear and they don't want to be on the receiving end of a Minister saying "well if there are problems, effing sort them out by the end of the week...I don't expect to hear about coronavirus again".

The other issue is the type of policy/strategy advisers that are around No.10. In the Blair/Brown/Cameron years it was "policy wonks". These were nerdy, academic types who spend their time reviewing evidence from around the world on 'what works' questions like what's the best way to organise town planning to optimise public transport and infrastructure links; what are the best tax policies to incentivise small businesses to invest in high-growth technologies; what are the best early years policies to increase pupil attainment when the kids hit secondary school. They got mocked as people who had never done a job outside government but they were generally very intelligent and tuned in to research and evidence and could be set to work in a crisis and come up with some innovative solutions.

Now the approach has been to try and copy the Republican Party in the US and move towards "digital political campaign strategists". These people will be in to digital tech, social media messaging, targeted ads and devising policy based on appealing to core target groups. It is a more ruthless view of politics imported from the US which is that the purpose of policy is not about delivering what's best for the public but advancing your party's political standing. So instead of traditional policy wonks focusing on 'what works' questions you will have these guys working on things like 'bait' policies. A bait policy is something brought in to draw the media narrative and divide party lines in the way you want to support your message. For example - announce an extended freeze in beer and petrol duty and at the same time throw something out there being tougher on refugee children or limiting access to counselling on the NHS after gender reassignment. The bait will be to put out your 'popular' policy (beer and petrol) and on the same day get Labour talking about asylum seekers and transgender people. The goal is to reinforce the message to the target voter: "Labour doesn't speak for people like me any more". Longer term, things like getting rid of the BBC to have a US Fox News style channel to put out favourable media coverage, introducing political appointments to the judiciary, is part of the strategy. This is all taken from the Republican Party approach and it is ruthlessly successful over there - they exploit bait policy all the time to target different core voting groups over racial issues, guns, abortion, Israel, trade/China; send out their messaging through Fox and friendly radio talk shows and have friendly judges that can be relied on in case they face legal challenges.

But again, as the US is finding out just as we are, these kind of people are utterly useless in a public health crisis. You can't set them to work like traditional style policy wonks, they don't have the links with academics, scientists, policy experts in other countries to tap in to important knowledge. Their contacts are funding groups, media sources. They judge their success by monitoring social media and comments columns under newspapers, and seeing people post their key words like "Venezuela" "LIEbour", "EUSSR" "globalists" "BBC fake news" "cultural marxism" "establishment elites" "IRA". So while they might be useful in helping shape an attack narrative against people criticising the government's approach, they aren't able to solve a complex problem like this pandemic even if they are put to that task. As a result Ministers are left lacking the support networks around them that they need to respond to an urgent health crisis.

I'm afraid to say the culture in the NHS is toxic.
It has been for many years and unfortunately it won't change in the short term.
But in the face of this, the people on the front line - doctors, nurses, auxiliaries - do a sterling job.

The next 2 weeks are critical for us and the NHS, and with reports today of bbq's in parks, and idiots like Kyle Walker (and the Scottish chief medical officer!!!) breaking the social distancing instructions I couldn't blame the government if they took a harder line.

I'm fortunate - I have an enclosed garden and live in the countryside - and feel for those living in towns / flats but the actions of a small minority could end up impacting on everyone.

It's like that in a lot of areas of the public sector. Management like to deal in threats.

With management in the NHS or social care services, the intimidation doesn't only extend to staff - you get cases where bereaved relatives have made social media posts complaining about failings in the system that lead to one of their relatives dying, and management gets in touch to threaten them with legal action. They prioritise protecting the reputation of the organisation above all. There is a weird thing where some people who work in the public sector interpret their duty or the civil service code or whatever as being an oath of loyalty to their organisation rather than one of public service. So their instinct will be to deny/cover up and protect the reputation of their organisation even when it comes to issues of patient/public safety, child protection or bullying/harassment in their own ranks. People like this are invariably in management, rather than those involved with delivery on the front line, whose priorities are the other way round.

But also, one of the unfortunate aspects of the cabal around Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour party, was that this was how they operated as well. It was difficult for them to have credibility when challenging lies and bullying from those in power, when any issues that surfaced around antisemitism, bullying or sexual harassment in the Labour party was met with a response of: deny, issue defensive lines, undermine the credibility of the whistleblower, rather than tackle the underlying problem. If they had got in to No.10, I fear that Seamus Milne and Karie Murphy would have been command-and-control bullies like Dominic Cummings. Hopefully the arrival of Starmer will clear out some of the toxic individuals and lead to a culture change there.

I’m no huge Corbyn fan but the antisemitic claims against him were a joke to be honest.

Jeremy Corbyn isn't anti-semitic.
To support Palestine isn't anti-semitic.

To call out the abuse of Palestinians isn't anti-semitic.

To name Netuyhana as a murderer isn't anti-semitic.

It's our moral duty.

As a public sector worker what Sally says is depressingly true and highly frustrating on a daily basis. To see what this cowardly style of middle management, and those at the top surrounding themselves with sheep, can lead to see 'The Trials of Gabriel Hernandez'. Set in the USA of course but can and has happened here.

Bernie Sanders does all that, and sure he gets a few 'anti semite' labels thrown at him from Fox news and various Republican figures, but the wider Jewish community in the US and within the Democrat party doesn't think he is a problem. Whereas with Corbyn many of the complaints came from the Jewish community within the Labour party and its supporters, which is a signal of a problem not a stitch up.

I don't think Corbyn himself dislikes people for being Jewish, but he turns a blind eye to it in his party. One of the central tenets of the hard left is 'solidarity' but in the Labour hard left this translates in to solidarity with political allies even when they do things which are wrong. There's a crank element of the left that is into the same online conspiracies about Rothschilds, Zionists, control of the media and banking system that the alt right are in to. These are historic racist tropes which were used by Nazis so the Jewish community is sensitive to them especially when they are being accepted and propagated by people standing for public office. A lot of the cases of antisemitism in the party involved Labour prospective candidates particularly at council elections. Most of the time these were people involved with the Stop the War or Friends of Palestine movements and they are understandably angry at human rights abuses carried out by the IDF and this makes them buy in to theories of a global cover up of Western countries supporting Israel because they are under the thumb of the Jewish media/financiers which is why they indulge in the antisemitic tropes. Corbyn has been marching with these groups for decades so his instinct is to show solidarity to them which is why he hasn't really been bothered to tackle the issues. A lot of Jewish people on the left are concerned about Netanyahu and the policies of the Israeli state but when they have family history of the Holocaust they are going to be upset and afraid at this attitude being allowed to spread within the Labour movement.

I think the reason why Corbyn and his cabal don't take it that seriously is because they take the view that when the IDF are carrying out atrocities against children in Gaza, peoples priorities are wrong if they get worked up about someone's history of spreading antisemitic tropes on facebook. But that is the same argument that the EDL / right wing Islamophobes use when they say "but terrorism/child grooming gangs" etc. The Corbynites would see that as racist but not when its a trope about Israel controlling the world.

I know there was always a media agenda against Corbyn - they said he was a Czech spy, moaned about him not singing the national anthem or bowing deeply enough at the Cenotaph - its par for the course from the right wing media against a Labour leader. But when long standing Labour party members and supporters were raising concerns about antisemitism for about 3 years he should have recognised that something was seriously wrong and this wasn't just something fabricated by the right wing media to throw mud at him and he should have got to grips with it.

Starmer, because he doesn't have the factional background and comes from a background as a barrister and public prosecutor, will take measures to sort things out, and there will be a lot of announcements from people in the crank left that Starmer is in the pay of Israel and they are going to tear up their membership card, they will leave, Labour's membership numbers will plummet, but that will remove the problem.

I don't know anything about life in the public sector so it's interesting to hear about the culture.

When it comes to the two main political parties there seems to be an interesting symmetry though. Within Labour we see a fight between the far left and the moderates (Momentum and Blairites ?) whilst the bonfire that Cameron lit to get rid of his garden waste (and ended up burning the country down) led to a fight between Conservative moderates and Nationalists. Have both these situations arisen because of public apathy and disinterest perhaps ? There was certainly a surge in Labour Party membership prior to the recent party leader election as moderates woke up and attempted to take back control, but I think that has some way to run yet with a left wing deputy in place.

He has/had to, because the core vote for his branch of the Labour party, is the heavily populated, Muslim dominated inner cities & he knows going against their natural cultural instincts would be political suicide for him & his ilk.

The simple fact is, the people who vote for Labour in places like London & then those who traditionally voted for Labour in the 'heartlands' like Warrington and Wigan, actually belong to 2 different parties.

The problem for Labour is that their claim to being a broad church, is actually the thing that has brought them down to the laughing stock they now are - The fact the likes of Corbyn ever remained in Labour under Blair/Brown and vice versa with the likes of Cooper and Benn under Corbyn, shows how dysfunctional they are.

Labour's best hope is a tactical progressive alliance at election time with the Lib Dems and Greens - However, it's obvious the thick as bricks on the Corbyn left would never be satisfied with such compromise. Hopefully, under Starmer, that branch of the party will soon be back in the political wastelands where they belong.

But it's not Boris making those decisions. It was the experts who went down the herd immunity route and who quickly backtracked. It literally doesn't matter on bit who is in charge, they would have had the same issues the Government had. Once the experts realised they needed more equipment the Government placed ridiculous amounts of orders for things, but by then it was too late and the supply chain was already choked.

The blind Labour statement about year on year cuts for the NHS isn't true either. I'm not sure if actual spending on the NHS has never been cut. They've asked NHS departments to become more efficient and reduce costs and again any sane Government would have done the same. There is enormous wastage and inefficiency in the NHS. As with the current supply chain issues, NHS performance varies drastically between areas. Some areas have plenty of PPE, plenty of NHS staff have said they have plenty of PPE, more than enough, whilst other areas/hospitals are massively lacking and are in crisis. That's not a Government issue, it's an NHS issue. It's a much bigger and more complex issue than saying 'It's the Conservatives fault, vote Labour'.

It's a lose-lose situation for whoever is in power. Different countries have tried different approaches and the one similarity is that all of them are facing criticism for their handling of the crisis. The UK is trying to balance distancing and lockdown with not ending non-essential businesses and is being criticised for it. Other countries have stopped non-essential work and are being hammered for it, there's no win in this. I'm no Conservative, I've never voted for them, but for me politics is irrelevant right now. All we're seeing is how dysfunctional our NHS is (Despite the brilliant people within it and the righteousness of the idea) and how spoilt and selfish the people are here now. We'll be in lockdown for months longer than necessary here and thousands more will die than necessary just because so many see themselves as being above the rules. The goes from all levels from employers to the man on the street. So many are 'it's only like flu' or 'i need to exercise, I've bought a bike despite not riding since I was 8' or 'I'm just sunbathing in the park' or 'I don't want to live in a Police state, they can't tell me what to do, I'll spend 7 hours a day walking round because they tell me I can't' and 'I'm going to go to every shop in Warrington, because I might miss something if I don't. I'll use the third freezer that's in the garage'. And because of those people the millions being good are being let down.

To anybody on here... how do you expect to come out of this situation without some sort of herd immunity being used?

Unless, you all reckon that hiding in our homes until we get a vaccine is an actual solution?

Herd immunity required a vaccine. Not once in human history have we developed herd immunity naturally without a vaccine. Once you have had corvid19 you are unlikely to get it again in the short term but are not immune.

So we have to wait it out until a vaccine is found. The lickdown is not to get rid of covid 19 but to slow the spread relieving pressure on the nhs.

That's fair enough. But do you seriously think you can extend this present situation over the next 12-18 months and not expect far more damage than any virus will inflict?

The fact is, herd immunity will have to be used, while we build towards finding a vaccine. You cannot just simply hide, unless you are happy living in a third world nation, with third world death tolls?

If a large number of people get infected without suffering any, or extremely mild symptoms, eg 40%, then perhaps you can see a way through the problem using herd immunity (around 65% required). At the moment Porton Down have the only assay to check for individuals who have immunity against the virus. They can do 500 tests / day, so the scientific advisors are using this to try and get some sort of figure of the size of the immune population.
Once we have definitely passed the infection peak expect to hear what strategy they are going to take.

I think the strategy will be that once the daily deaths and hospital admissions has stabilised / started to decline to a point where there is some spare capacity again in the NHS, there will be a controlled reduction of restrictions, with restrictions reapplied to put the brakes on if cases start to spike up and the NHS is threatened with being overwhelmed again.

The virus will be steadily working its way through the population and with each cycle of reimposing and relaxing restrictions, there will be a greater proportion of people who have immunity (assuming immunity lasts a reasonable length of time and the virus hasn't mutated) which will slow the spread through the remaining population, so it will be possible to relax restrictions more and for longer than the previous cycle.

In addition there may be research breakthroughs and improvements in treatment that increase the NHS ability to deal with the disease.

I expect we'll be in this for several months perhaps a year.

That would also be my guess. I don't think we can really copy China simply because they have the advantage of being able to track all their people through mobile 'phones, internet, cameras, identity cards, checkpoints etc so suppression and isolation of outbreaks will be more difficult.

My guess is that relaxation of the lockdown will be next and that it will be tailored to allow key industry workers to get back to work as we badly need to restart the economy. I suspect once we have a rapid, large scale assay for immunity I think we will see people issued with 'passports' showing that they have been tested and are immune and can return to work. Perhaps a sign of this approach can be seen in their intention to reach 30,000 ventilators and the work Porton Down are doing. They will also be watching Holland carefully as they also seem to be favouring some form of herd immunity approach.

Lots of views on here under the Coronavirus topic, some medical and some political. Let's be quite clear, the present government has been in power for 10+ years, not other parties. The preparedness or otherwise to deal with this plague is down to them, the tens of thousands of vacancies in the NHS, the lack of ventilators, test kit, PPE is their responsibility. The culture of NHS management, the medical advice given to them and the decisions made from it is their responsibility. Fortunately we have fantastic people who work in the health and care services, all being praised by everyone, but not rewarded pay and condition wise over the last 10 years, hence many leaving and working overseas where they get the appreciation they deserve. Meanwhile, the NHS has recruited from overseas to second and third world nations who can ill afford to lose the nursing staff they have trained.
I know that some people will be saying we all need to pull together at this terrible time, yes we should, but don't forget as we all feel sorry for the PM, and yes I wish him and every one else who is fighting this virus a speedy recovery, that the lack of preparation and ongoing management for this virus is the party who has been in power for the last 10 years.

Absolutely spot on. To say this isn't a political issue and it would have happened under any party is just nonsense. The NHS for the last decade haven't been properly funded and medical staff haven't been treated like the amazing super humans they are. It's a disgrace that they are expected to deal with a generation defining pandemic with inadequate PPE from 2015 when they've been at 90%+ capacity for months. I think it's unbelievable that Johnson is now thanking profusely those that him and his Tory peers have more of less stripped to the bonce since his party's been in power because you just know when this passes it'll be as normal.

And if you think any of the political parties would have been prepared for this, you're living in cloud cuckoo land.

After 10 years of lack of investment and atrocious management you may be right.

13 years prior to that weren't much better.